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 Cæsar, 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 Cæsar.--Washington, to Miss--------."]