“Oh! old Darcy is sure to ask you to stay. By the way, would you permit me to trouble you with five lines to a friend who is now stopping there?”
“Of course; I shall be but too happy to be of any service to you.”
The old gentleman sat down, and, tearing a leaf from a capacious pocket-book, wrote a few hurried lines, which, having folded and sealed, he addressed, “Bagenal Daly, Esquire, Gwynne Abbey.”
“There, that's my commission; pray add my service to the Knight himself, when you see him.”
“Permit me to ask, how shall I designate his friend?”
“Oh! I forgot, you don't know me,” said he, laughing. “I have half a mind to leave the identification with your own descriptive powers.”
“I'd wager five guineas I could make the portrait a resemblance.”
“Done, then; I take the bet,” said the other; “and I promise you, on the word of a gentleman, I am known to every visitor in the house.”
Each laughed heartily at the drollery of such a wager, and, with many a profession of the pleasure a future meeting would afford to both, they parted, less like casual acquaintances than as old and intimate friends.