It sadly disarranged the brother's plans for his sister's welfare, that he could not invite his peculiar friend forthwith to Field Place. The reason why he could not do so was that his father, already instructed by Stockdale to attribute his son's scepticism to the influence of his Oxford friend, had declared his opinion of Mr. Hogg in terms, which satisfied Bysshe he had better not ask for permission to summon the incomparable Hogg to Sussex. But though he could not bring them together for the present, the match-making brother did his best to inspire his sister and his college-friend with a sentimental regard for one another, that could not fail to result in mutual love, so soon as they should come together. Speaking to his sister of his friend in terms of vehement admiration, he read her the letters that came to him in steady stream from his idolized and incomparable Hogg. That Hogg (whose sense of humour was allied with a liberal measure of romantic sensibility) delighted in the notion of becoming his friend's brother-in-law, and during the holidays even went so far as to bind himself to fall in love with Miss Shelley, appears from the letter in which Shelley overflowed with gratitude for so great a concession to his wishes. 'How,' wrote Shelley to his friend, 'can I find words to express my thanks for such generous conduct with regard to my sister, with talents and attainments such as you possess, to promise what I ought not, perhaps, to have required, what nothing but a dear sister's intellectual improvement could have induced me to demand?' At Oxford it had been enough for Shelley to declare a hope that Hogg would become his brother-in-law. From Field Place, during the Christmas holidays, the enthusiastic stripling begged Hogg to promise he would satisfy the hope.