When he described the visit to Mary, he made no secret of the sentiments with which it had inspired him. Both of them were great readers of Plato, and Mary was familiar with that love which is merely the contemplation of supreme beauty. She would, however, have been better pleased to see it awakened by a statue, or that Shelley, like Dante, had never had the chance of speaking to his Beatrice. However, when Shelley begged her to go with him to see the beautiful prisoner, she willingly went. She admitted that Emilia was beautiful in a Greek statue style, and of surprising eloquence, but at the bottom of her heart she felt that she preferred the chaste reserve of the viaggetory Englishwoman to this too effusive Italian genius. She thought that Emilia’s voice was over-loud, that her gestures, if expressive, were wanting in grace, and that she was most agreeable when she held her tongue—which was seldom. However, Mary was careful not to let her real sentiments appear on the surface; on the contrary she expressed for Emilia the warmest friendship. Claire, more impressionable than Mary, fell, like Shelley, an immediate victim to Emilia’s charms. While Mary took the prisoner little presents, books, a gold chain, Claire, who was poor, offered the only thing she could give, namely, lessons in English. Emilia accepted with joy. An endless correspondence began between the convent and Pisa, and it was nothing but “Dear Sister!” “Adored Mary!” “_Sensible_ Percy! . . . _Caro fratello!_” and even, in a mystic sense needless to say, “_Adorato sposo!_” Strangely enough, “dear sister Mary” sometimes showed a slight coldness. “But your husband tells me that this apparent coldness is only the ashes which cover an affectionate heart.” The truth is, that Emilia was beginning to get on dear sister Mary’s nerves, for Shelley was busy in raising round her one of those aërial worlds into which he loved to escape. He was writing, in her honour, a magnificent love-poem, which he intended to make as mysterious as Dante’s _Vita Nuova_, or the _Sonnets_ of Shakespeare.