her. He had explicitly declared this only a short time before. Yet
here was a pretty girl about to suffer the "horrible persecution" of
being sent to school, and finding no alternative save to "throw herself
on his protection"--in other words, to let him treat her as he would,
and to become his mistress.

The absurdity of the situation makes one smile. Common sense should
have led some one to box Harriet's ears and send her off to school
without a moment's hesitation; while as for Shelley, he should have
been told how ludicrous was the whole affair. But he was only nineteen,
and she was only sixteen, and the crisis seemed portentous. Nothing
could be more flattering to a young man's vanity than to have this girl
cast herself upon him for protection. It did not really matter that he
had not loved her hitherto, and that he was already half engaged to
another Harriet--his cousin, Miss Grove. He could not stop and reason
with himself. He must like a true knight rescue lovely girlhood from
the horrors of a school!

It is not unlikely that this whole affair was partly managed or
manipulated by the girl's father. Jew Westbrook knew that Shelley was
related to rich and titled people, and that he was certain, if he
lived, to become Sir Percy, and to be the heir of his grandfather's
estates. Hence it may be that Harriet's queer conduct was not wholly of
her own prompting.

In any case, however, it proved to be successful. Shelley's ardent and
impulsive nature could not bear to see a girl in tears and appealing
for his help. Hence, though in his heart she was very little to him,
his romantic nature gave up for her sake the affection that he had felt
for his cousin, his own disbelief in marriage, and finally the common
sense which ought to have told him not to marry any one on two hundred
pounds a year.

So the pair set off for Edinburgh by stagecoach. It was a weary and
most uncomfortable journey. When they reached the Scottish capital,
they were married by the Scottish law. Their money was all gone; but
their landlord, with a jovial sympathy for romance, let them have a
room, and treated them to a rather promiscuous wedding-banquet, in
which every one in the house participated.

Such is the story of Shelley's marriage, contracted at nineteen with a
girl of sixteen who most certainly lured him on against his own better
judgment and in the absence of any actual love.

The girl whom he had taken to himself was a well-meaning