ss Barrett, with a new joy in life, new hopes, new
interests, gained in health and strength from month to month. The winter
of 1845-46 was unusually mild. In January one day she walked--walked,
and was not carried--downstairs to the drawing-room. Spring came early
that year; in the first week of February lilacs and hawthorn were in
bud, elders in leaf, thrushes and white-throats in full song. In April
Miss Barrett gave pledges of her confidence in the future by buying a
bonnet; a little like a Quaker's, it seemed to her, but the learned
pronounced it fashionable. Early in May, that bonnet, with its owner and
Arabel and Flush, appeared in Regent's Park, while sunshine was
filtering through the leaves. The invalid left her carriage, set foot
upon the green grass, reached up and plucked a little laburnum blossom
("for reasons"), saw the "strange people moving about like phantoms of
life," and felt that she alone and the idea of one who was absent were
real--"and Flush," she adds with a touch of remorse, "and Flush a little
too." Many drives and walks followed; at the end of May she feloniously
gathered some pansies, the flowers of Paracelsus, and this
notwithstanding the protest of Arabel, in the Botanical Gardens, and
felt the unspeakable beauty of the common grass. Later in the year wild
roses were found at Hampstead; and on a memorable day the
invalid--almost perfect in health--was guided by kind and learned Mrs
Jameson through the pictures and statues of the poet Rogers's
collection. On yet another occasion it was Mr Kenyon who drove her to
see the strange new sight of the Great Western train coming in; the
spectators procured chairs, but the rush of people and the earth-thunder
of the engine almost overcame Miss Barrett's nerves, which on a later
trial shrank also from the more harmonious thunder of the organ of the
Abbey. Sundays came when she enjoyed the privilege of sitting if not in
a pew at least in the secluded vestry of a Chapel, and joining unseen
in those simple forms of prayer and praise which she valued most.
Altogether something like a miracle in the healing of the sick had been
effected.

Money difficulty there was none. Browning, it is true, was not in a
position to undertake the expenses of even such a simple household
economy as they both desired. He was prepared to seek for any honourable
service--diplomatic or other--if that were necessary. But Miss Barrett
was resolved against task-work which might