Generally the family tie is a stronger one among the Italians than among ourselves.  In the upper classes, it is certainly so; and, probably, among all classes.  It may be thought strange, perhaps, that this should be the case with a people whose lives are supposed to be less pervaded by the sentiment of domesticity than our own.  The explanation may, however, perhaps be found in the greater and more frequent disruption of family ties, which is caused by that more active social movement, which pushes our younger sons away from the parental stock in search of the means of founding families of their own.

And one of the results of the Italian mode of living and feeling is seen in the very common family ambition of Churchmen.

The little Violante then, as has been said, was a personage of some importance, at least in the eyes of the Cardinal and his sister; and when she was left an orphan, was at once taken to live with her great-aunt, under the auspices of her Cardinal great-uncle.  Both of those remaining members of the family would have preferred that the one remaining scion of the race should have been a boy; but—­when the young Contessa should be married, of course her name should be thenceforward borne as part of that of the family; into which she should marry,—­as is so commonly the case in Italy, (many of the oldest and most illustrious names in the peninsula having survived to the present day solely by virtue of such arrangements); and the Marliani be thus saved from extinction.

The young Contessa Violante, when she reached the age of young-ladyhood, had not the “fatal gift of beauty.”  Some people think that such a deprivation is the most unfortunate from which a woman can suffer.  Others maintain that the absence of beauty is, upon the whole, no real misfortune.  But however philosophers may settle this question, it can hardly be doubted that no young girl devoid of beauty, was ever yet persuaded that to be unattractive in appearance, was otherwise than a very, very sore affliction and misfortune.  Nature often kindly mitigates the blow by making the unlovely girl unconscious of her want of beauty.  But this was not the case with the young Contessa Violante Marliani.

Violante knew that she was not beautiful, or even pretty.  Probably in her own estimate of herself she exaggerated her plainness.  She was one of those persons who have not the gift of self-deception.  Neither was she elegant in person.  And yet there was something about her bearing, which would have prevented any one from imagining that she was other than a high-born lady.  There was strong evidence of intellect in her face; and it was doubtless from within that came that quiet dignity of bearing that marked her.

And it was a dignity compatible and combined with the most perfect gentleness and almost humility of manner;—­a dignity arising not from the conscious ness of any high position or high qualities, but from the consciousness of that sort of gentle passive strength, which knows that no external circumstance, or difficulty, or pressure will avail to make its owner step but a hair’s breadth aside from the path which conscience has marked as that of right and duty.