60). Among her mother's friends were Mrs. Siddons, Joanna
Baillie, and Maria Edgeworth. The latter, writing, May, 1813, to Miss
Ruxton, says, "Lady Milbanke is very agreeable, and has a charming,
well-informed daughter." With all her personal charms, virtues, and
mental gifts, she shows, in many of her letters, a precision, formality,
and self-complacency, which suggest the female pedant. Byron says of her
that "she was governed by what she called fixed rules and principles,
squared mathematically" (Medwin, p. 60); at one time he used to speak of
her as his "Princess of Parallelograms," and at a later period he called
her his "Mathematical Medea."
Before Miss Milbanke met Byron, she had a lover in Augustus Foster, son
of Lady Elizabeth Foster, afterwards Duchess of Devonshire. The duchess,
writing to her son, February 29, 1812, says that Mrs. George Lamb (?)
would sound Miss Milbanke as to her feelings:
"Caro means to see 'la bella' Annabelle before she writes to you
... I shall almost hate her if she is blind to the merits of one who
would make her so happy"
('The Two Duchesses', p. 358). Apparently Mr. Foster's love was not
returned.
"She persists in saying," writes the duchess, May 4, 1812 ('ibid'., p.
362), "that she never suspected your attachment to her; but she is so
odd a girl that, though she has for some time rather liked another,
she has decidedly refused them, because she thinks she ought to marry
a person with a good fortune; and this is partly, I believe, from
generosity to her parents, and partly owning that fortune is an object
to herself for happiness.
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