CHAPTER II.



Three months previous to this time I had gone to Turin, where, after
several years of separation, I saw my parents, one of my brothers,
and two sisters. We had always been an attached family; no son had
ever been more deeply indebted to a father and a mother than I; I
remember I was affected at beholding a greater alteration in their
looks, the progress of age, than I had expected. I indulged a
secret wish to part from them no more, and soothe the pillow of
departing age by the grateful cares of a beloved son. How it vexed
me, too, I remember, during the few brief days I passed with them,
to be compelled by other duties to spend so much of the day from
home, and the society of those I had such reason to love and to
revere; yes, and I remember now what my mother said one day, with an
expression of sorrow, as I went out--"Ah! our Silvio has not come to
Turin to see US!" The morning of my departure for Milan was a truly
painful one. My poor father accompanied me about a mile on my way;
and, on leaving me, I more than once turned to look at him, and,
weeping, kissed the ring my mother had just given me; nor did I ever
before quit my family with a feeling of such painful presentiment.
I am not superstitious; but I was astonished at my own weakness, and
I more than once exclaimed in a tone of terror, "Good God! whence
comes this strange anxiety and alarm?" and, with a sort of inward
vision, my mind seemed to behold the approach of some great
calamity. Even yet in prison I retain the impression of that sudden
dread and parting anguish, and can recall each word and every look
of my distressed parents. The tender reproach of my mother, "Ah!