Translated from the Spanish by Robert M. Fedorchek with an introduction by No?l Valis Juanita la Larga (1896), the third of Juan Valera's eponymous novels with a female protagonist, unfolds in a small town in nineteenth-century Spain and tells the story of a young girl's romance with a wealthy widower many years her senior. In addition to their substantial difference in years and class, the lovers must contend with the indignation of his imperious...