the truth, but felt exceedingly averse to its being done by Lady Byron
herself during her own lifetime, when she personally would be subject
to the comments and misconceptions of motives which would certainly
follow such a communication.

'Your sister,

'M. F. PERKINS.'

I am now about to complete the account of my conversation with Lady
Byron; but as the credibility of a history depends greatly on the
character of its narrator, and as especial pains have been taken to
destroy the belief in this story by representing it to be the wanderings
of a broken-down mind in a state of dotage and mental hallucination, I
shall preface the narrative with some account of Lady Byron as she was
during the time of our mutual acquaintance and friendship.

This account may, perhaps, be deemed superfluous in England, where so
many knew her; but in America, where, from Maine to California, her
character has been discussed and traduced, it is of importance to give
interested thousands an opportunity of learning what kind of a woman Lady
Byron was.

Her character as given by Lord Byron in his Journal, after her first
refusal of him, is this:--

'She is a very superior woman, and very little spoiled; which is
strange in an heiress, a girl of twenty, a peeress that is to be in
her own right, an only child, and a savante, who has always had her
own way. She is a poetess, a mathematician, a metaphysician; yet,