no tidings of him nor of
the ship in which he had sailed. It was supposed the vessel had been
wrecked, and that all on board had perished. The reproaches of the
girl, the upbraidings of her own conscience, and the loss of her
child, crazed the old lady's mind. Her only pursuit was to turn over
the gazettes for news. Hope at length left her: she did not live long,
and continued her old occupation after death."

The other story runs thus:

"Two Florentine lovers, who had been attached to each other almost
from childhood, made a vow of eternal fidelity. Mina was the name of
the lady; her husband's I forget, but it is not material. They
parted. He had been some time absent with his regiment, when, as his
disconsolate lady was sitting alone in her chamber, she distinctly
heard the well-known sound of his footsteps, and, starting up, beheld
not her husband, but his spectre, with a deep ghastly wound across his
forehead. She swooned with horror. When she recovered, the ghost told
her that in future his visits should be announced by a passing bell,
and the words distinctly whispered, 'Mina, I am here!' Their
interviews became frequent, till the woman fancied herself as much in
love with the ghost as she had been with the man. But it was soon to
prove otherwise. One fatal night she went to a ball. She danced, and,
what was worse, her partner was a young Florentine, so much the
counterpart of her lover, that she became estranged from the ghost.
Whilst the young gallant conducted her in the waltz, and her ear drank
in the music of his voice and words, a passing bell tolled. She had
been accustomed to the sound till it hardly excited her attention,
and, now lost in the attractions of her fascinating partner, she
heard, but regarded it not. A second peal!--she listened not to its
warnings. A third time the bell, with its deep and iron tongue,
startled the assembled company, and silenced the music. Mina turned
her eyes from her partner, and saw, reflected in the mirror, a form, a
shadow, a spectre: it was her husband. He was standing between her and
the young Florentine, and whispered, in a solemn and melancholy tone,
the accustomed accents, 'Mina, I am here!' She instantly fell down
dead. The two ghosts walked out of the room arm in arm."

Byron believed that the quality of mind descended from sire to son,
and contended that any passion might be worn out of a family by
skilful culture. To his uncle, who was very superstitious, an