‘Oh, I can hardly tell you. A quickness and alertness—I can hardly describe it. He makes jokes sometimes, and laughs at a mere nothing—which is not Gilbert’s way, you know, as a rule. He talks a great deal, too, which is also contrary to his usual habits. He takes my arm if we meet, and altogether there is something odd and changed in his manner.’ ‘Perhaps he is in love,’ suggested Magdalen languidly. Michael shrugged his shoulders, smiling slightly. ‘He may be, but I don’t think it.’ And so the topic dropped, till Michael returned to the town, and during the evening related this supposition of Magdalen’s. ‘I don’t know whether he’s in love or not,’ said the doctor, who, for his part, was certainly not in love with Gilbert; ‘but he was in here to-day to see you, when you were out; and he says your father intends to make his will, and he wants you to know about it.’ ‘To make his will? I should have thought he had made it long ago.’ ‘So he did, for I was one of the witnesses; but it has to be altered, with all these complications about factories and property to be sold, and such-like.’ ‘Oh! well, Gilbert will see to it; he has always managed that kind of thing,’ said Michael carelessly. ‘I don’t see what I have to do with it.’ ‘I should say you had a good deal to do with it. You certainly ought to look after it.’ ‘Look after my father’s will! what for? He’s got no one to leave anything to, except Gilbert and me. He’ll divide between us, I suppose. I should not like to think that Gilbert got less than me, seeing how he has slaved all these years in order that there may be anything to leave at all.’ Dr. Rowntree looked impatient, and, Michael having left the room, the doctor remarked to Roger, in homely phraseology, that he did not know whether to call Michael a trump, or to tell him he was a born fool, when he talked in such a way. To which Roger merely replied that he supposed men were best left to decide such matters for themselves. ‘I mistrust that Gilbert; he is too sly for me,’ said the doctor. ‘He has a quiet way. I don’t think he is exactly sly,’ answered Roger, and the subject of their conversation came in at the moment. Michael, he was told, was in the study, and he went there and briefly told him again what Mr. Langstroth thought of doing. ‘All right,’ said Michael, examining some substance under his microscope with the intensest interest. ‘So that he leaves as much to you as to me, I’m agreeable. I hope we shan’t have to read it for a long time to come.’ Gilbert cast a look of anger, contempt, and wonder mixed, towards Michael, who did not even see it. There was a short silence, till Gilbert observed, in a constrained voice— ‘Well, remember, I am not answerable for anything he does.’