"Fain would I boast so fair a daughter!" he exclaimed, betwixt a laugh and a sigh, as he bade her farewell on the morning of her departure with Lady Bryn Afon into Wales, he himself being forced to remain in attendance on the king, and being left in the safe charge of his faithful physician, while the chaplain, now at Oxford for some few days, also at his bidding took holiday for some weeks. And Primrose, at his words, had much ado not to burst into tears, and fall at his feet, confessing that she did indeed bear to him that sweet and holy relation. "I pray you take care of my sweet wife," he added gaily. "I am but loth to be again so quickly parted from her, but she droops like some fragile flower during the hot season in town, so that I am fain to banish her to breathe her own native air awhile. And in such fair companionship I have no fear for her happiness." So they parted, and once more the long journey into Wales was accomplished in safety, and on a bright June evening their attendants conducted them and their dark-eyed maidens to the farm Glyn Melen, and gave them over into the welcoming arms of the honest farmer and his family, and to the warm greeting, so unexpected by Primrose as to take away her breath and all the colour from her cheeks, of the chaplain, Percival Vere. "I knew not that Master Vere was again to be our companion, dear mother," said Primrose, when, Evensong having been said in the impromptu chapel, she and Lady Bryn Afon retired to the latter's chamber for a few moments' chat ere they parted for the night; the young girl's heart secretly glowing with the consciousness of the deep gladness shining in the chaplain's eyes, as he had clasped her hand in bidding her good-night, and shyly conscious too that she had by no means been able to hide the equal gladness in her own. "Your father proposed but a few days since that he should join us here on leaving Oxford," answered her mother, "knowing how well he loves these beautiful mountains, and that overmuch study during the past year has appeared somewhat to tell upon his health. He was a pleasant companion, methinks, last summer. Thought you not so, sweet daughter, with ever a ready wit and store of converse, both learned and lively, wherewith to beguile some few of our quiet hours? I would there were an organ in this humble dwelling, that you might hear him discourse the wonderful music by which he has so won the king's heart, that he already, ere his Ordination, graciously offered him the post of Court Musician. But his heart was so set upon taking Holy Orders, and especially upon waging war in this, his mother's native soil, against the crying sin of intemperance, that he returned his Majesty a courteous refusal of the honour." "He chose a holier calling," said Primrose softly, "and I trow the king bears him no ill-will for his refusal, for I heard him speak of him to my dear father with much affection, calling him by that name 'Sir Galahad,'