Page:Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Ingram, 5th ed.).djvu/195

Rh was asked to bring her at one in the clay. "We rang a great while," says Mrs. Hawthorne, "and no one answered the bell; but presently a woman came up the staircase and admitted us, but she was surprised that we expected to see Mrs. Browning at such a time. I gave her my credentials, and so she invited us to follow her in. We found the wondrous lady in her drawing-room, very pale, and looking ill; yet she received us affectionately, and was deeply interesting as usual. She took R into her lap, and seemed to enjoy talking to and looking at her, as well as at Una. She said, 'Oh! how rich and happy you are to have two daughters, a son, and such a husband.' Her boy was gone to his music-master's, which I was very sorry for; but we saw two pictures of him. Mrs. Browning said he had a vocation for music, but did not like to apply to anything else any more than a butterfly, and the only way she could command his attention was to have him upon her knees, and hold his hands and feet. He knows German pretty well already, and Italian perfectly, being born a Florentine."

"I was afraid to stay long, or to have Mrs. Browning talk," comments the visitor, "because she looked so pale and seemed so much exhausted, and I perceived that the motion of R's fan distressed her. I do not understand how she can live long, or be at all restored while she does live. I ought rather to say that she lives so ardently that her delicate earthly vesture must soon be burnt up and destroyed by her soul of pure fire."

On the 25th of June, Mrs. Hawthorne records in her diary: "We spent this evening at Casa Guidi. I saw Mrs. Browning more satisfactorily, and she grows