'Well, you are at Siena--one of the places I love best to remember. You are returned--or I would ask you to tell me how the Villa Alberti wears, and if the fig-tree behind the house is green and strong yet. I have a pen-and-ink drawing of it, dated and signed the last day Ba was ever there--"my fig tree--" she used to sit under it, reading and writing. Nine years, or ten rather, since then! Poor old Landor's oak, too, and his cottage, ought not to be forgotten. Exactly opposite this house,--just over the way of the water,--shines every night the light-house of Havre--a place I know well, and love very moderately: but it always gives me a thrill as I see afar, _exactly_ a particular spot which I was at along with her. At this moment, I see the white streak of the phare in the sun, from the window where I write and I _think_. . . . Milsand went to Paris last week, just before we arrived, to transport his valuables to a safer place than his house, which is near the fortifications. He is filled with as much despondency as can be--while the old dear and perfect kindness remains. I never knew or shall know his like among men. . . .' The war did more than sadden Mr. and Miss Browning's visit to St.-Aubin; it opposed unlooked-for difficulties to their return home. They had remained, unconscious of the impending danger, till Sedan had been taken, the Emperor's downfall proclaimed, and the country suddenly placed in a state of siege. One morning M. Milsand came to them in anxious haste, and insisted on their starting that very day. An order, he said, had been issued that no native should leave the country, and it only needed some unusually thick-headed Maire for Mr. Browning to be arrested as a runaway Frenchman or a Prussian spy. The usual passenger boats from Calais and Boulogne no longer ran; but there was, he believed, a chance of their finding one at Havre. They acted on this warning, and discovered its wisdom in the various hindrances which they found on their way. Everywhere the horses had been requisitioned for the war. The boat on which they had relied to take them down the river to Caen had been stopped that very morning; and when they reached the railroad they were told that the Prussians would be at the other end before night. At last they arrived at Honfleur, where they found an English vessel which was about to convey cattle to Southampton; and in this, setting out at midnight, they made their passage to England. Some words addressed to Miss Blagden, written I believe in 1871, once more strike a touching familiar note. '. . . But _no_, dearest Isa. The simple truth is that _she_ was the poet, and I the clever person by comparison--remember her limited experience of all kinds, and what she made of it. Remember on the other hand, how my uninterrupted health and strength and practice with the world have helped me. . . .'