She liked to have a party at an early hour in the evening, when she only invited clerics. On these occasions she used to sit in an armchair where, intentionally or unintentionally, probably intentionally, there were put two cushions so that she seemed to be in a valley. Soon after the arrival of the company, when the conversation became animated, she would fall into a deep sleep, and thus remain until nine o'clock, when the cassocked gentlemen retired, presumably, without shaking hands. As there was a chapel in the house she seldom went out, and when she did so, it was in the carriage. She kept all the money that came to her hands hidden away in secret places in the garret or the garden. Sometimes this avarice or, as it may be more correctly termed, this mania for hoarding, brought them into difficulties, and she preferred to let her son borrow money to disinterring her treasure. She was very greedy, and fond of dainties; and she could consume a quantity of sweets with no signs of indigestion. But such things were not made for nuns, and so, in strange contradiction to her pious inclinations, she hated all that savoured of the convent.
And it was by this eccentric, one may almost say mad, woman, that the present Count of Onis was brought up, and his character was much affected thereby. To counteract his excessive sensitiveness, his weak and vacillating temperament, and his imaginative and gloomy disposition, of which sad signs were shown at times, he ought to have been brought up in the open air under an intelligent and energetic master, who would have known how to inspire him with manly strength and resolution. But, unfortunately, it was just the contrary. The countess would not hear of any career which would take him away from Lancia; so he went to the local university, where he followed a course of jurisprudence, after which rich young men think they are entitled to pass the rest of their days in idleness. During his college career the countess kept him under her authority in a way that became ridiculous. He never left the house without permission, he came in at dark, he told his beads, and went to confession when she bade him to. Whilst his body developed to a marvellous degree, so that he became a fine athletic young fellow, his mind remained as submissive and childish as that of a ten-year-old child.