s--two darling little nieces of mine came toddling
along from Tedworth Square, S.W. London, stark naked, and straightway
condensed themselves into one meditative water-baby, that loved the
shells as I did, and cuddled them as I couldn't.

Dreams to be sure--fancies, mocking visions of beauty, not to be
realised, I know it well, but to the artist life would not be worth
living if it were not for the glorious excitement of hunting the
will-o'-the-wisp.

So I began what I called the shell-picture shortly after my return to
London. Browning was in sympathy with my subject, and often came when I
was tackling it. In the afternoons he was a man of leisure, his mornings
being devoted to his own work, which he would take up when he had read
the _Times_ and answered his letters. After luncheon he very rarely
returned to his study. He would go out about two o'clock, perhaps to
walk down to the Athenaeum Club, where on Saturdays he was to be seen
very regularly, reading the weekly papers, or he would visit his
friends. Amongst those his artist friends were the most favoured, and
more than one of them, I am sure, would be better qualified than I am to
fill a chapter of reminiscences, headed "Browning at the Studio." He
himself often speaks in his letters of the pleasure it gives him to
associate with them.

"I scribble this," he writes on one occasion, "in case I should be
unable to look in to-morrow afternoon--as I will, if I can, however:
always enjoying, as I do, the sight of creation by another process than
that of the head, with only pen and paper to help. How expeditiously the
brush works!"

And another time he says--

"As for the visits to your studio, be assured they are truly a
delight to me, for the old aspirations come thickly back to memory
when I see you at work as--who knows but I myself might have worked
once? Only it was not to be; but these are consolations--seeing
that I am anyhow

"Yours sympathisingly,

"ROBERT BROWNING."

The aspirations he speaks of he had in former years sought to satisfy.
When living in Florence he had arranged the large corner room on the
first floor of the Casa Guidi as a studio. There he used to make
life-size drawings of the human figure from casts, working on a
specially prepared canvas, which enabled him to rub out his studies and
to replace them by others. He never painted; form had more attraction
for him than colour. When in Rome he worke