her story, Primrose owned the deep longing she felt at times to see her mysterious mother, and her frequent secret wonder as to whether she would indeed ever bear to leave her foster-father and go to her should she bid her. "Methinks you could not choose but go to her," said Lady Bryn Afon musingly, "though truly the parting would be a hard one for both of you. You are brave, sweet Primrose, though withal of tender heart, and had your unknown mother a mission for you to fulfil in life for her sake, your courage would, I trow, scarce fail you. Think you so?" "I will do my mother's bidding, cost me what it may," answered Primrose steadfastly. "It can but cost me dear to leave the father who has loved and tended me so truly, but I oft think this pleasant life by the riverside must one day have an ending, and that something more must needs await me in the future. I know not what it may be, but of late, when I have been happiest in my play, I have felt a foreboding in my heart, of what I know not, but----" "It needs not to be a foreboding of evil, sweet one," said Lady Bryn Afon gently. "Let not any shadow of evil fall upon your bright spirit--only be brave and strong and ready against aught that may befall you. Surely, too, your mother, be she whom she may, will never separate you wholly from him who has been more than father to you from your cradle? But crave you never also to see your real father?" "Dad has been so true a father to me," answered Primrose frankly, "that I have felt no want of any other, as I have at times of a mother. Only now and again I have thought it would be a brave thing to have for my real father such an one as one of King Arthur's knights of old, of whom I love to read in our dear vicar's library, or indeed such a noble knight as our own earl, who has oft shown me kindness as a child! But these are but vain and idle thoughts, which have come to me when I have been at times puffed up with pride, because dad has tried to make me believe I come from a noble ancestry! Dad loves me so, he would make me a queen an he could! Yet I tell him I am well content to be a humble Primrose, growing by the riverside." "An the Primrose would not wither," said Lady Bryn Afon with a half-sad smile, "I would fain transplant it for a season, and see to what perfection I might rear it in a sunny southern clime! What say you, dear child, to making a short stay with me, with your mother's leave and that of your good foster-father? I go anon to spend the winter months beneath the sunny skies of Italy, for my health's sake; and since I must needs be parted from my husband, whose presence the king will require at that season, I seek for some companion in my travels, and would fain have about me so bright and gladsome a maiden as yourself to cheer me. I would care tenderly for you, and after some few months you should return to your dear guardian filled with new thoughts, and your mind enriched with new beauties.