myself your friend, neither you nor your father gave me any hint
whatever of your going to Court. I know very well why you did not; and I
shall have a little discourse to make to your father upon the matter, at
the proper time. But for all that I had a right to be told. If you were
to go, I might at least have got you better protection in the beginning
than that of the--the--well--of Her Grace of Portsmouth.

"Now all that was the cause of the very small offence that I committed
against you myself--that of forcing my way into your lodgings. For that
I offer my apologies--not for the fact, but for the manner of it. And
even that apology is not very deep: I shall presently tell you why.

"The next of your offences to me was that open defiance which you
shewed, and some of the words you addressed to me, both then and
afterwards. You have told me I was a coward, several times, under
various phrases, and twice, I think, _sans phrase_. Cousin; I am a great
many things I should not be; but I do not think I am a coward; at least
I have never been a coward in your presence. Again, you have told me
that I was very good at bullying. For that I thank God, and gladly plead
guilty. If a maid is bent on her own destruction, if nothing else will
serve she must be bullied out of it. Again, I thank God that I was there
to do it."

I looked at her out of the tail of my eye. Her head seemed to me to be a
little hung down; but she said nothing at all.

"The third offence of yours is the intolerable discourtesy you have
shewn to me all to-day--and before servants, too. I put myself to great
pains to get you out of that stinking hole called Whitehall; I risked
His Majesty's displeasure for the same purpose: I have been at your