of Gilbert Imlay, an American merchant, and of Mary
Wollstonecraft, whom Godwin had subsequently married. There was
also a singularly striking girl who then styled herself Mary Jane
Clairmont, and who was afterward known as Claire Clairmont, she
and her brother being the early children of Godwin's second wife.

One day in 1814, Shelley called on Godwin, and found there a
beautiful young girl in her seventeenth year, "with shapely golden
head, a face very pale and pure, a great forehead, earnest hazel
eyes, and an expression at once of sensibility and firmness about
her delicately curved lips." This was Mary Godwin--one who had
inherited her mother's power of mind and likewise her grace and
sweetness.

From the very moment of their meeting Shelley and this girl were
fated to be joined together, and both of them were well aware of
it. Each felt the other's presence exert a magnetic thrill. Each
listened eagerly to what the other said. Each thought of nothing,
and each cared for nothing, in the other's absence. It was a great
compelling elemental force which drove the two together and bound
them fast. Beside this marvelous experience, how pale and pitiful
and paltry seemed the affectations of Harriet Westbrook!

In little more than a month from the time of their first meeting,
Shelley and Mary Godwin and Miss Clairmont left Godwin's house at
four o 'clock in the morning, and hurried across the Channel to
Calais. They wandered almost like vagabonds across France, eating
black bread and the coarsest fare, walking on the highways when
they could not afford to ride, and putting up with every possible
inconvenience. Yet it is worth noting that neither then nor at any