‘How stupid I am!’ she exclaims.  ’Gladys would reckon them up directly, but she is at the school, and I am ashamed to ask Nita, with all her accounts.’

She pauses a moment and lays down her pen.  Her eyes fall upon an unopened letter.

‘And I declare I have not broken the seal of my own father’s letter,’ she mutters, performing this duty as she does so, and running through it with occasional comments.

’"We hope you will come and spend Christmas—­” I suppose I must—­“and see your little brother, who longs to see sister Freda again—­” Humph! but who cut her out of Glanyravon Park and all thereto belonging, though he certainly is a dear little man.  “Her ladyship quite well, and desires her love.”  I suppose I ought to be glad and try to return the love.  “Mrs Gwynne Vaughan and her children were here yesterday.  She asked for you, and the little ones wished to know when you were coming home—­” I am much obliged to her, and am afraid I am not too anxious to see either her or her husband, in spite of their civility.  “Little Harold is really a wonderful child!  He begins to spell already!” So like my good father.  Well, I ought to be thankful he is happy, and that it all turned out so much better than I expected.  But I can’t help feeling a kind of wicked disappointment when I think that Lady Mary should be quite as good a tactician as a second wife, as she was before she married again.  But, I hope, I am happy that she makes poor papa comfortable and doesn’t worry him to death.  I don’t think he loves her now half as well as he does me; still, perhaps she suits him better, because she manages him, and I never could.  But the tyfydd [Footnote:  Welsh for heir.] is a dear little fellow, and I am really fond of him.’

Miss Gwynne’s soliloquy is cut short by a rap at the door, followed by the entrance of Rowland Prothero, who says, as he bows and seems about to retreat,—­

‘I beg your pardon—­I was told Mr Jones was here.’

‘Oh, do come in!’ says Miss Gwynne, rising, and advancing to meet Rowland; ’I cannot get through these accounts.  I have been reckoning and reckoning ever since breakfast, and they will not come right.  I should be so much obliged to you if you would just look them over for me.’

Rowland seated himself at Freda’s desk, and began at once to do her bidding.  The ragged school was the one in which he was so much interested, and that he had been instrumental in establishing.

Whilst Miss Gwynne had been living with her friend, Mrs Jones, she had seen a great deal of Rowland; they had, in fact, been thrown much together.  At first, Rowland ceased to come to consult the Joneses, or to spend his few spare hours with them, when he heard that Freda was there; and, of course, they and she understood and respected his reasons for absenting himself; but in the course of time, they met at Sir Philip Payne Perry’s, at his rector’s, and elsewhere, and his reserve slightly wore off.