’He came up about this sub-letting the property—­Marlborough Mills, and the house and premises adjoining, I mean.  He is unable to keep it on; and there are deeds and leases to be looked over, and agreements to be drawn up.  I hope Edith will receive him properly; but she was rather put out, as I could see, by the liberty I had taken in begging for an invitation for him.  But I thought you would like to have some attention shown him:  and one would be particularly scrupulous in paying every respect to a man who is going down in the world.’  He had dropped his voice to speak to Margaret, by whom he was sitting; but as he ended he sprang up, and introduced Mr. Thornton, who had that moment entered, to Edith and Captain Lennox.

Margaret looked with an anxious eye at Mr. Thornton while he was thus occupied.  It was considerably more than a year since she had seen him; and events had occurred to change him much in that time.  His fine figure yet bore him above the common height of men; and gave him a distinguished appearance, from the ease of motion which arose out of it, and was natural to him; but his face looked older and care-worn; yet a noble composure sate upon it, which impressed those who had just been hearing of his changed position, with a sense of inherent dignity and manly strength.  He was aware, from the first glance he had given round the room, that Margaret was there; he had seen her intent look of occupation as she listened to Mr. Henry Lennox; and he came up to her with the perfectly regulated manner of an old friend.  With his first calm words a vivid colour flashed into her cheeks, which never left them again during the evening.  She did not seem to have much to say to him.  She disappointed him by the quiet way in which she asked what seemed to him to be the merely necessary questions respecting her old acquaintances, in Milton; but others came in—­more intimate in the house than he—­and he fell into the background, where he and Mr. Lennox talked together from time to time.

‘You think Miss Hale looking well,’ said Mr. Lennox, ’don’t you?  Milton didn’t agree with her, I imagine; for when she first came to London, I thought I had never seen any one so much changed.  To-night she is looking radiant.  But she is much stronger.  Last autumn she was fatigued with a walk of a couple of miles.  On Friday evening we walked up to Hampstead and back.  Yet on Saturday she looked as well as she does now.

‘We!’ Who?  They two alone?

Mr. Colthurst was a very clever man, and a rising member of parliament.  He had a quick eye at discerning character, and was struck by a remark which Mr. Thornton made at dinner-time.  He enquired from Edith who that gentleman was; and, rather to her surprise, she found, from the tone of his ‘Indeed!’ that Mr. Thornton of Milton was not such an unknown name to him as she had imagined it would be.  Her dinner was going off well.  Henry was in good humour, and brought out his dry caustic wit admirably.