The interest centres in the two heroines, Euthanasia, Countess of Valperga, and Beatrice, Prophetess of Ferrara. Strong, intellectual, and passionate, not until the time of George Eliot did women of this type become prominent in fiction. Euthanasia, a Guelph and a Florentine, with a soul "adapted for the reception of all good," was betrothed to the youth Castruccio, whom she at that time loved. Later, when his character deteriorated under the influence of selfish ambition, she ceased to love him, and said, "He cast off humanity, honesty, honourable feeling, all that I prize." Castruccio belonged to the Ghibelines, so that the story of their love is intertwined with the struggle between these two parties in Italy. But more beautiful than the intellectual character of Euthanasia, is the spiritual one of Beatrice, the adopted daughter of the bishop of Ferrara, who is regarded with feelings of reverence by her countrymen, because of her prophetic powers. Pure and deeply religious, she accepted all the suggestions of her mind as a message from God. When Castruccio came to Ferrara and was entertained by the bishop as the prince and liberator of his country, she believed that together they could accomplish much for her beloved country: "She prayed to the Virgin to inspire her; and, again giving herself up to reverie, she wove a subtle web, whose materials she believed heavenly, but which were indeed stolen from the glowing wings of love." No wonder she believed the dictates of her own heart, she whose words the superstition of the age had so often declared miraculous. She was barely seventeen and she loved for the first time. How pathetic is her disillusionment when Castruccio bade her farewell for a season, as he was about to leave Ferrara. She had believed that the Holy Spirit had brought Castruccio to her that by the union of his manly qualities and her divine attributes some great work might be fulfilled. But as he left her, he spoke only of earthly happiness: "It was her heart, her whole soul she had given; her understanding, her prophetic powers, all the little universe that with her ardent spirit she grasped and possessed, she had surrendered, fully, and without reserve; but, alas! the most worthless part alone had been accepted, and the rest cast as dust upon the winds." Afterwards, when she wandered forth a beggar, and was rescued by Euthanasia, she exclaimed to her: "You either worship a useless shadow, or a fiend in the clothing of a God."