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.
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