'Upon his death, I bade adieu to my cousin, and quitted Sicily for

Italy, where the Chevalier de Menon had for some time expected me. Our

meeting was very affecting. My resentment towards him was done away,

when I observed his pale and altered countenance, and perceived the

melancholy which preyed upon his heart. All the airy vivacity of his

former manner was fled, and he was devoured by unavailing grief and

remorse. He deplored with unceasing sorrow the friend he had murdered,

and my presence seemed to open afresh the wounds which time had begun

to close. His affliction, united with my own, was almost more than I

could support, but I was doomed to suffer, and endure yet more. In a

subsequent engagement my husband, weary of existence, rushed into the

heat of battle, and there obtained an honorable death. In a paper

which he left behind him, he said it was his intention to die in that

battle; that he had long wished for death, and waited for an

opportunity of obtaining it without staining his own character by the

cowardice of suicide, or distressing me by an act of butchery. This

event gave the finishing stroke to my afflictions;--yet let me

retract;--another misfortune awaited me when I least expected one.

The Chevalier de Menon died without a will, and his brothers refused to

give up his estate, unless I could produce a witness of my marriage. I

returned to Sicily, and, to my inexpressible sorrow, found that your

mother had died during my stay abroad, a prey, I fear, to grief. The

priest who performed the ceremony of my marriage, having been

threatened with punishment for some ecclesiastical offences, had

secretly left the country; and thus was I deprived of those proofs

which were necessary to authenticate my claims to the estates of my

husband. His brothers, to whom I was an utter stranger, were either

too prejudiced to believe, or believing, were too dishonorable to

acknowledge the justice of my claims. I was therefore at once

abandoned to sorrow and to poverty; a small legacy from the count de

Bernini being all that now remained to me.

'When the marquis married Maria de Vellorno, which was about this

period, he designed to quit Mazzini for Naples. His son was to

accompany him, but it was his intention to leave you, who were both

very young, to the care of some person qualified to superintend your

education. My circumstances rendered the office acceptable, and my

former friendship for your mother made the duty pleasing to me. The

marquis was, I believe, glad to be spared the trouble of searching

further for what he had hitherto found it difficult to obtain--a

person whom inclination as well as duty would bind to his interest.'




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