There is something so sad in the thought of being deserted and left by one’s friends under any circumstances, that I cannot express how much this intelligence affected me.  It seemed, too, like the last stroke of bad news filling up the full measure, that I was to be suddenly deprived of the society of the very few friends about me, just as I stood most in need of them.

Whether or not Miss Bingham noticed my embarrassment, I cannot say; but certainly she seemed not displeased, and there was in the half-encouraging tone of her manner something which led me to suspect that she was not dissatisfied with the impression her news seemed to produce upon me.

Without at all alluding to my own improved fortune, or to the events of the preceding night, I began to talk over the coming journey, and expressed my sincere regret that, having lost my passport under circumstances which might create some delay in retrieving it, I could not join their party as I should otherwise have done.

Miss Bingham heard this speech with rather more emotion than so simple a declaration was calculated to produce; and, while she threw down her eyes beneath their long dark lashes, and coloured slightly, asked—­

“And did you really wish to come with us?”

“Undoubtedly,” said I.

“And is there no other objection than the passport?”

“None whatever,” said I, warming as I spoke, for the interest she appeared to take in me completely upset all my calculations, besides that I had never seen her looking so handsome, and that, as the French wisely remark, “vaut toujours quelque chose.”

“Oh, then, pray come with us, which you can do, for mamma has just got her passport for her nephew along with her own; and as we really don’t want him, nor he us, we shall both be better pleased to be free of each other, and you can easily afterwards have your own forwarded to Baden by post.”

“Ah, but,” said I, “how shall I be certain, if I take so flattering an offer, that you will forgive me for filling up the place of the dear cousin; for, if I conjecture aright, it is ‘Le Cher Edouard’ that purposes to be your companion.”

“Yes, you have guessed quite correctly; but you must not tax me with inconsistency, but really I have grown quite tired of my poor cousin, since I saw him last night.”

“And you used to admire him prodigiously.”

“Well, well, that is all true, but I do so no longer.”

“Eh! perche,” said I, looking cunningly in her eye.

“For reasons that Mr. Lorrequer shall never know if he has to ask them,” said the poor girl, covering her eyes with her hands, and sobbing bitterly.

What I thought, said, or did upon this occasion, with all my most sincere desire to make a “clean breast of it in these confessions,” I know not; but this I do know, that two hours after, I found myself still sitting upon the sofa beside Miss Bingham, whom I had been calling Emily all the while, and talking more of personal matters and my own circumstances than is ever safe or prudent for a young man to do with any lady under the age of his mother.