Dear, I had just folded up your parcel for Miss Alexander that my brother George should take it to-morrow.  It has been my first opportunity for England—­at least, for London.  But now I will carry it back to you....

Arabel stays with me till we go, which will be in a fortnight perhaps from now.  We have an apartment in an exquisite situation, two paces from the Tuileries Gardens, first floor, three best bedrooms and two servants’ rooms, a closet of a dining-room, a salon—­all small, but exquisitely comfortable and Parisian, looking into a court though, and we are not tempted to stay the winter.  No; we return to Florence faithfully.  Write again, and be happy, Isa; it is as if I said be good.  Tell me, can it be true that Lytton is in Florence with his mother, as Father Prout assures us on the authority of Lady Walpole?...

Write to your ever, in word and deed, loving

BA.

* * * * *

In October the travellers were back in Florence, but this time only for a short stay of some six weeks, since it was decided that Rome would be more suitable to Mrs. Browning’s failing health during the winter.  On November 24 they reached Rome, and for the next six months were quartered, as in the winter of 1853-4, at No. 43 Via Bocca di Leone.  Here it was that they heard the first mutterings of the storm which was to burst during the following year and to result in the making of Italy.

* * * * *

To Miss E.F.  Haworth

Casa Guidi:  Saturday [about October 1858].

You do not come, dearest Fanny, though I am here waiting, and I begin to be uneasy about you.  Do at least write, do.  We have been here since Tuesday, and here is Saturday, and every morning there has been an anxious looking forward for you....

Miss ——­ wrote to me in Paris to propose travelling with us, which Robert lacked chivalry to accede to; and, in fact, our ways of journeying are too uncertain to admit of arrangements with anyone beyond our circle.  For instance, we took nine days to get here from Paris, spending only one day at Chambery, for the sake of Les Charmettes and Rousseau.  Robert played the ‘Dream’ on the old harpsichord, the keys of which rattled in a ghastly way, as if it were the bones of him who once so ‘dreamed.’  Then there was the old watch hung up, without a tick in it.  At St. Jean de Maurienne we got into difficulties with diligences, and submitted to being thrown out for the night at Lanslebourg, I more dead than alive, and indeed I suffered much in passing the mountain next morning.  Then again, on the sea, we had a burrasca, and the captain had half a mind when half-way to Leghorn to turn back to Genoa.  Passengers much frightened, including me, a little.  A wretched Neapolitan boat, with a machine ’inclined to go to the devil every time the wind went anywhere,’ as I heard a French gentleman on board say afterwards.