‘Oh, are you going?’ exclaimed the latter. ‘Why must you go so soon?’ ‘It is dark, and I think I have been here a good while. Are you ready, Otho?’ Otho looked at his sister for a moment. Then he also took his leave, and very soon they were riding away, side by side, down the avenue of the Balder Hall drive. Eleanor drew a long breath as they went out at the gates, and emerged upon the high-road. She was conscious of a feeling of weariness, of a wish for a little cold fresh air—something bracing—and of a hope that Otho would not ask her anything about Miss Wynter. In that she was disappointed, for he inquired almost immediately what she thought of her. ‘I do not like her much, Otho,’ she said, as gently as she could. ‘It may be prejudice on my part, and one cannot tell after seeing a person for the first time, but there is something—I can hardly define it—a tone about her that I do not like.’ ‘Just like a girl,’ said Otho, in a surly tone. ‘And scarcely any women do like Magdalen. They can’t forgive her for being so handsome.’ ‘She is very handsome indeed. Perhaps I may like her better when—or if I learn to know more of her. I should be sorry to dislike a friend of yours. But I must own that I could not get to like her, this afternoon.’ ‘Well, I don’t suppose your likes or dislikes are of much importance to her,’ he said, roughly. ‘Not of the very least, I should think. It is to me that they are important, especially if I see much of Miss Wynter. By the way, who was that girl who came in? I could not quite understand her.’ ‘Oh, she’s a _protégée_ of Magdalen’s—has been for years—a daughter of Dixon the stationer in the town. A queer little rat, isn’t she, who tries to ape the ways of fine ladies. She’s engaged to a very rough diamond of a man—anything but a fine gentleman; and I should have thought a counter-jumper or a commercial gent would have been more in her line. But no, she’s going to marry this fellow. Roger Camm is his name. He is the manager at the Townend Mills, which Gilbert Langstroth and I work together. I don’t like the fellow. He is so uppish, and yet he is so first-rate in his work, that if I sacked him I should not know where to put my hand on any one else like him.’ ‘A friend of Dr. Langstroth’s, Miss Wynter said.’ ‘Yes, and that does not make me love him any the better, I can tell you.’ ‘You don’t like Dr. Langstroth?’ ‘Like him!’ echoed Otho, with brutal candour. ‘I hate him. A wild, vapouring, sentimental fellow, that the women all rave about—why, I can’t imagine, for his ways are cold enough to them, for all his handsome face. He sets up to know better than any one else. In fact, he’s a conceited prig, that’s what Michael Langstroth is. The place would be well rid of him, in my opinion, if he’d only have the goodness to leave it. His brother Gilbert is worth a thousand of him.’ ‘In what way?’ asked Eleanor curtly.