Your box arrived to-day. I shall send soon to the upholsterer, for now I long more than ever that our house should be quickly ready for the reception of those dear children whom I love so tenderly. Then there will be a sweet brother and sister for my William, who will lose his pre-eminence as eldest, and be helped third at table, as Clare is continually reminding him.
Come down to me, sweetest, as soon as you can, for I long to see you and embrace.
As to the event you allude to, be governed by your friends and prudence as to when it ought to take place, but it must be in London.
Clare has just looked in; she begs you not to stay away long, to be more explicit in your letters, and sends her love.
You tell me to write a long letter, and I would, but that my ideas wander and my hand trembles. Come back to reassure me, my Shelley, and bring with you your darling Ianthe and Charles. Thank your kind friends. I long to hear about Godwin.—Your affectionate
Mary.
Have you called on Hogg? I would hardly advise you. Remember me, sweet, in your sorrows as well as your pleasures; they will, I trust, soften the one and heighten the other feeling. Adieu.
To Percy Bysshe Shelley,
5 Gray’s Inn Square, London.
No time was lost in putting things on their legal footing. Shelley took Mary up to town, where the marriage ceremony took place at St. Mildred’s Church, Broad Street, in presence of Godwin and Mrs. Godwin. On the previous day he had seen his daughter for the first time since her flight from his house two and a half years before.
Both must have felt a strange emotion which, probably, neither of them allowed to appear.