Perhaps in the case of the young Contessa Violante her great-aunt had sought to find some attendant and companion for her who should have a tendency to correct that too great proclivity to retirement from the world--to a life in which religion was the chief interest and occupation, and to a sad and unhopeful view of the world around and before her--which she lamented in her niece.

If so, the choice she made was not followed by the results she hoped from it; and was attended by other inconveniences.
The Signora Assunta Fagiani, the widow of a distinguished Bolognese professor of jurisprudence, was certainly quite free from all those dispositions which the Marchesa regretted in her niece.

But she was not altogether discreet or judicious in the method she adopted for reconciling the young girl to the world, and to worldly views and hopes and objects.
She very soon perceived that to Violante the consciousness of her own want of personal attractions was, despite her yearning for a life to be filled with thoughts and objects to which beauty could contribute nothing, a source of bitter and ever-present mortification.

There was inconsistency, doubtless, in regret for the deficiency of personal attraction in persons who, with perfect sincerity, declared to themselves that to enter a convent was their greatest object in life.
But Violante was not aware that if the beauty had been there the devotional aspirations would not have been there! That, which causes more deeply implanted in her nature than she knew of were impelling her to desire and to yearn for, the imperfect teaching of the world around her had led her to imagine to be unattainable save by the gifts of personal beauty.

And, knowing that if that were so there was no hope for her, her bruised heart had sought the only refuge which seemed to be open to such misfortune.
The Signora Fagiani's first attempt at finding a remedy for this state of things consisted of a vigorous endeavour to persuade her pupil that her own estimate of her personal appearance was altogether a mistaken one.