his wife and child was one of them, apparently.]--The new
friends could not lack subjects of discourse, and underneath
their words about Mary's mother, and 'Political Justice,' and
'Rights of Woman,' were two young hearts, each feeling towards
the other, each perhaps unaware, trembling in the direction of
the other. The desire to assuage the suffering of one whose
happiness has grown precious to us may become a hunger of the
spirit as keen as any other, and this hunger now possessed
Mary's heart; when her eyes rested unseen on Shelley, it was
with a look full of the ardor of a 'soothing pity.'"

Yes, that is better and has more composure. That is just the way it
happened. He told her about the wet-nurse, she told him about political
justice; he told her about the deadly sister-in-law, she told him about
her mother; he told her about the bonnet-shop, she murmured back about
the rights of woman; then he assuaged her, then she assuaged him; then he
assuaged her some more, next she assuaged him some more; then they both
assuaged one another simultaneously; and so they went on by the hour
assuaging and assuaging and assuaging, until at last what was the result?
They were in love. It will happen so every time.

"He had married a woman who, as he now persuaded himself, had
never truly loved him, who loved only his fortune and his rank,
and who proved her selfishness by deserting him in his misery."

I think that that is not quite fair to Harriet. We have no certainty
that she knew Cornelia had turned him out of the house. He went back to
Cornelia, and Harriet may have supposed that he was as happy with her as
ever. Still, it was judicious to begin to lay on the whitewash, for
Shelley is going to need many a coat of it now, and the sooner the reader
becomes used to the intrusion of the brush the sooner he will get
reconciled to it and stop fretting about it.

After Shelley's (conjectured) visit to Harriet at Bath--8th of June to
18th--"it seems to have been arranged that Shelley should henceforth
join the Skinner Street household each day at dinner."

Nothing could be handier than this; things will swim along now.

"Although now Shelley was coming to believe that his wedded
union with Harriet was a thing of the past, he had not ceased
to regard her with affectionat