‘I say—I ought to remember you. You are Michael Langstroth, aren’t you?’ ‘Yes, I am. I was just coming to speak to you. This is my brother Gilbert; you ought to remember him, too, if you remember me.’ Otho shook hands with them. His countenance was not the best suited for expressing pleasure and geniality, but in a certain saturnine manner he seemed glad to see them both, though he did not say he was, but showed it by asking them many questions, with an air of interest—questions as to what they had been doing ‘all these years.’ And he stood talking with them, and occasionally with Byrom Winthrop, who joined them, until the voice of Sir Thomas summoned them to the table, when, by some means, Otho and Gilbert found themselves seated side by side, and Michael was not very far away from them. Otho Askam betrayed none of the awkwardness which would have been natural to, and excusable in, a very young man, who suddenly finds himself a person of condition and importance amongst others, much older and much better known than himself. At the same time his manner was utterly destitute of anything like suavity or grace, or of aught that could give a clue as to his real habits or tastes in the matter of society; none could discover from it whether he most haunted and best loved drawing-rooms, studies, clubs, or stables. He appeared to be at his ease, and yet there was nothing easy about him. He did not laugh at all. Michael, who watched him attentively, could not detect anything more mirthful than that peculiar smile which had been on his face when he first saw him; and it was a smile which might have been called sinister. Gilbert and he seemed to keep up an animated conversation, but Michael, though near, could not hear, for the hum of talk around him, what they said. He could only feel silently surprised that they had found any subject in common, for Gilbert, when not engaged in calculations, was something of a bookworm, and loved the flavour of a play or an essay, and was well read in some of our older and less known dramatists. Michael, though still uncertain whether Otho were most like a gentleman or a blackguard, had an inner conviction that he was neither literary in his tastes nor yet devoted to accounts. Suddenly, in a momentary lull in the talk around him, he heard Otho say— ‘But Dusky Beauty was bred in these parts. I’d take my oath of it.’ ‘Of course she was,’ replied Gilbert, with animation. ‘She was bred in old Trueman’s stables, over in Friarsdale, out of Blue Blood, by——’