Browning, an old friend of her husband's, Mrs. Allingham sometimes had the privilege of seeing during her residence in London. One occasion was typical of the man. He had been asked to come and see her work, which was at the time arranged at one end of a room at Trafalgar Square, Chelsea, before sending in to the Exhibition. The drawings were naturally small ones, and Browning appeared to be altogether oblivious to their existence. Turning round, with his back to them, he at once commenced a story of some one who came to see an artist's work, and the artist was very huffed because his visitor never took the slightest notice of his pictures, but talked to him of other subjects all the time. This, Browning considered, was no sufficient ground for his huffiness. His obliviousness to Mrs. Allingham's drawings may have been due to his having been accustomed to the pictures of his son, which were of large size, and in comparison with which Mrs. Allingham's would be quite invisible. Against this theory, however, I may mention that on one occasion I happened to have the good fortune to be present in his son's studio when Tennyson was announced. Browning at once advanced to the door to meet him, bent low, and addressed him as "Magister Meus," and although the Laureate had come to see the paintings, and stayed some time, neither of the two poets, so long as I was present, noticed them in any way. Whilst Mrs. Allingham was painting Carlyle, Browning came to see him, and they held a most interesting and delightful conversation on the subject of the great French writers. The alteration in Browning's demeanour from his usual bluff and breezy manner to a quiet, deferential tone during the conversation was very notable. Of her intimacy with Tennyson I may speak later when we come to the drawings which illustrate his two houses in Sussex and the Isle of Wight. The year of her marriage was also a landmark in Mrs. Allingham's career, through the Royal Academy accepting and hanging two water-colours, one entitled "The Milkmaid," the other, "Wait for Me," the subject of the latter being a young lady entering a cottage whilst a dog watched her outside the gate. It would have been interesting to have been able to insert a reproduction of either of these in this volume, for they would probably have shown that her fear as to her inability to master colour was entirely without basis, but I have not been able to trace them. The drawings were not only well hung, but were sold during the Exhibition. It was, however, by another drawing that Mrs. Allingham won her name.