Autograph letter signed : Florence, to George Goodin Moulton-Barrett, [1861] July 2-3.

Describing the last days of EBB's life; writing that his instinct told him the illness was serious, but "my reason was justified in believing her assurances that she would 'certainly soon be well again'"; describing the warning signs: "The frightful thing, really, was only the vehement expression of her perfect love for me when, if nothing was to happen, there would be nothing to account for it in my simply standing beside her--but I will say, in profound gratitude, that her last words were bidding 'God bless me' in tones and with what never accompanied any words of hers to me before. She laughed with pleasure and youth..."; giving the doctor's diagnosis; writing about her final hours, early in the morning of June 29th: "The last night she sate [sic] up by herself, cleaned her teeth, washed her face and combed her hair without the least assistance--and she took two servings of jelly from me spoonful by spoonful and drank a glass of lemonade not a quarter of an hour before the end: this is all I can bear to tell you now of it"; describing her funeral and the reaction to her death ("the shops in the street shut, a crowd of people following sobbing, another crowd of Italians, Americans & English crying like children at the cemetery"); stating that he has decided to leave Italy and devote himself to the care and education of Pen, along the lines that EBB would have wanted; mentioning that Pen is "like an angel to me"; writing that he will return to England as soon as possible and stay with Arabella for a few days, but until then "all brothers & relatives must forgive my not attempting to write them--I am absolutely alone,--with much help of another kind, and every sort of offered assistance, but I cannot yet go over this again & again in letters."