Page:Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Ingram, 5th ed.).djvu/190

174 continues, "At eight we went to Casa Guidi"; and Hawthorne himself says:—"After some search and inquiry we found the Casa Guidi, which is a palace in a street not very far from our own. It being dusk, I could not see the exterior, which, if I remember. Browning has celebrated in song. . . . The street is a narrow one; but on entering the palace we found a spacious staircase and ample accommodation of vestibule and hall, the latter opening on a balcony, where we could hear the chanting of priests in a church close by." "We found a little boy," proceeds Mrs. Hawthorne, "in an upper hall with a servant. I asked him if he were Pennini, and he said 'Yes.' In the dim light he looked like a waif of poetry, drifted up into the dark corner, with long, curling brown hair, and buff silk tunic embroidered with white. He took us through an ante-room, into the drawing-room, and out upon the balcony. In a brighter light he was lovelier still, with brown eyes, fair skin, and a slender, graceful figure. In a moment Mr. Browning appeared, and welcomed us cordially. In a church near by, opposite the house, a melodious choir was chanting. The balcony was full of flowers in vases, growing and blooming. In the dark blue fields of space overhead the stars, flowers of light, were also blossoming, one by one, as evening deepened. The music, the stars, the flowers, Mr. Browning and his child, all combined to entrance my wits."

Hawthorne, on his first visit, appears to have been chiefly impressed with the elfin appearance of the little boy, Robert, whom "they call Pennini for fondness." This cognomen, he was informed, was "a diminutive of Apennino, which was bestowed upon him at his first advent into the would because he was so very small,