Harold made a diversion by bursting into the room to ask for his soldiers. He, at least, was quite natural, and entirely spoilt.

Immediately after breakfast they drove to church. It was delightful to Freda to see the good vicar in the reading-desk, and his wife in the pew beneath. She felt at home again for the first time. For the first time, also, she really listened to the worthy man's somewhat dry sermon, and strove to feel 'in charity with all men' on that blessed day. She thought once or twice of a sermon Rowland had preached that day twelvemonth, which riveted the attention of his large congregation, and made her wonder whence he had received the gift, by half-an-hour's plain eloquent preaching, of opening the heart to receive truths. .h.i.therto more understood than felt. Rowland had become to her, and many, the type of a preacher and minister of the Gospel, and to him she owed, under G.o.d, the fuller enlightenment and enlargement of her own mind.

After the service was over she went into the vicarage. Here, again, she was at home. She had much to tell Mrs Prothero of the kindness of Sir Philip Payne Perry and his wife to her, and many messages to deliver from them. She had also to hear Mr and Mrs Jonathan's opinion of Netta, and of the approaching wedding. She avoided any word that could recall Howel.

'I hope you are not displeased with the match?' said Freda.

'By no means,' was Mrs Jonathan's reply. 'I always thought Gladys very superior, and her turning out to be Mr Jones' niece removes our only objection. It is quite a romance!'

'She is a clever young woman,' said Mr Jonathan. 'I was surprised the other day to find how much history she knew. As to Wales, she has it by heart, and is not wholly unacquainted with the antiquities of the country. It was quite a pleasure for me, Miss Gwynne, I a.s.sure you, to meet with any one who took so much interest in ancient lore. And now she is to be one of the family she is so much more at her ease. Actually asked me, of her own accord, of the fossils in the Park quarry, and a very acute question concerning the lords of the marches. She even knew that her name, Gladys, meant Claudia, and that the original Gladys is, probably, the very Claudia mentioned by St Paul.'

'We shall all be thrown into the shade now, Mrs Prothero,' said Freda, laughing. 'Gladys will evidently be the favourite.'

'I am afraid I must break up your conversation, my love,' interrupted Lady Mary. 'You can drive or ride over to finish it when you like.'

On their way home her ladyship remarked,--

'I suppose this unfortunate discovery concerning Mr Howel Jenkins will quite ruin Mr. Rowland Prothero's position in London society?'

'He is scarcely in what is called "society;" but his friends are not likely to be changed by the conduct of his brother-in-in-law. He is far too highly esteemed and admired to be injured by such a man as Howel Jenkins.'

Freda felt the blood rush to her cheeks, and was convinced that Lady Mary noticed it.

'I am glad to hear you say so, my dear,' said Mr Gwynne. 'He is a great favourite of mine, and I should be sorry to think his prospects were injured. They are a rising family. His brother is very much thought of, and improving his own and my property amazingly. A most energetic young man, and so amusing, that he almost kills me whenever I see him. I am glad he is going to marry that pretty Gladys.'

When they arrived at home they found the party from Abertewey ready to receive them,--at least, Mrs Gwynne Vaughan and her children. The colonel was to join them at dinner.

'Oh, Freda, dear, I am tho glad you are come home again!' lisped Mrs Gwynne Vaughan. 'Tho ith Gwynne. He thaith it will be delightful to have you. Thith ith little Gwynne, and thith ith Minnie, and we call thith one Dot, and baby ith in the nurthery. You thall thee her by-and-by.

Kith Aunt Freda, Minnie,--they all call you Aunt Freda, you know.'

Freda, not at all rejoicing in the honour, stooped to kiss all the pretty little children by turns, and had soon made friends with them all. The children were the greatest possible relief to her; she turned to them as a sort of neutral ground between the war in her own heart and the tact and inanity of her stepmother and stepsister.

The latter was as unchanged as the former. Very handsome, very fashionably dressed, very good-tempered,--in short, Miss Nugent simply turned into Mrs Vaughan. Freda wondered how the really clever and agreeable Colonel Vaughan could live with so dull a companion.

Having got through luncheon and the afternoon somehow, thanks to the children, the dinner-hour arrived, and therewith the colonel. Freda always felt reserved with him, and his studied kindness and politeness to her when she had met him occasionally in London, irritated her. She had spoken to him before his marriage so unreservedly of his wife, and had given him to understand so unmistakably that she knew what had pa.s.sed between him and Gladys, that she fancied he must at heart cordially dislike her. Moreover, she had loved him. Much as she despised herself now for having done so, she knew it, and she despised him all the more on that account.

There was, however, no mistaking the real warmth of his welcome, and for the moment--only for the moment--Freda's heart beat quick.

'I am so glad to see you, Freda,--sister Freda, you know, now,--and looking so well.'

'Yeth, ith'nt the looking well. I think the lookth younger than when the went away.'

'Handsomer, at any rate. I may pay you a compliment, now, Freda.'

Freda could not return it. Colonel Vaughan looked more than six years older since his marriage, and there was a dissatisfied expression on his countenance very different from the old suavity.

Freda was not long in discovering that if he had improved his fortune by marriage he had not improved his temper, or increased his happiness.

Fortunately for his wife, her imperturbable placidity and want of acute feeling prevented her from appropriating many hard hits from her husband that would have made Freda wretched.

Again, she admired the tact of the mother. By it she managed her husband admirably, and retained her power over him in precisely the same way as she did before she married him; while Wilhelmina wholly lost what little she had gained over hers prior to her marriage. Her silliness annoyed him continually, and her beauty, for want of expression, palled upon his fastidious taste.

Freda's contempt very soon turned to pity. The handsome, fascinating, deceitful colonel was amply indemnified for all the hearts he had broken, and those broken hearts fully avenged by the tedium of his home life.

Of course, Freda did not discover all this during that one Christmas Day, but it developed itself during her subsequent stay at Glanyravon.

'We did not ask any one else to dinner to-day, Gwynne,' said Mr Gwynne, 'because we thought Freda would like to have us alone, you know, and see the children, and--and all that sort of thing.'

'I hope Freda enjoys a family-party better than I do,' said the colonel, looking at her as he spoke. 'Of all things on earth, it is the slowest.'

'Complimentary,' said Lady Mary.

'Oh! Gwynne ith alwayth tho fond of thaying what he dothn't mean. He often doth to me, don't you, my dear? But I don't mind, becauth I underthtand him now.'

Freda looked at Mrs Vaughan to see if she spoke ironically. Not at all.

She fully believed what she said. Colonel Vaughan saw the glance, and smiling, said,--

'All in good faith, I a.s.sure you.'

Freda blushed, and to turn the conversation, began to talk to him of his children, and to praise their beauty. He smiled again, as perfectly understanding her ruse.

'People call them loves and angels!' he said, 'and even go into raptures over the baby. For my part, I never look at them when they are babies.

Indeed, I don't like children, and all ours are so spoilt. Wilhelmina doesn't know how to manage them, and now their governess is away, the house is like a lunatic asylum.'

'Oh, Gwynne, how abthurd you are! He ith tho fond of them, Freda, you can't think, and they are thuch little dearth.'

'I was greatly amused,' said Freda, 'to hear Minnie call Harold "uncle,"

just now; and he seemed not a little proud of his dignity.'

'Surely, Freda, you haven't learnt to talk baby talk!' said Colonel Vaughan. 'You used to eschew such twaddle.'

'It was time for me to learn to like a great many things that I professed to hate. I hope I am improved since I was here last. But I always liked children.'

'Oh! Harold is so fond of her,' said Mr Gwynne. 'He is a wonderful boy.'

Here followed a history of various achievements of Harold, during which Colonel Vaughan vainly endeavoured to catch Freda's eye. She was only too well-disposed to smile at the infatuation of the doating father.

'Here are the children, I think,' said Lady Mary.

In bounded Harold, and jumped, unbidden, on Freda's lap.

'I ull have some of that--and that,' said Harold.

'And I will have--' began Minnie.

'You will have nothing if you ask for it,' said the colonel with a frown.

His little trio were quiet in a moment.

'Ganpapa, take me up,' said Dot, creeping round to Mr Gwynne.