for me in either poetry, or life," she said; "I never
mistook pleasure for the final cause of poetry; nor leisure, for the hour
of the poet."

In the success of "Aurora Leigh" she was herself surprised. Private
letters from strangers filled with the warmest, even if sometimes
indiscriminate, praises, rained down upon her, and she found the press
"astonishing in its good will." That her "golden-hearted Robert" was "in
ecstasies about it, far more than as if it had been a book of his own,"
was apparently her most precious reward. Milsand, who she had fancied
would hardly like this poem, wrote a critique of it for the _Revue_ which
touched her with its "extraordinary kindness." He asked and obtained
permission to translate it into French, and in a letter to Miss Sarianna
Browning she speaks of her happiness that he should thus distinguish the
poem.

Soon after their arrival in Florence came the saddest of news, that of the
death of John Kenyon, their beloved friend, whose last thoughtful kindness
was to endow them with a legacy insuring to them that freedom from
material care which is so indispensable to the best achievements in art.
During his life he had given to them one hundred pounds a year, and in his
will he left them ten thousand guineas,--the largest of the many legacies
that his generous will contained.

The carnival, always gay in Florence, was exceedingly so that year, and
Penini, whose ardor for a blue domino was gratified, and who thought of
nothing else for the time being, seemed to communicate his raptures, so
that Browning proposed taking a box at the opera ball, and entertaining
some invited friends with gallantina and champagne. Suddenly the air grew
very mild, and he decided that his wife might and must go; she sent out
hastily to buy a mask and domino (he had already a beautiful black silk
one, which she later transmuted into a black silk gown for herself), and
while her endurance and amusement kept her till two o'clock in the
morning, the poet and his friends remained till after four. The Italian
carnival, however wild and free it may be (and is), yet never degenerates
into rudeness. The inborn delicacy and gentle refinement of the people
render this impossible. Yet for the time being there is perfect social
equality, and at this ball the Grand Duke and Wilson's husband,
Ferdinando, were on terms of fellowship.

In the early April of that spring the summer suddenly dawned upon lovely
Florence like