To-night it was observed that she danced twice with her betrothed, twice with Otho Askam, and once with Gilbert. Perhaps that might have been endured without much adverse criticism, but it was noticed also, and bitterly noticed, that Otho danced with no one else, though both Michael and Gilbert did. On the following afternoon, Gilbert, returning from a solitary, meditative ride, far into the country—such a ride as he loved to take, and did take, almost every day—found himself outside the palings at one side of the Balder Hall Park. Looking over them, he saw within the figure of Magdalen Wynter. She was pacing quickly up and down a sort of woodland path, which in summer must have been almost concealed, but which was now plainly visible between the trunks of the naked trees—visible, at any rate, to Gilbert as he sat on horseback. There was a broad belt of rough grass, in which grew ferns, and from which also rose the leafless trees just spoken of. Then came the path on which Miss Wynter was walking, and beyond that a glade, sloping steeply down to where Tees flowed by in one of his many curves. Gilbert saw a dark, close cap of velvet, and a pale face which drooped somewhat beneath it, a long, fur-bordered mantle tightly clipped around the wearer’s form, the bottom of a crimson kilting peeped beneath it, and a pair of small, well-shod feet. Her back was turned to him, and he stopped and looked over the palings till she turned, lifted her head, and saw him. She gave a little start. ‘Oh, Gilbert, how quietly you must have come!’ ‘Not so very. The ground is hard and frosty, and my horse’s hoofs rang. It is your deep thoughts, Magdalen, which render you deaf to outside things.’ She had walked across the grass, which was dry and hard, and crunched frostily under her feet, up to the paling, and held up her hand to him. Gilbert rarely met his future sister-in-law, and it has been seen that in speaking of her to his friend, Otho Askam, he did not employ terms exactly of enthusiasm; but if ever they did encounter each other, whether by chance or design, he was always scrupulously amiable and polite to her. Whether this meeting had come about by chance—whether he had intended that it should come about—this is a thing known only to himself. As he looked down now, into the marble paleness and wonderful beauty of the girl’s face, he gave no sign, and she said to him— ‘Are you riding alone?’ ‘Yes, just as you see me. I have been a long way—nearly to Middleton-in-Teesdale.’ ‘I have been walking for an hour, up and down this path. I am beginning to find it rather monotonous, and am going in for some tea. Will you come and have some, too?’ ‘With pleasure, if you can put up with such a feeble substitute for my brother. I think the North Lodge is just round here, isn’t it?’ ‘Yes. I will meet you there. Then we can walk to the house together.’