Since the birth of their son he had enlarged the somewhat slender incomings of his friends by the annual gift of one hundred pounds, "in order," says the editor of Mrs Browning's Letters, "that they might be more free to follow their art for its own sake only." By his will he placed them for the future above all possibility of straitened means.

To Browning he left 6,500 _l_., to Mrs Browning 4,500 _l_.

"These," adds Mr F.G.Kenyon, "were the largest legacies in a very generous will--the fitting end to a life passed in acts of generosity and kindness to those in need." The gain to the Brownings was shadowed by a sense of loss.

"Christmas came," says Mrs Browning, "like a cloud." For the length of three winter months she did not stir out of doors.

Then arrived spring and sunshine, carnival time and universal madness in Florence, with streets "one gigantic pantomime." Penini begged importunately for a domino, and could not be refused; and Penini's father and mother were for once drawn into the vortex of Italian gaiety.