parative ease and the comparative cost
of routes, the final decision being in favour of reaching Italy by way
of France. And as the time draws nearer there is much searching of
time-tables, in the art of mastering which Robert Browning seems hardly
to have been an expert. May Mr Kenyon be told? Or is it not kinder and
wiser to spare him the responsibility of knowing? Mrs Jameson, who had
made a friendly proposal similar to that of Miss Bayley,--may she be
half-told? Or shall she be invited to join the travellers on their way?
What books shall be brought? What baggage? And how may a box and a
carpet bag be conveyed out of 50 Wimpole Street with least observation?

It was deeply repugnant to Miss Barrett's feelings to practise reserve
on such a matter as this with her father. Her happier companion had
informed his father and mother of their plans, and had obtained from the
elder Mr Browning a sum of money, asked for as a loan rather than a
gift, sufficient to cover the immediate expenses of the journey. Mr
Barrett was entitled to all respect, and as for affection he received
from his daughter enough to make the appearance of disloyalty to him
carry a real pang to her heart. But she believed that she had virtually
no choice; her nerves were not of iron; the roaring of the Great Western
express she might face but not an angry father. A loud voice, and a
violent "scene," such as she had witnessed, until she fainted, when
Henrietta was the culprit, would have put an end to the Italian project
through mere physical collapse and ruin. Far better therefore to
withdraw quietly from the house, and trust to the effect of a subsequent
pleading in all earnestness for reconciliation.

[Illustration: Yours very truly, Robert Browning. _From an engraving by_
J.G. ARMYTAGE.]

As summer passed into early autumn the sense of dangers and difficulties
accumulating grew acute. "The ground," wrote Browning, "is crumbling
from beneath our feet with its chances and opportunities." In one of the
early days of August a thunder-storm with torrents of rain detained him
for longer than usual at Wimpole Street; the lightning was the lesser
terror of the day, for in the evening entered Mr Barrett to his daughter
with disagreeable questioning, and presently came the words--accompanied
by a gaze of stern displeasure--"It appears that _that man_ has spent
the whole day with you." The louring cloud passed, but it was felt that
visits to be prudent must b