I was so transported that I believe I should have knelt before Santonio but that, as lightly as he had spoken, he had turned again away. It was as if he had not said those words, so unaltered was his face, with those curved eyebrows; and I wished he had left me alone altogether, I felt so insignificant. It was a good thing for me that now there entered footmen very stately, with silver trays, upon which they carried coffee, very strong and cold, and chilly green tea. We helped ourselves, every one, and then it was I really began to enjoy the exclusion with which we had been visited; for we all seemed shut in and belonging to each other. The pianist primo joked with Santonio, and Mr. Westley attacked Davy, while Newton and the man in the blue coat with bright buttons wore the subject of the festival to a thread; for the former had been away, and the latter had been there, and the latter enlightened the former, and more than enlightened him, and where his memory failed, invented, never knowing that I, who had been present, was listening and judging,--as Clara said, "he was making up stories;" and indeed it was a surprise for me to discover such an imagination dwelling in a frame so adipose. Santonio at last attracted our whole attention by pouring his coffee into the fire, and asking a footman, who had re-entered with wafers and tea-cakes, for some more coffee that was hot; and while we were all laughing very loud, another footman, a shade more pompous than this, threw back the folding-doors that divided us from the impenetrable saloon. As those doors stood open we peeped in. "How many people there are!" said I. "Yes," said Clara, "but they are not very wise." "Why do you suppose not?" "First, because they have set the piano close up against the wall. Mr. Davy will have it out, I know." "I see a great many young ladies in pink frocks,--I suppose the Miss Redferns." "See that man, Master Auchester, who is looking down at the legs of the piano, to find out how they are put on." And thus we talked and laughed until Santonio had finished his coffee, quite as if no one was either in that room or in the next.