ast. The first words that met my eye were these, in the hand of
Mr. Greeley:--"Ah, Margaret, the world grows dark with us! You grieve,
for Rome is fallen;--I mourn, for Pickie is dead."

I have shed rivers of tears over the inexpressibly affecting letter
thus begun. One would think I might have become familiar enough with
images of death and destruction; yet somehow the image of Pickie's
little dancing figure, lying, stiff and stark, between his parents,
has made me weep more than all else. There was little hope he could do
justice to himself, or lead a happy life in so perplexed a world;
but never was a character of richer capacity,--never a more charming
child. To me he was most dear, and would always have been so. Had he
become stained with earthly faults, I could never have forgotten what
he was when fresh from the soul's home, and what he was to me when my
soul pined for sympathy, pure and unalloyed.

The three children I have seen who were fairest in my eyes, and gave
most promise of the future, were Waldo, Pickie, Hermann Clarke;--all
nipped in the bud. Endless thoughts has this given me, and a resolve
to seek the realization of all hopes and plans elsewhere, which
resolve will weigh with me as much as it can weigh before the silver
cord is finally loosed. Till then, Earth, our mother, always finds
strange, unexpected ways to draw us back to her bosom,--to make us
seek anew a nutriment which has never failed to cause us frequent
sickness.

* * * * *

This brings me to the main object of my present letter,--a piece
of intelligence about myself, which I had hoped I might be able
to communicate in such a way as to give you _pleasure_. That I
cannot,--after suffering much in silence with that hope,--is like the
rest of my earthly destiny.

The first moment, it may cause you a pang to know that your eldest
child might long ago have been addressed by another name than yours,
and has a little son a year old.

But, beloved mother, do not feel this long. I do assure you, that it
was only great love for you that kept me silent. I have abstained a
hundred times, when your sympathy, your counsel, would have been most
precious, from a wish not to harass you with anxiety. Even now I would
abstain, but it has become necessary, on account of the child, for us
to live publicly and permanently together; and we have no hope, in
the present state of Italian affairs, that we can do it at any bett