were, indeed, in the interval between Miss Milbanke's
refusal and acceptance of him, two or three other young women of rank
who, at different times, formed the subject of his matrimonial dreams.
In the society of one of these, whose family had long honoured me with
their friendship, he and I passed much of our time, during this and the
preceding spring; and it will be found that, in a subsequent part of his
correspondence, he represents me as having entertained an anxious wish
that he should so far cultivate my fair friend's favour as to give a
chance, at least, of matrimony being the result.

That I, more than once, expressed some such feeling is undoubtedly true.
Fully concurring with the opinion, not only of himself, but of others of
his friends, that in marriage lay his only chance of salvation from the
sort of perplexing attachments into which he was now constantly tempted,
I saw in none of those whom he admired with more legitimate views so
many requisites for the difficult task of winning him into fidelity and
happiness as in the lady in question. Combining beauty of the highest
order with a mind intelligent and ingenuous,--having just learning
enough to give refinement to her taste, and far too much taste to make
pretensions to learning,--with a patrician spirit proud as his own, but
showing it only in a delicate generosity of spirit, a feminine
high-mindedness, which would have led her to tolerate his defects in
consideration of his noble qualities and his glory, and even to
sacrifice silently some of her own happiness rather than violate the
responsibility in which she stood pledged to the world for his;--such
was, from long experience, my impression of the character of this lady;
and perceiving Lord Byron to be attracted by her more obvious claims to
admiration, I felt a pleasure no less in rendering justice to the still
rarer qualities which she possessed, than in endeavouring to raise my
noble friend's mind to the contemplation of a higher model of female
character than he had, unluckily for himself, been much in the habit of
studying.

To this extent do I confess myself to have been influenced by the sort
of feeling which he attributes to me. But in taking for granted (as it
will appear he did from one of his letters) that I entertained any very
decided or definite wishes on the subject, he gave me more credit for
seriousness in my suggestions than I deserved. If even the lady herself,
the unconscious obj