voyage to America, though she attached no superstitious importance to
the prediction once made to her husband that he would be drowned; and
learned when it was too late to change her plans that her presence there
was, after all, unnecessary. Mr. Browning was deeply affected by the
news of her death by shipwreck, which took place on July 16, 1850; and
wrote an account of his acquaintance with her, for publication by her
friends. This also, unfortunately, was lost. Her son was of the same
age as his, little more than a year old; but she left a token of the
friendship which might some day have united them, in a small Bible
inscribed to the baby Robert, 'In memory of Angelo Ossoli.'

The intended journey to England was delayed for Mr. Browning by the
painful associations connected with his mother's death; but in the
summer of 1851 he found courage to go there: and then, as on each
succeeding visit paid to London with his wife, he commemorated his
marriage in a manner all his own. He went to the church in which it had
been solemnized, and kissed the paving-stones in front of the door. It
needed all this love to comfort Mrs. Browning in the estrangement from
her father which was henceforth to be accepted as final. He had held no
communication with her since her marriage, and she knew that it was
not forgiven; but she had cherished a hope that he would so far relent
towards her as to kiss her child, even if he would not see her. Her
prayer to this effect remained, however, unanswered.

In the autumn they proceeded to Paris; whence Mrs. Browning wrote,
October 22 and November 12.


138, Avenue des Champs Elysees.