t the pane, the mountain spreading,
Swept the sheep-bell's tinkling noise,
While a girlish voice was reading,--
Somewhat low for [Greek: ais] and [Greek: ois]."

These "golden hours" were not without that earnest argument so welcome
to candid minds:--

"For we sometimes gently wrangled,
Very gently, be it said,--
Since our thoughts were disentangled
By no breaking of the thread!
And I charged you with extortions
On the nobler fames of old,--
Ay, and sometimes thought your Persons
Stained the purple they would fold."

What high honor the scholar did her friend and teacher, and how nobly
she could interpret the "rhythmic Greek," let those decide who have read
Mrs. Browning's translations of "Prometheus Bound" and Bion's "Lament
for Adonis."

Imprisoned within the four walls of her room, with books for her world
and large humanity for her thought, the lamp of life burning so low at
times that a feather would be placed on her lips to prove that there was
still breath, Elizabeth Barrett read and wrote, and "heard the nations
praising" her "far off." She loved

"Art for art,
And good for God himself, the essential Good,"

until destiny (a destiny with God in it) brought two poets face to face
and heart to heart. Mind had met mind and recognized its peer previously
to that personal interview which made them one in soul; but it was not
until after an acquaintance of two years that Elizabeth Barrett and
Robert Browning were united in marriage for time and for eternity, a
marriage the like of which can seldom be recorded. What wealth of love
she could give is evidenced in those exquisite sonnets purporting to be
from the Portuguese, the author being too modest to christen them by
their right name, Sonnets from the Heart. None have failed to read the
truth through this slight veil, and to see the woman more than the poet
in such lines as these:--

"I yield the grave for thy sake, and exchange
My near sweet view of heaven for earth with thee!"

We have only to turn to the concluding poem in "Men and Women,"
inscribed to E.B.B., to see how reciprocal was this great love.

From their wedding-day Mrs. Browning seemed to be endowed with new life.
Her health visibly improved, and she was enabled to make excursions in
England prior to her departure for the land of her adoption, Italy,
where she found a second and a dearer home. For nearly fifteen years
Florence and the Brownings have bee