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
passed 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 gl