e same broth. It is hard, for his appetite
cries out aloud; and he has agonising visions of beefsteak pies and
buttered toast seen in _mirage_. Still his spirits don't fail on the
whole and now that the fever is all but gone, they rise, till we have to
beg him to be quiet and not to talk so much. He had the flower-girl in
by his bedside yesterday, and it was quite impossible to help laughing,
so many Florentine airs did he show off. 'Per Bacco, ho una fame
terribile, e non voglio aver piu pazienza con questo Dottore.' The
doctor, however, seems skilful....

But you may think how worn out I have been in body and soul, and how
under these circumstances we think little of Jerusalem or of any other
place but our home at Florence. Still, we shall probably pass the winter
either at Rome or Naples, but I know no more than a swaddled baby which.
Also we _shan't_ know, probably, till the end of November, when we take
out our passports. Doubt is our element....

I must go to my Peni. I am almost happy about him now. And yet--oh, his
lovely rosy cheeks, his round fat little shoulders, his strength and
spring of a month ago!--at the best, we must lose our joy and pride in
these for a time. May God bless you! I know you will feel for me, and
that makes me so egotistical.

Your ever affectionate
BA.

* * * * *

_To Miss Browning_

[Florence: February 1858.]

My dearest Sarianna,--Robert is going to write to dear M. Milsand, whose
goodness is 'passing that of men,' of all common friends certainly.
Robert's thanks are worth more than mine, and so I shall leave it to
Robert to thank him.

The 'grippe' has gripped us here most universally, and no wonder,
considering our most exceptional weather; and better the grippe than the
fever which preceded it. Such cold has not been known here for years,
and it has extended throughout the south, it seems, to Rome and Naples,
where people are snowed and frozen up. So strange. The Arno, for the
first time since '47, has had a slice or two of ice on it. Robert has
suffered from the prevailing malady, which did not however, through the
precautions we took, touch his throat or chest, amounting only to a bad
cold in the head. Peni was afflicted in the same way but in a much
slighter degree, and both are now quite well. As for me I have caught no
cold--only losing my breath and my soul in the usual way, the cough not
being much. So that we have no claim, any of