trustworthy, for they say some kind things about poor
Harriet and tell some disagreeable truths about her husband; and these
things make the fabulist grit his teeth a good deal.

Next we have Fanny Godwin--a Godwin by courtesy only; she was Mrs.
Godwin's natural daughter by a former friend. She was a sweet and
winning girl, but she presently wearied of the Godwin paradise, and
poisoned herself.

Last in the list is Jane (or Claire, as she preferred to call herself)
Clairmont, daughter of Mrs. Godwin by a former marriage. She was very
young and pretty and accommodating, and always ready to do what she could
to make things pleasant. After Shelley ran off with her part-sister
Mary, she became the guest of the pair, and contributed a natural child
to their nursery--Allegra. Lord Byron was the father.

We have named the several members and advantages of the new paradise in
Skinner Street, with its crazy book-shop underneath. Shelley was all
right now, this was a better place than the other; more variety anyway,
and more different kinds of fragrance. One could turn out poetry here
without any trouble at all.

The way the new love-match came about was this:

Shelley told Mary all his aggravations and sorrows and griefs, and about
the wet-nurse and the bonnetshop and the surgeon and the carriage, and
the sister-in-law that blocked the London game, and about Cornelia and
her mamma, and how they had turned him out of the house after making so
much of him; and how he had deserted Harriet and then Harriet had
deserted him, and how the reconciliation was working along and Harriet
getting her poem by heart; and still he was not happy, and Mary pitied
him, for she had had trouble herself. But I am not satisfied with this.
It reads too much like statistics. It lacks smoothness and grace, and is
too earthy and business-like. It has the sordid look of a trades-union
procession out on strike. That is not the right form for it. The book
does it better; we will fall back on the book and have a cake-walk:

"It was easy to divine that some restless grief possessed him;
Mary herself was not unlearned in the lore of pain. His
generous zeal in her father's behalf, his spiritual sonship to
Godwin, his reverence for her mother's memory, were guarantees
with Mary of his excellence.--[What she was after was
guarantees of his excellence. That he stood ready to desert