At present she is fortunate enough to rule everybody she comes in contact with; her father, his servants, his tenants, the poor, the very mendicants that come to the door.

Certainly there is something very charming in her appearance, as she hurries up the fine old avenue that leads to her ancestral home.  The ease of her port, the graceful dignity of her extreme haste, the heightened colour, and the glowing eye, are all very handsome, in spite of the coarseness in perspective.  The poor footman can scarcely keep up with her; he has not found the last twenty years at Glanyravon productive of the same lightness of step to him, as to his young mistress, and wishes she were a little less agile.

A handsome country house in a good park has not often in itself much of the picturesque.  Ruskin would not consider Glanyravon, with its heavy porch, massive square walls, and innumerable long windows, a good specimen of architectural beauty; still it is a most comfortable dwelling, beautifully situated; and the magnificent woods at the back, and grand view in front, would make the most unartistic building picturesque in appearance if not in reality.

Miss Gwynne ran up the broad stairs, through the large hall, and into a good library.  Here a very tall, thin, sickly-looking man was seated in an easy-chair.

‘My dear Freda, I am so thankful you are come!’

’My dear father, how I wish you would not send for me the very moment I go out.  I really cannot be pestered with servants.  It fidgets me to death to have a man walking and puffing after me.’

‘But just consider, my love, the lateness of the hour.’

‘It is scarcely eight o’clock now, papa, and as light as possible.’

‘I am too nervous, my love, to bear your being out alone.’

Miss Gwynne rang the bell authoritatively, and the footman entered.

’Tell Mrs Davies to send some jelly, and whatever strengthening things there are in the house, to Glanyravon Farm immediately,’ she said; then turning to her father, added, ’do you know, papa, Mrs Prothero has taken in a sick Irish girl, and I have abetted it.’

‘You, child!  I hope she has no infectious disease; it quite alarms me.’

’I really don’t know.  But Mr and Mrs Jonathan Prothero are going to
Glanyravon to-morrow, and remember you invited them to dinner on
Wednesday.’

’I am very sorry! that man kills me with the antiquities of the Welsh language, and heaven knows what old things that happened before the flood.  But you must entertain them.  I suppose we had better ask young Rowland.’

’Oh, papa!  He is so dreadfully quiet and stiff, and thinks there is only one man who ever went to Oxford, and he is that man; and I can’t endure him.’

‘Perhaps not, my dear—­indeed, perhaps not.’

’If we ask him, we must ask Netta.  She has come home quite accomplished from boarding school, and would do in a quiet way.  Mrs Jonathan would be pleased, and you know she is a lady, though awfully particular.  I can’t endure her either.’