The beautiful verses touched me to the quick, so does your letter.  We shall be in London again perhaps in two months for a few weeks, and then you will let us see you, I hope, will you not?  And, in the meanwhile, you will believe that we do not indeed think of you as a stranger.  Ah, your dream flattered me in certain respects!  Yet there was some truth in it, as I have told you, even though you saw in the dreamlight more roses than were growing.

Certainly Mr. Chapman will at last send me ‘The Head of the Family,’ and then I will write again of course.

Dear Miss Mulock, may I write myself down now, because I must,

Affectionately yours and gratefully,
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.

* * * * *

To Miss Mitford

[Paris],138 Avenue des Ch.-Elysees:  May 9, [1852].

I began a long letter to you in the impulse left by yours upon me, and then destroyed it by accident.  That hindered me from writing as soon as I should have done, for indeed I am anxious to have other news of you, my dearest dear Miss Mitford, and to know, if possible, that you are a little better....  Tell me everything.  Why, you looked really well last summer; and I want to see you looking well this summer, for we shall probably be in London in June—­more’s the pity, perhaps!  The gladness I have in England is so leavened through and through with sadness that I incline to do with it as one does with the black bread of the monks of Vallombrosa, only pretend to eat it and drop it slyly under the table.  If it were not for some ties I would say ‘Farewell, England,’ and never set foot on it again.  There’s always an east wind for me in England, whether the sun shines or not—­the moral east wind which is colder than any other.  But how dull to go on talking of the weather:  Sia come vuole, as we say in Italy.

To-morrow is the great fete of your Louis Napoleon, the distribution of the eagles.  We have done our possible and impossible to get tickets, because I had taken strongly into my head to want to go, and because Robert, who didn’t care for it himself, cared for it for me; but here’s the eleventh hour and our prospects remain gloomy.  We did not apply sufficiently soon, I am afraid, and the name of the applicants has been legion.  It will be a grand sight, and full of significances.  Nevertheless, the empire won’t come so; you will have to wait a little for the Empire.  Who were your financial authorities who praised Louis Napoleon? and do the same approve of the late measure about the three per cents.?  I am so absolutely bete upon such subjects that I don’t even pretend to be intelligent; but I heard yesterday from a direct source that Rothschild expressed a high admiration of the President’s financial ability.  A friend of that master in Israel said it to our friend Lady Elgin.  Commerce is reviving, money is pouring