up myself the use of all strong beverages, and that after much consideration; but I have drawn to the conclusion of late that it is a wise step to be taken by one in charge of souls, and in good sooth a wise one for our people likewise to follow an they will. There is much drunkenness around us in our country homes, and the foster-father of my fair charge here has long put me to shame by his example, which has indeed long influenced his neighbours for good, insomuch that our own village is known for its sobriety. Nevertheless, I doubt whether I had been yet awakened to any true sense of the evil but for a pamphlet shown to me some months since by your learned neighbour and my own esteemed cousin, Master Rhys Prichard, and writ, as he tells me, by the scholarly pen of a young Cambridge student--in truth, a masterful production, and greatly creditable to so youthful a writer." "Know you his name?" asked Lady Rosamond, somewhat curiously. "Nay," replied Master Rhys, "the pamphlet has been anonymously put forth, and my cousin knows not the name of its author; but young Master Jeremy Taylor, whom he has oft met of late at my Lord Carbery's mansion, has confessed to him that it came from the pen of a Cambridge youth, well known to himself, and one well versed in the subject of which he treats. It is, however, his opinion that this young apostle of temperance has appeared before his time, and that although the evils he combats are undoubted, yet that the spirit of the age is not yet ripe to follow his lead, and that he is like to wage a single-handed fight, and tread his solitary path of abstinence somewhat hardly. Nevertheless, young Jeremy doth bid him God-speed in his labours, giving him the comfort of his sympathy and of that ripe wisdom and learning which have already made his university proud of so noble a scholar. You spoke anon of the Lady Bryn Afon as one likely to commend my fair Primrose in her own resolve upon the matter. Is it then a subject in which she herself takes interest?" "She has cause," answered Lady Rosamond slowly, "and I blame her not, though I follow not her example, being not made," she added laughing, "of that heroic mould which leads us to give up what is pleasant for the sake of others! For this I am much taken to task, I assure you, by the youth yonder who discourses such sweet music from the gallery."