Page:Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (Pennell, 1885).djvu/61

Rh not know it, he was just then without employment. Unable to live amicably with his brother-in-law after Fanny's death, he had resigned his position in Lisbon and gone to Ireland, where for a long while he could find nothing to do. Mr. Skeys simply refused to satisfy the never-ceasing wants of his wife's parents. He cannot be severely censured when their shiftlessness is borne in mind. He probably had already received many appeals from them. But Mary could not accept their troubles so passively.

To add to her distress, she was weakened by the painful task she had just completed. She was low-spirited and broken-hearted, and really ill. Her eyes gave out; and no greater inconvenience could have just then befallen her. Her mental activity was temporarily paralyzed, and yet she knew that prompt measures were necessary to avert the evils crowding upon her.

There was no chance of relief from her own family. Her father had married again, but his second marriage had not improved him. He had descended to the lowest stage of drunkenness and insignificance. His home was in Laugharne, Wales, where he barely managed to exist. James, the second son, had gone to sea in search of better fortune. Charles, the youngest, was not old enough to seek his, and hence had to endure as best he could the wretchedness of the Wollstonecraft household. Instead of Mary's receiving help from this quarter, she was called upon to give it. Kinder to her father than he had ever been to her, she never ignored his difficulties. When she had money, she shared it with him. When she had none, she did all she could to force Edward, the one prosperous