many others that she had had before; but this
time there was no recovery.

Of the last scene no other account need be asked or wished for than
that given by Mr. Browning himself in a letter to Miss Haworth, dated
July 20, 1861.[105]

My dear Friend,--I well know you feel, as you say, for her once and for
me now. Isa Blagden, perfect in all kindness to me, will have told you
something, perhaps, and one day I shall see you and be able to tell you
myself as much as I can. The main comfort is that she suffered very
little pain, none beside that ordinarily attending the simple attacks of
cold and cough she was subject to, had no presentiment of the result
whatever, and was consequently spared the misery of knowing she was
about to leave us: she was smilingly assuring me that she was 'better,'
'quite comfortable, if I would but come to bed,' to within a few minutes
of the last. I think I foreboded evil at Rome, certainly from the
beginning of the week's illness, but when I reasoned about it, there was
no justifying fear. She said on the last evening 'It is merely the old
attack, not so severe a one as that of two years ago; there is no doubt
I shall soon recover,' and we talked over plans for the summer and next
year. I sent the servants away and her maid to bed, so little reason for
disquietude did there seem. Through the night she slept heavily and
brokenly--that was the bad sign; but then she would sit up, take her
medicine, say unrepeatable things to me, and sleep again. At four
o'clock there were symptoms that alarmed me; I called the maid and sent
for the doctor. She smiled as I proposed to bathe her feet, 'Well, you
_are_ determined to make an exaggerated case of it!' Then came what my
heart will keep till I see her again and longer--the most perfect
expression of her love to me within my whole knowledge of her. Always
smilingly, happily, and with a face like a girl's, and in a few minutes
she died in my arms, her head on my cheek. These incidents so sustain me
that I tell them to her beloved ones as their right: there was no
lingering, nor acute pain, nor consciousness of separation, but God
took her to Himself as you would lift a sleeping child from a dark
uneasy bed into your arms and the light. Thank God! Annunziata thought,
by her earnest ways with me, happy and smiling as they were, that she
must have been aware of our parting's approach, but she was quite
conscious, had words at command, and yet did not even sp