'I suppose you have practised a great deal since you have been in London?' he said. 'Mrs Jones and I play and sing whenever we have time, and I have had some lessons,' replied Freda. 'Besides, one hears all the first musicians and singers, and they teach one.' 'Did you see much of that young parson, Prothero? I remember he was somewhere in your neighbourhood,' asked the colonel. Freda was sure this question was a feeler, and she answered carelessly,-- 'Yes, naturally. He is Mr Jones' brother curate.' 'Now confess, you didn't like those people, and that sort of life? You must have been _ennuyee_ from morning to night.' 'On the contrary, the days were not half long enough.' 'Freda!' exclaimed Mrs Vaughan, 'I get tho tired, and tho doth the colonel, before half the evening ith over.' 'Some one else seems in the same condition,' said Freda. 'Papa is fast asleep.' 'And mamma nearly,' said Mrs Vaughan. 'And I am tho tired. I think Chrithmath dayth are very dull. One dothn't know what to do.' 'That isn't peculiar to Christmas days in your year,' said the colonel, sarcastically; 'but I suppose we had better go to bed. I hope we shall be more amusing to-morrow, Freda. All your old friends, the constant Sir Hugh amongst them, are invited to meet you. Let me light your candle. Remember, I always used to do that, when we had our snug evenings together such an age ago.' 'Yeth, he often talkth of you, Freda, and thayth you were thuch good company.' Freda heard Colonel Vaughan sigh, and thought, as she said 'good-night,' and hastened upstairs, that she ought to be thankful that the imperturbable and dull Wilhelmina Nugent had been the choice of that discontented and irritable colonel, instead of the quick-tempered, independent Winifred Gwynne. CHAPTER XLVII. THE DAUGHTER-IN-LAW. New Year's Day dawned under the influence of a bright sun, and a clear, frosty atmosphere. The old year was dead and buried with all his griefs and joys; his son and heir came forward smiling, to begin his career of times and seasons, clouds and sunbeams. With him, Owen and Gladys were to commence their united lives. An auspicious morning ushered in this, their bridal day, and the year's birthday. Nature had put on all her jewels in honour of the joint festivities. Her very tears were turned into diamonds that sparkled on her capacious breast, neck, and arms, more brilliantly than stomachers, necklaces and bracelets of gems, on the courtiers of an Indian monarch. Truly, as the fair and gentle Gladys drove through the roads and lanes that led from the farm to the church, the hedge-rows sparkled with these brilliants, and her very pathway was strewn with them. Attired in that Quaker-like garb of dove-colour and white, her soft cheek tinged as from the sun, her eyes cast down in modest shyness, and her heart beating with quiet happiness, she seemed a fitting bride to wait upon that heir of so many by-gone generations.