"My dear Maitland, how could you so far forget yourself, and with such a man?" said Caffarelli, laying his hands on his shoulder.
"With any _other_ man I could _not_ have forgotten myself," said he, sternly. "Let us think no more of him."
It was like a return to his former self--to his gay, happy, careless nature--for Tony Butler to find himself with his friend Skeflfy. As painters lay layers of the same color on, one over the other, to deepen the effect, so does youth double itself by companionship. As for Skeflfy, never did a schoolboy exult more in a holiday; and, like a schoolboy, his spirits boiled over in all manner of small excesses, practical jokes on his fellow-passengers, and all those glorious tomfooleries, to be able to do which with zest is worth all the enjoyment that ever cynicism yielded twice told.
"I was afraid you would n't come. I did n't see you when the coach drove into the inn-yard; and I was so disappointed," said Tony, as he surveyed the mass of luggage which the guard seemed never to finish depositing before his friend.
"Two portmanteaus, sir," said the guard, "three carpetbags, a dressing-case, a hat-box, a gun-case, bundle of sticks and umbrellas, and I think this parrot and cage are yours."
"For Mrs. Maxwell, you dog: she loves parrots, and I gave ten guineas for that beggar, because they assured me he could positively keep up a conversation; and the only thing he _can_ say is, 'Don't you wish you may get it?'"
No sooner had the bird heard the words than he screamed them out with a wild and scornful cry that made them sound like a bitter mockery.
"There,--that's at me," whispered Skeflfy,--"at _me_ and _my_ chance of Tilney. I 'm half inclined to wring his neck when I hear it."
"Are you looking for any one, Harris?" asked Tony of a servant in livery who had just ridden into the yard.
"Yes, sir; I have a letter from my mistress for a gentleman that was to have come by the mail."
"Here he is," said Tony, as he glanced at the address. "This is Mr. Skefflngton Darner."
While Skeffy broke the seal, Tony muttered in his ear, "Mind, old fellow, you are to come to us before you go to Tilney, no matter how pressing she may be."
"Here's a business," said Skeffy; "as well as I can make out her old pothooks, it is that she can't receive me. 'My dear,'--she first wrote 'Nephew,' but it's smudged out,--'My dear Cousin Darner, I am much distressed to tell you that you must not come here. It is the scarlatina, which the doctors all think highly infectious, though we burn cinnamon and that other thing through all the rooms. My advice would be to go to Harrogate, or some nice place, to amuse yourself, and I enclose this piece of thin paper.' Where is it, though?" said he, opening the letter and shaking it "Just think of the old woman forgetting to put up the enclosure!"