sympathiser, whose waxen ear was the receptacle of many an infantine confidence--generally in the form of a whispered wish that dad's tyranny in the matter of the castle might be only for once relaxed, that she might climb the tempting green slopes and peep through the deep mullioned windows, or through the bars of the gate on the other side of the hill, into the dark avenue which led to the front entrance, which desire had taken strong hold of her mind of late, but which, if ever expressed, Jack was wont to repress so sternly that it was seldom she ventured to utter it aloud. The pretty lady too, she remembered, had told her the castle was not a good place, and she must never go near it, which hard-heartedness on the part of a stranger the child mused over with a certain rebellion of spirit, until gradually her adventure with the Black Horseman and the unknown lady's image faded away into dim shadows in her memory, and in the charms of the old monastery vicarage she forgot again for awhile her fascination for the ruined castle. So the years rolled on, Jack working at his shoemaking, and Little Miss Primrose at her books all the winter months, and in the summer spending much time in fishing upon the shady river banks, or rowing, sometimes in Jack's big boat, filled with a gay pleasure-party from some one or other of the castles which crowned the summits under which the river flowed merrily, sometimes by themselves in the coracle, a real old British coracle, of which Jack was the envied possessor, and in which Little Miss Primrose learned at a very early age to balance herself cleverly, and to glide fearlessly, like some golden-haired British queen, up and down the broad, swiftly flowing stream. The English visitors who frequented the vale of Gwynnon in the summer months loved a row in the coracle, for but few of their own rivers could boast such an antiquity, and the big boat too had plenty of work during this season, when the wood-clad heights of Craig Arthur and the desolate crags of Caer Caradoc resounded with merriment, the ruined turrets of Bryn Afon alone reigning in silent solitude above the clustered cottages below. The presence of Little Miss Primrose was almost always solicited as a special favour by these river revellers, and had it not been for a certain deep, sweet seriousness, and a beautiful childlike unconsciousness of admiration in her nature, she must needs have been spoilt by the open caresses and compliments lavished upon her. But, as Jack said, "the little maid was verily made of stuff that would not spoil," and she grew up as sweet a flower as ever bloomed by a riverside, and as pure and fresh in all her thoughts and ways as her own sweet spring namesakes in the shady wood hollows. And as an opening flower too, her young mind unfolded itself to drink in those treasures of wisdom which lay hid in the deep oaken shelves of Master Rhys' wainscotted library,