I have a little album upstairs which Aunt Dora gave me on my eighth birthday; and the first picture in it is you, dressed in flannels, holding a bat, and looking very stern as captain of your eleven at Eton.

I used to stand in great awe of you then.

Do you remember telling me once that 'Zanoni' was a splendid book, and that I ought to read it ?" "Pshaw! No.

I must have been a young fool.

But it seems that I had the grace even then to desire your sympathy." "I assure you I read it most reverently down in Wiltshire, where Nelly kept a select library of fiction concealed underneath her mattress; and I believed every word of it.