I trust never to bear again.  Nature keeps so many secrets, that I had supposed the moral writers exaggerated the dangers and plagues of keeping them; but they cannot exaggerate.  All that can be said about mine is, that I at least acted out, with, to me, tragic thoroughness, “The wonder, a woman keeps a secret.”  As to my not telling you, I can merely say, that I was keeping the information from my family and dearest friends at home; and, had you remained near me a very little later, you would have been the very first person to whom I should have spoken, as you would have been the first, on this side of the water, to whom I should have written, had I known where to address you.  Yet I hardly hoped for your sympathy, dear W——.  I am very glad if I have it.  May brotherly love ever be returned unto you in like measure.  Ossoli desires his love and respect to be testified to you both.

TO THE MARCHIONESS VISCONTI ARCONATI.

Reading a book called “The Last Days of the Republic in Rome,” I see that my letter, giving my impressions of that period, may well have seemed to you strangely partial.  If we can meet as once we did, and compare notes in the same spirit of candor, while making mutual allowance for our different points of view, your testimony and opinions would be invaluable to me.  But will you have patience with my democracy,—­my revolutionary spirit?  Believe that in thought I am more radical than ever.  The heart of Margaret you know,—­it is always the same.  Mazzini is immortally dear to me—­a thousand times deafer for all the trial I saw made of him in Rome;—­dearer for all he suffered.  Many of his brave friends perished there.  We who, less worthy, survive, would fain make up for the loss, by our increased devotion to him, the purest, the most disinterested of patriots, the most affectionate of brothers.  You will not love me less that I am true to him.

Then, again, how will it affect you to know that I have united my destiny with that of an obscure young man,—­younger than myself; a person of no intellectual culture, and in whom, in short, you will see no reason for my choosing; yet more, that this union is of long standing; that we have with us our child, of a year old, and that it is only lately I acquainted my family with the fact?

If you decide to meet with me as before, and wish to say something about the matter to your friends, it will be true to declare that there have been pecuniary reasons for this concealment.  But to you, in confidence, I add, this is only half the truth; and I cannot explain, or satisfy my dear friend further.  I should wish to meet her independent of all relations, but, as we live in the midst of “society,” she would have to inquire for me now as Margaret Ossoli.  That being done, I should like to say nothing more on the subject.

However you may feel about all this, dear Madame Arconati, you will always be the same in my eyes.  I earnestly wish you may not feel estranged; but, if you do, I would prefer that you should act upon it.  Let us meet as friends, or not at all.  In all events, I remain ever yours,