there are many in the
world who stand the test, enough to keep us from shivering to death. I
am, on the whole, fortunate in friends whom I can truly esteem, and
in whom I know the kernel and substance of their being too well to be
misled by seemings.

TO MRS. C.T.

I had a letter from my mother, last summer, speaking of the fact, that
she had never been present at the marriage of one of her children. A
pang of remorse came as I read it, and I thought, if Angelino dies,[A]
I will not give her the pain of knowing that I have kept this secret
from her;--she shall hear of this connection, as if it were something
new. When I found he would live, I wrote to her and others. It half
killed me to write those few letters, and yet, I know, many are
wondering that I did not write more, and more particularly. My mother
received my communication in the highest spirit. She said, she was
sure a first object with me had been, now and always, to save her
pain. She blessed us. She rejoiced that she should not die feeling
there was no one left to love me with the devotion she thought I
needed. She expressed no regret at our poverty, but offered her feeble
means. Her letter was a noble crown to her life of disinterested,
purifying love.

[Footnote A: This was when Margaret found Nino so ill at Rieti.]

FLORENCE.

The following notes respecting Margaret's residence in Florence were
furnished to the editors by Mr. W.H. Hurlbut.

I passed about six weeks in the city of Florence, during the months of
March and April, 1850. During the whole of that time Madame Ossoli was
residing in a house at the corner of the Via della Misericordia and
the Piazza Santa Maria Novella. This house is one of those large, well
built modern houses that show strangely in the streets of the stately
Tuscan city. But if her rooms were less characteristically Italian,
they were the more comfortable, and, though small, had a quiet,
home-like air. Her windows opened upon a fine view of the beautiful
Piazza; for such was their position, that while the card-board facade
of the church of Sta. Maria Novella could only be seen at an angle,
the exquisite Campanile rose fair and full against the sky. She
enjoyed this most graceful tower very much, and, I think, preferred it
even to Giotto's noble work. Its quiet religious grace was grateful to
her spirit, which seemed to be yearning for peace from the cares that
had so vexed and heated the world about her