I shall have a great comfort in talking to you--this writing is stiff, ineffectual work. Pen is very well, cheerful now,--has his little horse here. The place is singularly unspoiled, fresh and picturesque, and lovely to heart's content. I wish you were here!--and if you knew exactly what such a wish means, you would need no assuring in addition that I am Yours affectionately and gratefully ever Robert Browning. The person of whom he saw most was his sister-in-law, whom he visited, I believe, every evening. Miss Barrett had been a favourite sister of Mrs. Browning's, and this constituted a sufficient title to her husband's affection. But she was also a woman to be loved for her own sake. Deeply religious and very charitable, she devoted herself to visiting the poor--a form of philanthropy which was then neither so widespread nor so fashionable as it has since become; and she founded, in 1850, the first Training School or Refuge which had ever existed for destitute little girls. It need hardly be added that Mr. and Miss Browning co-operated in the work. The little poem, 'The Twins', republished in 1855 in 'Men and Women', was first printed (with Mrs. Browning's 'Plea for the Ragged Schools of London') for the benefit of this Refuge. It was in Miss Barrett's company that Mr. Browning used to attend the church of Mr. Thomas Jones, to a volume of whose 'Sermons and Addresses' he wrote a short introduction in 1884. On February 15, 1862, he writes again to Miss Blagden. Feb. 15, '62. '. . . While I write, my heart is sore for a great calamity just befallen poor Rossetti, which I only heard of last night--his wife, who had been, as an invalid, in the habit of taking laudanum, swallowed an overdose--was found by the poor fellow on his return from the working-men's class in the evening, under the effects of it--help was called in, the stomach-pump used; but she died in the night, about a week ago. There has hardly been a day when I have not thought, "if I can, to-morrow, I will go and see him, and thank him for his book, and return his sister's poems." Poor, dear fellow! . . . '. . . Have I not written a long letter, for me who hate the sight of a pen now, and see a pile of unanswered things on the table before me? --on this very table. Do you tell me in turn all about yourself. I shall be interested in the minutest thing you put down. What sort of weather is it? You cannot but be better at your new villa than in the large solitary one. There I am again, going up the winding way to it, and seeing the herbs in red flower, and the butterflies on the top of the wall under the olive-trees! Once more, good-bye. . . .'