d to whom he would more gladly have given his daughter
if he had been so fortunate as to possess one,* he replied: 'I have no
objection to the young man, but my daughter should have been thinking of
another world;' and, given his conviction that Miss Barrett's state was
hopeless, some allowance must be made for the angered sense of fitness
which her elopement was calculated to arouse in him. But his attitude
was the same, under the varying circumstances, with all his daughters
and sons alike. There was no possible husband or wife whom he would
cordially have accepted for one of them.

* Mr. Kenyon had been twice married, but he had no children.

Mr. Browning had been willing, even at that somewhat late age, to study
for the Bar, or accept, if he could obtain it, any other employment
which might render him less ineligible from a pecuniary point of view.
But Miss Barrett refused to hear of such a course; and the subsequent
necessity for her leaving England would have rendered it useless.

For some days after their marriage Mr. and Mrs. Browning returned to
their old life. He justly thought that the agitation of the ceremony
had been, for the moment, as much as she could endure, and had therefore
fixed for it a day prior by one week to that of their intended departure
from England. The only difference in their habits was that he did not
see her; he recoiled from the hypocrisy of asking for her under her
maiden name; and during this passive interval, fortunately short, he
carried a weight of anxiety and of depression which placed it among the
most painful periods of his existence.

In the late afternoon or evening of September 19, Mrs. Browning,
attended by her maid and her dog, stole away from her father's house.
The family were at dinner, at which meal she was not in the habit of
joining them; her sisters Henrietta and Arabel had been throughout in
the secret of her attachment and in full sympathy with it; in the case
of the servants, she was also sure of friendly connivance. There was no
difficulty in her escape, but that created by the dog, which might be
expected to bark its consciousness of the unusual situation. She took
him into her confidence. She said: 'O Flush, if you make a sound, I
am lost.' And Flush understood, as what good dog would not?--and crept
after his mistress in silence. I do not remember where her husband
joined her; we may be sure it was as near her home as possible. That
night they took th