Time and space are nothing to a man thus enlightened, and so they appeared to me; scarcely a second had elapsed when I found myself standing in the Dalrymples' drawing-room.
If a few hours had done much to metamorphose _me_, certes, they had done something for my fair friends also; anything more unlike what they appeared in the morning can scarcely be imagined.

Matilda in black, with her hair in heavy madonna bands upon her fair cheek, now paler even than usual, never seemed so handsome; while Fanny, in a light-blue dress, with blue flowers in her hair, and a blue sash, looked the most lovely piece of coquetry ever man set his eyes upon.

The old major, too, was smartened up, and put into an old regimental coat that he had worn during the siege of Gibraltar; and lastly, Mrs.Dalrymple herself was attired in a very imposing costume that made her, to my not over-accurate judgment, look very like an elderly bishop in a flame-colored cassock.

Sparks was the only stranger, and wore upon his countenance, as I entered, a look of very considerable embarrassment that even my thick-sightedness could not fail of detecting.
_Parlez-moi de l'amitie_, my friends.

Talk to me of the warm embrace of your earliest friend, after years of absence; the cordial and heartfelt shake hands of your old school companion, when in after years, a chance meeting has brought you together, and you have had time and opportunity for becoming distinguished and in repute, and are rather a good hit to be known to than otherwise; of the close grip you give your second when he comes up to say, that the gentleman with the loaded detonator opposite won't fire, that he feels he's in the wrong.