My affair was again in prime condition. So, throwing Justine over the edge of the bed I was into her in a moment. "Ah! ah! oh! Pray don't, my Lady!" I called out almost in a scream, as one, two, three slashing cuts of a heavy birch rod warmed my bottom behind. Justine held me to herself like a vice and I could hear the Countess laugh as she plied the merciless rod, till presently such a beautiful glowing sensation, added to an extraordinary bursting stiffness in my piston-rod, drowned all sense of pain as I shot such a profuse emission into my sweetheart that I almost fainted from excess of emotion.

And here it was my intention to draw the veil, or more correctly speaking, to drop the curtain and to balk the necessity of my friends by giving no further record of the proceedings of that delicious night; but I think in common gratitude to my beautiful Lady Pomeroy I ought to acknowledge that I was in a state of exquisite bliss and I may say without vanity that my lovely companion owned to something very like that enviable state herself.

We were both a little too happy, for when Justine came to call me in the morning I was almost exhausted. And the faithful girl could only rouse me by insisting that her mistress was faint, that I must leave the room while she administered restoratives.

chapter IV.

That I have not ere this alluded to the Earl of Pomeroy, by whom I was specially engaged and to whom my services were due as well as to the Countess, must be attributed to the fact that almost immediately on my entering upon my duties, as recorded in this veracious narrative, His Lordship had joined a shooting-party at the Duke of Dashwood's, with whom the Earl was particularly intimate. Indeed, common report went so far as to say that His Lordship was still more intimate with the Duchess and that his Grace seemed to be perfectly indifferent on the subject.