But he is separated from his old employments and natural companions, while no career is open for him at present.  Then, I would not take his child away for several months; for his heart is fixed upon him as fervently as mine.  And, again, it would not only be very strange and sad to be so long without his love and care, but I should be continually solicitous about his welfare.  Ossoli, indeed, cannot but feel solitary at first, and I am much more anxious about his happiness than my own.  Still, he will have our boy, and the love of my family, especially of my mother, to cheer him, and quiet communings with nature give him pleasure so simple and profound, that I hope he will make a new life for himself, in our unknown country, till changes favor our return to his own.  I trust, that we shall find the means to come together, and to remain together.”

Considerations of economy determined them, spite of many misgivings, to take passage in a merchantman from Leghorn.  “I am suffering,” she writes, “as never before, from the horrors of indecision.  Happy the fowls of the air, who do not have to think so much about their arrangements!  The barque Elizabeth will take us, and is said to be an uncommonly good vessel, nearly new, and well kept.  We may be two months at sea, but to go by way of France would more than double the expense.  Yet, now that I am on the point of deciding to come in her, people daily dissuade me, saying that I have no conception of what a voyage of sixty or seventy days will be in point of fatigue and suffering; that the insecurity, compared with packet-ships or steamers, is great; that the cabin, being on deck, will be terribly exposed, in case of a gale, &c., &c.  I am well aware of the proneness of volunteer counsellors to frighten and excite one, and have generally disregarded them.  But this time I feel a trembling solicitude on account of my child, and am doubtful, harassed, almost ill.”  And again, under date of April 21, she says:  “I had intended, if I went by way of France, to take the packet-ship ’Argo,’ from Havre; and I had requested Mrs. ——­ to procure and forward to me some of my effects left at Paris, in charge of Miss F——­, when, taking up Galignani, my eye fell on these words:  ’Died, 4th of April, Miss F——­; ’and, turning the page, I read, ’The wreck of the Argo,’—­a somewhat singular combination!  There were notices, also, of the loss of the fine English steamer Adelaide, and of the American packet John Skiddy. Safety is not to be secured, then, by the wisest foresight.  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 amid the howling waves; or, if so, that Ossoli, Angelo, and I may go together, and that the anguish may be brief.”