Eleanor sat in the embrasure of the window, with a half-open book in her lap. It had grown too dark to read any longer, and she raised her eyes from the page and looked out. As the gloaming fell, the firelight gleamed out more strongly, but it did not reach as far as where she sat, and the cold light of the departing day was all that fell upon her face. Perhaps this cold light lent something to the impression of sadness, and even of sternness, which had overcast her countenance since she had come home. Whether from that cause or from some other, it was quite certain that there was a slight expression of sternness upon her lips; the strength and resolution which lay beneath her ripe and gracious beauty had decidedly stepped to the front. While she looked forth, with this expression deepening on her face, there came a short, heavy knock upon the door; before she had time to answer, the curtain was pushed aside, and Otho came in. ‘Otho!’ she exclaimed, for it was the first time he had entered the room since her arrival. ‘Good afternoon,’ he said, glancing round. ‘What are you doing here, all alone?’ ‘Reading Homer,’ said Eleanor, promptly, with a rather wicked gleam in her eye. As she had expected, an expression of slight alarm crossed Otho’s countenance. But he drew a chair forward and sat down. ‘Is that how you amuse yourself here?’ he asked. ‘One way,’ she replied, rather curtly. She had perceived, very shortly after her arrival, that Otho was vexed with her presence, and had resolved in consequence to take her own course. He had been disappointed to find that she never uttered a word as to the dulness of Bradstane or its want of society, nor ever mentioned any idea of deserting it. Women with ‘resources within themselves’ were, of course, an unknown species to Otho—he would vaguely have called them ‘blues,’ if asked for his views on the subject. His sister must be a blue; and after a moment given to reflection on the situation, he burst into a short, rough laugh. ‘Ha, ha! No wonder that you and Magdalen don’t get on. And if that’s the sort of thing you have a fancy for, you never will. She’s clever, deucedly clever, is Magdalen, but it isn’t in the _dead languages_ that she excels.’ And he laughed again, as if some inner thought greatly diverted him. ‘If she troubles herself as little as I do whether we get on or not, she will be very indifferent about it,’ said Eleanor, annoyed in a truly girlish fashion at thus having ‘Magdalen’ always thrust at her. ‘Jealous!’ said Otho, with his great guffaw, rubbing his hands together. Eleanor felt her face in a flame. ‘Jealous—of that woman!’ was the thought in her mind, but she had self-control enough to let it remain a thought. She merely smiled. ‘Did you learn nothing but Greek,’ pursued Otho, ‘when you were at college?’ ‘Why, of course, you goose. What would be the use of learning nothing but Greek?’