These ideas floated through my brain as I dressed myself with more than usual care to attend upon my Lady. Adding, however, to my reflections a pretty strong conjecture that if my dear little soubrette were to catch me visiting anybody else but her Lady with such ideas in my head – say Sophie, the pretty chambermaid for instance, the young woman's cheeks and my hair and even a more sensitive part would most likely come to grief.

These meditations brought me to the door of my Lady's dressing-room where Justine admitted me, and I found my noble mistress lying on her sofa, attired in a most graceful dishabille, dressed in a morning-robe of light blue silk so negligently open at the front that I could see the orbs of love, whilst one beautiful leg, hanging carelessly over the side of the sofa, as she reached sideways, displayed to my gaze a ravishing calf, ankle, and tiny foot encased in pink silk stockings and Turkish slippers, for she did not intend to appear at the dinner-table that, day.

She looked rather pale and languid but my entrance caused a slight perceptible flush to puss over her beautiful features and I also perceived an increase of palpitation on the part of those ivory bosoms as she seemed to draw a long breath before addressing me. She began by saying:

"Justine has told me, Ernest, that you have promised to be true and faithful and to keep secret my clandestine interview with Miss Courtney today; I have a particular wish that it should not be known." Here she slightly coloured again. Then she continued:

"May I depend on you faithfully?"

With this she extended her white hand to me which I kissed with as much devotion as if it had been a Queen's, indeed I should say with a great deal more. This did not seem to cause her any displeasure, for she remarked that it seemed on my part an act of homage, devoting my service.