tho’ I rather think she will not.  Rome looks very well, and I hope we shall have a happier time of it than before.  Many friends are here and everybody is very kind.  The Eckleys were extravagantly good to us, something beyond conception almost.  We have seen Miss Cushman, Hatty,[60] Leighton, Cartwright, the Storys, Page and his new (third) wife, Gibson, beside the Brackens and Mrs. Mackenzie; and there are others I shall see to-day.  Ferdinando was sent on by sea with the luggage, and met us at the gate.  It has been an expensive business altogether, but I think we shall not regret it.  I daresay you have mild weather at Paris also.  These premature beginnings of cold break down and leave the rest of the year the warmer, if not the better for them.  Dearest Sis, write and tell me all the news of your two selves.  Do you hear anything about Reuben’s leaving London?  Anything of Lady Elgin?  How is Madame Milsand?  I will send you the last ‘Ath.’  I have received, but break off here rather abruptly, in order to let Ba write.  Good-bye.  God bless you both.  Kindest love to Milsand.

Yours ever affectionately
R.B.

* * * * *

E.B.  Browning to Miss Browning

My dearest Sarianna,—­I don’t know whether this letter from Rome will surprise you, but we have done it at last.  Our journey was most prosperous, the wonderful inrush of winter which buried all Italy in snow, and for some days rendered the possibility of any change of quarters so more than doubtful (I myself gave it up for days), having given way to an inrush of summer as wonderful.  The change was so pleasant that I bore with perfect equanimity the lamentations of certain English acquaintances of ours in Florence, who declared it was the most frightful and dangerous climate that could be, that now one was frozen to death and the next day burnt and melted, and that people couldn’t be healthy under such transitions.  But all countries of the south are subject to the same of course wherever there is a southern sun, and mountains to retain snow.  Even in Paris you complain of something a little like it, because of the sun.  We left Florence in a blaze of sunshine accordingly, and there and everywhere found the country transfigured back into summer, except for two days of April rain.  Of the kindness of our dear friends Mr. and Mrs. Eckley I am moved when I try to speak.  They humiliate me by their devotion.  Such generosity and delicacy, combined with so much passionate sentiment (there is no other word), are difficult to represent.  The Americans are great in some respects, not that Americans generally are like these, but that these could scarcely be English—­for instance, that mixture of enthusiasm and simplicity we have not.  Our journey was delightful and not without some incidents, which might have been accidents.  We were as nearly as possible thrown once into a ditch and once down a mountain precipice, the spirited horses