In three successive years--1812, 1813, 1814--Shelley had been received in Godwin’s house on a ‘footing of close intimacy.’ The house was open to him whenever he cared to visit it. The master of the house, whom Shelley persisted in styling his teacher, friend, benefactor, was ever ready with counsel and sympathy for the young man. Had he been unmarried, the Godwins would have been slow to suspect evil in the young man of pleasant aspect and winning address. As he was married to a lovely girl, with whom they had every reason to think him living in mutual love, it never occurred to William Godwin and his wife that they should watch his behaviour to their children, as they would have observed it, had he been in a position to make one of them an offer. The confidence reposed in his honour was without limit or qualification. How did he respect this confidence, repay this trustful hospitality? Mr. Kegan Paul answers the question in seven words, ‘He ... rapidly fell in love with Mary.’ On 8th June, 1814, when exactly three weeks had passed since his arrival in town, Shelley ran upon Hogg in Cheapside, as the latter was returning from the scene of Lord Cochrane’s trial to Gray’s Inn. Bound for different places in the same direction, the friends walked together from Cheapside to Skinner Street, when, on coming to the door of Godwin’s shop, Shelley said to his companion, ‘I must speak with Godwin; come in; I will not detain you long.’ Passing through the shop, which was the only way of passage to the living-rooms of the house, the young men went straight upstairs to the quadrant-shaped parlour on the first floor, where Shelley expected to find his familiar friend and benefactor. That Shelley went upstairs in this fashion, without rapping or ringing, or sending any one from the shop to announce his arrival, indicates his close intimacy with Godwin and Mrs. Godwin,--shows how they allowed him the free run of the house, permitting him to come and go at his pleasure, as though the place were his own home. To Shelley’s disappointment and discomposure Godwin was away from home. ‘Where is Godwin?’ he asked several times of Hogg, as though the latter were in Godwin’s confidence and somehow accountable for his absence. Shelley was still fussing about in this way; when the door of the room was opened by a young girl, who exclaimed in a thrilling voice, ‘Shelley!’ Answering the ejaculation with one word, Shelley hastened from the room, leaving Hogg to meditate in solitude, and marvel at the momentary apparition of the ‘very young female, fair and fair-haired, pale indeed, and with a piercing look, wearing a frock of tartan, an unusual dress in London at that time,’ who had appeared for an instant, like a quick gleam of sunlight, only to disappear with her lover. Hogg saw no more of William Godwin’s lovely child on that occasion. In a minute or two Shelley re-entered the room, saying ‘Godwin is out; there is no use in