Antony was sitting on a camp-stool, enjoying his tea.
'No, I don't want to have a look at her. What should I want to have a look at your wife for?'
'Oh, she would please you all to pieces.—Mary, my sweet little darling,' he cried, 'flutter this way a moment that our newly come Gipsy King may feast his optics on thy fairy form.'
And Mary did flutter in sight, and presently stood beside Skeleton, smiling and comely.
And this fairy must have turned the scale at five-and-twenty stone! But, so merry her smile and the twinkle in her eyes that, rude though he felt it to be, Antony could not help bursting into a hearty laugh. And she kept him company too.
'I'm really not laughing, you know; but—ha! ha! ha! I'——
'And I'm really not laughing,' cried Mary. 'But—he! he! he! I'——
'This isn't your wife, Skeleton? Now, really, is it, you know?'
'In course she is,' cried the Skeleton. 'You don't mean to go for to think that I'——
'No, no, my good sir, I shouldn't think so for a moment.'