Michael Langstroth, now standing upright, looking on, betrayed no feeling of any kind as he heard her remark. It was five years now since he had had a letter from Magdalen, which had gone near to turning his brain. Such episodes have the effect upon those who receive them of, to use a vulgarism, killing or curing. Michael had been cured; hence his presence in Magdalen’s boudoir now; hence his ability to stand by and take in the comedy of the situation, and to feel decidedly, if a little sardonically, amused at what was taking place. He did not sit down again. He wished Magdalen good afternoon; and Eleanor noticed that, although polite—she had a strong conviction that under no possible combination of circumstances could he be impolite—he was not what could be called genial. He was grave and distant, and however slight this gravity and distance, they were present, and Eleanor, keenly sensitive to manner and expression, noticed them instantly. Michael said he would call again in a few days, bowed to them all, and took his departure. ‘Now, Otho,’ said Miss Wynter, almost before Michael had left the room, ‘I have something to tell you. I had better do it now, before I forget. Briggs has got a very wonderful colt to show you, and has been expressing the most ardent longing——’ ‘Briggs—a colt!’ exclaimed Otho, with unaffected interest and animation; ‘I’ll go to him this minute. I suppose he is at the stables?’ ‘I suppose so—somewhere there,’ replied Magdalen nonchalantly; and Otho disappeared instantly, while Eleanor sat still, feeling intensely displeased, less at what was actually said and done than at the tone and the manner of it. Fine-tempered and incapable of behaving with insolence or impertinence to any inferior, it yet seemed to her that Magdalen was scarcely in a position to order Otho to the stables, so that she might be left alone with his sister; or, indeed, to call him by his Christian name, and almost openly to hint that she wanted him out of the way—unless, indeed, she were engaged to be married to him, which Eleanor, with a sudden sense of apprehension, hoped she was not; and recalling Otho’s dissertations on their ride hither, she felt it was scarcely possible that he could be. While she was thinking these thoughts, and while the shadow of them was on her too expressive countenance, Magdalen sank back in her chair, watching her visitor keenly, if unobtrusively. When she addressed her, she spoke with a smile, but her eyes, Eleanor noticed, did not in the least partake of the smile upon her lips. She smiled, not because she felt pleased, or genial, or mirthful, but mechanically—because it is the custom to smile when you receive your guests.