The peculiarities in the position of a sacerdotal aristocracy have engrafted the passion of nepotism in the hearts, as well as the practice of it in the manners, of the members of Rome's hierarchy.
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.