not be effected without Shelley. Sir Bysshe, in his will, offered his
grandson not only the rentals, but the income of the great personal
property, if he would renew the entail of the settled property and
would also consent to entail the unsettled property; otherwise he
should only receive the entailed property, which was bound to come to
him, and which he could dispose of at his pleasure, should he survive
his father. He had one year to make his choice in.

Shelley is considered to have been business-like in his negotiations;
but to have retained his original distaste of 1811 to entailing large
estates to descend to his children--in fact, he appears to have
considered too little the contingency of what would come to them or to
Mary in the event of his death prior to that of his father. Pressing
present needs being paramount at this time, he agreed to an
arrangement by which a portion of the estate valued at L18,000 could
be disposed of to his father for L11,000, and an income of L1,000 a
year secured to Shelley during his and his father's life. At one time
there was an idea of disposing of the entailed estate to his father,
as a reversion, but this was not sanctioned by the Court of Chancery.
Money was also allowed by his father to pay his debts.

So now we see Mary and Shelley with one thousand pounds a year, less
two hundred pounds which, as Shelley ordered, was to be paid to
Harriet in quarterly instalments.

Now that the money troubles were over, which for a time absorbed their
whole attention, Mary began to perceive signs of failing health in
Shelley, and one doctor asserted that he had abscesses on the lungs,
and was rapidly dying of consumption. Whatever these symptoms were
really attributable to they rapidly disappeared, although Shelley was