d longer than any she had hitherto
held. During these years there were occasional intermissions when both
sisters were out of work, and there were holiday seasons to be provided
for. To their father's house it was still impossible for them to go. Its
wretchedness was so great, it could no longer be called a home. Eliza,
soon to see it, found it unbearable. Edward, it appears, was willing to
give shelter to Everina; but this brother, of whom less mention is made
in the sisters' letters, was never a favorite, and residence with him was
an evil to be avoided. The one place, therefore, where they were sure of
a warm welcome was the humble lodging near Blackfriars' Bridge. Mary
fulfilled her promise of being a mother to them both. She stinted herself
that she might make their lot more endurable.

When Eliza went to begin her Welsh engagement at Upton Castle, she spent
a night on the way with her father. Her report of this visit opened a new
channel for Mary's benevolence. Mr. Wollstonecraft was then living at
Laugharne, where he had taken his family many years before, and where his
daughters had made several very good friends. But Eliza, as she lamented
to Everina, went sadly from one old beloved haunt to another, without
meeting an eye which glistened at seeing her. Old acquaintances were
dead, or had sought a home elsewhere. The few who were left would not,
probably because of the father's disgrace, come to see her. The
step-mother, the second Mrs. Wollstonecraft, was helpful and economical;
but her thrift availed little against the drunken follies of her husband.
The latter had but just recovered from an illness. He was worn to a
skeleton, he coughed and groaned all night in a way to make the
listener's blood run cold, and he could not walk ten yards without
pausing to pant for breath. His poverty was so abject that his clothes
were barely decent, and his habits so low that he was indifferent to
personal cleanliness. For days and weeks after she had seen him, Eliza
was haunted by the memory of his unkempt hair and beard, his red face
and his beggarly shabbiness. Poor unfortunate Charles, the last child
left at home, was half-naked, and his time was spent in quarrelling with
his father. Eliza, who knew how to be independent, was irritated by her
brother's idleness. "I am very cool to Charles, and have said all I can
to rouse him," she wrote to Everina; but then immediately she added,
forced to do him justice, "But where can