"We neither of us show our work to one another," she wrote, "till it is finished.

An artist must, I fancy, either find or _make_ a solitude to work in, if it is to be good work at all." But as her husband's poems, one by one, were completed, she saw them, and they seemed to her as fine as anything he had done.

Away in England _Colombe's Birthday_ was given on the stage, with Helen Faucit in the leading part.

It was at least an indication that the public had not forgotten that Browning was a poet.

Here in Florence, although the hermit life was happy, new friends--the gift of England--added to its happiness.