e was
certainly one of the most interesting persons I had ever seen.
Everybody who then saw her said the same. Of a slight, delicate
figure, with a shower of dark curls falling on either side of a most
expressive face, large tender eyes, richly fringed by dark eyelashes,
a smile like a sunbeam, and such a look of youthfulness, that I had
some difficulty in persuading a friend, in whose carriage we went
together to Cheswick, that the translatress of the _Prometheus of
Aeschylus_, the authoress of the _Essay on Mind_, was old enough to
be introduced into company, in technical language, was out. We met so
constantly and so familiarly that, in spite of the difference of
age, intimacy ripened into friendship, and after my return into the
country, we corresponded freely and frequently, her letters being just
what letters ought to be,--her own talk put upon paper."

The next year Miss Barrett, never robust, broke a blood-vessel in the
lungs. For a year she was ill, and then with her eldest and favorite
brother, was carried to Torquay to try the effect of a warmer climate.
After a year spent here, she greatly improved, and seemed likely to
recover her usual health.

One beautiful summer morning she went on the balcony to watch her
brother and two other young men who had gone out for a sail. Having
had much experience, and understanding the coast, they allowed the
boatman to return to land. Only a few minutes out, and in plain sight,
as they were crossing the bar, the boat went down, and the three
friends perished. Their bodies even were never recovered.

The whole town was in mourning. Posters were put upon every cliff and
public place, offering large rewards "for linen cast ashore marked
with the initials of the beloved dead; for it so chanced that all the
three were of the dearest and the best: one, an only son; the other,
the son of a widow"; but the sea was forever silent.

The sister, who had seen her brother sink before her eyes, was utterly
prostrated. She blamed herself for his death, because he came to
Torquay for her comfort. All winter long she heard the sound of
waves ringing in her ears like the moans of the dying. From this time
forward she never mentioned her brother's name, and later, exacted
from Mr. Browning a promise that the subject should never be broached
between them.

The following year she was removed to London in an invalid carriage,
journeying twenty miles a day. And then for seven years, in a l