convalescent now, thank God! and in the meanwhile I have acquired a heap of practical philosophy, and have learnt how it is possible (in certain conditions of the human frame) to comb out and twist up one’s own hair, and lace one’s very own stays, and cause hooks and eyes to meet behind one’s very own back, besides making toast and water for Wilson—­which last miracle, it is only just to say, was considerably assisted by Robert’s counsels ‘not quite to set fire to the bread’ while one was toasting it.  He was the best and kindest all that time, as even he could be, and carried the kettle when it was too heavy for me, and helped me with heart and head.  Mr. Chorley could not have praised him too much, be very sure.  I, who always rather appreciated him, do set down the thoughts I had as merely unjust things; he exceeds them all, indeed.  Yes, Mr. Chorley has been very kind to us.  I had a kind note myself from him a few days since, and do you know that we have a sort of hope of seeing him in Italy this year, with dearest Mr. Kenyon, who has the goodness to crown his goodness by a ‘dream’ of coming to see us?  We leave Pisa in April (did I tell you that?) and pass through Florence towards the north of Italy—­to Venice, for instance.  In the way of writing, I have not done much yet—­just finished my rough sketch of an anti-slavery ballad and sent it off to America, where nobody will print it, I am certain, because I could not help making it bitter.  If they do print it, I shall thank them more boldly in earnest than I fancy now.  Tell me of Mary Howitt’s new collection of ballads—­are they good?  I warmly wish that Mr. Chorley may succeed with his play; but how can Miss Cushman promise a hundred nights for an untried work?...  Perhaps you may find the two last numbers of the ’Bells and Pomegranates’ less obscure—­it seems so to me.  Flush has grown an absolute monarch and barks one distracted when he wants a door opened.  Robert spoils him, I think.  Do think of me as your ever affectionate and grateful

BA.

Have you seen ‘Agnes de Misanie,’ the new play by the author of ‘Lucretia’?  A witty feuilletoniste says of it that, besides all the unities of Aristotle, it comprises, from beginning to end, unity of situation.  Not bad, is it?  Madame Ancelot has just succeeded with a comedy, called ‘Une Annee a Paris.’  By the way, shall you go to Paris this spring?[157]

[Footnote 157:  A list of the works composing Balzac’s Comedie Humaine is attached to this letter for Miss Mitford’s benefit.]

From Mr. Browning’s family, though she had as yet had no opportunity of making acquaintance with them face to face, Mrs. Browning from the first met with an affectionate reception.  The following is the first now extant of a series of letters written by her to Miss Browning, the poet’s sister.  The abrupt and private nature of the marriage never seems to have caused the slightest coldness of feeling in this quarter, though it must have caused anxiety; and the tone of the early letters, in which so new and unfamiliar a relation had to be taken up, does equal honour to the writer and to the recipient.