It was a dull morning in October, with a gray sky, low-hanging clouds, and muddy lanes. The Tees Valley Hunt breakfasted that morning at Sir Thomas Winthrop’s, and the brothers, Michael and Gilbert Langstroth, rode slowly in company towards the house. Michael was now twenty-five, and Gilbert just turned twenty-three. They had ridden and hunted ever since they had been able to stick on the back of a pony, and, despite their changed fortunes—for the house of Langstroth was no more a flourishing house—they rode and hunted still. They felt a deeper degree of interest than usual in this particular breakfast, for it was known to them, as to all the rest of the neighbourhood, that the long-closed doors of Thorsgarth had at last been thrown open; Otho Askam’s minority was over, and he had come, or was on his way, to take possession of the house of his fathers, and the abundant revenues and possessions which had been accumulating for him. It was now several months since he had come of age, but he had not immediately repaired to his home. Now, Otho Askam, Michael and Gilbert Langstroth, and their friend Roger Camm, had all played together as children in the Thorsgarth garden, had shouted through its avenues, chased each other amongst its discoloured marble fauns and nymphs, and almost succeeded, more than once, in drowning themselves in the waters of swiftly-rushing Tees, who flowed beneath the lowest terrace of the garden. That had been more than ten years ago, and many changes had taken place since then. The Askam fortunes had accumulated; the deaths of both Mr. and Mrs. Askam had left their children—Otho, and a girl, Eleanor, several years younger than him—under the care of guardians, while their property increased. The Langstroths, on the contrary, had gone downhill to a certain extent. Poor then, they had become poorer since, till now, Mr. Langstroth, their father, was a hopeless, helpless invalid; Michael, the elder, was by way of earning his living as a country doctor, this chance having been given to him by the kindness of the old family friend and adviser, the little Quaker Doctor Rowntree, whose assistant Michael was supposed to be. Gilbert stayed at home, tended his father, and devoted his distinguished arithmetical powers to an endeavour to extricate the family fortunes in some degree from the confusion into which they had fallen. As for Roger Camm, whose father had been the curate of Bradstane-on-Tees, he had vanished for years past from the scenes of his childhood; but he and Michael, who had been friends in those former days, were friends still, keeping up a close correspondence. And if Roger by any chance imagined that Gilbert had forgotten him, he was mistaken. Gilbert Langstroth had a long memory.