But needful coin on which they had reckoned did not arrive; and they resolved in prudence to sit still at Florence and eat their bread and macaroni as poor sensible folk should do.

And Florence looked more beautiful than ever after Rome; the nightingales sang around the olive-trees and vineyards, not only by starlight and fire-fly-light but in the daytime.

"I love the very stones of Florence," exclaims Mrs Browning.

Her friend Miss Mitford, now in England, and sadly failing in health, hinted at a loan of money; but the answer was a prompt, "Oh no! My husband has a family likeness to Lucifer in being proud." There followed a tranquil and a happy time, and both _Men and Women_ and _Aurora Leigh_ maintained in the writers a deep inward excitement of the kind that leaves an enduring result.

A little joint publication; _Two Poems by E.B.B.and R.B_., containing _A Plea for the Ragged Schools of London_ and _The Twins_, was sold at Miss Arabella Barrett's Ragged School bazaar in 1854.