pt the disappointment and sorrow over the faded dream of Italian
Independence, the winter at Florence was one of the bright spots in
Margaret's life. She was proud of her husband's part in the
Revolution: "I rejoice," she says, "in all Ossoli did." She had her
babe with her and her happiness in husband and child was perfect: "My
love for Ossoli is most pure and tender, nor has any one, except my
mother or little children, loved me so genuinely as he does.... Ossoli
seems to me more lovely and good every day; our darling child is well
now, and every day more gay and playful."

She found pleasant and congenial society: "I see the Brownings often,"
she says, "and love them both more and more as I know them better. Mr.
Browning enriches every hour I spend with him, and is a most cordial,
true, and noble man. One of my most prized Italian friends,
Marchioness Arconati Visconti, of Milan, is passing the winter here,
and I see her almost every day." Moreover she was busy with a
congenial task. At the very opening of the struggle for liberty, she
planned to write a history of the eventful period, and with this
purpose, collected material for the undertaking, and already had a
large part of the work in manuscript. She finished the writing in
Florence, and much value was set upon it both by herself and by her
friends in Italy. Mrs. Story says, "in the estimation of most of those
who were in Italy at the time, the loss of Margaret's history and
notes is a great and irreparable one. No one could have possessed so
many avenues of direct information from both sides."

When the spring opened, it was decided to return to America, partly to
negotiate directly with the publisher, but chiefly because, having
exhausted her resources, Margaret's pen must henceforth be the main
reliance of the little family. It is pathetic to know that, after
their passage had been engaged, "letters came which, had they reached
her a week earlier, would probably have induced them to remain in
Italy."

They sailed, May 17, 1850, in a merchant vessel, the only other
passengers being the baby's nurse and Mr. Horace Sumner, a younger
brother of Senator Sumner. After a protracted and troubled voyage of
two months, the vessel arrived off the coast of New Jersey, on July
18. The "weather was thick.... By nine p. m. there was a gale, by
midnight a hurricane," and at four o'clock on the morning of July 19,
the vessel grounded on the shallow sands of Fire Island. T