_How much of the story of Mary O'Neill is a work of my own imagination,
and how much comes from an authentic source I do not consider it
necessary to say. But as I have in this instance drawn more largely and
directly from fact than is usually the practice of the novelist, I have
thought it my duty to defeat all possible attempts at personal
identification by altering and disguising the more important scenes and
characters. Therefore this novel is not to be understood as referring to
any living person or persons, and the convent school described in it is
not to be identified with any similar educational institution in Rome_.