is still much gladness that I have seen the ghost of whom I have heard so many tales, and if she were verily the Lady Bryn Afon herself, I fear me I am gladder still! Dad, can such a half-penitence merit forgiveness?" Jack rubbed his forehead with his horny hand, and looked at his foster-child with a humorous twinkle in his eye. "Why verily, dear heart," he answered, "that were a question best asked and answered through yon hole in the wall at Cwmfelin Parsonage! I have truly made no study of such matters, and had best forgive thee straightway, and have done with it!" "That is good," said Primrose, with a little laugh, yet heaving a deep sigh as she presently asked, "I would fain see the castle, dad! Think you my mother will ever forbid my doing so? The earl is so kind, he would surely grant us such a favour as to let us one day visit it in his absence, when we could disturb no one? Think how interesting it would be to wander through the dim corridors and deserted chambers at our will! I would not fear the curse--would you, dad?" "Truly I cannot tell thee, dear heart," answered Jack; "methinks I have as stout a heart as most men, yet beshrew me if I love not better to contemplate the outside of yon grim walls than to look within! Nay, sweet Primrose, your mother's words may not be gainsaid, and until she herself shall choose to withdraw them, you must indeed remain satisfied that she has surely some good reason for her command. I doubt likewise that the earl would for one moment lend an ear to any curious wish on the part of ourselves or others to see the castle, for none but such friends and domestics as the lords of Bryn Afon may choose to bring with them in their visits to the castle are at any time admitted within its walls. The last handmaid taken from this their native country is said to have been the daughter of that poor gipsy vagabond who still, as you know, roams our valley from time to time, and who, that is to say the daughter, because of certain skill she boasted in drugs and plants, was admitted in an evil hour to treat our present lord's honoured father in a severe attack of sickness." "And what became of her?" asked Primrose eagerly. "Instead of curing the earl's sickness," answered the boatman, "she fell herself a victim to the curse. Its woe and horror turned her poor weak brain, and she died within the walls, another sad victim to the curiosity of her sex. For the old gipsy, her mother, has indeed been known to confess that it was but her desire to learn the secret of the curse which led her to pretend a wisdom and knowledge of herbs and their properties which she was verily far from possessing, and by means of which she gained truly an entrance to the mysteries she coveted, but had to pay dearly for her knowledge. And since that time her mother, always of a wild and weak brain, has been possessed of a burning hatred and desire for revenge upon the House of Bryn