THE WIFE AND MOTHER.[A]

Beneath the ruins of the Roman Republic, how many private fortunes were buried! and among these victims was Margaret.  In that catastrophe, were swallowed up hopes sacredly cherished by her through weary months, at the risk of all she most prized.

Soon after the entrance of the French, she wrote thus, to the resident Envoy of the United States: 

My dear Mr. Cass,—­I beg you to come and see me, and give me your counsel, and, if need be, your aid, to get away from Rome.  From what I hear this morning, I fear we may be once more shut up here; and I shall die, to be again separated from what I hold most dear.  There are, as yet, no horses on the way we want to go, or we should post immediately.

You may feel, like me, sad, in these last moments, to leave this injured Rome.  So many noble hearts I abandon here, whose woes I have known!  I feel, if I could not aid, I might soothe.  But for my child, I would not go, till some men, now sick, know whether they shall live or die.

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Her child!  Where was he?  In RIETI,—­at the foot of the Umbrian Apennines,—­a day’s journey to the north-east of Rome.  Thither Margaret escaped with her husband, and thence she wrote the following letter: 

Dearest Mother,—­I received your letter a few hours before leaving Rome.  Like all of yours, it refreshed me, and gave me as much satisfaction as anything could, at that sad time.  Its spirit is of eternity, and befits an epoch when wickedness and perfidy so impudently triumph, and the best blood of the generous and honorable is poured out like water, seemingly in vain.

I cannot tell you what I suffered to abandon the wounded to the care of their mean foes; to see the young men, that were faithful to their vows, hunted from their homes,—­hunted like wild beasts; denied a refuge in every civilized land.  Many of those I loved are sunk to the bottom of the sea, by Austrian cannon, or will be shot.  Others are in penury, grief, and exile.  May God give due recompense for all that has been endured!

My mind still agitated, and my spirits worn out, I have not felt like writing to any one.  Yet the magnificent summer does not smile quite in vain for me.  Much exercise in the open air, living much on milk and fruit, have recruited my health, and I am regaining the habit of sleep, which a month of nightly cannonade in Rome had destroyed.

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Receiving, a few days since, a packet of letters from America, I opened them with more feeling of hope and good cheer, than for a long time past.  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.”