Its course had been happy, but the end dealt my heart a blow which healed very slowly.

It opened afresh when in her parents' house, where during my convalescence I was a frequent guest, I myself advised her to marry a young land-owner, who eagerly wooed her.

She became his wife, but only a year later entered that other world which she had regarded as her true home even while here.

Her beloved image occupies the most sacred place in the shrine of my memory.
I denied myself the pleasure of introducing her character in one of my novels, for I felt that if I should succeed in limning it faithfully the modern reader would be justified in considering her an impossible figure for our days.

She would perhaps have suited a fairy tale; and when I created Bianca in The Elixir I gave her Nenny's form.