 In 1778, she was engaged as a companion to a Mrs Dawson and lived at Bath. She returned home to nurse her ailing mother in the latter part of 1781. After Mrs Wollstonecraft’s death, in the spring of 1782, Mary lived with the Bloods, the impoverished family of her dearest friend, Fanny. In the winter of 1783, Mary left them in order to attend to her sister Eliza and her newly born daughter. There followed the first of the emotionally very difficult episodes in Mary’s life. What prompted Mary to intervene as decisively as she did in her sister’s marriage remains somewhat of a mystery; but in the course of January 1784, Mary took her sister away, and the two women went into hiding, leaving Eliza’s infant daughter behind; the baby died the following August.