Perhaps you may ask what need had _I_ to be alarmed? Nothing could happen to me. I was not going to lose a governess’s place. Well, if I must tell the truth, I had not acted with entire candour in the matter of Bessy’s appointment. In recommending her to Lovel, and the late Mrs. L., I had answered for her probity, and so forth, with all my might. I had described the respectability of her family, her father’s campaigns, her grandfather’s (old Dr. Sargent’s) celebrated sermons; and had enlarged with the utmost eloquence upon the learning and high character of her uncle, the Master of Boniface, and the deserved regard he bore his niece. But that part of Bessy’s biography which related to the Academy I own I had not touched upon. _A quoi bon?_ Would every gentleman or lady like to have everything told about him or her? I had kept the Academy dark then; and so had brave Dick Bedford the butler; and should that miscreant captain reveal the secret, I knew there would be an awful commotion in the building. I should have to incur Lovel’s not unjust reproaches for _suppressio veri_, and the anger of those two _viragines_, the grandmothers of Lovel’s children. I was more afraid of the women than of him, though conscience whispered me that I had not acted quite rightly by my friend. When, then, the bed-candles were lighted, and every one said good-night, “Oh! Captain Baker,” say I, gaily, and putting on a confoundedly hypocritical grin, “if you will come into my room, I will give you that book.” “What book?” says Baker. “The book we were talking of this morning.” “Hang me, if I know what you mean,” says he. And luckily for me, Lovel giving a shrug of disgust, and a good-night to me, stalked out of the room, bed-candle in hand. No doubt, he thought his wretch of a brother-in-law did not well remember after dinner what he had done or said in the morning. As I now had the Blacksheep to myself, I said calmly, “You are quite right. There was no talk about a book at all, Captain Baker. But I wished to see you alone, and impress upon you my earnest wish that everything which occurred this morning—mind, _everything_—should be considered as strictly private, and should be confided to _no person whatever_—you understand?—to no person.” “Confound me,” Baker breaks out, “if I understand what you mean by your books and your ‘strictly private.’ I shall speak what I choose—hang me!”