senior. To call it a passion would be too much, but this child, denied of
love at home, clung to Mary Duff, to whom he went in confession with all
his childish tales of woe. When his mother proposed to leave Aberdeen, now
that fortune had smiled, the anguish of the boy at thought of leaving his
"first love" nearly caused him a fit of sickness.

And all this wealth of love was met with jeers and loud laughter, save by
Mary Duff. The vibrating sensitiveness of such a child, with such a
mother, must have caused a misery we can only guess.

"Your mother is a fool," said a boy to Byron at college some years later.

"I know it," was the melancholy answer, as the brown eyes filled with
tears.

When money came, Mrs. Byron's first move was to take the lad to Nottingham
and place him in charge of a surgical quack, who proposed, for a price, to
make the lame foot just as good as the other, if not better. To this
effect wooden clamps were placed on the foot and screwed down by
thumbscrews, causing a torture that would have been unbearable to many.

No benefit was experienced from the treatment, although it was continued
by another physician at London soon after. A schoolfellow of Byron's
visited him in his room when his foot was encased in a wooden compress.
The visitor noted the white face, and the beads of anguish on the boy's
forehead, and at last said, "I know you are suffering awfully!"

"You will never hear me say so," was the grim reply.

The emphasis placed on Byron's lameness has been altogether overdone. In