she passed, weeping on my bosom, and I much doubt if the image of Grace has been absent from her waking thoughts a single minute, at any one time, since we first laid your sister’s head in the coffin.  Of you she does not speak often, but, when she does, it is ever in the kindest and most solicitous manner; calling you ‘Miles,’ ‘poor Miles,’ or ’dear Miles,’ with all that sisterly frankness and affection you have known in her from childhood.”  The old gentleman had underscored the “sisterly” himself.

To my delight and surprise, there was a long, very long, letter from Lucy, too!  How it happened that I did not recognise her pretty, delicate, lady-like handwriting, is more than I can say; but the direction had been overlooked in the confusion of receiving so many letters together.  That direction, too, gave me pleasure.  It was to “Miles Wallingford, Esquire;” whereas the three others were addressed to “Capt.  Miles Wallingford, ship Dawn, New York.”  Now a ship-master is no more entitled, in strict usage, to be called a “captain,” than he is to be called an “esquire.”  Your man-of-war officer is the only true captain; a ‘master’ being nothing but a ‘master.’  Then, no American is entitled to be called an ‘esquire,’ which is the correlative of “knight,” and is a title properly prohibited by the constitution, though most people imagine that a magistrate is an “esquire” ex officio.  He is an “esquire” as a member of congress is an “honourable,” by assumption, and not of right; and I wish the country had sufficient self-respect to be consistent with itself.  What should we think of Mark Anthony, Esquire? or of ’Squire Lucius Junius Brutus? or His Excellency Julius Caesar, Esquire?[4] Nevertheless, “esquire” is an appellation that is now universally given to a gentleman, who, in truth, is the only man in this country that, has any right to it at all, and he only by courtesy.  Lucy had felt this distinction, and I was grateful for the delicacy and tact with which she had dropped the “captain,” and put in the “esquire.”  To me it seemed to say that she recognised me as one of her own class, let Rupert, and his light associates, think of me as they might.  Lucy never departed a hair’s breadth from the strictly proper, in all matters of this sort, something having been obtained from education, but far more from the inscrutable gifts of nature.

  [Footnote 4:  A few years since, the writer saw a marriage announced in a
  coloured paper, which read, “Married, by the Rev. Julius
  Caesar.--Washington, to Miss--------.”]

As for the letter itself, it is too long to copy; yet I scarce know how to describe it.  Full of heart it was, of course, for the dear girl was all heart; and it was replete with her truth and nature.  The only thing in it that did not give me entire satisfaction, was a request not to come again to Clawbonny, until my return from Europe.  “Time,” she added, “will lessen the pain of such a visit;