"She wore a turban that night to please me, and she looks better in it than anything else; for it strikes almost everybody that sees her, how like the form and expression of her face are to Catalani's, and a turban is the thing for that sort of character." It is as well to remember that this prudent little dame was then aged eighteen--in spite of her two babies; and Moore, though getting up in years by comparison, was youthful enough in spirits. "You would have laughed to see Bessy and me going to dinner," he writes to his mother. "We found in the middle of our walk, that we were near half an hour too early, so we set to practising country dances in the middle of a retired green lane, till the time was expired." [1] From this, however, deduction was made for part of the payments to Sir John Stevenson, and afterwards to Henry Bishop. Moore's method (if it could be called a method) was to draw on Power for what he wanted; and these deductions amounted to much more than he supposed. The natural result was a quarrel when in the long run accounts were made up. CHAPTER III _LALLA ROOKH_ There was scarcely a period in Moore's life when prospects looked brighter for him than just after his settlement at Mayfield Cottage. He had clearly decided on living in seclusion till he should have finished the important work on which he had been engaged already, off and on, during a full year. In the summer of 1812, enough of _Lalla Rookh_ existed to be shown to Rogers, when he and Moore took a tour together through the Peak country; and Rogers's criticism left the poet rather out of conceit with his work. Next year found him again dispirited, for the _Giaour_ had appeared, and Moore writes:-- "Never was anything more unlucky for me than Byron's invasion of this region, which, when I entered it, was yet untrodden, and whose chief charm consisted in the gloss and novelty of its features; but it will now be overrun with clumsy adventurers, and, when I make my appearance, instead of being a leader, as I looked to be, I must dwindle into a humble follower--a Byronian. This is disheartening, and I sometimes doubt whether I shall publish it at all; though at the same time, if I may trust my own judgment, I never wrote so well before."