A day was spent at Chambery "for the sake of les Charmettes and Rousseau." When Casa Guidi was at length reached, it was only a halting-place on the way to Rome.

Winter had suddenly rushed in and buried all Italy in snow; but when they started for Rome in a carriage kindly lent by their American friends, the Eckleys, it was again like summer.

The adventures of the way were chiefly of a negative kind--occasioned by precipices over which they were not thrown, and banditti who never came in sight; but in a quarrel between oxen-drivers, one of whom attacked the other with a knife, Browning with characteristic energy dashed between them to the terror of the rest of the party; his garments were the only serious sufferers from his zeal as mediator.
The apartment engaged at Rome was that of the earlier visit of 1853-54, in the Via Bocca di Leone, "rooms swimming all day in sunshine." On Christmas morning Mrs Browning was able to accompany her husband to St Peter's to hear the silver trumpets.

But January froze the fountains, and the north wind blew with force.

Mrs Browning had just completed a careful revision _of Aurora Leigh_, and now she could rest, enjoy the sunshine streaming through their six windows, or give herself up to the excitement of Italian politics as seen through the newspapers in the opening of a most eventful year.