high for the ordinary walkers, who keep to the valley and the flatter roads. Robert is better, looking better, and in more healthy spirits; and we are both enjoying this great sea of mountains and our way of life here altogether. Of course, we remembered to go back to Florence for baby and the rest of our little establishment, and we mean to stay as long as we can, perhaps to the end of October. Baby is in the triumph of health and full-blown roses, and as he does not hide himself in the woods like his ancestors, but smiles at everybody, he is the most popular of possible babies.... We had him baptised before we left Florence, without godfathers and godmothers, in the simplicities of the French Lutheran Church. I gave him your kiss as a precious promise that you would love him one day like a true dear Aunt Nina; and I promise you on my part that he shall be taught to understand both the happiness and the honour of it. Robert is expecting a visit from his sister in the course of this autumn. She has suffered much, and the change will be good for her, even if, as she says, she can stay with us only a few weeks. With her we shall have your book, to be disinherited of which so long has been hard on us. Robert's own we have not seen yet. It must be satisfactory to you to have had such a clear triumph after all the dust and toil of the way. And now tell me, won't it be _necessary_ for you to come again to Italy for what remains to be done? Poor Florence is quiet enough under the heel of Austria, and Leopold 'l'intrepido,' as he was happily called by a poet of Viareggio in a welcoming burst of inspiration, sits undisturbed at the Pitti. I despair of the republic in Italy, or rather of Italy altogether. The instructed are not patriotic, and the patriots are not instructed. We want not only a _man_, but men, and we must throw, I fear, the bones of their race behind us before the true deliverers can spring up. Still, it is not all over; there will be deliverance presently, but it will not be now. We are full of painful sympathy for poor Venice. There! why write more about politics? It makes us sick enough to think of Austrians in our Florence without writing the thought out into greater expansion. Only don't let the 'Times' newspaper persuade you that there is no stepping with impunity out of England. ... We have 'lectures on Shakespeare' just now by a Mr. Stuart, who is enlightening the English barbarians at the lower village, and quoting Mrs. Jameson to make his discourse more brilliant. We like to hear 'Mrs. Jameson observes.' Give our love to dear Gerardine. I am anxious for her happiness and yours involved in it. Love and remember us, dearest friend. Your E.B.B., or rather, BA. The following note is added in Mr. Browning's handwriting: