Many romantic stories have gathered about the personality of Isabel: she has been passed upon us as the daughter of a Portuguese "lady of high quality," and the prop of her father's declining days. These are idolatrous inventions: we now know for certain that her mother's name was Ana Franca de Rojas, a poor woman married to Alonso Rodríguez, and that the girl herself (who in 1605 was unable to read and write) was indentured as general servant to Cervantes' sister, Magdalena de Sotomayor, in August 1599.[19] Thence she passed to Cervantes' household, and it is even alleged that she was twice married in her father's lifetime. She has been so picturesquely presented by imaginative "Cervantophils," that it is necessary to state the humble truth here and now, for the first time in English. Thus the grotesque travesty of Cervantes as a plaster saint returns to the Father of Lies, who begat it. Confirmation of his exploits as a loose liver in gaming-houses is afforded by the _Memorias de Valladolid_, now among the manuscripts in the British Museum.[20] Such diversions as these left him scant time for literature. The space between 1605 and 1608 yields the pitiful show of three sonnets in four years: _To a Hermit_, _To the Conde de Saldaña_, _To a Braggart turned Beggar_. Even this last is sometimes referred to Quevedo. It should hardly seem that prosperity suited Cervantes. Meanwhile, his womenfolk gained their bread by taking in the Marqués de Villafranca's sewing. Still, he made no sign: the author of _Don Quixote_ sank lower and lower, writing letters for illiterates at a small fee. The _Letter to Don Diego de Astudillo Carrillo_, the _Story of what happens in Seville Gaol_ (a sequel to Cristóbal de Chaves' sketch made twenty years before), the _Dialogue between Sillenia and Selanio_, the three _entremeses_ entitled _Doña Justina y Calahorra_, _Los Mirones_, and _Los Refranes_—all these are of doubtful authenticity. In April 1609, Cervantes took a thought and mended: he joined Fray Alonso de la Purificación's new Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament, and in 1610 wrote his sonnet in memory of Diego Hurtado de Mendoza. In 1611 he entered the Academia Selvaje, founded by that Francisco de Silva whose praises were sung later in the _Viaje del Parnaso_, and he prepared that unique compound of fact and fancy, the rarest humour and the most curious experience—his twelve _Novelas Exemplares_, which were licensed on August 8, 1612, and appeared in 1613.