Read it through once

In 1846 the dear friend, Miss Barrett, was married to Robert Browning, an incident which proved—so Miss Mitford recorded—that “Love really is the wizard the poets have called him”. There is no mention of a wedding-present being despatched from Three Mile Cross—it will be remembered that the marriage was a somewhat hurried and secret affair, due to Mr. Barrett’s opposition to the whole idea—but we do know that when the happy couple left for Italy _via_ Paris they took with them Flush, the dog, which Miss Mitford had sent as a gift to her friend some years before. Flush was a character, and figures very much in the Barrett-Browning correspondence from 1842 to 1848; he died much loved and lamented, and now lies buried in the Casa Guidi vaults.