Page:Mrs Shelley (Rossetti 1890).djvu/197

Rh with residence in New Palace Yard, in 1833. The office was in fact a sinecure, and was soon abolished; but it was arranged that no change should be made in the old philosopher's position. His old friends had died, but his work had its reward for him, as well as its place in the thought of the world, for such people as the Duke of Wellington and Lord Melbourne had used their influence for him. Mary had been his constant devoted daughter to the last. In 1834 he writes to his wife of Mrs. Shelley, as he always called his daughter to Mrs. Godwin, of various meetings and dinners with each other, though he cannot attend her evenings as he would wish, since the walk across the park to reach Somerset Street, where she then lived, was by no means pleasant after dark : and now we find Mary honouring Trelawny with the last service for her father, apologising, but adding, " Are you not the best and most constant of friends?"

Godwin's last grief was the loss of his son William in 1832; he had been settled in a literary career and left a widow. One of Mary's first acts of generosity later on was to settle a pension on her.