new struggle for her own. She had looked this, necessity bravely in the face, and with resolute band had
worked at a history of recent events in Italy, hoping
thus to make a start in the second act of her life-work.
The two volumes which she had completed by this
time seemed to her impaired in value by the intense
personal suffering which halt lain like a weight upon
ber. Such leisure as the care of Angelo left her,
while in Florence, was employed in the continuation of
this work, whose 1988 we deplore the more for the
intense personal feeling which must have throbbed
through its pages. Margaret had hoped to pass this
winter without any enforced literary labour, learning of
her child, as she wisely says, and as no doubt she did,
whatever else she may have found it necessary to do.
In the chronicle of her days he plays an important
part, his baby laugh "all dimples and glitter," his
contentment in the fair scenc about him when, carried
to the Cascine, he lies back in her arms, smiling,
singing to himself, and moving his tiny feet. The
Christmas holidays are dearer to her than ever before,
for his sake. In the evening, before the bright little
fire, he sits on his stool between father and mother,
reminding Margaret of the days in which she had been
80 seated between her own parents. He is to her
a source of ineffable joys, far purer, deeper, than
anything I ever felt before."
As Margaret's husband was destined to remain a tradition only to the greater number of her friends, the hints and outlines of him given here and there in her letters are important, in showing us what companionship she had gained in return for her great sacrifice.
Ongoli seems to have belonged to a type of character to
