afterward Mrs. Augusta Leigh.

Back to England went Mad Jack Byron, broken-hearted, bearing in his arms
the baby girl. Kind kinsmen, ready to forgive, cared for the child. Mad
Jack didn't remain broken-hearted long--what would you expect from a man?
He sought sympathy among several discreet dames, and in two years we find
him safely and legally married to Catherine Gordon. Scotch, and heiress to
twenty-five thousand pounds. On the occasion of the wedding, Jack informed
a friend that the fact of the lady's being Scotch was forgiven in view of
the dowry. Most of this fortune went into a rat-hole to help pay the debts
of the Mad Jack.

One child was born to this ill-assorted pair--a boy who was destined to
write his name large on history's page. But such a pedigree! No wonder
the youth once wrote to Augusta, his half-sister, expressing a covetous
appreciation of her parentage, even with its bar sinister. In passing, it
is well to note the sunshine of this love of brother and sister, which
continued during life--confidential, earnest, tender, frank. In their best
moods they were both lofty souls, and their mutuality was cemented in a
contempt for the man who was their sire. This fine brotherly and sisterly
affection comes close to us when we remember that it was our own Harriet
Beecher Stowe, with sympathies worn to the quick through much brooding
over the wrongs of a race in bondage, who rushed into print with a
scandalous accusation concerning this same sweet affection of brother for
sister. The charge was brought on no better foundation than some old-woman
gossip held over the hyson when it was red, and moved itself aright--all
vouchsafed to Mrs. Stowe by the widow of Byron in Eighteen Hundred
Fifty-six. If a woman as good at heart as Harriet Beecher Stowe was
deceived, why should we blame humanity for biting at a hook that is not
baited?