Meantime Lady Caroline had formed a friendship with Lady Morgan and entered into correspondence with her when either was away from London. The details of the Byron affair are given in these letters, but they are interesting and amusing on other counts. In one Lady Caroline asks that the curious stories that get about as to her actions shall be contradicted, and proceeds to explain them away with great plausibility. In another she refers to a governess whose chief recommendation is that “she is attached to an old mathematician in Russia--a Platonic attachment,” and they are not to marry or meet for ten years. “Now,” Lady Caroline continues, “as every one must, will, and should fall in love, it is no bad thing that she should have a happy, Platonic, romantic attachment to an old, mad mathematician several thousand miles off. It will keep her steady.” And the young lady was ready for eighty guineas a year to dedicate all her time to the children after ten in the morning to six at night, would also play on the harp of an evening, read to the lady if she were ill, or write her letters for her. Her spelling and grammar seem to have been somewhat wanting, but before the matter was concluded she caught a bad cold, and Lady Caroline fears her would-be mistress will not care to wait till she is recovered. She again repeats that the girl has every good quality under the sun, but “she has a cold and cough, and is in love--I cannot help it; can you?” Another time she confesses to Lady Morgan, “The loss of what one adores affects the mind and heart; but I have resigned myself to it, and God knows I am satisfied with all I have and have had. My husband has been to me as a guardian angel. I love him most dearly.” But by 1825 things had come to such a pass that separation was inevitable. Everything was done to make the conditions as little irksome as possible to Lady Caroline. It was arranged that she should spend most of her time at Brocket with her old father-in-law, Lord Melbourne. She corresponded with her husband and retained her affection for him, such as it was. Soon after the separation became a fact she sent Lamb these verses: “Loved one! No tear is in my eye, Though pangs my bosom thrill, For I have learned when others sigh To suffer and be still. Passion and pride and flatt’ry strove, They made a wreck of me, But oh! I never ceased to love, I never loved but thee. My heart is with our early dream, And still thy influence knows, Still seeks thy shadow on the stream Of memory as it flows: Still hangs o’er all the records bright Of moments brighter still, Ere love withdrew his starry light, Ere thou hadst suffered ill. ’Tis vain! ’tis vain! no human will Can bid that time return; There’s not a light on earth can fill Again love’s darkened urn. ’Tis vain--upon my heart, my brow, Broods grief no words can tell, But grief itself more idle now-- Loved one, fare thee well.”