gold and to cherish as a best-beloved companion in mine age! Had
she been a book she could not have been guilty of the folly of
wedding with a yeoman of Lincolnshire--ah me, what rude
awakenings too often dispel the pleasing dreams of youth!

When I revisited England in the sixties, I was tempted to make an
excursion into Lincolnshire for the purpose of renewing my
acquaintance with Fiammetta. Before, however, I had achieved
that object this thought occurred to me: ``You are upon a
fool's errand; turn back, or you will destroy forever one of the
sweetest of your boyhood illusions! You seek Fiammetta in the
delusive hope of finding her in the person of Mrs. Henry Boggs;
there is but one Fiammetta, and she is the memory abiding in your
heart. Spare yourself the misery of discovering in the hearty,
fleshy Lincolnshire hussif the decay of the promises of years
ago; be content to do reverence to the ideal Fiammetta who has
built her little shrine in your sympathetic heart!''

Now this was strange counsel, yet it had so great weight with me
that I was persuaded by it, and after lying a night at the
Swan-and-Quiver Tavern I went back to London, and never again had
a desire to visit Lincolnshire.

But Fiammetta is still a pleasing memory--ay, and more than a
memory to me, for whenever I take down that precious book and
open it, what a host of friends do troop forth! Cavaliers,
princesses, courtiers, damoiselles, monks, nuns, equerries,
pages, maidens--humanity of every class and condition, and all
instinct with the color of the master magician, Boccaccio!