So you see, dear Isa, I am really very well for me to be so pert.  Yes, indeed, I am very well.  The journey did not overtire me, and change of air had its usual reviving effect.  Also, Robert keeps boasting of his influx of energies, and his appetite is renewed.  We have resolved nothing about our sea plans, but have long lists of places, and find it difficult to choose among so many enchanting paradises, with drawbacks of ‘dearness,’ &c. &c.  Meanwhile we are settled comfortably in an hotel close to the Tuileries, in a pretty salon and pleasant bedrooms, for which we don’t pay exorbitantly, taken for a week, and we shall probably outstay the week.  Robert has the deep comfort of finding his father, on whose birthday we arrived, looking ten years younger—­really, I may say so—­and radiant with joy at seeing him and Peni.  Dear Mr. Browning and Sarianna will go with us wherever we go, of course.

Paris looks more beautiful than ever, and we were not too dead to see this as we drove through the streets on Wednesday evening.  The development of architectural splendour everywhere is really a sight worth coming to see, even from Italy.  Observe, I always feel the charm.  And yet I yearn back to my Florence—­the dearer the farther.

We slept at Dijon, where Robert, in a passion of friendship, went out twice to stand before Maison Milsand (one of the shows of the town), and muse and bless the threshold.  Little did he dream that Milsand was there at that moment, having been called suddenly from Paris by the dangerous illness of his mother.  So we miss our friend; but we shall not, I think, altogether, for he talked of following us to the sea, Sarianna says, and even if he is restrained from doing this, we shall pass some little time in Paris on our return, and so see him....

Mrs. Jameson is here, but goes on Saturday to England.

[Incomplete]

* * * * *

To Miss E.F.  Haworth

2 Rue de Perry, Le Havre, Maison Versigny:  July 23, 1858 [postmark].

My dearest Fanny,—­ ...  I gave you an account of our journey to Paris, which I won’t write over again, especially as you may have read some things like it.  In Paris we remained a fortnight except a day, and I liked it as I always like Paris, for which I have a decided fancy.  And yet I did nothing, except in one shop, and in a fiacre driving round and round, and sometimes at a restaurant, dining round and round.  But Paris is so full of life—­murmurs so of the fountain of intellectual youth for ever and ever—­that rolling up the rue de Rivoli (much more the Boulevards) suggests a quicker beat of the fancy’s heart; and I like it—­I like it.  The architectural beauty is wonderful.  Give me Venice on water, Paris on land—­each in its way is a dream city.  If one had but the sun there—­such a sun as one has in Italy!  Or if one had no lungs here—­such lungs as are in me.  But no.  Under actual circumstances