between the Skinner Street folks and them."

But now the separation was approaching its end, and the danger of
being arrested past, they move from their lodgings in Church Terrace,
St. Pancras, to Nelson Square, where we have already seen Hogg in
their company and heard of the sulks, fears, and bemoanings of poor
Claire.

Mary Shelley's novel of _Lodore_ gives a good account of the
sufferings of this time, as referred to later. The great resource of
intellectual power is manifested during all this period. During a time
of ill-health, anxieties of all kinds, constant moves from lodgings
where landladies refused to send up dinner, while she was discarded by
all her friends, while she had to walk weary distances, dodging
creditors, to get a sight from time to time of her loved Shelley,
while Claire bemoaned her fate and seems to have done her best to have
the lion's share of Shelley's intellectual attention (for she partook
in all the studies, was able to take walks, and kept him up half the
night "explaining"), Mary indefatigably kept to her studies, read
endless books, and made progress with Latin, Greek, and Italian. In
fact, she was educating herself in a way to subsist unaided hereafter,
to bring up her son, and to fit him for any position that might come
to him in this world of changing fortunes. Whatever faults Mary may
have had, it is not the depraved who prepare themselves for, and
honestly fight out, the battle of life as she did.




CHAPTER VI.