arriage, a servant accompanying them
carrying the basket of luncheon. In the early evening Browning and Miss
Egerton-Smith were out, pacing up and down the "grass-grown path," and
talking of the infinite life which includes death and that which is beyond
death. The next morning she did not appear, and Browning and his sister
waited for her. They sat out on the terrace after having morning coffee,
expecting to see the "tall white figure," and finally Miss Browning went
to her room to ask if she were ill, and she lay dead on the floor. Miss
Egerton-Smith was buried in the neighboring cemetery of Collonge, where
her grave, over which a wonderful willow tree bends, is still seen--a
place of frequent pilgrimage to visitors in this region. Five days after
her death Browning made the excursion up the mountain alone,

"But a bitter touched its sweetness, for the thought stung 'Even so
Both of us had loved and wondered just the same, five days ago!'"

La Saleve, the mountain overlooking the Arve and the Rhone Valley, is one
of the most wildly picturesque points in all the Alpine region. The chalet
of "La Saisiaz" was perched on this mountain spur, about half-way up the
mountain, on a shelving terrace, with vast and threatening rocks rising
behind. The poem called "La Saisiaz" is one of Browning's greatest. It is
full of mystical questioning and of his positive and radiant assertions of
faith; it abounds in vivid and exquisite scenic effects, and it has the
personal touches of tenderness. The morning after her death is thus
pictured:

"No, the terrace showed no figure, tall, white, leaning through the
wreaths,
Tangle-twine of leaf and bloom that intercept the air one breathes."

Browning and Miss Egerton-Smith had first met in Florence. She was an
English lady of means (being part proprietor of the _Liverpool Mercury_)
and of a reserve of temperament which kept her aloof from people in
general. With the poet and his sister she was seen in all that cordial
sweetness of her nature which her sensitive reserve veiled from strangers.

Italy again! A sapphire sky bending over hills and peaks and terraces
swimming in violet shadows; villas, and sudden views, and arching
_pianterreni_, and winding roads between low stone walls hidden in their
riotous overgrowth of roses! And the soft air, the tall black cypresses
against the sky, the sunsets and the stars, and golden lights, and dear
Italian phrases! The trailing iv