Page:Margaret Fuller Ossoli (Higginson).djvu/257

Rh tance to certain passages which were omitted, perhaps. for want of space or reasons of literary convenience, in the “Memoirs.”

Soon after Margaret Fuller’s first coming to Rome, early in 1847, she went, one day, to hear vespers at St. Peter’s, and, after the service, proposed to her companions, Mr. and Mrs. Spring, that they should wander separately, at will, among the chapels, and meet at a certain designated point. Failing, however, to find them again, she walked about, in some perplexity, scanning different groups through her eye-glass. Ere long a young man of gentlemanly address came up to her, seeing her evident discomfort, and offered his services as guide. After they had continued their search in vain, for some time, during which the crowd had dispersed, he endeavored to find a carriage for her; and this failing, they walked together to her residence, conversing with some difficulty, as he knew no English and she had not yet learned Italian. At the door they parted, and she told her friends the adventure. A day or two after this, she observed the same young man walking before the house, as if meditating entrance; and they finally met once or twice before she left Rome for the summer. She was absent from June to October, visiting Florence, Bologna, Venice, Milan, the Italian lakes, and Switzerland. In October she established herself again in Rome, having an “apartment” in the Corso, and trying to live for six months on four hundred dollars.