a conscious authority. Through all her speech a
certain undercurrent of scorn, a half-veiled touch of disdain, was
perceptible. At their parting she invited the English visitors to come
again, kissed Mrs Browning on the lips, and received Browning's kiss
upon her hand. The second call upon her was less agreeable. She sat
warming her feet in a circle of eight or nine ill-bred men,
representatives of "the ragged Red diluted with the lower theatrical."
If any other mistress of a house had behaved so unceremoniously,
Browning declared that he would have walked out of the room; and Mrs
Browning left with the impression--"she does not care for me." They had
exerted themselves to please her, but felt that it was in vain; "we
couldn't penetrate, couldn't really _touch_ her." Once Browning met her
near the Tuileries and walked the length of the gardens with her arm
upon his. If nothing further was to come of it, at least they had seen a
wonderful piece of work, which not to have been blest withal would have
discredited their travel. Only to Mrs Browning's mortification the
spectacle wanted one detail indispensable to its completeness--the
characteristic cigarette was absent: "Ah, but I didn't see her smoke."
Life leaves us always something to desire.

Before the close of June 1852 they were again in London, and found
comfortable rooms at 58 Welbeck Street. When the turmoil of the first
days had subsided, they visited "Kenyon the Magnificent"--so named by
Browning--at Wimbledon, at whose table Landor, abounding in life and
passionate energy as in earlier days, was loud in his applause of the
genius of Louis Napoleon. Mazzini, his "intense eyes full of melancholy
illusions," called at their lodgings in company with Mrs Carlyle, who
seemed to Mrs Browning not only remarkable for her play of ideas but
attaching through her feelings and her character.[50] Florence
Nightingale was also a welcome visitor, and her visit was followed by a
gift of flowers. Invitations from country houses came in sheaves, and
the thought of green fields is seductive in a London month of July; but
to remain in London was to be faithful to Penini--and to the
much-travelled Flush. Once the whole household, with Flush included,
breathed rural air for two days with friends at Farnham, and Browning
had there the pleasure of meeting Charles Kingsley, whose Christian
Socialism seemed wild and unpractical enough, but as for the man
himself, brave, bold, original, f