Nothing nobler and more lovely, in the way of genuine domestic devotion and unrecognized heroism, can be conceived than the life of this gentle girl during the considerable interval between Mary’s flight in July, 1814, and her own death in October, 1816. Never disdainful of those homely labours of the kitchen and store-room, which Mary has been commended for shirking, Fanny, during this long interval of her growing despair, was her step-mother’s busy housekeeper and cheerful companion. Active in the kitchen and busy with the needle, she was at the same time her step-father’s cheery ‘right-hand’ and ministrant,--ever ready to ply her pen in his service, and ever quick at his call, with bonnet on her head and smiles on her face, to accompany him in his walks. At last the brave heart broke, and the grave covered her. Is the world too virtuous to be incapable of generous compassion for the doer of her own death? In a former page I have declared my inability to offer an opinion whether love of Shelley was in any degree accountable for poor Fanny’s fatal desperation. It has already been said that Claire (a true witness, in the esteem of the Shelleyan zealots, whenever she supports them with a fib; a liar, in their esteem, whenever she traverses their misstatements with a word of truth) gave it as her opinion that her sister Fanny died from love of Shelley, who was moved to write this elegy on the poor girl’s fate:-- ‘Her voice did quiver as we parted, Yet knew I not that heart was broken, From which it came, and I departed, Heeding not the words then spoken. Misery--oh, Misery! This world is all too wide for thee.’