"You are not a maid," she said; "you have been a wife and are now a widow; you have a son who will be in danger of being poisoned before he has attained his majority; he will marry twice, and the second time it will be with a foreigner." We shall see directly that, if he was not exactly poisoned, he was in fear of being so, and it is well known that, if he did not marry a second time, at all events he found a beautiful Venetian lady of rank who made up to him for his first marriage, save in the recollection of its unhappiness. From Dr. Glennie's tutelage, Byron proceeded to Harrow. Dr. Drury was then headmaster, and he was the first to detect some few faint glimpses of what the poet would one day become. "Here I made my first verses," said Byron, "they were received but coldly; but, in revenge, I fought glorious battles at Harrow: I only lost one fight out of every seven!" It was at Harrow that he made the acquaintance of Sir Robert Peel, and the way in which they became fast friends gives some idea of the character of Byron. One of their comrades, taller and stronger than they, with whom consequently they had no dealings, was discovered by Byron thrashing poor Peel. Byron came up and said-- "How many more blows do you mean to give Robert?" "What business is it of yours?" retorted the combatant. "Why do you ask such a question?" "Because, if you please, executioner, I will take half the blows you intend for him and will return them to you later, you understand, when I am bigger." After Harrow, the young man went to finish his education at the University of Cambridge; but he was ever impatient of regular study, just as he was of ordinary modes of enjoyment: the only thing he learnt was how to swim; his only recreation was the training of a bear. In 1806, when he was eighteen, he joined his mother at Newstead. The relations between mother and son were not at all of a tender nature; on the contrary, the two were nearly always quarrelling. One of these quarrels even went so far one day that each in turn called at a chemist's, within five minutes of one another, to inquire if he had sold the other poison, and, on being told not, begged him not to do so. Besides little Mary Duff, with whom he fell in love when he was nine, Byron conceived a passion when he was twelve for his cousin, Miss Parker, for whom he composed his first verses. They were lost, and the poet never remembered what they were. Miss Parker died, and gave place to Miss Chaworth, the daughter of the man whom old Lord Byron had killed. But this time it was the real passion of budding manhood, tender and deep, and it left its mark for the rest of his life. Miss Chaworth was beautiful, charming in manner and wealthy.