To Hanson on April 15, 1813: "I shall only be able to see you a few days in town, as I shall sail before the 20th of May." To Hanson on April 17, 1813: "I wish, if possible, the arrangement with Hoare to be made immediately, as I must set off forthwith." To John Murray on April 21, 1813: "Send in my account to Bennet Street, as I wish to settle it before sailing." To Hanson on June 3, 1813; "I am as determined as I have been for the last six months.... Everything is ordered and ready now. Do not trifle with me, for I am in very solid serious earnest.... I have made my choice, and go I will." To Hodgson on June 8, 1813: "I shall manage to see you somewhere before I sail, which will be next month." To John Murray on June 12, 1813: "Recollect that my lacquey returns in the Evening, and that I set out for Portsmouth to-morrow." To William Gifford on June 18, 1813: "As I do not sail quite so soon as Murray may have led you to expect (not till July), I trust I may have some chance of taking you by the hand before my departure." To Mrs. Leigh, in the same month: "If you knew _whom_ I had put off besides my journey, you would think me grown strangely fraternal." To Moore on July 8, 1813: "The Oxfords have sailed almost a fortnight, and my sister is in town, which is a great comfort." That is the skeleton of the romance. Such clothes as it is felt to need the imagination must provide. Byron's position seems to have been perilously near that of a "tame cat," though he might have preferred to call himself, then, as on a later occasion, a _cavaliere servente_. His excuse is that he was only twenty-five, and that a fascinating woman of forty can be very fascinating indeed, and very clever at getting her own way. Her attempt to annex Byron, though she was fifteen years his senior, may be viewed as her gambler's throw for happiness. She threw and lost--but she lost quietly. She resembled Lady Caroline in being romantic, but she differed from her in not being "obstreperous." There was no scandal for society to take note of, and the welkin never rang with her complaints, though she did walk about Rome displaying Byron's portrait at her girdle.