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.