One November evening, or rather, late in the afternoon, Otho had dropped in at the Red Gables, where he had found Gilbert and his father. Mr. Langstroth received the young man with urbanity; he had all along seemed satisfied with Gilbert’s new friend. Gilbert himself looked up from his desk, and greeted the visitor tranquilly. ‘Sit down, and make yourself at home,’ said he, pushing a tobacco-jar towards Askam. But Otho did not at once sit down. ‘Will you come home and dine with me?’ he asked, in his curt way. ‘I’m sorry I can’t,’ Gilbert said, polite as usual. ‘You see these papers? I have more than an hour’s work upon them yet.’ Otho never scoffed at Gilbert’s ‘business,’ though he was ready to sneer at that of any one else. All he uttered now was a disappointed ‘Humph!’ ‘Stay and have dinner with us,’ said Gilbert. ‘How did you come?’ ‘I rode.’ ‘From home? On your way anywhere?’ ‘No. I’m on my way from Balder Hall,’ replied Otho, with something like a scowl. Gilbert looked at him, carelessly, it seemed. Then he said— ‘Well, send your horse round, and stay, as I said—I want Askam to have dinner with us,’ he added, turning to his father. ‘I wish he would. We shall be delighted, if he will take us as we are,’ responded Mr. Langstroth. Otho still seemed to hesitate a little, till Gilbert, with a rather steady look at him, which was not seen by his father, continued— ‘Look here. I’ll propose something else. I’ve been tied down to this work all day, and I haven’t had a turn out of doors. Dine with us, as I said, and afterwards I’ll walk back with you to your house. I have an errand in the town. It’ll do you no harm to travel on your own legs for once in a way, and you can send one of your fellows for your horse. How will that do?’ Otho’s brow cleared. ‘That will do very well,’ said he, taking a chair. ‘It suits me down to the ground. Get on with that work, and I’ll talk to your father.’ Gilbert, having rung and given his orders as to the accommodation of Otho’s horse, turned his back upon them, and did not address another word to them until the man announced dinner, when he put his papers in a drawer which he locked, and gave his arm to his father to support him to the dining-room. Otho followed them. Despite the poverty of the house of Langstroth, the meals there were always rather choice, well cooked, and well served. Mr. Langstroth, it was understood, depended a good deal for his health of mind as well as of body upon the due observance of such things. Soon after they had begun, Gilbert observed carelessly that they hadn’t seen Michael all day; he had expected him to dinner. ‘He’s dining at Balder Hall,’ said Otho, even more curtly than usual. ‘Ah! Had he arrived when you left?’ ‘No.’ ‘And how was my future sister-in-law?’