Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. II.djvu/31

Rh to visit her in Pisa, where her husband is the Professor of Ancient Languages in the University. I found her however, bowed, with a broken heart, over a grave—that of her only daughter Rosa, then dead only a few months. Catharina Ferucci tried her theory of female education upon this daughter, and succeeded to her heart's desire. Learned as her father in the ancient languages, “so that she could have filled his place as teacher,” she was led by her mother into the realm of history, philosophy, and literature. Nature had endowed her with more than usual grace and talent; religion, and the love of her parents, developed the life of her heart. At the age of twenty Rosa Ferucci was as near to perfection as a young woman can be. She was the darling of all—of her mother, her father, her brothers, as well as their pride. She was betrothed to a noble-minded young man, a physician, who was devotedly attached to her, and the young people were shortly to have been married. She was attacked by a fever, one of those fievres miliaires, so fatal in this country, which carried her off. The blooming gifted young woman, the daughter and the bride, was within a few days a corpse.

The authoress, Catharina Ferucci. was now lost in the sorrowing mother. Rosa had been her inspiration, her ideal. Rosa was now no longer on the earth, and the earth had become indifferent to her mother, who now wished merely to die that she might be near her darling. She felt her powers daily declining, and hoped soon to die. I spoke to her of “the duty of living for the future of Italy.” Catharina Ferucci no longer saw this future. It was closed to her by