In Paris they loitered for three weeks.  Mrs. Browning during the short visit which followed her marriage had hardly seen the city.  Bright shop-windows, before which little Wiedemann would scream with pleasure, restaurants and dinners a la carte, full-foliaged trees and gardens in the heart of the town were a not unwelcome exchange for Italian church-interiors and altar-pieces.  Even “disreputable prints and fascinating hats and caps” were appreciated as proper to the genius of the place, and the writer of Casa Guidi Windows had the happiness of seeing her hero, M. le President, “in a cocked hat, and with a train of cavalry, passing like a rocket along the boulevards to an occasional yell from the Red.”  By a happy chance they lighted in Paris upon Tennyson, now Poet-laureate, whom Mrs. Browning had hitherto known only through his poems; he was in the friendliest mood, and urged that they should make use of his house and servants during their stay in England, an offer which was not refused, though there was no intention of actually taking advantage of the kindness.  As for England, the thought of it, with her father’s heart and her father’s door closed against her, was bitter as wormwood to Mrs. Browning.  “It’s only Robert,” she wrote, “who is a patriot now, of us two.”

English soil as they stepped ashore was a puddle, and English air a fog.  London lodgings were taken at 26 Devonshire Street, and, although Mrs. Browning suffered from the climate, they were soon dizzied and dazzled by the whirl of pleasant hospitalities.  An evening with Carlyle ("one of the greatest sights in England"), a dinner given by Forster at Thames Ditton, “in sight of the swans,” a breakfast with Rogers, daily visits of Barry Cornwall, cordial companionship of Mrs. Jameson, a performance by the Literary Guild actors, a reading of Hamlet by Fanny Kemble—­with these distractions and such as these the two months flew quickly.  It was in some ways a relief when Pen’s faithful maid Wilson went for a fortnight to see her kinsfolk, and Mrs. Browning had to take her place and substitute for social racketing domestic cares.  The one central sorrow remained and in some respects was intensified.  She had written to her father, and Browning himself wrote—­“a manly, true, straight-forward letter,” she informs a friend, “... everywhere generous and conciliating.”  A violent and unsparing reply was made, and with it came all the letters that his undutiful daughter had written to Mr. Barrett; not one had been read or opened.  He returned them now, because he had not previously known how he could be relieved of the obnoxious documents.  “God takes it all into his own hands,” wrote Mrs. Browning, “and I wait.”  Something, however, was gained; her brothers were reconciled; Arabella Barrett was constant in kindness; and Henrietta journeyed from Taunton to London to enjoy a week in her company.