“Mr. Jones!” I said, “I will fight you how you will, where you will, with what weapon you will; but first inform me of the nature of our quarrel. Would you blazon abroad yet further the malignant tales that have injured both me and a lady for whom I have none but the most hallowed esteem? I pray you sit down, Sir; be calm, the light is ill for any play with cudgel or sword. De la Tour, a bottle of right Burgundy; Mr. Jones and I have business, and he hath travelled far.” In a trice there was a chicken, a bottle, a set of knives and forks, a white cloth, and a hungry oaf that did eat and swear! One bottle followed another. By the third Mr. Jones embraced me, saying that never had a man been more belied than I; that it was Lord Fellamar, not I, was the villain. To this effect I own that I did myself drop a hint; conceiving that the divine Sophia must often have regretted our friend Fellamar when once she was bound to the oaf, and that Jones was capable of a resentful jealousy. By midnight I had to call a chair for my besotted challenger, and when the Avenger was there safely bestowed, I asked him where the men should carry him? His tongue being now thick, and his brains bemused, he could not find the sign of his inn in his noddle. So, the merry devil prompting me, I gave the men the address of his ancient flame, my Lady Bellaston, and off they jogged with Jones. Was there ever, Belford, a stranger _amoris redintegratio_ than this must have been, when our Lydia heard the old love at the rarely shaken doors: Me tuo longas pereunte noctes, Lydia, dormis? Ah, how little hath Madam Sophia taken by despatching her lord to town, and all to break my head. My fellow, who carries this to thee, has just met Fellamar’s man, and tells me that _Fellamar yesterday went down into Somerset_. What bodes this rare conjunction and disjunction of man and wife and of old affections? and hath “Thomas, a Foundling,” too, gone the way of all flesh? Thy LOVELACE. No news of the dear fugitive! Ah, Belford, my conscience and my cousins call me a villain! Minxes all. XI. _From Miss Catherine Morland to Miss Eleanor Tilney_. Miss Catherine Morland, of “Northanger Abbey,” gives her account of a visit to Mr. Rochester, and of his governess’s peculiar behaviour. Mrs. Rochester (_née_ Eyre) has no mention of this in her Memoirs. Thornfield, Midnight