Read it through once

Earlier in this book we told how Byron had abstained from dedicating _Childe Harold_ to his friend William Harness for fear it might injure the latter’s reputation. It was a scruple which Miss Mitford shared with the great poet, otherwise it would have given her the keenest pleasure thus publicly to associate her old friend and companion with one of her dramatic works. Being now assured that her prose was worthy as an offering, she proposed that her new book, the _Country Stories_, should go forth with William Harness’s name on the Dedication page. She wrote him on the subject:—