been able to bear my window open at night since our arrival; also we get good milk and bread and eggs and wine, and are not much at a loss for anything.  Think of my forgetting to tell you (Robert would not forgive me for that) how we have a specola or sort of belvedere at the top of the house, which he delights in, and which I shall enjoy presently, when I have recovered my taste for climbing staircases.  He carried me up once, but the being carried down was so much like being carried down the flue of a chimney, that I waive the whole privilege for the future.  What is better, to my mind, is the expected fact of being able to get books at Siena—­nearly as well as at Brecker’s, really; though Dumas fils seems to fill up many of the interstices where you think you have found something. Three pauls a month, the subscription is; and for seven, we get a ‘Galignani,’ or are promised to get it.  We pay for our villa ten scudi the month, so that altogether it is not ruinous.  The air is as fresh as English air, without English dampness and transition; yes, and we have English lanes with bowery tops of trees, and brambles and blackberries, and not a wall anywhere, except the walls of our villa.

For my part, I am recovering strength, I hope and believe.  Certainly I can move about from one room to another, without reeling much:  but I still look so ghastly, as to ‘back recoil,’ perfectly knowing ‘Why,’ from everything in the shape of a looking glass.  Robert has found an armchair for me at Siena.  To say the truth, my time for enjoying this country life, except the enchanting silence and the look from the window, has not come yet:  I must wait for a little more strength.  Wiedeman’s cheeks are beginning to redden already, and he delights in the pigeons and the pig and the donkey and a great yellow dog and everything else now; only he would change all your trees (except the apple trees), he says, for the Austrian band at any moment.  He is rather a town baby....

Our drawback is, dear Miss Blagden, that we have not room to take you in.  So sorry we both are indeed.  Write and tell me whether you have decided about Vallombrosa.  I hope we shall see much of you still at Florence, if not here.  We could give you everything here except a bed.

Robert’s kindest regards with those of
Your ever affectionate
ELIZABETH B. BROWNING.

My love to Miss Agassiz, whenever you see her.

To Miss Mitford Siena:  September 24, 1850.

To think that it is more than two months since I wrote last to you, my beloved friend, makes the said two months seem even longer to me than otherwise they would necessarily be—­a slow, heavy two months in every case, ‘with all the weights of care and death hung at them.’  Your letter reached me when I was confined to my bed, and could scarcely read it, for all the strength at my heart....  As soon as I could be moved, and before I could walk from one room to another, Dr. Harding insisted on