parties. The acquaintance of Fanny, like
that of Mr. Clare, contributed to ripen the immature talents of Mary.

The situation in which Mary was introduced to her, bore a resemblance to
the first interview of Werter with Charlotte. She was conducted to the
door of a small house, but furnished with peculiar neatness and
propriety. The first object that caught her sight, was a young woman of
a slender and elegant form, and eighteen years of age, busily employed
in feeding and managing some children, born of the same parents, but
considerably inferior to her in age. The impression Mary received from
this spectacle was indelible; and, before the interview was concluded,
she had taken, in her heart, the vows of an eternal friendship.

Fanny was a young woman of extraordinary accomplishments. She sung and
played with taste. She drew with exquisite fidelity and neatness; and,
by the employment of this talent, for some time maintained her father,
mother, and family, but ultimately ruined her health by her
extraordinary exertions. She read and wrote with considerable
application; and the same ideas of minute and delicate propriety
followed her in these, as in her other occupations.

Mary, a wild, but animated and aspiring girl of sixteen, contemplated
Fanny, in the first instance, with sentiments of inferiority and
reverence. Though they were much together, yet, the distance of their
habitation being considerable, they supplied the want of mere frequent
interviews by an assiduous correspondence. Mary found Fanny's letters
better spelt and better indited than her own, and felt herself abashed.
She had hitherto paid but a superficial attention to literature. She had
read, to gratify the ardour of an inextinguishable thirst of knowledge;
but she had not thought of writing as an art. Her ambition to excel was
now awakened, and she applied herself with passion and earnestness.
Fanny undertook to be her instructor; and, so far as related to accuracy
and method, her lessons were given with considerable skill.

It has already been mentioned that, in the spring of the year 1776, Mr.
Wollstonecraft quitted his situation at Hoxton, and returned to his
former agricultural pursuits. The situation upon which he now fixed was
in Wales, a circumstance that was felt as a severe blow to Mary's
darling spirit of friendship. The principal acquaintance of the
Wollstonecrafts in this retirement, was the family of a Mr. Allen, two
of whose daughters