Page:Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Ingram, 5th ed.).djvu/183

Rh I like her the better for loving the man Shakespeare with a personal love. We talked, too, of Margaret Fuller, who spent her last night in Italy with the Brownings; and of William Story, with whom they had been intimate, and who, Mrs. Browning says, is much stirred about Spiritualism. Really, I cannot help wondering that so fine a spirit as hers should not reject the matter till at least it is forced upon her. I like her very much."

After they left the breakfast-table they entered the library where, Hawthorne says, "Mr. Browning introduced himself to me—a younger man than I expected to see, handsome, with brown hair. He is very simple and agreeable in manner, gently impulsive, talking as if his heart were uppermost."

In October the Brownings returned to Italy, not waiting, apparently, for the publication of Aurora Leigh, which appeared simultaneously in England and America. They had not returned to their Florentine home long ere they were startled by the news of Kenyon's death. He died on the 3rd of December, at his marine residence in Cowes, Isle of Wight, and, having no near relatives, left his large property amongst his literary and other friends. Kenyon, who was known among his intimates as "the Apostle of Cheerfulness," crowned a long career of generosity and friendship by leaving handsome legacies to those who really required them, amongst those who participated being Mr. and Mrs. Browning, to whom he left the very acceptable sum of ten thousand five hundred pounds.

A few months later, and death was again busy in Mrs. Browning's family circle. On the 17th of April her father died, in the seventy-first year of his age, and