What do we learn from the romances concerning Greene's life? The _Mourning Garment_ is a modernised version of the prodigal son story, and its relation to Greene's own history may be slight or even factitious. The story of _Never too Late_ touches Greene more closely. In this there is recounted the fortunes of "a gentleman of an ancient house, called Francesco; a man whose parentage though it were worshipful, yet it was not indued with much wealth; insomuch that his learning was better than his revenues, and his wit more beneficial than his substance." This Francesco, "casting his eye on a gentleman's daughter that dwelt not far from Caerbranck," named Isabel, fell in love with her, and married her against the opposition of Fregoso, her father. For five years "they laboured to maintain their loves, being as busy as bees, and as true as turtles, as desirous to satisfy the world with their desert as to feed the humours of their own desires." At the end of this time they were reconciled with Fregoso, and "they counted this smile of fortune able to countervail all the contrary storms that the adverse planets had inflicted upon them." Now after two years "it so chanced that Francesco had necessary business to dispatch certain his urgent affairs at the chief city of that island, called Troynovant: thither, with leave of his father, and farewell to his wife, he departed after they were married seven years." In the city he surrendered to the lures of a courtesan, Infida, and "seated in her beauty, he lived a long while, forgetting his return to Caerbranck." For three years the two lovers "securely slumbered in the sweetness of their pleasures," ignoring the womanly complaints of Isabel and neglectful of the passage of time. Then finding that "all his corn was on the floor, that his sheep were dipt, and the wool sold," Infida turned him out of doors. Francesco laments his hard fortune in an invective against courtesans that stings with the passion of the author's personal feeling. In his "perplexity he passed over three or four days till his purse was clean empty" and he was compelled "to carry his apparel to the brokers, and with great loss to make money to pay for his diet." "In this humour he fell in amongst a company of players, who persuaded him to try his wit in writing of comedies, tragedies, or pastorals, and if he could perform anything worth the stage, then they would largely reward him for his pains. Francesco, glad of this motion, seeing a means to mitigate the extremity of his want, thought it no dishonour to make gain of his wit or to get profit by his pen: and therefore, getting him home to his chamber, writ a comedy; which so generally pleased all the audience that happy were those actors in short time that could get any of his works, he grew so exquisite in that faculty." The remainder of the story relates Isabel's repulse of the seductions of an admirer, Infida's unsuccessful efforts at reconciliation with the now prosperous Francesco, and the latter's penitent return to his faithful wife.