fessor's daughter, has described how Browning
sat before the fire the evening of his arrival, in an armchair, his hands
resting on it, while he spoke with sympathetic pride of his son's work,
and told how the son, who had studied so much abroad, had once announced
to Millais his intention of going to Egypt to paint, and that Millais had
replied that he would not give up his months in the highlands of Scotland
for any years in Egypt.

The Massons had as their guests for this great commemoration the Count and
Countess Aurelio Saffi, the Count bringing with him his gorgeous Bologna
gown, in which he had the resplendence of a figure in a stained glass
window.

The week was a most enjoyable one to Mr. Browning. Receptions and dinners
made up a round of festivity, and when he was asked by his hostess if he
objected to all the adulation he received, he replied: "Object to it? No;
I have waited forty years for it and now--I like it."

After his return to London he sent to Mrs. Masson two manuscripts of Mrs.
Browning's, her translations of "Psyche and Pan" and of "Psyche
Propitiating Ceres," and to Professor Masson a letter from Leigh Hunt to
himself, which the Professor had wished to copy,--the original which he
sent being written on sheets of different colors held together with
colored embroidery.

Browning wrote to his host that he had read with delight his two lectures
on Carlyle, and that "the goodness of that memorable week" was never long
out of his mind.

The letters written to Mrs. Bronson offer almost a panoramic picture of
his life over all these closing years. Alluding to a studio that he had
taken for the temporary accommodation of his son's pictures and busts, Mr.
Browning resumes:

... Pen's statues and busts are in bronze now, and his large "Idyl,"
three landscapes, and whatsoever else, to arrive soon. Were you only
here to see! Well, you can bear with the talking about them you shall
undergo, for we two understand each other, don't we? I know I am ever
yours and your own Edith's affectionately,

ROBERT BROWNING.

In the late summer Browning and his sister were the guests of Mrs.
Bloomfield Moore, in her villa at St. Moritz, from which Mr. Browning thus
writes to Mrs. Bronson:

VILLA BERRY, ST. MORITZ, OBER ENGADINE.

Sept. 6, '84.

Yes, dearest friend, your pretty wreath came this morning, and
opposite this table shall it hang till I leave the house, be it