"How did it happen, my poor boy? You wanted to be Bonaparte, And have the Tuileries for toy, And could not, so it broke your heart. . . ." How compassionately he would give that forth! "A screen of glass, you're thankful for"; "Be quiet, and unclench your fist"; "Poor men God made, and all for this!"--the phrases (how alert we were for the "phrase" in those days) would fall grave and vibrant from the voice with its subtle foreign colouring: you could always infuriate "H. H." by telling him he had a foreign accent. Those were Browning days; and now these are, or soon shall be. Two or three years since, to quote him was, in the opinion of a _Standard_ reviewer, to write yourself down a back-number, as they say. I preserve the cutting which damns with faint praise some thus antiquated short stories of 1910. Browning and Wagner were so obsolete! . . . How young that critic must have been--so young that he had never seen a star return. Quite differently they come back--or is it quite the same? Soon we shall be able to judge, for this star is returning, and--oh wonder!--is trailing clouds of glory of the very newest cut. The stars always do that, this watcher fancies, and certainly Browning, like the Jub-jub, was ages ahead of the fashion. His passport for to-day is dated up to the very hour--for though he could be so many other things besides, one of his achievements, for us, will prove to have been that he could be so "ugly." _That_ would not have been reckoned among his glories in the Yellow Book-room; but the wheel shall come full circle--we shall be saying all this, one day, the other way round. For, as Browning consoles, encourages, and warns us by showing in _Fifine_,[x:1] each age believes--and should believe--that to it alone the secret of true art has been whispered. ETHEL COLBURN MAYNE. FOOTNOTES: [x:1] I write far from my books, but the passage will be easily found or recalled. 11 HOLLAND ROAD, KENSINGTON, W. [Illustration] CONTENTS PART I GIRLHOOD PAGE INTRODUCTORY 3 I. THE GIRL IN "COUNT GISMOND" 15 II. PIPPA PASSES I. Dawn: Pippa 23 II. Morning: Ottima 36 III. Noon: Phene 51 IV. Evening; Night: The Ending of the Day 67 III. MILDRED TRESHAM 81 IV. BALAUSTION 93 V. POMPILIA 122 PART II THE GREAT LADY "MY LAST DUCHESS," AND "THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS" 165 PART III THE LOVER I. LOVERS MEETING 199