But Margaret had already by letter appointed a
rendezvous for the scattered members of her family in July; and she
would not break her engagements with the commander of the barque. It
was destined that they were to sail,--to sail in the _Elizabeth_, to
sail then. And, even in the hour of parting, clouds, whose tops were
golden in the sunshine, whose base was gloomy on the waters, beckoned
them onward. "Beware of the sea," had been a singular prophecy, given
to Ossoli when a boy, by a fortune-teller, and this was the first ship
he had ever set his foot on. More than ordinary apprehensions of risk,
too, hovered before Margaret. "I am absurdly fearful," she writes,
"and various omens have combined to give me a dark feeling. I am
become indeed a miserable coward, for the sake of Angelino. I fear
heat and cold, fear the voyage, fear biting poverty. I hope I shall
not be forced to be as brave for him, as I have been for myself, and
that, if I succeed to rear him, he will be neither a weak nor a bad
man. But I love him too much! In case of mishap, however, I shall
perish with my husband and my child, and we may be transferred to
some happier state." And again: "I feel perfectly willing to stay my
threescore years and ten, if it be thought I need so much tuition from
this planet; but it seems to me that my future upon earth will soon
close.
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