of Miss Mitford came to sadden her. Not until April did she
feel once more a leap into life. Browning was now actively at work in
anticipation of printing his new volumes during the approaching visit to
England. "He is four hours a day," his wife tells a correspondent,
"engaged in dictating to a friend of ours who transcribes for him." And
a little later she reports that they will take to England between them
some sixteen thousand lines of verse, "eight on one side, eight on the
other," her husband's total being already completed, her own still short
of the sum by a thousand lines. Allowance, as she pleads, had to be made
for time spent in seeing that "Penini's little trousers are creditably
frilled and tucked." On the whole, notwithstanding illness and wrath
directed against English ministerial blunders, this year of life in
Florence had been rich in happiness--a "still dream-life, where if one
is over-busy ever, the old tapestries on the walls and the pre-Giotto
pictures ... surround us, ready to quiet us again."[59] London lodgings
did not look inviting from the distance of Italy; but the summons north
was a summons to work, and could not be set aside.

The midsummer of 1855 found Browning and his wife in 13 Dorset Street,
London, and Browning's sister was with them. The faithful Wilson, Mrs
Browning's maid, had married a Florentine, Ferdinando Romagnoli, and the
husband also was now in their service. The weeks until mid-October were
occupied with social pleasures and close proof-reading of the sheets of
_Men and Women_[60] Browning took his young friend the artist Leighton
to visit Ruskin, and was graciously received. Carlyle was, as formerly,
"in great force, particularly in the damnatory clauses." But the weather
was drooping, the skies misty, the air oppressive, and Mrs Browning,
apart from these, had special causes of depression. Her married sister
Henrietta was away in Taunton, and the cost of travel prevented the
sisters from meeting. Arabella Barrett--"my one light in London" is Mrs
Browning's word--was too soon obliged to depart to Eastbourne. And the
Barrett household was disturbed by the undutifulness of a son who had
been guilty of the unpardonable crime of marriage, and in consequence
was now exiled from Wimpole Street. In body and soul Mrs Browning felt
strong yearnings for the calm of Casa Guidi.

The year 1855 was a fortunate year for English poetry. _Men and Women_
was published in the autumn; the be