In the garden at the back dwelt, at the time of which I am writing, two weird gray geese, with quivering silver wings and long throats, who used to come and meet their master hissing and fluttering." In 1866 an owl--for Browning still indulged a fantasy of his own in the choice of pets--was "the light of our house," as a letter describes this bird of darkness, "for his tameness and engaging ways." The bird would kiss its master on the face, tweak his hair, and if one said "Poor old fellow!" in a commiserating voice would assume a sympathetic air of depression.[86] Miss Barrett lived hard by, in Delamere Terrace.

With her on Sundays Browning listened at Bedford Chapel to the sermons of a non-conformist preacher, Thomas Jones, to some of which when published in 1884, he prefixed an introduction.

"The Welsh poet-preacher" was a man of humble origin possessed of a natural gift of eloquence, which, with his "liberal humanity," drew Browning to become a hearer of his discourses.
He made no haste to give the public a new volume of verse.

Mrs Browning had mentioned to a correspondent, not long before her death, that her husband had then a considerable body of lyrical poetry in a state of completion.

An invitation to accept the editorship of the _Cornhill Magazine_, on Thackeray's retirement, was after some hesitation declined.