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“Fair lady, you are not married?”

“No, sir,” replied Miss Baffin, with some indignation.

“Permit me, then, to offer you my hand.”

“What!” exclaimed Miss Baffin, becoming angry.

“I love you. Will you be mine?” said Sir Agravaine, falling upon one knee and trying to take her hand.

Miss Baffin boxed his ear with a degree of violence.

Rising with a rueful countenance, he said,—

“Am I to understand, then, that you decline the offer?”

Miss Baffin, without replying, walked away from him and joined her father.

Sir Dinadan was asking the Hermit for a few simples with which to relieve the suffering of his noble mother.

“I judge, from what you say,” remarked the Professor, “that the Baroness is afflicted with lumbago. The Hermit’s remedies, I fear, will be ineffectual. Permit me to recommend you to iron her noble back, and to apply a porous plaster.”

Sir Dinadan wished to have the process more clearly explained. The Professor unfolded the matter in detail, and said,—

“I have some plasters in my trunk, down there upon the beach.”