ad endured had neither silenced the
yearning voice of my heart nor cooled the warmth of my blood. I, who
had believed that the garden of love was forever closed against me, was
beloved by the most beautiful girl, who was even dearer to me than life,
and with new hope, which Nenny's faith in God's goodness bedewed with
warm spring rain, I enjoyed this happiness.

Yet conscience could not be silenced. The warning voice of my mother, to
whom I had opened my heart, sharpened the admonitions of mine; and when
Wildbad brought me only relief, by no means complete recovery, I left
the decision to the physician. It was strongly adverse. Under the most
favourable circumstances years must pass ere I should be justified in
binding any woman's fate to mine.

So this beginning of a beautiful and serious love story became a swiftly
passing dream. Its course had been happy, but the end dealt my heart
a blow which healed very slowly. It opened afresh when in her parents'
house, where during my convalescence I was a frequent guest, I myself
advised her to marry a young land-owner, who eagerly wooed her. She
became his wife, but only a year later entered that other world which
she had regarded as her true home even while here. Her beloved image
occupies the most sacred place in the shrine of my memory.

I denied myself the pleasure of introducing her character in one of my
novels, for I felt that if I should succeed in limning it faithfully the
modern reader would be justified in considering her an impossible figure
for our days. She would perhaps have suited a fairy tale; and when I
created Bianca in The Elixir I gave her Nenny's form. The gratitude
which I owe her will accompany me to my life's end, for it was she who
brought to my sick-room the blue sky, sunlight, and the thousand gifts
of a blooming Garden of Eden.

CHAPTER XXV. THE SUMMERS OF MY CONVALESCENCE.

While I spent the winters in my mother's house in industrious work and
pleasant social life, the summers took me out of the city into the
open air. I always went first with my faithful nurse and companion to
Wildbad; the remainder of the warm season I spent on the Elbe, sometimes
with my mother, sometimes with my aunt.

I used the Wildbad springs in all seventeen times. For two summers,
aided by a servant, I descended from a wheel-chair into the warm water;
in the third I could dispense with assistance; and from the fourth
for several lustra I moved unchecked with