She wished him all benefit from his studies, and prosperity henceforth.
Rejoicing, though shame-smitten, Godwin exhibited this remittance to his mother, from whom it drew a deep sigh of relief.

And forthwith he sat down to write quite a different letter from that which still lay in his private drawer,--a letter which he strove to make the justification (to his own mind) of this descent to humility.

At considerable length he dwelt upon the change of tastes of which he had been conscious lately, and did not fail to make obvious the superiority of his ambition to all thought of material advancement.

He offered his thanks, and promised to give an account of himself (as in duty bound) at the close of the twelvemonths' study he was about to undertake: a letter in which the discerning would have read much sincerity, and some pathos; after all, not a letter to be ashamed of.

Lady Whitelaw would not understand it; but then, how many people are capable of even faintly apprehending the phenomena of mental growth?
And now to plan seriously his mode of life in London.