She did arrive whilst they were talking about her, and as the carriage that had been sent to meet her drove up to the door out flew Freda in great excitement, and scarcely allowed her ci-devant governess to alight before she was overwhelming her with embraces.  Mr Gwynne followed somewhat more leisurely, and received Miss Hall with his usual nervous reserve of manner, but great courtesy.  She responded most warmly to the embraces of Freda, and quietly to the welcome of Mr Gwynne.

We will not give a minute description of the new comer, because she is not quite a person to be described.  She is neither very good-looking nor very plain, neither very old nor very young, neither very tall nor very short, neither very talkative nor very reserved, neither very much over-dressed nor very much under-dressed, neither very merry nor very grave.  Freda used to say that she was the personification of gentle dignity and serenity, and in the days of her Italian studies called her occasionally La Dignita, but more frequently La Serenita, which epithet would sometimes be abbreviated into Serena, or Sera, or Nita, or anything but Miss Hall, which the love of the impulsive pupil, so hard to obtain, and so great when obtained, thought much too formal.

When Freda took Miss Hall to the delightful apartment she had been adorning for her for a week past, the first impulse of the older lady was to throw herself upon the neck of the younger, and burst into tears.

‘Dearest Serena, I have been so very sorry for you,’ was all that Freda could say.

For a minute there was silence, when Miss Hall, recovering herself, said,—­

’Dear Freda, this is all so kind of you.  If anything could console me for the loss of my last earthly support, it is such affection as yours.’

We will pass over the long conversation of those two friends, its melancholy and its mirth, for there was much of both, and bring them to the dinner-table and Messrs Gwynne and Rowland Prothero.

They were rather a formal quartette, and at first conversation did not flow easily.  Mr Gwynne’s nerves, Rowland’s embarrassment Miss Hall’s natural depression of spirits, and Freda’s resolution not to make herself agreeable to a person she was determined to consider conceited, were bad ingredients for a dish of good sociable converse.  By degrees, however, they thawed a little.  Mr Gwynne wished to say something that would set his young chess opponent at his ease, and said the very thing likely the most to confuse a shy man.  He made a personal remark and paid a compliment.

’I am sure your uncle and—­and your father, of course, must have been much gratified, and so forth, at your gaining that fellowship at Oxford.’

‘I think you labour under a mistake,’ said Rowland, looking more than usually confused when he saw Miss Gwynne’s eyes turned upon him; ’I merely gained a scholarship at Rugby, which is really nothing.  I did not even try for a fellowship.’