in
an obscure street in Florence; and a little dining-room, whose walls were
covered with tapestry, and where hung medallions of Tennyson, Carlyle, and
of Robert Browning; a long, narrow room, wraith-like with plaster casts
and busts, was Mr. Browning's study, while she had her place in the large
drawing-room, looking out upon the ancient church. Its old pictures of
saints, gazing sadly from their sepulchral frames of black wood, with here
and there a tapestry, and with the lofty, massive bookcases of Florentine
carving, all gave the room a medieval look. Almost could one fancy that it
enthroned the "fairy lady of Shalott," who might weave

"... from day to day,
A magic web of colors gay."

Dante's grave profile, a cast of the face of Keats taken after death, and
a few portraits of friends, added their interest to the atmosphere of a
salon that seemed made for poets' uses. There were vast expanses of
mirrors in the old carved Florentine frames, a colossal green velvet sofa,
suggesting a catafalque, and a supernaturally deep easy-chair, in the same
green velvet, which was Mrs. Browning's favorite seat when she donned her
singing robes. Near this low arm-chair was always her little table, strewn
with writing materials, books, and newspapers. Other tables in the
_salotto_ bore gayly bound volumes, the gifts of brother authors. On the
floor of a bedroom were the arms (in scabola), of the last count who had
lived in this apartment, and there was a picturesque oil-jar, to hold
rain-water, which Mrs. Browning declared would just hold the Captain of
the Forty Thieves. All in all, the poets vowed they would not change homes
with the Grand Duke himself, who was their neighbor in the Palazzo Pitti
at the distance of a stone's throw. In the late afternoons they would
wander out to the Loggia dei Lanzi, where Mrs. Browning greatly admired
Cellini's Perseus with the Head of Medusa, and they watched "the divine
sunsets on the Arno, turning it to pure gold under the bridges." Sometimes
they were joined by Hiram Powers, who was one of their earliest friends in
Florence, "our chief friend and favorite," Mrs. Browning said of him, and
she found him a "simple, straightforward, genial American, as simple as
the man of genius he has proved himself need be." Another friend of these
early days was Miss Boyle, a niece of the Earl of Cork, somewhat a poet,
withal, who, with her mother, was domiciled in the Villa Careggi, in which
Lo