Penini is overwhelmed with attentions and gifts of all kinds, and generally acknowledged as the king of the children here.  Mrs. Page, the wife of the distinguished American artist, gave a party in honor of him the other day.  There was an immense cake inscribed ‘Penini’ in sugar; and he sat at the head of the table and did the honors.  You never saw a child so changed in point of shyness.  He will go anywhere with anybody, and talk, and want none of us to back him.  Wilson is only instructed not to come till it is ‘velly late’ to fetch him away.  He talks to Fanny Kemble, who ‘dashes’ most people.  ‘I not aflaid of nossing,’ says he, in his eloquent English.  Mr. Fisher’s cartoon of him is very pretty, but doesn’t do him justice in the delicacy of the lower part of the face.  Yet I can’t complain of Mr. Fisher after the admirable likeness he has painted of Robert.  It is really satisfying to me.  You will see it in London.  Oh, how cruel it is that we can’t buy it, Sarianna; I have a sort of hope that Mr. Kenyon may—­but zitto, zitto![34] Arabel will be very grateful to you for the drawings....

[Endorsed by Miss Browning, ‘Part of a letter’]

* * * * *

The plans, thus confidently spoken of, for a visit to Paris and London in the summer of this year, did not attain fulfilment.  The Brownings left Rome for Florence about the end of May, intending to stay there only a few weeks; but their arrangements were altered by letters received from England, and ultimately they remained in Florence until the summer of the following year.  Whether for this reason, or because the poems were not, after all, ready for press, the printing of Mr. Browning’s new volumes (’Men and Women’) was also postponed, and they did not appear until 1855; while ‘Aurora Leigh’ was still a long way from completion.

* * * * *

To Miss Mitford

Rome:  May 10, 1854.

My ever dearest Miss Mitford,—­Your letter pained me to a degree which I will not pain you by expressing farther.  Now, I do not write to press for another letter.  On the contrary, I entreat you not to attempt to write a word to me with your own hand, until you can do so without effort and suffering.  In the meanwhile, would it be impossible for K. to send me in one line some account of you?  I don’t mean to tease, but I should be very glad and thankful to have news of you though in the briefest manner, and if a letter were addressed to me at Poste Restante, Florence, it would reach me, as we rest there on our road to Paris and London.  In any case I shall see you this summer, if it shall please God; and stay with you the half hour you allow, and kiss your dear hands and feel again, I hope, the brightness of your smile.  As the green summer comes on you must be the better surely; if you can bear to lie out under the trees, the general health will rally and the local