first refusal, stating that he meant to go abroad, and to travel for
some years in the East; that he should depart with a heart aching, but
not angry; and that he only begged a verbal assurance that she had
still some interest in his happiness. Could Miss Milbanke, as a well-
bred woman, refuse a courteous answer to such a message? She sent him
a verbal answer, which was merely kind and becoming, but which
signified no encouragement that he should renew his offer of marriage.

'After that message, he wrote to her a most interesting letter about
himself,--about his views, personal, moral, and religious,--to which
it would have been uncharitable not to have replied. The result was
an insensibly increasing correspondence, which ended in her being
devotedly attached to him. About that time, I occasionally saw Lord
Byron; and though I knew less of him than Mr. Moore, yet I suspect I
knew as much of him as Miss Milbanke then knew. At that time, he was
so pleasing, that, if I had had a daughter with ample fortune and
beauty, I should have trusted her in marriage with Lord Byron.

'Mr. Moore at that period evidently understood Lord Byron better than
either his future bride or myself; but this speaks more for Moore's
shrewdness than for Byron's ingenuousness of character.

'It is more for Lord Byron's sake than for his widow's that I resort
not to a more special examination of Mr. Moore's misconceptions. The
subject would lead me insensibly into hateful disclosures against poor
Lord Byron, who is more unfortunate in his rash defenders than in his
reluctant accusers. Happily, his own candour turns our hostility from
himself against his defenders. It was only in wayward and bitter
remarks that he misrepresented Lady Byron. He would have defended
himself irresistibly if Mr. Moore had left only his acknowledging