CHAPTER LIV. SKEFF DAMER TESTED

When the Lyles returned from their drive, it was to find that Alice was
too ill to come down to dinner. She had, she said, a severe headache,
and wished to be left perfectly quiet and alone. This was a sore
disappointment to Bella, brimful of all she had seen and heard, and
burning with impatience to impart how Skeffy had been sent for by the
King, and what he said to his Majesty, and how the royal plans had
been modified by his sage words; and, in fact, that the fate of the
Neapolitan kingdom was at that moment in the hands of that "gifted
creature."

It was such she called him; and I beg my kind reader not to think the
less of her that she so magnified her idol. The happiest days of our
lives are the least real, just as the evils which never befall us are
the greatest.

Bella was sincerely sorry for her sister's headache; but with all that,
she kept stealing every now and then into her room to tell what
Skeff said to Caraffa, and the immense effect it produced. "And then,
dearest," she went on, "we have really done a great deal to-day. We have
sent off three 'formal despatches,' and two 'confidential,' and Skeff
has told my Lord B., Secretary of State though he be, a piece of his
mind,--he does write so ably when he is roused; and he has declared
that he will not carry out his late instructions. Few men would have had
courage to say that; but they know that, if Skeff liked, he has only to
go into Parliament: there are scores of boroughs actually fighting for
him; he would be positively terrible in opposition."

A deep wearied sigh was all Alice's response.

"Yes, dearest, I 'm sure I am tiring you; but I must tell how we
liberated Mr. M'Gruder. He has been, he says, fifty-three days in
prison, and really he looks wretched. I might have felt more for the
man, but for the cold good-for-nothing way he took all Skeff's kindness.
Instead of bursting with gratitude, and calling him his deliverer, all
he said was, 'Well, sir, I think it was high time to have done this,
which, for aught I see, might just as easily have been done three or,
perhaps, four weeks ago.' Skeff was magnificent; he only waved his hand,
and said, 'Go; you are free!' 'I know that well enough,' said he, in the
same sturdy voice; 'and I intend to make use of my freedom to let the
British people know how I have been treated. You 'll see honorable
mention of it all, and yourself, too, in the "Times," before ten days