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 256 Claire thinks that she shall ever interfere with the child's morals or education, she mistakes; she never shall. The girl shall be a Christian, and a married woman, if possible."

On these two points Byron had set his heart. The Countess Guiccioli—kindly creature—assures us that "his dearest paternal care was the religious training to be given to his natural daughter, Allegra;" and while the words of this sweet advocate weigh little in the scale, they are in some degree confirmed by the poet's conduct and correspondence. When he felt the growing insecurity of his position in Ravenna, he determined to place the child at a convent school twelve miles away, and he explained very clearly and concisely to all whom it might concern his reasons for the step. "Allegra is now four years old complete," he wrote to Mr. Hoppner in April, 1821; "and as she is quite above the control of the servants, and as a man living without any woman at the head of his house cannot much attend to a nursery, I had no resource but to place her for a time (at a high pension too) in the convent of Bagnacavallo (twelve miles off), where the air