n Hoxton. The acquaintanceship formed
with their neighbors ripened in Mary's case into intimacy. Mr. Clare was
deformed and delicate, and, because of his great physical weakness, led
the existence of a hermit. He rarely, if ever, went out, and his habits
were so essentially sedentary that a pair of shoes lasted him for
fourteen years. It is hardly necessary to add that he was eccentric. But
he was a man of a certain amount of culture. He had read largely, his
opportunity for so doing being great. He was attracted by Mary, whom he
soon discovered to be no ordinary girl, and he interested himself in
forming and training her mind. She, in return, liked him. His deformity
alone would have appealed to her, but she found him a congenial
companion, and, as she proved herself a willing pupil, he was glad to
have her much with him. She was a friend of Mrs. Clare as well; indeed,
the latter remained true to her through later storms which wrecked many
other less sincere friendships. Mary sometimes spent days and even weeks
in the house of these good people; and it was on one of these occasions,
probably, that Mrs. Clare took her to Newington Butts, then a village at
the extreme southern end of London, and there introduced her to Frances
Blood.

The first meeting between them, Godwin says, "bore a resemblance to the
first interview of Werter with Charlotte." The Bloods lived in a small,
but scrupulously well-kept house, and when its door was first opened for
Mary, Fanny, a bright-looking girl about her own age, was busy, like
another Lotte, in superintending the meal of her younger brothers and
sisters. It was a scene well calculated to excite Mary's interest. She,
better than any one else, could understand its full worth. It revealed to
her at a glance the skeleton in the family closet,--the inefficiency of
the parents to care for the children whom they had brought into the
world, and the poverty which prevented their hiring others to do their
work for them. And at the same time it showed her the noble unselfishness
of the daughter, who not only took upon herself the burden so easily
shifted by the parents, but who accepted her fate cheerfully.
Cheerfulness is a virtue but too lightly prized. When maintained in the
face of difficulties and unhappiness it becomes the finest heroism. The
recognition of this heroic side of Fanny's nature commanded the instant
admiration and respect of her visitor. Mary then and there vowed in her
hea