and then glancing just beyond, saw
seated on the grass--the tall girl. She held a book in her hands, but she
was looking at him very soberly. Their eyes met, and they smiled just a
little. The young man sat down on the turf on the other side of the grave
from the girl, and they talked of the woman by whose dust they watched:
and the young man found that the tall girl was an Ancestor-Worshiper and a
mystic, and moreover had a flight of soul that held him in awe. Besides,
in form and feature, she was rarely beautiful. She was quiet, but she
could talk.

The next day, as Percy Shelley strolled through the churchyard of Old
Saint Pancras, the tall girl was there again with her book, in the same
place.

* * * * *

When Shelley made that first call at the Godwins he was twenty. The three
girls he met were fifteen, sixteen and seventeen, respectively. Mary being
the youngest in years, but the most mature, she would have easily passed
for the oldest. Now, all three of these girls were dazzled by the beauty
and grace and intellect of the strange, pale-faced visitor.

He came to the house again and again during the next few months. All the
girls loved him violently, for that's the way girls under eighteen often
love. Mr. Godwin soon discovered the fact that all his girls loved
Shelley. They lost appetite, and were alternately in chills of fear and
fevers of ecstacy. Mr. Godwin, being a kind man and a good, took occasion
to explain to them that Mr. Shelley was a married man, and although it was
true he did not live on good terms with his wife, yet she was his lawful
wife, and marriage was a sacred obligation: of course, pure philosophy or
poetic justice took a different view, but in society the marriage-tie must
not be held lightly. In short, Shelley was married and that was all there
was about it.

Shelley still continued to call, coming via Saint Pancras Church. In a few
months, Mary confided to Jane that she and Shelley were about to elope,
and Jane must make peace and explain matters after they were gone.

Jane cried and declared she would go, too--she would go or die: she would
go as servant, scullion--anything, but go she would. Shelley was
consulted, and to prevent tragedy consented to Jane going as maid to Mary,
his well-beloved.

So the trinity eloped. It being Shelley's second elopement, he took the
matter a little more coolly than did the girls, who had never eloped
before. Having