to these alone (save possibly the colonel of his regiment when he chose), would he listen. The father and brother, who were both crazy about their pedigree, were proud of him. The father would say: 'He is a real De Barri, the inexorable spirit of Giraldus Cambrensis is alive in him;' and the brother would 6 say, It is true; he may do us honour in war; it is a pity we ever took the name of Arnaud, and allowed the Irish Barrys to usurp our real honours.'

Iltyd Gerald Baldwin Arnaud, christened carefully after the Saint, the Archdeacon. and the Archbishop, cast the traditions of his family to the winds, and voted Giraldus Cambrensis the greatest bore of all the Barris. The great Rhys he pronounced to be a noodle, inasmuch as he could not keep his own kingdom; and he very much affected the company of one Halfacre a

The

groom, who, he declared, was a descendant of Halfager, and consequently a prince in disguise. Iltyd was sent into the army very young, and was a most excellent young officer, though he got into early trouble by incontinence of speech. colonel of his regiment having incautiously remarked that his family had come over with the Conqueror, Iltyd said, 'You pack of rascals were a little too late, we came over with the FitzGeralds in the time of Edward the Confessor.' He was a foolish young man, and was rebuked most properly. He would laugh at his own pedigree, but only in his own family.

As the brothers Gervase and Iltyd grew to manhood, one seemed to give to the other what was wanted by each. Gervase overread himself, and pushed his religion to the verge of extreme asceticism; Iltyd, on the

other hand, would come home on leave from his regiment and tear Gervase from his study, carrying him over hill, moor, and torrent, up to some nook among the wild Welsh mountains, where they could hear no sound save the distant trickling of waters. Then Iltyd would tell Gervase all about the strange magnificence of London and Paris: and how he, whose short curls were now lying on his brother's shoulder, had yesterday been at court; and how the pale man that he had been trying to describe was the Emperor, and the boy was the Prince of Wales, and so on; trying to fix the colours and forms of a kaleidoscope to suit the eye of his brother, to whom, at this time, all these people were mere names.

Then they would wander down to the old priory in the hollow, so dearly beloved by the greatest of their family, and among

the shattered Norman and early English arches, Gervase would talk about the crusade preached by Giraldus Cambrensis and Baldwin in that spot, until Iltyd would catch his enthusiasm, and believe that the campaign which was now imminent was, in reality, another crusade to snatch the holy places from the hands of an alien and, in reality, barbarous power. Then they would go back to the castle, and their father would say, as he saw them coming home arm in arm, ‘nothing will separate those two, except a woman.'

The war came, blazed up, burnt low, blazed up again, and then died out. Iltyd was all through it and behaved with credit and distinction: he came home a captain, but, being in the Guards, with, of course, the title of colonel. But meanwhile something had happened to the branch of the Barri

family which had never been calculated on

for a moment.

The head of the Festiniog family lost his eldest son by typhoid fever, and before he had time to reflect on the matter, news came that his last surviving son was killed in the trenches. The head of the Rhyaders, the father of our two young gentlemen, at once went to give such consolation to his cousin as he could; and he urged him strongly to marry again. The old man, with the obstinacy of the Rhys family crossed through endless generations with that of the De Barris, had a will of his own. He said that the hand of God was in it, that the Festiniog estates must join those of Rhyader, and that the latter house had two noble sons to represent the allied families. Instead of marrying, he made his will, and by no means too soon, for he died very shortly afterwards,