"You have not yet thought, Mr. Ibbetson--you have not realized what life
may have in store for you if--if all you have said about your affection
for me is true. Oh, it is too terrible for me to think of, I know, that
you, scarcely more than a boy, should have to spend the rest of your
life in miserable confinement and unprofitable monotonous toil. But
there is _another_ side to that picture.

"Now listen to your old friend's story--poor little Mimsey's confession.
I will make it as short as I can.

"Do you remember when you first saw me, a sickly, plain, sad little
girl, at the avenue gate, twenty years ago?

"Le Pere Francois was killing a fowl--cutting its throat with a
clasp-knife--and the poor thing struggled frantically in his grasp as
its blood flowed into the gutter. A group of boys were looking on in
great glee, and all the while Pere Francois was gossiping with M. le
Cure, who didn't seem to mind in the least. I was fainting with pity and
horror. Suddenly you came out of the school opposite with Alfred and
Charlie Plunket, and saw it all, and in a fit of noble rage you called
Pere Francois a 'sacred pig of assassin'--which, as you know, is very
rude in French--and struck him as near his face as you could reach.

"Have you forgotten that? Ah, _I_ haven't! It was not an effectual deed,
perhaps, and certainly came too late to save the fowl. Besides, Pere
Francois struck you back again, and left some of the fowl's blood on
your cheek. It was a baptism! You became on the spot my hero--my angel
of light. Look at Gogo over there. Is he beautiful enough? That was
_you_, Mr. Ibbetson.