To lay a little more load on him, he lost Emma Isola, one month later, in July, 1833, by her marriage with Edward Moxon: their betrothal having been entered into “with my perfect approval and more than concurrence,” he writes. In the same letter he says, as unselfishly as always: “I am about to lose my only walk companion, whose mirthful spirits were the youth of our house.” He gave her, for a marriage gift, his most cherished possession, a portrait of John Milton. Mary’s reason was too clouded, at the time, to take interest in this affair, or even to understand it; but on the day of the wedding, being at table with them all, Mrs. Walden proposed the health of Mr. and Mrs. Moxon. The utterance of the unwonted name restored Mary to her composedness of mind, as if by an electrical stroke; she wrote afterward to the young couple: “I never felt so calm and quiet after a similar illness as I do now. I feel as if all tears were wiped from my eyes, and all care from my heart.” Amid all these added adversities, he tried, with his cheerful and cheering courage, to make the best of it all. He found compensation in that they were “emancipated from the Westwoods,” and were settled “three or four miles nearer the great city, coaches half-price less, and going always, of which I will avail myself. I have few friends left there, but one or two most beloved. But London streets and faces cheer me inexpressibly, though not one known of the latter were remaining.” And yet he struggled to town still more [Illustration: THE WALDEN HOUSE AT EDMONTON.] infrequently, and then only to find that, “with all my native hankering after it, it is not what it was.... The streets and shops entertaining as ever, else I feel as in a desert, and get me home to my care.” It is a touching sight, as we may picture it, that of the lonely man, with worn face and wistful eyes, wandering forlornly up and down his once familiar streets, seeing so seldom any of the once familiar faces. One day he met Mrs. Shelley in the Strand, and was--she wrote to Leigh Hunt--very entertaining and amiable, though a little deaf. He asked her if they made puns in Italy, and told her that Captain Burney once made a pun in Otaheite, the first that was ever made in that country. The natives could not make out what he meant; but all at once they discovered the pun, and danced round him in transports of joy! During these lamentable days he saw his sister but seldom: “Alas! I too often hear her!... Her rambling chat is better to me than the sense and sanity of this world.” That is to me the most tender and touching utterance in all the letters since letters were invented.