MY DEAR ELIZABETH,--Una and Rose were getting pale for the first time in their lives, and Mr. Hawthorne was languid and weary of the city life, and an English lady, a friend of the Brownings, told us of this villa, which the Count da Montauto wished to let this summer, though never before, and so we tried for it and got it. It is a most enchanting situation, and the villa is immensely large and very nice. We have an old mediaeval tower at the oldest end, in which Savonarola was confined, and from its summit we have a view which one might dream of, but seldom see. We are so high, however, that from the first floor we have a sweeping view, and look down on the most sumptuous valley of the Arno from our western windows,--a level plain, cultivated every inch with grapes and olives and other fruits; and all round rise up soft hills, and the Apennines afar off where the sun sets. We see the noble white steers slowly moving in the valley, among the trees, ploughing as in the days of Cincinnatus. An infinite peace and quiet reign. We hear birds, and in the evening the cue owl utters his melodious, melancholy one note. The world does not disturb us. The air is as pure and fresh as air can possibly be, blowing from the sweet, carefully tended plain, and sweeping down from the mountains. Near us is the villa and tower of Aurora Leigh, just at the end of our estate, and farther off is Galileo's tower, where he studied the heavens. Northeast from us lies the beautiful Florence, burning in the bottom of the cup of hills, with all its domes and campaniles, palaces and churches. Fiesole, the cradle of Florence, is visible among the heights at the east, and San Miniato, with its grove of cypresses, is farther off to the south. There is no end of beauty and interest, and the view becomes ideal and poetic the moment the sun begins its decline; for then the rose and purple mists drape the hills, and mountains--the common earth--turn to amethysts, topazes, and sapphires, and words can never convey an idea of the opaline heavens, which seem to have illimitable abysses of a penetrable substance, made up of the light of pearls.