weeks later Dartmouth had followed Weir Penrhyn to Wales. He had
written to her father at once, and Sir Iltyd had informed him in reply
that although aware of his rank and private fortune, through Lady
Langdon's intimation, and although possessing a high regard and esteem
for his father, still it was impossible for him to give any definite
answer until he had known him personally, and he therefore invited
him to come as soon as it pleased him and pay Rhyd-Alwyn a visit. Weir
accordingly, and much to Lady Langdon's disgust, had returned to Wales
at once; Dartmouth insisted upon an early marriage, and the longer
they delayed obtaining Sir Iltyd's consent the longer must the wedding
be postponed.

Dartmouth arrived late in the afternoon at Rhyd-Alwyn--a great pile of
gray towers of the Norman era and half in ruins. He did not meet Sir
Iltyd until a few minutes before dinner was announced, but he saw Weir
for a moment before he went up-stairs to dress for dinner. His room
was in one of the towers, and as he entered it he had the pleasurable
feeling, which Weir so often induced, of stepping back into a dead and
gone century. It looked as if unnumbered generations of Penrhyns had
slept there since the hand of the furnisher had touched it. The hard,
polished, ascetic-looking floor was black with age; the tapestry on
the walls conveyed but a suggestion of what its pattern and color had
been; a huge four-posted bed heavily shrouded with curtains stood
in the centre of the room, and there were a number of heavy, carved
pieces of furniture whose use no modern Penrhyn would pretend to
explain. The vaulted ceiling was panelled, and the windows were
narrow and long and high. Sufficient light found its way through them,
however, to dress by, and there was a bright log-fire in the open
fire-place.

"Jones," said Dartmouth, after he had admiringly examined the details
of the room and was getting into his clothes, "just throw those
curtains up over the roof of that bed. I like the antique, but I don't
care to be smothered. Give me my necktie, and look out for the bed
before you forget it."

Jones looked doubtfully up at the canopy. "That is pretty 'igh, sir,"
he said. "Hif I can find a step-ladder--"

"A step-ladder in a Welsh castle! The ante-deluge Penrhyns would turn
in their graves, or to be correct, in their family vaults. No true
Welsh noble is guilty of departing from the creed of his ancestors to
the tune of domestic comfort