a true
wifish submission to your judgment and inclination. Remember to
leave the key of No. 25 with us, on account of the wine."

While Mary seconded Godwin in his domestic theories, there were times
when less independence would have pleased her better. She had been
obliged to fight the battle of life alone, and, when the occasion
required it, she was equal to meeting single-handed whatever difficulties
might arise. But instinctively she preferred to lean upon others for
protection and help. Godwin would never wittingly have been selfish or
cruel in withholding his assistance. But, as each had agreed to go his
and her own way, it no more occurred to him to interfere with what he
thought her duties, than it would have pleased him had she interfered
with his. She had consented to his proposition, and in accepting her
consent, he had not been wise enough to read between the lines. Much as
he loved Mary, he never seems to have really understood her. She had now
to take entire charge of matters which her friends had hitherto been
eager to attend to for her. They could not well come forward, once it had
become Godwin's right to do what to them had been a privilege. Mary felt
their loss and his indifference, and frankly told him so:--

"I am not well to-day," she wrote in one of their little
conversational notes, dated the 11th of April; "my spirits have
been harassed. Mary will tell you about the state of the sink, etc.
Do you know you plague me--a little--by not speaking more
determinately to the landlord, of whom I have a mean opinion. He
tires me by his pitiful way of doing everything. I like a man who
will say yes or no at once."

The trouble seems to have been not easily disposed of, for the same day
she wrote again, this time with some degree of temper:--

"I wish you would desire Mr. Marshal to call on me. Mr. Johnson or
somebody has always taken the disagreeable business of settling
with tradespeople off my hands. I am perhaps as unfit as yourself
to do it, and my time appears to me as valuable as that of other
persons accustomed to employ themselves. Things of this kind are
easily settled with money, I know; but I am tormented by the want
of money, and feel, to say the truth, as if I was not treated with
respect, owing to your desire not to be disturbed."

These were mere passing clouds over the bright horizon of their lives,
su