Some letters that have recently come to light show that there was a dramatic scene between Harriet Westbrook and Shelley—­a scene in the course of which she threw her arms about his neck and wept upon his shoulder.  Here was a curious situation.  Shelley was not at all in love with her.  He had explicitly declared this only a short time before.  Yet here was a pretty girl about to suffer the “horrible persecution” of being sent to school, and finding no alternative save to “throw herself on his protection”—­in other words, to let him treat her as he would, and to become his mistress.

The absurdity of the situation makes one smile.  Common sense should have led some one to box Harriet’s ears and send her off to school without a moment’s hesitation; while as for Shelley, he should have been told how ludicrous was the whole affair.  But he was only nineteen, and she was only sixteen, and the crisis seemed portentous.  Nothing could be more flattering to a young man’s vanity than to have this girl cast herself upon him for protection.  It did not really matter that he had not loved her hitherto, and that he was already half engaged to another Harriet —­his cousin, Miss Grove.  He could not stop and reason with himself.  He must like a true knight rescue lovely girlhood from the horrors of a school!

It is not unlikely that this whole affair was partly managed or manipulated by the girl’s father.  Jew Westbrook knew that Shelley was related to rich and titled people, and that he was certain, if he lived, to become Sir Percy, and to be the heir of his grandfather’s estates.  Hence it may be that Harriet’s queer conduct was not wholly of her own prompting.

In any case, however, it proved to be successful.  Shelley’s ardent and impulsive nature could not bear to see a girl in tears and appealing for his help.  Hence, though in his heart she was very little to him, his romantic nature gave up for her sake the affection that he had felt for his cousin, his own disbelief in marriage, and finally the common sense which ought to have told him not to marry any one on two hundred pounds a year.

So the pair set off for Edinburgh by stagecoach.  It was a weary and most uncomfortable journey.  When they reached the Scottish capital, they were married by the Scottish law.  Their money was all gone; but their landlord, with a jovial sympathy for romance, let them have a room, and treated them to a rather promiscuous wedding-banquet, in which every one in the house participated.

Such is the story of Shelley’s marriage, contracted at nineteen with a girl of sixteen who most certainly lured him on against his own better judgment and in the absence of any actual love.

The girl whom he had taken to himself was a well-meaning little thing.  She tried for a time to meet her husband’s moods and to be a real companion to him.  But what could one expect from such a union?  Shelley’s father withdrew the income which he had previously given.  Jew Westbrook refused to contribute anything, hoping, probably, that this course would bring the Shelleys to the rescue.  But as it was, the young pair drifted about from place to place, getting very precarious supplies, running deeper into debt each day, and finding less and less to admire in each other.