already in our minds a very complete portrait of Dorothy's neighbour.

The old ballad that Dorothy encloses to her lover has not been preserved
with her letter. If it is older than the ballad of "The Lord of Lorne,"
it must have been composed before Henry VIII.'s reign; for Edward
Guilpin, in his _Skialethia_ [1598], speaks of

Th' olde ballad of the Lord of Lorne,
Whose last line in King Harrie's day was borne.

"The Lord of Learne" (this was the old spelling) may be found in Bishop
Percy's well-known collection of Ballads and Romances.


SIR,--You must pardon me, I could not burn your other letter for my
life; I was so pleased to see I had so much to read, and so sorry I had
done so soon, that I resolved to begin them again, and had like to have
lost my dinner by it. I know not what humour you were in when you writ
it; but Mr. Arbry's prophecy and the falling down of the form did a
little discompose my gravity. But I quickly recovered myself with
thinking that you deserved to be chid for going where you knew you must
of necessity lose your time. In earnest, I had a little scruple when I
went with you thither, and but that I was assured it was too late to go
any whither else, and believed it better to hear an ill sermon than
none, I think I should have missed his _Belles remarques_. You had
repented you, I hope, of that and all other your faults before you
thought of dying.

What a satisfaction you had found out to make me for the injuries you
say you have done me! And yet I cannot tell neither (though 'tis not the