Page:Margaret Fuller by Howe, Julia Ward, Ed. (1883).djvu/213

198 satisfaction. Margaret's thoughts now turned toward her own country and her own people:—

"It will be sad to leave Italy, uncertain of return. Yet when I think of you, beloved piother, of brothers and sisters and many friends, I wish to come. Ossoli is perfectly willing. He will go among strangers; but to him, as to all the yourg Italians, America seems the land of liberty."

Margaret's home-letters give lovely glimpses of this season of peace. Her modest establishment was served by Angelo's nurse, with a little occasional aid from the porter's wife. The boy himself was now in rosy health; as his mother says, a very gay, impetuous. ardent, but sweet-tempered child.” She describes with a mother's delight his visit to her room at first waking, when he pulls her curtain aside, and goes through his pretty routine of baby tricks for her amusement,— laughing, crowing, imitating the sound of the bellows, and even saying “Bravo!” Then comes his bath, which she herself gives him, and then his walk and mid-day sleep.

"I feel so refreshed by his young life, and Ossoli diffuses such a power and sweetness over every day. that I cannot endure to think yet of our future. We have resolved to enjoy being together as much as we can in this brief interval, perhaps all we shall ever know of peace. I rejoice in all that Ossoli did (in, the interest of the Liberal party); but the results are disastrous, especially as my strength is now so impaired. This much I hope, in life or death, to be vo more separated from Angelo."

Margaret's future did indeed look to her full of difficult duties. At forty years of age, having laboured all her life for her father's family, she was to begin a