As for social position, there could be by such marriage no gain to him, for whom already the doors of England were flung wide open. Did he seek the reposeful dignity of a home? There may have been such fancies drifting by starts through his mind; but what crude fancies they must have been with a man who had scarcely lived at peace with his own mother, and whose only notion of enjoyment in the house of his ancestors was in the transport to Newstead of a roistering company of boon companions--followed by such boisterous revels there, and such unearthly din and ghostly frolics, as astounded the neighborhood! The truth is, he marched into that noose of matrimony as he would have ordered a new suit from his tailor. When this whim had first seized him, he had written off formal proposals to Miss Milbanke--whom he knew at that time only slightly; and she, with very proper prudence, was non-committal in her reply--though suggesting friendly correspondence. In his journal of a little later date we have this entry: “November 30, 1813 [some fourteen months before the marriage]. Yesterday a very pretty letter from Annabella [the full name was Anna Isabella], which I answered. What an odd situation and friendship is ours! Without one spark of love on either side. She is a very superior woman, and very little spoiled … a girl of twenty, an only child and a _savante_, who has always had her own way.” This evidently does not promise a very ardent correspondence. Nay, it is quite possible that the quiet reserve he encounters here, does offer a refreshing contrast to the heated gush of which he is the subject in that Babel of London; maybe, too, there is something in the reserve and the assured dignity which reminds him of that earlier idol of his worship--Miss Chaworth of Annesley. However, three months after this last allusion to Miss Milbanke, we have another entry in his journal, running thus: “January 16, 1814. A wife would be my salvation. I am getting rather into an admiration for C----, youngest sister of F----. [This is not Miss Milbanke--observe.] That she won’t love me is very probable, nor shall I love her. The business would probably be arranged between the papa and me.” Perhaps it was in allusion to this new caprice that he writes to Moore, a few months later: “Had Lady ---- appeared to wish it, or even not to oppose it, I would have gone on, and very possibly married, with the same indifference which has frozen over the Black Sea of almost all my passions.… Obstacles the slightest even, stop me.” (_Moore’s Byron_, p. 255.) And it is in face of some such obstacle, lifting suddenly, that he flashes up, and over, into new proposals to Miss Milbanke; these are quietly accepted--very likely to his wonderment; for he says, in a quick ensuing letter to Moore: