enough—­they wouldn’t touch the little finger of a woman.  Angry I was, I do assure you.  I should have liked to stay there, in spite of the bread.  We should have been only a little thinner at the end.  And the scenery—­oh, how magnificent!  How we enjoyed that great, silent, ink-black pine wood!  And do you remember the sea of mountains to the left?  How grand it is!  We were up at three in the morning again to return to Florence, and the glory of that morning sun breaking the clouds to pieces among the hills is something ineffaceable from my remembrance.  We came back ignominiously to our old rooms, but found it impossible to stay on account of the suffocating heat, yet we scarcely could go far from Florence, because of Mr. Kenyon and our hope of seeing him here (since lost).  A perplexity ended by Robert’s discovery of our present apartments, on the Pitti side of the river (indeed, close to the Grand Duke’s palace), consisting of a suite of spacious and delightful rooms, which come within our means only from the deadness of the summer season, comparatively quite cool, and with a terrace which I enjoy to the uttermost through being able to walk there without a bonnet, by just stepping out of the window.  The church of San Felice is opposite, so we haven’t a neighbour to look through the sunlight or moonlight and take observations.  Isn’t that pleasant altogether?  We ordered back the piano and the book subscription, and settled for two months, and forgave the Vallombrosa monks for the wrong they did us, like secular Christians.  What is to come after, I can’t tell you.  But probably we shall creep slowly along toward Rome, and spend some hot time of it at Perugia, which is said to be cool enough.  I think more of other things, wishing that my dearest, kindest sisters had a present as bright as mine—­to think nothing at all of the future.  Dearest Henrietta’s position has long made me uneasy, and, since she frees me into confidence by her confidence to you, I will tell you so.  Most undesirable it is that this should be continued, and yet where is there a door open to escape?[162] ...  My dear brothers have the illusion that nobody should marry on less than two thousand a year.  Good heavens! how preposterous it does seem to me! We scarcely spend three hundred, and I have every luxury, I ever had, and which it would be so easy to give up, at need; and Robert wouldn’t sleep, I think, if an unpaid bill dragged itself by any chance into another week.  He says that when people get into ‘pecuniary difficulties,’ his ‘sympathies always go with the butchers and bakers.’  So we keep out of scrapes yet, you see....

Your grateful and most affectionate
BA.

We have had the most delightful letter from Carlyle, who has the goodness to say that not for years has a marriage occurred in his private circle in which he so heartily rejoiced as in ours.  He is a personal friend of Robert’s, so that I have reason to be very proud and glad.