essed by Mr. Browning into the
long walks in which they both delighted, and they traversed Rome on both
sides the Tiber. The poet was not writing regularly in those days, though
his wife "gently wrangled" with him to give more attention to his art,
and held before him the alluring example of the Laureate who shut himself
up daily for prescribed work. Browning had "an enormous superfluity of
vital energy," which he had to work off in long walks, in modeling, and in
conversations. "I wanted his poems done this winter very much," said Mrs.
Browning; "and here was a bright room with three windows consecrated to
use.... There has been little poetry done since last winter." But in later
years Browning became one of the most regular of workers, and considered
that day lost on which he had not written at least some lines of poetry.
At this time the poet was fascinated by his modeling. "Nothing but clay
does he care for, poor, lost soul," laughed Mrs. Browning. Her "Hatty" ran
in one day with a sketch of a charming design for a fountain for Lady
Marion Alford. "The imagination is unfolding its wings in Hatty," said
Mrs. Browning.

In days when Mrs. Browning felt able to receive visitors, there were many
to avail themselves of the privilege. On one day came Lady Juliana Knox,
bringing Miss Sewell (Amy Herbert); and M. Carl Grun, a friend of the
poet, Dall' Ongaro, came with a letter from the latter, who wished to
translate into Italian some of the poems of Mrs. Browning. Lady Juliana
had that day been presented to the Holy Father, and she related to Mrs.
Browning how deeply touched she had been by his adding to the benediction
he gave her, "_Priez pour le pape._"

Penini had a choice diversion in that the Duchesse de Grammont, of the
French Embassy, gave a "_matinee d'enfants_," to which he received a card,
and went, resplendent in a crimson velvet blouse, and was presented to
small Italian princes of the Colonna, the Doria, Piombiono, and others,
and played leap-frog with his titled companions.

Mrs. Browning reads with eager interest a long speech of their dear
friend, Milsand, which filled seventeen columns of the _Moniteur_, a copy
of which his French friend sent to Browning.

The Brownings had planned to join the poet's father and sister in Paris
that summer, but a severe attack of illness in which for a few days her
life was despaired of made Mrs. Browning fear that she would be unable to
take the journey. Characteristic