Page:Margaret Fuller Ossoli (Higginson).djvu/276

258 the one person who was “good” to her, was all the time amusing himself with the effort to seduce Angelo’s nurse, who was, according to another letter, “the loveliest young woman in the village,” and whose beauty was to Madame Ossoli a source of constant anxiety, in view of the neighborhood of Garibaldi’s half-brigand troops, and those from Naples who were worse. It was amid such solicitudes and vexations that an inexperienced and exhausted mother had to struggle for life in behalf of her baby and herself.]

&emsp; … “Now we begin to be really well, my baby and I. He sleeps all night, and my shoulder, the last night, has not tormented me, so I have slept also. He is always so charming, how can I ever, ever leave him? I wake in the night, I look at him, I think, ah! it is impossible to leave him. Adieu, love; it seems that like me you are impatient for your arrival; then we can speak and again have a few happy moments more. ThyM.”&emsp;

&emsp; “, — I have received this morning the paper and your letter. I am glad that at least you had a tranquil night for the journey. Yesterday it began again to rain here. All that I have said to Ser Giovanni was, that it would be pleasant to have some friend for a godfather. I am not very competent to give advice in this matter of baptism, which I do not well un-