She was such a creature as the great novelist himself would have
chosen for a heroine; she had the beauty and the wit of those
Florentine ladies who flourished in the fourteenth century, and
whose graces of body and mind have been immortalized by
Boccaccio. Her eyes, as I particularly recall, were specially
fine, reflecting from their dark depths every expression of her
varying moods.

Why I called her Fiammetta I cannot say, for I do not remember;
perhaps from a boyish fancy, merely. At that time Boccaccio and
I were famous friends; we were together constantly, and his
companionship had such an influence upon me that for the nonce I
lived and walked and had my being in that distant, romantic
period when all men were gallants and all women were grandes
dames and all birds were nightingales.

I bought myself an old Florentine sword at Noseda's in the Strand
and hung it on the wall in my modest apartments; under it I
placed Boccaccio's portrait and Fiammetta's, and I was wont to
drink toasts to these beloved counterfeit presentments in
flagons (mind you, genuine antique flagons) of Italian wine.
Twice I took Fiammetta boating upon the Thames and once to view
the Lord Mayor's pageant; her mother was with us on both
occasions, but she might as well have been at the bottom of the
sea, for she was a stupid old soul, wholly incapable of sharing
or appreciating the poetic enthusiasms of romantic youth.

Had Fiammetta been a book--ah, unfortunate lady!--had she but
been a book she might still be mine, for me to care for lovingly
and to hide from profane eyes and to attire in crushed levant and