prevent the awkwardness and misunderstandings that otherwise would have arisen, she consented to do so.

During this period she had held but little communication with her family. The coolness between her sisters and herself had, from no fault of hers, developed into positive anger. Their ill-will, which had begun some years previous, had been stimulated by her comparative silence during her residence abroad. She had really written to them often, but it was impossible at that time for letters not to miscarry. Those which she sent by private opportunities reached them, and they contain proofs of her unremitting and affectionate solicitude for them. Always accustomed to help them out of difficulties, she worried over what she heard of their circumstances, and while her hands were, so to speak, tied, she made plans to contribute to their future comforts.

That she had discussed the question of her sister's prospects with Imlay seems probable from the fact that while he was in London alone, in November, 1794, he wrote very affectionately to Eliza, saying,—

But all Mary's efforts to be kind could not soften their resentment. On the contrary, it was still further