ere to visit Dr. D.[arwin]. and Dr. P.[arr],
Saturday was the probable day. You saw neither, yet you have been a
week on the road. I did not wonder, but approved of your visit to
Mr. Bage. But a _show_ which you waited to see, and did not see,
appears to have been equally attractive. I am at a loss to guess
how you could have been from Saturday to Sunday night travelling
from Coventry to Cambridge. In short, your being so late to-night,
and the chance of your not coming, shows so little consideration,
that unless you suppose me to be a stick or a stone, you must have
forgot to think, as well as to feel, since you have been on the
wing. I am afraid to add what I feel. Good-night.

This misunderstanding, however, was not of long duration. The "little
rift" in their case never widened to make their life-music mute. Godwin
returned to London, his love in nowise diminished, and all ill-feeling
and doubts were completely effaced from Mary's mind. His shortcomings
were after all not due to any change in his affections, nor to the
slightest suspicion of satiety. By writing long letters with careful
description of everything he saw and did, he was treating Mary as he
would have desired to be treated himself. His "icy philosophy," which
made him so undemonstrative, was not altogether to her liking, but it was
incomparably better than the warmth of a man like Imlay, who was too
indifferent as to the individuality of the object of his demonstrations.
The uprightness of Godwin precluded all possibility of infidelity, and
once Mary's first disappointment at some new sign of his coldness was
over, her confidence in him was unabated. After this short interruption
to their semi-domestic life, they both resumed their old habits. Their
separate establishments were still kept up, their social amusements
continued, though Mary, because of the condition of her health, could not
now enter into them quite so freely, and the little notes again began to
pass between them. These were as amicable as they had ever been. In the
two following, the familiar friendly style of this curious correspondence
is not in the least impaired. The first is interesting in showing how far
she was from accepting her husband's opinion when her own reason was
opposed to it, and also in giving an idea of the esteem in which she was
held socially:--

June 25, 1797.

I know that you do not like me to go to H