while ago. I have a book coming out in England called 'Casa Guidi
Windows,' which will prevent everybody else (except you) from speaking
to me again. Do love me always, as I shall you. Forgive me, and _don't_
forget me. I shall try, after a space of calm, to behave better to you,
and more after my _heart_--for I am ever (as Robert is)

Your faithfully affectionate friend,
ELIZABETH B. BROWNING.

* * * * *


_To Miss Mitford_

Venice: June 4, [1851].

My ever dearest Miss Mitford,--I must write to you from Venice, though
it can only be a few lines. So much I have to say and _feel_ in writing
to you, and thinking that you were not well when you wrote last to me, I
long to hear from you--and yet I can't tell you to-day where a letter
will find me. We are wanderers on the face of the world just now, and
with every desire of going straight from Venice to Milan to-morrow
(Friday) week, we shall more probably, at the Baths of Recoaro, be
lingering and lingering. Therefore will you write to the care of Miss
Browning, New Cross, Hatcham, near London? for so I shall not lose your
letter. I have been between heaven and earth since our arrival at
Venice. The heaven of it is ineffable. Never had I touched the skirts of
so celestial a place. The beauty of the architecture, the silver trails
of water up between all that gorgeous colour and carving, the enchanting
silence, the moonlight, the music, the gondolas--I mix it all up