The child's happiness, was wholly in their hands.

They would be held accountable if she should form an unfortunate attachment for some ineligible young man who might chance to dine at their table.
The responsibility, they repeated with emphasis, was truly enormous.

It was also an unfortunate fact that in their Neapolitan society there were many young men, princes and dukes by the score, who had nothing but their names and titles to recommend them, and who would have found it very hard to keep body and title together, so to say, if gambling had suddenly been abolished, or had gone out of fashion unexpectedly.
Then, too, the Macomer couple had always led a retired life and had kept aloof from the very gay portion of society.

They lived well, according to their station, and so far as any one could see; but it had always been said that Gregorio Macomer was miserly.

At the same time it suited his wife, for reasons of her own, not to be conspicuous in the world, and she encouraged him to lead a quiet existence, spending half the year in the country, and receiving very few people when in Naples during the winter and spring.