and the plate of cold meat and bread placed on a shelf, as his table was probaby covered with papers—which Trelawny found there forgotten, towards the end of a "lost day" as Shelley called it—was not inappropriate for one who forgot his meals and did not like being teased. Mary was not of the nature to make, nor Shelley of the nature to require, a docile slave; and during the time at Naples, for which Mary felt most regret, Shelley wrote of her as "a dear friend with whom added years of intercourse adds to my appreciation of its value, and who would have more right than anyone to complain that she has not been able to extinguish in me the very power of delineating sadness."
During this time the English visitors believed and manufactured all kinds of stories about the eccentric English then at Pisa. Trelawny had been murdered Byron wounded and Taaffe was guarded by bulldogs in Byron's house ! These rumours were laughed over by the people concerned.
On one occasion Mrs. Shelley, with the Countess Guiccioli, witnessed from their carriage the affair with the dragoon Masi, when he jostled against Taaffe. Byron, Shelley, and Gamba pursued him; Shelley, coming up with him first, was knocked down, but was rescued by Captain Hay. The dragoon was finally wounded by one of Byron's servants, under the idea that he had wounded Byron.
During this exciting time at Pisa, Claire was eating her heart at Florence with longings and regrets for Allegra; and Mary and Shelley were trying to calm her by letters, and growing themselves more and more dissatisfied at Byron's treatment of the mother. There are entries in Claire's diary as to her cough, and
