"It is worth more than you think, my lord," answered his chaplain earnestly, and, grasping the carelessly-offered hand with a warmth which touched the heart of the impulsive, light-hearted earl with a keen sense of pleasure, he passed into his study. CHAPTER XXVII. BEFORE THE WEDDING. "Let come what will, there is one thing worth, To have had fair love in the life upon earth." --SWINBURNE. The winter months wore away quickly and happily for Primrose. Under Lady Rosamond's roof the days could hardly be dull or uneventful, even when they brought her into no communication with her mother or affianced husband; for her warm-hearted friend, whom Lord Bryn Afon might rightly call "madcap," was ever ready with the suggestion of some new diversion wherewith to chase away the slightest shadow from her young guest's brow, though indeed but little diversion was needed outside the walls of her own nurseries, where Primrose would willingly have spent whole days in playing with the little new-born heir of Caer Caradoc, the baby Elidore, who, after their many years of wedded life, had this winter come to the fond parents as a blessed Christmas gift, almost overpowering in the new joy and delight it brought them, and right royally welcomed to their hitherto childless home. But amid the new joys and cares of motherhood Lady Rosamond entered into the joy of her young friend's betrothal and future prospects with an eagerness of sympathy and delight which greatly cheered the girl's heart under circumstances which she might otherwise have found to be somewhat trying. For the restraint she was ever bound to maintain in those occasional meetings with the earl which her mother judged it wise to permit, and which, in the Court life into which she entered with Lady Rosamond, could not well be avoided, was an effort to her greater than any one knew, so fondly did her girlish heart yearn towards this gay and handsome father, and long to know the sad secret which had already drawn deep furrows on his brow, and which often clouded his merry blue eyes with its horrid shadow--those blue eyes which in her childhood had so strangely fascinated her, but in which she now often noticed a certain wild glitter, which terrified her against her will. Her mother and Percival visited her at frequent intervals, and these visits of the chaplain were a source of great delight to Lady Rosamond, who was wont to tease him and her young charge most unmercifully, assuring Primrose that he had most certainly in time past pronounced her to be a child of the Evil One, and that had she but heard the exorcisms which passed his lips as he stood by the lake's edge on that eventful Midsummer Eve, daring her to rise again from the dark waters to torment him, she could never have summoned courage to consent to be his bride! For which banter the grave Sir Ivor brought her to task frequently and severely; but it fell lightly enough on the ears of