to the house, the fresher air by day and the night winds gradually revived her strength and spirits.  The silence and repose were “heavenly things” to her:  the “pretty dimpled ground covered by low vineyards” rested her eyes and her mind; and for excitements, instead of reports of battle-fields there were slow-fading scarlet sunsets over purple hills.  A kind Prussian physician, Gresonowsky, who had attended Mrs Browning in Florence, and who entered sympathetically into her political feelings, followed her uninvited to Siena and gave her the benefit of his care, declining all recompense.  The good friends from America, the Storys, were not far off, and Landor, after a visit to Story, was placed in occupation of rooms not a stone’s-cast from their villa.  With Pen it was a time of rejoicing, for his father had bought the boy a Sardinian pony of the colour of his curls, and he was to be seen galloping through the lanes “like Puck,” to use Browning’s comparison, on a dragon-fly’s back.[77]

The gipsy instinct, the desire of wandering, had greatly declined with both husband and wife since the earlier days in Italy.  Yet when they returned to Casa Guidi it was only for six weeks.  Even at the close of the visit to Siena Mrs Browning had recovered but a slender modicum of strength; she did not dare to enter the cathedral, for there were steps to climb.  At Florence she felt her old vitality return and her spirits rose.  But the climate of Rome was considered by Dr Gresonowsky more suitable for winter, and towards the close of November they took their departure, flying from the Florentine tramontana.  The carriage was furnished with novels of Balzac, and Pen’s pony was of the party.  The rooms taken in the Via del Tritone were bright and sunny; but a rash visit to the jeweller Castellani, to see and touch the swords presented by Roman citizens to Napoleon III. and Victor Emmanuel, threw back Mrs Browning into all her former troubles of a delicate chest and left her “as weak as a rag.”  Tidings of the death of Lady Elgin seemed to tell only of a peaceful release from a period of imprisonment in the body, but the loss of Mrs Jameson was a painful blow.  Rome at a time of grave political apprehensions was almost empty of foreigners; but among the few Americans who had courage to stay were the sculptor Gibson and Theodore Parker—­now near the close of his life—­whose tete-a-tetes were eloquent of beliefs and disbeliefs.  As the spring advanced the authoress of “The Mill on the Floss” was reported to be now and again visible in Rome, “with her elective affinity,” as Mrs Browning puts it, “on the Corso walking, or in the Vatican musing.  Always together.”  A grand-daughter of Lord Byron—­“very quiet and very intense”—­was among the visitors at the Via del Tritone, and Lady Marion Alford, “very eager about literature and art and Robert,” for all which eagernesses Mrs Browning felt bound to care for her.  The artists Burne-Jones and Prinsep had made Browning’s acquaintance