not think so.

"Neither is it, indeed, probable," says he, "had even her affections
been disengaged, that Lord Byron would, at this time, have been selected
as the object of them. A seniority of two years gives to a girl, 'on the
eve of womanhood,' an advance into life with which the boy keeps no
proportionate pace. Miss Chaworth looked upon Byron as a mere schoolboy.
His manners, too, were not yet formed, and his great beauty was still in
its promise and not developed."

Galt is still more explicit in the same sense. Washington Irving appears
to think the contrary:--

"Was this love returned?" says he. "Byron sometimes speaks as if it had
been; at other times he says, on the contrary, that she never gave him
reason to believe so. It is, however, probable, that at the commencement
her heart experienced at least fluctuations of feeling: she was at a
dangerous age. Though a child in years, Lord Byron was already a man in
intelligence, a poet in imagination, and possessed of great beauty."

This opinion is the most probable. We may add that every thing must have
contributed to keep up his illusion. Miss Chaworth gave him her
portrait, her hair, and a ring. Mrs. Chaworth, the governess, all the
family of the young heiress liked him so much, that after his death,
when Washington Irving visited Annesley, he found proofs of this
affection in the welcome given to, and the emotion caused even by the
presence of a dog that had belonged to Lord Byron. This beautiful waking
dream lasted, however, only the space of a dream in sleep.

At the expiration of his six weeks' holidays, young Byron returned to
Harrow.

While he was cherishing the sacred flame with his purest energies of
soul, what did she? She had forgotten him! The impression made on her
heart by the schoolboy's love could not withstand the test of absence.
She gave her heart to another.

"I thought myself a man," says he; "I was in earnest, she was fickle."

It was natural, however. She had arrived at the age when girls become
women, and leave their childish loves behind them.

While young Byron was pursuing his studies, Miss Chaworth mixed in
society. She met with a young man, named Musters, remarkable for his
handsome person, and whose property lay contiguous to her own.

She had perceived him one day from her terrace, galloping toward the
park followed by his hounds, the horn sounding in front, and he leading
a fox hunt; she had been struck with his manly be