ed out again,
with their heads well in the air, looking neither to the right nor the
left. Most discreet if not incorruptible guardians of the peace! When
the door was shut the music began again; but Gigi was so earnest in
his protestations, that my friend Browning suggested we should get into
carriages and drive to see the Coliseum by moonlight. And so we sallied
forth, to the great relief of poor Gigi, to whom it meant, if reported,
several months of imprisonment, and complete ruin.

'In after-years Browning frequently recounted with delight this night
march.

'"We drove down the Corso in two carriages," he would say. "In one were
our musicians, in the other we sat. Yes! and the people all asked, 'who
are these who make all this parade?' At last some one said, 'Without
doubt these are the fellows who won the lottery,' and everybody cried,
'Of course these are the lucky men who have won.'"'

The two persons whom Mr. Browning saw most, and most intimately, during
this and the ensuing winter, were probably Mr. and Mrs. Story. Allusion
has already been made to the opening of the acquaintance at the Baths
of Lucca in 1853, to its continuance in Rome in '53 and '54, and to the
artistic pursuits which then brought the two men into close and frequent
contact with each other. These friendly relations were cemented by their
children, who were of about the same age; and after Mrs. Browning's
death, Miss Browning took her place in the pleasant intercourse which
renewed itself whenever their respective visits to Italy and to England
again brought the two families together. A no less lasting and truly
affectionate intimacy was now also growing up with Mr. Cartwright and
his wife--the Cartwrights (of Aynhoe) of whom mention was made in the
Siena letter to F. Leighton; and this too was subsequently to include
their daughter, now Mrs. Guy Le Strange, and Mr. Browning's sister. I
cannot quite ascertain when the poet first knew Mr. Odo Russell, and his
mother, Lady William Russell, who was also during this, or at all
events the following winter, in Rome; and whom afterwards in London
he regularly visited until her death; but the acquaintance was already
entering on the stage in which it would spread as a matter of course
through every branch of the family. His first country visit, when he had
returned to England, was paid with his son to Woburn Abbey.

We are now indeed fully confronted with one of the great difficulties
of Mr. Br