cent bliss. It is probable that
nobody about her knew, any more than herself, how and why Lord Byron
offered to her a second time, till Moore published the facts in his
"Life" of the poet. The thrill of disgust which ran through every good
heart, on reading the story, made all sympathizers ask how she
could bear to learn how she had been treated in the confidences of
profligates. Perhaps she had known it long before, as her husband had
repeatedly tried his powers of terrifying and depressing her; but, at
all events, she could bear anything,--not only with courage and in
silence, but with calmness and inexhaustible mercy. According to Moore's
account, a friend of Byron's urged him to marry, as a remedy for the
melancholy restlessness and disorder of his life; "and, after much
discussion, he consented." The next proceedings were in character with
this "consent." Byron named Miss Milbanke: the friend objected, on the
grounds of her possession of learning and supposed want of fortune; and
Byron actually commissioned his adviser to propose for him to the lady
he did not prefer. She refused him; and then future proceedings were
determined by his friend's admiration of the letter he had got ready for
Miss Milbanke. It was such a pretty letter, it would be a pity not to
send it. So it was sent.

If she could have known, as she hung over that letter, what eyes had
read lines that should have been her own secret property, and as what
kind of alternative the letter had been prepared, what a different life
might hers have been! But she could not dream of being laid hold of as a
speculation in that style, and she was happy,--as women are for once in
their lives, and as she deserved to be. There was another alternative,
besides that of two ladies to be weighed in the balance. Byron was
longing to go abroad again, and he would have preferred that to
marrying; but the importunity of his friends decided him for marriage.
In a short time, and for a short time, Miss Milbanke's influence was too
strong for his wayward nature and his pernicious friends to resist. His
heart was touched, his mind was soothed, and he thought better of women,
and perhaps of the whole human race, than he had ever done before. He
wrote to Moore, who owned he had "never liked her," and who boded evil
things from the marriage, that she was so good that he wished he was
better,--that he had been quite mistaken in supposing her of "a very
cold disposition." These gen