SD2198. Ada Shepard to Kate Shepard

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 25, 361–362 (in part).

[Villa Montauto, Bellosguardo]

August 27 [1858].

… I am glad you were all pleased to have me see Mrs. Browning. I assure you that more than half the pleasure I feel in seeing interesting people and things is the feeling that, when I come home, I shall be able to give you full accounts of them. …

Mrs. Browning left Florence a few weeks after we arrived. She is spending the summer at Havre, for her health, which is fast improving under the influence of sea baths,—no, sea air, I mean. She is not strong enough to bathe in the sea; but Penny spends a great deal of his time in the water. Mrs. B. writes to her friend, Miss Blagden, who lives near us. …

From our windows we see the tower of the villa to which Mrs. Browning referred in Aurora Leigh,—the one in which Aurora lived, I mean. Mrs. B herself says that this is the one. It is very near us. I drew a sketch of it, this afternoon, so that you will be able to form a little idea of it. … [Editors’ note: text from transcript at Yale.]

Publication: None traced.

Manuscript: Concord Free Public Library.

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