Such is the story, as one gets it, through the Countess and through Moore, from Byron himself; but we also get a side glimpse at it in a letter, recently published,[2] from Mrs. Byron to Hanson, the family solicitor. From this we gather that Byron, in order to make love, had absented himself from school; that Drury had inquired the reason of his absence; and that his mother was making strenuous, but unavailing, efforts to induce him to return. Nothing was the matter with him but love--"desperate love, the _worst_ of all _maladies_ in my opinion." He had hardly been to see his mother at all, but had been spending all his time at Annesley. "It is the last of all connexions," she added, "that I should wish to take place"; and she begged Mr. Hanson to make arrangements for her son to spend his next holidays elsewhere. Expense was no object; and it would suit her very well if Dr. Drury could be induced to detain him at Harrow. And Byron himself, meanwhile, was writing to his mother, alternately using lofty language about his right to choose his own friends, and pleading for one more day in order that he might take leave. He took it; but there is more than one version of the story. "Do you think," he overheard Mary Chaworth say to her maid, "that I could care anything for that lame boy?" And, having heard that, "he instantly darted out of the house, and, scarcely knowing whither he ran, never stopped till he found himself at Newstead." That is what Moore tells us; but the picture drawn in "The Dream,"--the most obviously and deliberately autobiographical of Byron's poems--is different. "She loved," he writes: "_Another: even now she loved another, And on the summit of that hill she stood Looking afar as if her lover's steed Kept pace with her expectancy, and flew._" She was waiting, that is to say, for Squire Musters to ride up the lane, while listening to Byron's declaration. That is the first picture; and then there follows the picture of the boy who "within an antique oratory stood," and to whom, presently, "the lady of his love re-entered": "_She was serene and smiling then, and yet She knew she was by him beloved--she knew, For quickly comes such knowledge, that his heart Was darkened with her shadow, and she saw That he was wretched, but she saw not all. He rose, and with a cold and gentle grasp He took her hand; a moment o'er his face A tablet of unutterable thoughts Was traced, and then it faded, as it came; He dropped the hand he held, and with slow steps Retired, but not as bidding her adieu, For they did part with mutual smiles; he passed From out the massy gate of that old Hall, And mounting on his steed he went his way; And ne'er repassed that hoary threshold more._"