enewed, and with the
advantage that she had become sufficiently familiar with the Italian
language to converse in it with comparative ease. Her intense interest
in the affairs of Italy suggested to him also ideas of "liberty and
better government." His education, much neglected, as she thought, had
been in the traditions of the narrowest conservatism; but Margaret's
influence led or enabled him to free himself from the trammels of
old-time prejudice, and to espouse, with his whole heart, the cause of
Roman liberty.

According to the best authority extant, the marriage of Margaret and the
Marchese took place in the December following her return to Rome. The
father of the Marchese had died but a short time before this, and his
estate, left in the hands of two other sons, was not yet settled. These
gentlemen were both attached to the Papal household, and, we judge, to
the reactionary party. The fear lest the Marchese's marriage with a
Protestant should deprive him wholly, or in part, of his paternal
inheritance, induced the newly married couple to keep to themselves the
secret of their relation to each other. At the moment, ecclesiastical
influence would have been very likely, under such circumstances, to
affect the legal action to be taken in the division of the property.
Better things were hoped for in view of a probable change of government.
So the winter passed, and Margaret went to her retreat among the
mountains, with her secret unguessed and probably unsuspected.

Her husband was a member--perhaps already a captain--of the Civic Guard,
and was detained in Rome by military duties. Margaret was therefore much
alone in the midst of "a theatre of glorious, snow-crowned mountains,
whose pedestals are garlanded with the olive and mulberry, and along
whose sides run bridle-paths fringed with almond groves and vineyards."
The scene was to her one of "intoxicating beauty," but the distance from
her husband soon became more than she could bear. After a month passed
in this place, she found a nearer retreat at Rieti, also a
mountain-town, but within the confines of the Papal States. Here Ossoli
could sometimes pass the Sunday with her, by travelling in the night. In
one of her letters Margaret writes: "Do not fail to come. I shall have
your coffee warm. You will arrive early, and I can see the diligence
pass the bridge from my window."

In the month of August the Civic Guard were ordered to prepare for a
march to Bologna; a