r, but she
forbore; she felt that there was something very touching in this meeting
between two people who had parted under such uncomfortable circumstances
so many years ago.

When the door bell rang Freda rose to leave the room.

'If you please, Freda, remain where you are, I would very much rather.'

Freda resumed her seat, and shortly after Mr Jones was announced.

'Quite an old man; twice as old as Nita,' was Freda's first thought as
she looked at him.

Miss Hall rose and advanced to meet Mr Jones. They shook hands, Freda
thought, very much like other people, and then Miss Hall introduced her,
and Mr Jones bowed.

'I promised your sister to come and see you, Miss Hall, when I came down
into Wales,' he said after he was duly seated.

'I am very much obliged to you, it was very kind,' was the reply.

Freda saw that they were both as nervous and shy as a couple of
children, and came to the rescue by apologising for her father's
unavoidable absence, he having gone to a neighbouring tenant's, and by
saying that he would be at home at luncheon.

By degrees they all three got into conversation, and Mr Jones gave Miss
Hall an account of her sister and her family. One little girl was very
like Miss Hall, and she was the general favourite.'

'I am sure she must be very pretty,' suggested Freda.

'Very,' said Mr Jones, with a smile at Freda, of greater archness than
she gave him credit for.

'Don't you think Miss Hall very little altered?' she asked again.

'I think I should have known her anywhere, though I passed her in the
twilight, uncertain who she was.'

A long conversation followed upon various general topics, until the
luncheon bell rang. As no Mr Gwynne appeared, Freda was obliged to make
another excuse for him; but Mr Jones seemed perfectly satisfied without
him, if not relieved by his non-appearance.

Freda proposed a walk as soon as luncheon was over, and she and Miss
Hall took their guest to see the school, which Freda was careful to say
was under Miss Hall's superintendence. Then they pioneered him to
various points of view, which he seemed to look upon with the eye of a
real lover of the beauties of nature; and finally they rested on a
rustic seat at the top of a wooded hill, whence they looked down on the
magnificent valley beneath, with its green meadows, winding river, and
boundary of distant mountains.

Alter Freda had remained here a few minutes, she suddenly said,--

'Would you mind m