seem to have these things in common:

• raised in some very remote place, usually in humble surroundings but with love and care: let's just say 'reduced circumstances'

  
  

• either don't have both parents at the start of the novel (often their mother is dead), and if they have one, that parent dies early in the novel.
  
• are as beautiful as their beautiful mother used to be before she died
  
• play a lute or small harp or something, usually while leaning out a window
  
• are awash in sweetness, gentleness, devotion to their ailing parent(s), love and admiration from villagers/servants/other worthy, penniless souls