When she was twenty-four, Mary Fairfax married her cousin, Samuel Grieg, and went to live in London. Her husband was out at his work all day and she had plenty of time for her studies. But though he did not interfere with what she did, he gave her no help or encouragement. He knew nothing of science himself, and did not believe that women were capable of intellectual work. She struggled on as best she could and took lessons in French so as to learn to speak it. After three years her husband died, leaving her with two little boys, one of whom did not live to grow up. Mary went back to live with her parents; she cared for her children with the utmost tenderness, but she still devoted herself to her mathematical studies, and she was able to get advice and help from a professor in Edinburgh. To get time to study she still rose early, for during most of the day she was busy with her children, and the evening she devoted to her father. People thought her queer and foolish, because she did not go into society; but she did not care for their criticisms, and made real progress in her studies. She had several proposals of marriage, but refused them all till, in 1812, she agreed to marry her cousin, Dr. William Somerville, son of the uncle who had been the only person to help her in her studies when she was a girl. When her engagement was known, one of Dr. Somerville’s sisters, who was younger than herself and unmarried, wrote to her saying she “hoped she would give up her foolish manner of life and studies and make a respectable and useful wife to her brother.” This made Dr. Somerville very indignant, and he wrote a severe and angry letter to his sister. After this none of his family dared to interfere with his wife again. His father was delighted with his choice, for he understood and loved his niece. Some of the family were much astonished, when in the summer after the marriage they were staying together in the lakes, and one of them fell ill and expressed a wish for currant jelly, to find that Mrs. Somerville, in spite of her learning, was able at once to make some excellent jelly.