six weeks, since it was decided that Rome would be
more suitable to Mrs. Browning's failing health during the winter. On
November 24 they reached Rome, and for the next six months were
quartered, as in the winter of 1853-4, at No. 43 Via Bocca di Leone.
Here it was that they heard the first mutterings of the storm which was
to burst during the following year and to result in the making of Italy.

* * * * *

_To Miss E.F. Haworth_

Casa Guidi: Saturday [about October 1858].

You do not come, dearest Fanny, though I am here waiting, and I begin to
be uneasy about you. Do at least write, do. We have been here since
Tuesday, and here is Saturday, and every morning there has been an
anxious looking forward for you....

Miss ---- wrote to me in Paris to propose travelling with us, which
Robert lacked chivalry to accede to; and, in fact, our ways of
journeying are too uncertain to admit of arrangements with anyone beyond
our circle. For instance, we took nine days to get here from Paris,
spending only one day at Chambery, for the sake of Les Charmettes and
Rousseau. Robert played the 'Dream' on the old harpsichord, the keys of
which rattled in a ghastly way, as if it were the bones of him who once
so 'dreamed.' Then there was the old watch hung up, without a tick in
it. At St. Jean de Maurienne we got into difficulties with diligences,
and submitted to being thrown out for the night at Lanslebourg, I more
dead than alive, and indeed I suffered much in passing the mountain next
morning. Then again, on the sea, we had a _burrasca_, and the captain
had half a mind when half-way to Leghorn to turn back to Genoa.
Passengers much frightened, including me, a little. A wretched
Neapolitan boat, with a machine 'inclined to go to the devil every time
the wind went anywhere,' as I heard a French gentleman on board say
afterwards. Altogether we were so done up after eighteen hours of it,
that we stayed at Leghorn instead of going on straight to Florence.
Still, now I seem to have got over fatigue and the rest--and we keep our
faces turned undeviatingly to Rome. Mdme. du Quaire having carefully
apprised M. Mignaty that we left Paris on the thirteenth, our friends
here seem to have made up their minds that we had perished by land or
water, and Annunziata's poor sister had passed three days in tears, for
instance.

Now, dearest Fanny, let me confess to you. I have not brought the
bonnet. A bonnet is a