But even boys cannot sup all night, and slowly we found our way back towards the ball-room. I passed in with Josiah, for I had not Will with me, he being in attendance on the Admiral, and indeed at no time disposed for drinking parties: they would not allow of the barrier of reserve which it was his intention to maintain. Well, as we passed on our way into the ball-room, we saw Will standing alone in an ante-chamber and made for him, only to find him posted at a gentlemanly distance from the Admiral, who was sitting on a couch with his left arm stretched over the end, and My Lady with her right hand on his empty sleeve pouring out a woman's hero-worship with soft speech and glistening eye and gentle attitude. Right-down hero-worship I felt convinced it was. Every one in Naples was intoxicated with Nelson, and she above all, who from the time his fleet was come into the Mediterranean, had wrestled with all her might and main to second his efforts to find and finish the French. Indeed, we have it in the Admiral's writing that it was owing to her aid in the matter of getting the ships watered that we ever got to the Nile in time. I do not doubt that she was asking him for the fiftieth time how he felt when he took the risk of sailing between the French and the shore--between the French and their anchors, or how he felt when the _Orient_ blew up, or was telling him he was the greatest hero that ever lived. But Josiah thought otherwise, and swashing up to the Admiral in the most offensive style, struck an attitude before him, and began another of the speeches which had been affording us such excellent entertainment while we were supping, as he grew braver and braver with his wine. The language he used I shall not repeat. It was the request of the gallant Captain, whose conduct crushed out the spark which threatened such a blaze, that the officers who were present should not repeat what they had heard. But as there have been many allusions to the incident since, I do not think that I shall be betraying confidence if I give a general outline of it as I had the pain of seeing it. The general tenor of it was that he called upon the Admiral in the name of "my mother and your wife" to tear himself from the embraces of that ----, and here he applied to My Lady the epithets for which silence was desired, as I have mentioned. I do not say but that at a later period some sort of remonstrance might have come with fair grace and proper spirit from Josiah in the name of his mother, the Admiral's wife, anent Lady Hamilton; but at this period I feel certain that it was wholly unjust and uncalled for, and that it was so is proved by the very cordial relations existing a few months later between Josiah and that remarkable woman, who added to her other magnificent qualities a fine forgivingness.