ree of the R.B.'s were loyal servants of the Bank. And the
Beef-Eaters would rest their staves on the stone floor, and smile
Fifteenth-Century grimaces at the boy from under their cocked hats.

Robert the Third was a healthy, rollicking lad, with power plus, and a
deal of destructiveness in his nature. But destructiveness in a youngster
is only energy not yet properly directed, just as dirt is useful matter in
the wrong place.

To keep the boy out of mischief, he was sent to a sort of kindergarten,
kept by a spinster around the corner. The spinster devoted rather more
attention to the Browning boy than to her other pupils--she had to, to
keep him out of mischief--and soon the boy was quite the head scholar.

And they tell us that he was so much more clever than any of the other
scholars that, to appease the rising jealousy of the parents of the other
pupils, the diplomatic spinster requested that the boy be removed from her
school--all this according to the earnest biographer. The facts are that
the boy had so much energy and restless ambition; was so full of brimming
curiosity, mischief and imagination--introducing turtles, bats and mice on
various occasions--that he led the whole school a merry chase and wore the
nerves of the ancient maiden to a frazzle.

He had to go.

After this he studied at home with his mother. His father laid out a
schedule, and it was lived up to, for about a week.

Then a private tutor was tried, but soon this plan was abandoned, and a
system of reading, best described as "natural selection," was followed.

The boy was fourteen, and his sister was twelve, past. These are the ages
when children often experience a change of heart, as all "revivalists"
know. Robert Browning was swinging off towards atheism. He grew
melancholy, irritable and wrote stanzas of sentimental verse. He showed
this verse, high-sounding, stilted, bold and bilious, to his mother and
then to his father, and finally to Lizzie Flower.

A word about Lizzie Flower: She was nine years older than Robert Browning;
and she had a mind that was gracious and full of high aspiration. She
loved books, art, music, and all harmony made its appeal to her--and not
in vain. She wrote verses and, very sensibly, kept them locked in her
workbox; and then she painted in water-colors and worked in worsted. A
thoroughly good woman, she was far above the average in character, with a
half-minor key in her voice and a tinge of the heartbroken