reached Dover, and while waiting at a hotel for the boat,
the landlord suddenly appeared and breathlessly explained to Shelley, "A
fat woman has just arrived and swears that you have run away with her
girls!"

It was Mrs. Godwin.

The party got out by the back way and hired a small boat to take them to
Calais. They embarked in a storm, and after beating about all night, came
in sight of France the next morning as the sun arose.

Godwin was very much grieved and shocked to think that Shelley had broken
in upon established order and done this thing. But Shelley had read
Godwin's book and simply taken the philosopher at his word: "The impulses
of the human heart are just and right; they are greater than law, and must
be respected."

The runaways seemed to have had a jolly time in France as long as their
money lasted. They bought a mule to carry their luggage, and walked.
Jane's feet blistered, however, and they seated her upon the luggage upon
the mule, and as the author of "Queen Mab" led the patient beast, Mary
with a switch followed behind. After some days Shelley sprained his ankle,
and then it was his turn to ride while Mary led the mule and Jane trudged
after.

Thus they journeyed for six weeks, writing poetry, discussing philosophy;
loving, wild, free and careless, until they came to Switzerland. One
morning they counted their money and found they had just enough to take
them to England.

Arriving in London the Godwins were not inclined to take them back, and
society in general looked upon them with complete disfavor.

Shelley's father was now fully convinced of his son's depravity, but doled
out enough money to prevent actual starvation. Shelley began to perceive
that any man who sets himself against the established order--the order
that the world has been thousands of years in building up--will be ground
into the dust. The old world may be wrong, but it can not be righted in a
day, and so long as a man chooses to live in society he must conform, in
the main, to society usages. These old ways that have done good service
all the years can not be replaced by the instantaneous process. If changed
at all they must change as man changes, and man must change first. It is
man that must be reformed, not custom.

Shelley and Mary Godwin were mates if ever such existed. In a year Mary
had developed from a child into splendid womanhood--a beautiful, superior,
earnest woman. By her own efforts, of course aided by She