see the exterior, which, if I remember, Browning has celebrated in song;
at all events, Mrs. Browning has called one of her poems "Casa Guidi
Windows."

The street is a narrow one; but on entering the palace, we found a
spacious staircase and ample accommodations of vestibule and hall, the
latter opening on a balcony, where we could hear the chanting of priests
in a church close by. Browning told us that this was the first church
where an oratorio had ever been performed. He came into the anteroom to
greet us, as did his little boy, Robert, whom they call Pennini for
fondness. The latter cognomen is a diminutive of Apennino, which was
bestowed upon him at his first advent into the world because he was so
very small, there being a statue in Florence of colossal size called
Apennino. I never saw such a boy as this before; so slender, fragile,
and spirit-like,--not as if he were actually in ill health, but as if he
had little or nothing to do with human flesh and blood. His face is very
pretty and most intelligent, and exceedingly like his mother's. He is
nine years old, and seems at once less childlike and less manly than
would befit that age. I should not quite like to be the father of such a
boy, and should fear to stake so much interest and affection on him as he
cannot fail to inspire. I wonder what is to become of him,--whether he
will ever grow to be a man,--whether it is desirable that he should. His
parents ought to turn their whole attention to making him robust and
earthly, and to giving him a thicker scabbard to sheathe his spirit in.
He was born in Florence, and prides himself on being a Florentine, and is
indeed as un-English a production as if he were native of another planet.

Mrs. Browning met us at the door of the drawing-room, and greeted us most
kindly,--a pale, small person, scarcely embodied at all; at any rate,
only substantial enough to put forth her slender fingers to be grasped,