When she entered the room she was dressed very plainly, as was her custom, and a thick veil covered her face; but still she was dressed with care. There was nothing of the dowdiness of the lone, lorn woman about her; none of that lanky, washed-out appearance which sorrow and trouble so often give to females. Had she given way to dowdiness, or suffered herself to be, as it were, washed out, Mr. Furnival, we may say, would not have been there to meet her of which fact Lady Mason was perhaps aware.

"I am so grateful to you for this trouble," she said, as she raised her veil, and while he pressed her hand between both his own. "I can only ask you to believe that I would not have troubled you unless I had been greatly troubled myself."

his blue-nosed days, had left his learned brethren | But she had not known; and Mr. Furnival, at their congress in Birmingham, and had hur- moved by her woman's plea, had not been hard ried up to town to assist the widow. He had enough in his heart to refuse her. left that congress, though the wisest Rustums of the law from all the civilized countries of Europe were there assembled, with Boanerges at their head, that great, old, valiant, learned, British Rustum, inquiring with energy, solemnity, and caution, with much shaking of ponderous heads and many sarcasms from those which were not ponderous, whether any and what changes might be made in the modes of answering that great question, "Guilty or not guilty?" and that other equally great question, "Is it meum or is it tuum?" To answer which question justly should be the end and object of every lawyer's work. There were great men there from Paris, very capable, the Ulpians, Tribonians, and Papinians of the new empire, armed with the purest sentiments expressed in antithetical and magnilo- Mr. Furnival, as he placed her in an armquent phrases, ravishing to the ears, and armed chair by the fireside, declared his sorrow that also with a code which, taken in its integrity, she should be in grief, and then he took the othwould necessarily, as the logical consequence of er arm-chair himself, opposite to her, or rather its clauses, drive all injustice from the face of close to her-much closer to her than he ever the earth. And there were great practitioners now seated himself to Mrs. F. "Don't speak from Germany, men very skilled in the use of of my trouble," said he; "it is nothing if I can questions, who profess that the tongue of man, do any thing to relieve you." But though he if adequately skillful, may always prevail on was so tender, he did not omit to tell her of her guilt to disclose itself; who believe in the pow-folly in having informed her son that she was to er of their own craft to produce truth, as our be in London. "And have you seen him?" forefathers believed in torture; and sometimes asked Lady Mason. with the same result. And of course all that "He was in Harley Street with the ladies last was great on the British bench, and all that was night. But it does not matter. It is only for famous at the British bar was there-men very your sake that I speak, as I know that you wish unlike their German brethren, men who thought to keep this matter private. And now let us that guilt never should be asked to tell of itself-hear what it is. I can not think that there can men who were customarily but unconsciously be any thing which need really cause you troushocked whenever unwary guilt did tell of itself. ble." And he again took her hand—that he Men these were, mostly of high and noble feel- might encourage her. Lady Mason let him ing, born and bred to live with upright hearts keep her hand for a minute or so, as though she and clean hands, but taught by the peculiar ten- did not notice it; and yet as she turned her eyes ets of their profession to think that that which to him it might appear that his tenderness had was high and noble in their private intercourse encouraged her. with the world need not also be so esteemed in their legal practice. And there were Italians there, good-humored, joking, easy fellows, who would laugh their clients in and out of their difficulties; and Spaniards, very grave and serious, who doubted much in their minds whether justice might not best be bought and sold; and our brethren from the United States were present also, very eager to show that in this country, law, and justice also, were clouded and nearly buried beneath their wig and gown.

All these and all this did Mr. Furnival desert for the space of twenty-four hours in order that he might comply with the request of Lady Mason. Had she known what it was that she was calling on him to leave, no doubt she would have borne her troubles for another week-for another fortnight-till those Rustums at Birmingham had brought their labors to a close. She would not have robbed the English bar of one of the warmest supporters of its present mode of practice, even for a day, had she known how much that support was needed at the present moment.

Sitting there thus, with her hand in his-with her hand in his during the first portion of the tale-she told him all that she wished to tell. Something more she told now to him than she had done to Sir Peregrine. “I learned from her," she said, speaking about Mrs. Dockwrath and her husband, "that he had found out something about dates which the lawyers did not find out before."

"Something about dates," said Mr. Furnival, looking with all his eyes into the fire. "You do not know what about dates?" "No; only this; that he said that the lawyers in Bedford Row-"

"I am so harassed that I hardly know what I am saying. Would it be wise, do you think, if I were to pay him any thing, so as to keep him quiet?"

from his face whether he had seen signs of dan- | afraid of him. If he have obtained any informger, and he was trying to gather from her words ation that may be considered of value by Joseph whether there might really be cause to apprehend Mason, he can sell it at a higher price than the danger. How was he to know what was really holding of these fields is worth." inside her mind; what were her actual thoughts "Would it be well-?" She was asking a and inward reasonings on this subject; what question and then checked herself. private knowledge she might have which was "Would what be well?" still kept back from him? In the ordinary intercourse of the world, when one man seeks advice from another, he who is consulted demands in the first place that he shall be put in possession of all the circumstances of the case. How else will it be possible that he should give advice? But in matters of law it is different. If I, having committed a crime, were to confess my criminality to the gentleman engaged to defend me, might he not be called on to say: "Then, O my friend, confess it also to the judge; and so let justice be done. Ruat cœlum, and the rest of it?" But who would pay a lawyer for counsel such as that?

In this case there was no question of payment. The advice to be given was to a widowed woman from an experienced man of the world; but nevertheless he could only make his calculations as to her peculiar case in the way in which he ordinarily calculated. Could it be possible that any thing had been kept back from him? Were there facts unknown to him, but known to her, which would be terrible, fatal, damning to his sweet friend if proved before all the world? He could not bring himself to ask her, but yet it was so material that he should know! Twenty years ago, at the time of the trial, he had at one time thought-it hardly matters to tell what, but those thoughts had not been favorable to her cause. Then his mind had altered, and he had learned-as lawyers do learn-to believe in his own case. And when the day of triumph had come, he had triumphed loudly, commiserating his dear friend for the unjust suffering to which she had been subjected, and speaking in no low or modified tone as to the grasping, greedy cruelty of that man of Groby Park. Nevertheless, through it all, he had felt that Round and Crook had not made the most of their case.

And now he sat, thinking, not so much whether or no she had been in any way guilty with reference to that will, as whether the counsel he should give her ought in any way to be based on the possibility of her having been thus guilty. Nothing might be so damning to her cause as that he should make sure of her innocence, if she were not innocent; and yet he would not ask her the question. If innocent, why was it that she was now so much moved, after twenty years of quiet possession?

"It was a pity," he said, at last, "that Lucius should have disturbed that fellow in the possession of his fields."

"It was; it was!" she said. "But I did not think it possible that Miriam's husband should turn against me. Would it be wise, do you think, to let him have the land again?"

"No, I do not think that. It would be telling him, and telling others also, that you are

"What; buy him off, you mean?"

"Well, yes-if you call it so. Give him some sum of money in compensation for his land; and on the understanding, you know—" And then she paused.

"That depends on what he may have to sell," said Mr. Furnival, hardly daring to look at her. "Ah; yes," said the widow. And then there was another pause.

would be at all "After all, the

"I do not think that that
discreet," said Mr. Furnival.
chances are that it is all moonshine."
"You think so?"

"Yes; I can not but think so. What can that man possibly have found among the old attorney's papers that may be injurious to your interests ?"

"Ah! I do not know; I understand so little of these things. At the time they told meyou told me that the law might possibly go against my boy's rights. It would have been bad then, but it would be ten times more dreadful now."

"But there were many questions capable of doubt then which were definitively settled at the trial. As to your husband's intellect on that day, for instance."

"There could be no doubt as to that." "No; so it has been proved; and they will not raise that point again. Could he possibly have made a later will ?"

Had he done

"No; I am sure he did not. so it could not have been found among Mr. Usbech's papers; for, as far as I remember, the poor man never attended to any business after that day."

"What day?"

"The 14th of July, the day on which he was with Sir Joseph."

It was singular, thought the barrister, with how much precision she remembered the dates and circumstances. That the circumstances of the trial should be fresh on her memory was not wonderful; but how was it that she knew so accurately things which had occurred before the trial-when no trial could have been expected? But as to this he said nothing.

"And you are sure he went to Groby Park?" 'Oh, yes; I have no doubt of it. I am quite sure."

"I do not know that we can do any thing but wait. Have you mentioned this to Sir Peregrine?" It immediately occurred to Lady Mason's mind that it would be by no means expedient, even if it were possible, to keep Mr. Furni

"You were quite right to go to Sir Pere- together. And when you have seen Mr. Round, grine." shall I hear from you?"

At this moment, as they were standing close together, the door opened, and Mr. Crabwitz in"And did he say any thing-any thing par- troduced another lady-who indeed had advanced ticular?" so quickly toward the door of Mr. Furnival's "He promised that he would not desert me, room that the clerk had been hardly able to should there be any new difficulty." reach it before her.

"And then if I hear that there is not, I shall a thinker, she entered into the spirit of modern be comforted."

marriage, and a conversation! But in these high could do, ay, and head likewise. She nursed talkings no person spoke but Margaret herself, in the hospitals, she comforted, she counseled and no one else durst, or at least, cared to inter-nay, though fondest of mothers, she was willrupt her. ing for a time even to forget her sucking child. She seemed to fear no danger, to shrink from no labor, and in risk or toil was as unpretending as she was brave. At length all the grand and mighty hopes of the patriots were beaten down, and in their place came disappointments and despondency. Courage had done its utmost, but force and counter-revolution left courage now no more that it could do, except it might be to prophesy and wait. If Margaret foresaw and prophesied, she was not destined to behold any approach to fulfillment.

Her principal contributions to periodical literature were furnished to the Dial in 1840, and afterward to the New York Tribune. Her department in each was that of æsthetic thought and criticism. Perhaps it is a blunder to mark this as a department in the Dial, where it may be said to have made the whole. We modify the statement, therefore, and say, she popularized philosophy in the Dial, and philosophized on literature in the Tribune. Yet her writings in the Tribune were broad and simple compared with her writings in the Dial. Still, as compared with the matter and manner of a daily newspaper, her Tribune articles seem to have a recluse and learned air. The only complete volumes which she published consisted of "Sum-ica. mer on the Lakes,” and “Woman in the Nineteenth Century."

After leaving Rome, she spent, with her husband and child, a winter in Florence. Toward spring she began, with many sad and strange forebodings, to arrange for the passage to Amer

But

sight. I shall embark more composedly in our
merchant ship, praying fervently, indeed, that it
may not be my lot to lose my boy at sea, either
by unsolaced illness or amidst the howling
waves; or if so, that Ossoli, Angelo, and I may
go together, and that the anguish may be brief."
Once again she writes: "I have a vague ex-
pectation of some crisis-I know not what.
it has long seemed that, in the year 1850, I should
stand on a plateau in the ascent of life, where I
should be allowed to pause for a while and take
more clear and commanding views than ever be-
fore. Yet my life proceeds as regularly as the
fates of a Greek tragedy, and I can but accept
the pages as they turn."

Her letters about this time are full of hesitation, doubt, and melancholy. She alludes frequently to losses at sea and shipwrecks. But She left New York for Europe in the spring having, at length, decided to venture herself and of 1846. She was in England received with treasures in the bark Elizabeth, she writes: confidence and hospitality into the best literary" Safety is not to be secured by the wisest foresociety of London and Paris. Her letters show, that while she was generously alive to the worth of the eminent persons with whom she associated, she was not blinded by their brilliancy or insensible to their defects—their defects, we mean, as authors, artists, or public characters; for she holds in sacred regard that privacy of personal and domestic life of which no stranger, friend, or guest is entitled to take notes, much less to print them. After a sojourn in London and Paris she journeyed on through Italy, and settled finally in Rome. The whole of her life after this period becomes in every sense a romance, closing in a most desolate and dismal romance. In the confusion of a Roman crowd coming out from vespers at St. Peters, a young stranger, the Marquis Ossoli, rescued her from struggle and embarrassment. Having seen her home, an acquaintance began, which from quick sympathy soon deepened into love, and love was made complete in marriage. The marriage took place December, 1847, and for family reasons, on the side of the young nobleman, the marriage was kept secret. The result was the birth of a son.

The

Still uncertain and desponding, she, with her husband, child, and a young Italian girl, on the 17th of May, 1850, entered the ship Elizabeth, commanded by Captain Hasty. Early in the passage the captain died of small-pox. child caught the disease, and was for a time in mortal danger. The weather was tempestuous -at Gibraltar there was delay-thenceforward, struggle and slow sailing. At length the vessel reached America, only to be broken on the coast of Fire Island beach, Long Island-within a few fathoms of the shore-and almost within handreach of numbers who were too busy with their work of inhuman plunder to think of any plan for saving their perishing fellow-creatures. ship struck about 4 o'clock on the morning of July 19th, and about 4 o'clock in the afternoon all was over. The catastrophe of Margaret's Greek tragedy was complete in the shattered ship amidst the boiling waves-it was as grand as grief and gloom could make it; and if broken hearts and broken hopes can move to pity, no ideal tragedy had ever a catastrophe more pa

The

In the mean while the revolution of 1848 broke out. It became rapidly European. No European people embraced it with more ardor than the Italians; an ardor that, in Rome, arose to the most determined and daring enthusiasm. Margaret Fuller was a Roman nature; now, by marriage, she was a Roman matron; and no Roman matron of old and heroic times could have excelled her in devotion to the cause of Roman glory, liberty, and independence. Her husband shared her spirit, but could not possibly transcend it. Contrary to the temper and tradition of his family, he threw himself into the movement with all his might; and, of course, suffered all the loss which, in the reaction, came to the defeated liber-thetic than this actual one. als. As Ossoli did all that man and strength There are wonderful touches of tenderness could do, Margaret did all that woman and heart and bravery in this twelve-hours' drama of agony.

"We must die," said Horace Sumner and Mrs. | her pursuits and purposes; she was taxed and Hasty to each other, meeting in the cabin and over-taxed with responsibility and toil. She had clasping hands; "let us die calmly, then." "I no time to mature, compact, or concentrate her hope so, Mrs. Hasty," said Mr. Sumner. "At powers. She had to think from hand to mouth, first, Nino, alarmed at the uproar, the darkness, and from day to day. Accordingly, her comand the rushing water, while shivering with the positions are but broken and detached efforts. It wet, cried passionately; but soon his mother, is really painful to read her modest but longing wrapping him in such garments as were at hand desires for an income of six hundred dollars a and folding him to her bosom, sang him to sleep. year, that she might remain in Italy in order to Celeste, too, was in an agony of terror till Ossoli, perfect herself in the study of its art and literawith soothing words and a long and fervent ture, and to know that her wishes could not be prayer, restored her to self-control and trust. gratified. The pain is increased when we conThen calmly they rested side by side, exchang-sider that persons of both sexes, incomparably her ing kindly partings, and sending messages to inferiors, could gather as many thousands easily friends, if any should survive to be their bear-as the hundreds which she vainly coveted. Had er." she lived and taken to the rostrum as women are now doing-as they have a full right to do, if so they choose-she might have had dollars to her heart's content, for Margaret was a born orator; and there is no Lyceum talker, big or little, male or female, white, black, or brown, that she would not, with the genius of her surprising eloquence, have shot beyond as a rifle does a pop-gun. Her time was frittered, and, worst of all, it was not, even as to money, profitably frittered. And her great heart, too, battling long amidst conflicting aspirations, was at last silenced, when it had found its highest action and its noblest rest. She coveted love with im

it the magnitude of her own massive and impas-
sioned character; and before satiety, or decep-
tion, or the loss of glorious illusions came to dis-
appoint her, she died and disappeared — died
and disappeared amidst the roaring breakers and
the tossing pieces of the sea-torn ship.
tragedy had an appropriate catastrophe.

Generous efforts were made to persuade Margaret to try the chances of safety to which some had trusted, and which had been successful. But she would take no merely individual chance. She must have surety for life or death with those who were near and dear to her. She would not risk even the possibility of separation: in life or death they must be all united. At last the steward grasped Angelino, and tried to save him, but both were thrown dead upon the beach. In the final crash, Ossoli and Celeste clung for a while in the rigging, but Margaret sank at once. "When last seen, she had been seated at the foot of the foremast, still clad in her white night-measurable desire; she met with love, she gave dress, with her hair fallen loose upon her shoulders." "It was a touching coincidence," observes a writer, "that the only one of Margaret's treasures which reached the shore was the lifeless body of Angelino. When the body, stripped of every rag by the waves, was rescued from the surf, a sailor took it reverently in his arms, and wrapping it in his neckcloth, bore it to the nearest house. There, when washed and dressed in a child's frock, found in Margaret's trunk, it was laid upon a bed; and as the rescued seamen gathered round their late play-fellow and pet, there were few dry eyes in the circle. Several of them mourned for Nino as if he had been their own; and even the callous wreckers were softened for the moment by a sight so full of pathetic beauty." And with this child of her blood went also into oblivion the child of her brain-did with her mortal frame. The work ought her book on Italy, in which we should have had the maturest product of her genius. And this great loss, we have, probably, to charge, not on the ravage of the sea, but on the cruel greed of

men.

The miscreants that rifled her trunk were those, it is likely, who destroyed her manuscripts, which might serve as evidence against them in a prosecution for robbery.

In closing our brief narrative of these impressive events, we have only one remark to make on the pathetic consistency of fate which belonged to all that concerned this very extraordinary woman. The word "fragmentary" seems best to characterize all that related to her. Her early education was severe yet not harmonious. Her self-culture was earnest and deep, yet it does not appear to have been systematic or continuous. She had constant interruptions in all

The

The after-drama corresponds with the doom of Margaret's life and death. She has had a fragmentary biography. It is a "thing of shreds and patches"-part of it by herself, and portions by her friends. Instead of thus sharing the work, some one writer should have singly done it. It was a grievous mistake to deal thus with her noble memory; it was a sad coincidence that affection and admiration should seem to deal with her living spirit as the pitiless waves

not to have been done piece-meal, but in the unity and completeness of intelligence and love. The story was a "simple story," and should have been simply told. Then we would have had the distinct and clear personality of an admirable woman's soul, and not a broken life commemorated in a broken monument. We lay no blame to the writers. All of them held Margaret in their choicest thoughts; but the method was a mistake, and we trust it may never be imitated.

Though of mature years, Margaret's life was incomplete - her genius undeveloped. Up to the time of her marriage she was restless, uncertain, undecided, vague, and visionary: she had not yet attained to the peace which brings forth ripest power. We do not, therefore, know her, as, had she lived, we should probably have