nd Ossoli, writing to Margaret on the 17th, strongly
expresses his unwillingness to be so far removed from her at a time in
which she might have urgent need of his presence at any moment. For
these were to her days of great hope and expectation. Her confinement
was near at hand, and she was alone, poor and friendless, among people
whose only aim was to plunder her. But Margaret could not, even in these
trying circumstances, belie the heroic principles which had always
guided her life. She writes to her doubting, almost despairing husband:
"If honor requires it, go. I will try to sustain myself."

This dreaded trial was averted. The march to Bologna was countermanded.
Margaret's boy saw the light on the 5th of September, and the joyful
presence of her husband soothed for her the pangs of a first maternity.

He was indeed obliged to leave her the next day for Rome. Margaret was
ill cared for, and lost, through a severe fever, the ability to nurse
her child. She was forced to dismiss her only attendant, and to struggle
in her helpless condition with the dishonesty and meanness of the people
around her. A _balia_[E] for the child was soon found, but Margaret felt
the need of much courage in guarding the first days of her infant's
life. In her eyes he grew "more beautiful every hour." The people in the
house called him Angiolino, anticipating the name afterwards given him
in baptism,--Angelo Eugene.

She was soon to find a new trial in leaving him. Her husband still
wished to keep his marriage a profound secret, and to this end desired
that the baby should be left at Rieti, in charge of "a good nurse who
should treat him like a mother." Margaret was most anxious to return to
Rome, to be near her husband, and also in order to be able to carry on
the literary labor upon which depended not only her own support, but
also that of her child.

Writing to Ossoli, she says: "I cannot stay long without seeing the boy.
He is so dear, and life seems so uncertain. It is necessary that I
should be in Rome a month at least, to write, and to be near you. But I
must be free to return here, if I feel too anxious and suffering for
him."

Early in November Margaret returned to Rome. In a letter to her mother,
bearing the date of November 16, she says:--

"I am again in Rome, situated for the first time entirely to my mind....
I have the sun all day, and an excellent chimney. It [her lodging] is
very high, and has pure air, and the most be