Our kind love to Kate—­and mind you give our regards to Dr. Gresonowsky.  Also to Mr. Jarves—­poor Mr. Jarves—­how sorry I am about the pictures!

Robert will write another time, he says, ‘with kindest love.’

* * * * *

To Miss Browning

[Siena:  September-October, 1859.]

My dearest Sarianna,—­We are on the verge of returning to Florence, for a short time—­only to pack up, I believe, and go further south—­to ’meet the revolution,’ tell the dearest Nonno, with my love.  The case is that though I am really convalescent and look well (Robert has even let me take to Penini a little, which is conclusive), it is considered dangerous for me to run the risk of even a Florence winter.  You see I have been very ill.  The physician thought there was pressure of the lungs on the heart, and, under those circumstances, that I must avoid irritation of the lungs by any cold.  Say nothing which can reach my sisters and frighten them; and after all I care very little about doctors, except that I do know myself how hard renewals of the late attack would go with me.  But I mean to take care, and use God’s opportunities of getting strong again.  Also it seems to me that I have taken a leap within these ten days, and that the strength comes back in a fuller tide.  After all, it is not a cruel punishment to us to have to go to Rome again this winter, though it will be an undesirable expense, and though we did wish to keep quiet this winter, the taste for constant wanderings having passed away as much for me as for Robert.  We begin to see that by no possible means can one spend as much money to so small an end.  And then we don’t work so well—­don’t live to as much use, either for ourselves or others.  Isa Blagden bids us observe that we pretend to live at Florence, and are not there much above two months in the year, what with going away for the summer and going away for the winter.  It’s too true.  It’s the drawback of Italy.  To live in one place here is impossible for us almost, just as to live out of Italy at all is impossible for us.  It isn’t caprice—­that’s all I mean to say—­on our part.

Siena pleases us very much.  The silence and repose have been heavenly things to me, and the country is very pretty, though no more than pretty—­nothing marked or romantic, no mountains (did you fancy us on the mountains?) except so far off as to be like a cloud only, on clear days, and no water.  Pretty, dimpled ground, covered with low vineyards; purple hills, not high, with the sunsets clothing them.  But I like the place, and feel loth to return to Florence from this half-furnished villa and stone floors.  The weather is still very hot, but no longer past bearing, and we are enjoying it, staying on from day to day.  Robert proposed Palermo instead of Rome, but I shrink a little from the prospect of our being cut up into mincemeat by patriotic Sicilians, though