"Here, under leave of Brutus, and the rest (For Brutus is an honorable man; So are they all, all honorable men), Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral. He was my friend, faithful and just to me--" "Oh, good heavens, I can't stand _that!_ Why don't you speak the last line properly? Listen to me." Dignity is a valuable quality, especially in a governess. But there are limits to the most highly trained endurance. I bounced out into the balcony--and there, on the terrace, smoking a cigar, was my lost stranger in the streets of Sandwich! He recognized me, on his side, the instant I appeared. "Oh, Lord!" he cried in tones of horror, and ran round the corner of the terrace as if my eyes had been mad bulls in close pursuit of him. By this time it is, I fear, useless for me to set myself up as a discreet person in emergencies. Another woman might have controlled herself. I burst into fits of laughter. Freddy and the girls joined me. For the time, it was plainly useless to pursue the business of education. I shut up Shakespeare, and allowed--no, let me tell the truth, encouraged--the children to talk about Mr. Sax. They only seemed to know what Mr. Sax himself had told them. His father and mother and brothers and sisters had all died in course of time. He was the sixth and last of the children, and he had been christened "Sextus" in consequence, which is Latin (here Freddy interposed) for sixth. Also christened "Cyril" (here the girls recovered the lead) by his mother's request; "Sextus" being such a hideous name. And which of his Christian names does he use? You wouldn't ask if you knew him! "Sextus," of course, because it is the ugliest. Sextus Sax? Not the romantic sort of name that one likes, when one is a woman. But I have no right to be particular. My own name (is it possible that I have not mentioned it in these pages yet?) is only Nancy Morris. Do not despise me--and let us return to Mr. Sax. Is he married? The eldest girl thought not. She had heard mamma say to a lady, "An old German family, my dear, and, in spite of his oddities, an excellent man; but so poor--barely enough to live on--and blurts out the truth, if people ask his opinion, as if he had twenty thousand a year!" "Your mamma knows him well, of course?" "I should think so, and so do we. He often comes here. They say he's not good company among grown-up people. _We_ think him jolly. He understands dolls, and he's the best back at leap-frog in the whole of England." Thus far we had advanced in the praise of Sextus Sax, when one of the maids came in with a note for me. She smiled mysteriously, and said, "I'm to wait for an answer, miss." I opened the note, and read these lines:--