, with the inscription:
"To Augusta, my dearest sister, and my best friend, who has ever loved me much better than I deserved, this volume is presented by her father's son and most affectionate brother."
She was the god-mother of Byron's daughter Augusta Ada, born December 10, 1815. In January, 1816, when Lady Byron was still with her husband, she writes of and to Mrs. Leigh:
"In this at least, I am 'truth itself,' when I say that, whatever the situation may be, there is no one whose society is dearer to me, or can contribute more to my happiness."
Lady Byron left Byron on January 15, 1816. Writing to Mrs. Leigh from Kirby Mallory, she speaks of her as her "best comforter," notices her absolute unselfishness, and says that Augusta's presence in Byron's house in Piccadilly is her "great comfort" (Lady Byron's letters to Mrs. Leigh, January 16 and January 23, 1816, quoted in the
Quarterly Review
for October, 1869, p. 414). Through Mrs. Leigh passed many communications between Byron and Lady Byron after the separation. To her, Byron, in 1816 and 1817, wrote the two sets of "Stanzas to Augusta," the "Epistle to Augusta," and the Journal of his journey through the Alps, "which contains all the germs of
Manfred
(letter to Murray, August, 1817). She was in his thoughts on the Rhine, and in the third canto of
Childe Harold