"Dearest Zoé, "I am guilty of a long pause, and you are very angry; but you little know how my time is taken up. We have had several rowing matches, and I have been taking lessons from some of the _fancy_. Every day confirms the disagreeable conviction that I am half a century behind my contemporaries. What a cursed folly it is not to send boys to a public school! If I had been despatched to Eton instead of having been tied to my mother's apron-string all my days, I should not have everything to learn, as is my case at present. However, they say I am an apt scholar, and I do not despair of being soon up with the best of them here. "The little Marquess did not return till ten days ago. He received me quite like a brother, and we are a great deal together. He says he should not know me again, I have lost so much of the '_country bumpkin_' already. By the bye, we had a very pleasant party at his rooms the other night, but you cannot imagine how foolish I was made to look, about you. "I wish to heaven you had a name, for it is quite confounding to be asked at every turn, 'Who is she?' without being able to get rid of farther inquiry, by such a simple answer as can be given of every body except yourself from the royal family down to one's washerwoman. If I knew the name of the gipsey from whom my good papa and mamma ran away with you, I would call you after her; but I assure you that rather than encounter another such attack as I have endured in your service, I shall christen you, so prepare for being called Miss Hazlemoor, or Moor, if you like the monosyllable better, on the principle of the old song which Rachael sings, with a line in it something like this following: "For the least said, the sooner amended;" and amended it will all be one of these days, when I marry you. It will little signify when you are my wife--_perchance_ a titled one--what name you were known by before. Do not be cast down, my pretty Zo. I have promised, you know, to raise you from your present obscurity, and I can tell you, it is no small proof of my love, that I do not mean to forget my engagement; but I must tell you how they fell upon me the other night. "Turnstock gave champagne, and some five or six assembled by appointment at his rooms. We were going on very gaily, when my evil genius put it into the Marquess's head to turn shortly round, and say to me, 'Hartland, who the devil is that fair enchantress whom your mother has got _cooped_ up at Henbury; not your _sister_, I presume, eh?' "Unprepared for the question, I was completely at a nonplus, and losing all presence of mind, I hummed, and hawed, and stammered out--Zorilda. "'A fine romantic appellation truly,' said his Lordship; 'Donna Zorilda! but to what noble house does she belong?'