What Robert Browning wanted so much, it was a foregone conclusion that he would have; and Miss Barrett was at last brought to consent to an engagement. But the difficulties were just begun. Mr. Barrett, adored as he was by his daughter, was more than a little tyrannical, especially with his favorite daughter. His family all well knew that he would never under any circumstances be brought to consent to the marriage of any of his children; and he had, moreover, in the case of Elizabeth, the appearance of reason on his side, in that she was, in the opinion of her family and of most of her medical advisers, a hopeless invalid, unfit to be moved. "A life passed between a bed and a sofa, and avoiding too frequent and abrupt transitions even from one to the other, was the only life she could expect on this earth." Browning believed otherwise, and events showed that he was right. In the autumn of 1845, the doctors advised that Miss Barrett be taken to Italy, declaring, in fact, that her life depended upon it. Some of her brothers or sisters could easily have accompanied her; there was no lack of money, and the journey was actually planned. For no apparent reason, however, Mr. Barrett refused his consent--said that his daughter should not leave his house. In vain the family argued; in vain a generous friend offered to accompany Miss Barrett, paying all expenses. He was brutally firm. Much hurt by this selfishness and disregard for her life, Miss Barrett promised Browning that if she lived through the winter and were no worse in the following year, she would marry him without her father's consent, for which they knew it was useless to ask. Accordingly, on September 12, 1846, she walked out of her father's house, accompanied only by her maid, was married and returned home. One week later she joined her husband, and they set out for Italy, their future home. Mr. Barrett never forgave his daughter, and his unrelenting anger was a deep sorrow to her, in the midst of her great life happiness. The Brownings went first to Pisa, and from there to Florence, which they afterward regarded as their home, though they made many excursions and spent seasons elsewhere. Mrs. Browning grew so much better that a friend said to her, "You are not _improved_, you are _transformed_;" and while she was never strong and was often very ill, she never again sank back to the state in which she had been before her marriage. The happiness which shows in her letters is wonderful. "As for me," she writes, "when I am so good as to let myself be carried upstairs, and so angelical as to sit still on the sofa, and so considerate, moreover, as _not_ to put my foot into a puddle, why _my_ duty is considered done to a perfection, which is worthy of all adoration." And again, "If I could open my heart to you in all seriousness, you would see nothing there but a sort of enduring wonder of happiness."