Tasso, if we may credit the deductions which have been drawn from passages in his letters, had the privilege of consoling the disappointed woman and of distracting her tedious hours.

They roamed together through the villa gardens, and spent days of quiet in the recesses of her apartments.

He read aloud passages from his unpublished poem, and composed sonnets in her honor, praising the full-blown beauty of the rose as lovelier than its budding charm.

The duke her husband, far from resenting this intimacy, heaped favors and substantial gifts upon his former comrade.

He had not, indeed, enough affection for his wife to be jealous of her.