They both agreed that, if the young man was still seriously attached, he would find some way of communicating with them now all parties were together in England. And so he certainly would have done, had it not been for the false report carried to Neverden by the loyal and religious Zephaniah Pringle, and corroborated by the almost unanimous and universal talk of the people of that village. Influenced by this tale, he remained at Neverden spending day after day in most clumsily doing nothing at all. His father talked to him, his mother talked to him, and his sisters talked to him, but all their talk amounted to nothing. Disappointed affection is a painful feeling, and talking cannot heal it; nor was it ever known in the course of human experience, that calling a man a fool has been the means of making him wise. Whatever were the feelings of Robert Darnley on this sad blight of his fair hopes, he was wise enough to keep them to himself; he was indeed dull and listless, but he did not annoy others any farther than thus negatively. On the other hand, the Right Honorable Lord Spoonbill had no sooner accomplished the mighty feat of telling Miss Primrose how devoted he was to her, than he must needs again invade the luxurious and lounging solitude of his friend Erpingham in order again to talk over the subject. His lordship did not indeed on the very day after, but at as short an interval as possible consistent with other engagements, call upon his luxurious friend to enjoy the pleasure of talking about Miss Primrose. Now Erpingham, as we have already intimated, was by no means a simpleton. He had wisdom enough to see through Lord Spoonbill, though his lordship was not always able to comprehend the logic of his old college companion. There is at Cambridge, as everybody knows, a species of animal called a tuft-hunter, that is, a plebeian man, who, for pence or pride, cultivates an acquaintance with the young green shoots of nobility that are sent to that place to learn horse-racing, card-playing, and mathematics, in order to make laws to preserve game and keep up the dignity of hereditary legislators. Now Erpingham was not one of that description. But there are, among the unfledged lordlings who honor that town and university with their superfine presence, some few individuals who, in order to enjoy a stronger sense and feeling of their own noble rank and exalted condition, seek for acquaintance among the untitled. Of this class was Lord Spoonbill, and his acquaintance thus and there formed, was Mr Erpingham.