Married at eighteen, she had seen this union, with which convenience had more to do than inclination, dissolved at the end of two years: her husband died soon after the birth of her only child. From that time family circumstances obliged her to live with an uncle, who was the guardian of her child, and had, in this capacity, the right to meddle with everything relating to both mother and daughter—a right which his wife, a woman of difficult and imperious temper, likewise arrogated in a manner that would have exhausted the patience of any one else; but Stella’s never failed her. Feeling it important for the future interests of her little Angiolina to accept the condition imposed by her widowhood, she submitted to it courageously without asking if there was any merit in so doing. Her liveliness, which had been so long subdued, returned beneath the smiles of her child, and, as often happens to those who are young, nature gained the ascendency and triumphed over all there was to depress her. Angiolina was now five years old, and was growing up without perceiving the gloomy atmosphere that surrounded the nest of affection and joy in which her mother sheltered her, and the latter found her child so sweet a resource that she no longer seemed to feel anything was wanting in her lot. This intimacy added much to the happiness of a life which began to please me far beyond my expectations. The gay world, with which I thought myself so completely disgusted, took a new and more subtle aspect in my eyes than that I had so soon become weary of. But in yielding to this charm it seemed to me I was pleasing Lorenzo and seconding his desire to make our house one of the most brilliant in Naples. Nevertheless, he resumed his labors, and passed whole hours in his studio, where he seemed wholly absorbed, as formerly, in his art. I found him there more than anywhere else, as he was before our fatal journey. He had begun again with renewed ardor on his Vestal, which was now nearly completed, and was considered the most perfect work that ever issued from his hands. He attributed the honor of his success to his model, and, though formerly more annoyed than flattered by suffrages of this kind, I now welcomed the compliment as a presage of days like those of former times.