“I thought I knew you yesterday,” says Baker. “Only, gad, you see, I had so much claret on board, I did not much know what was what. And oh! Bessy, I have got such a splitter of a headache.” “Oh! please—please, my name is Miss Prior. Pray! pray, sir, don’t.”— “You’ve got handsomer—doosid deal handsomer. Know you now well, your spectacles off. You come in here—teach my nephew and niece, humbug my sister, make love to the ah——. Oh! you uncommon sly little toad!” “Captain Baker! I beg—I implore you,” says Bess, or something of the sort: for the white hands assumed an attitude of supplication. “Pooh! don’t gammon _me_!” says the rickety captain (or words to that effect), and seizes those two firm white hands in his moist, trembling palms. [Illustration: BEDFORD TO THE RESCUE.] Now do you understand why I paused? When the dandy came grinning forward, with looks and gestures of familiar recognition: when the pale Elizabeth implored him to spare her:—a keen arrow of jealousy shot whizzing through my heart, and caused me well-nigh to fall backwards as I ran forwards. I bumped up against a bronze group in the gardens. The group represented a lion stung by a serpent. _I_ was a lion stung by a serpent too. Even Baker could have knocked me down. Fiends and anguish! he had known her before? The Academy, the life she had led, the wretched old tipsy, ineffective guardian of a father—all these antecedents in poor Bessy’s history passed through my mind. And I had offered my heart and troth to this woman! Now, my dear sir, I appeal to you. What would _you_ have done? Would _you_ have liked to have such a sudden suspicion thrown over the being of your affection? “Oh! spare me—spare me!” I heard her say, in clear—too clear—pathetic tones. And then there came rather a shrill “Ah!” and then the lion was up in my breast again; and I give you my honour, just as I was going to step forward—to step?—to _rush_ forward from behind the urn where I had stood for a moment with thumping heart, Bessy’s “Ah!” or little cry was followed by a _whack_, which I heard as clear as anything I ever heard in my life;—and I saw the little captain spin back, topple over a chair heels up, and in this posture heard him begin to scream and curse in shrill tones... Not for long, for as the captain and the chair tumble down, a door springs open;—a man rushes in, who pounces like a panther upon the prostrate captain, pitches into his nose and eyes, and chokes his bad language by sending a fist down his naughty throat. “Oh! thank you, Bedford!—please, leave him, Bedford! that’s enough. There, don’t hurt him any more!” says Bessy, laughing—laughing, upon my word. “Ah! will you?” says Bedford. “Lie still, you little beggar, or I’ll knock your head off. Look here, Miss Prior!—Elizabeth—dear—dear Elizabeth! I love you with all my heart, and soul, and strength—I do.” “O Bedford! Bedford!” warbles Elizabeth.