Page:Advice to young ladies on their duties and conduct in life - Arthur - 1849.djvu/186

178 without which, no matter how much she may love her husband, nor how worthy he may be of her love, a wife can never be truly happy.

As to runaway matches, they usually turn out the worst. Of course, there are many exceptions to this; but, as a general thing, where parents positively forbid their daughter to keep company with a young man, there are pretty good reasons for it; and if the daughter be mad enough, in a moment of passion, to run away with and marry him, she generally has cause, in a few years, bitterly to repent her folly. It is much better to wait a long time, in the hope of overcoming objections, than to take this rash and generally imprudent step.

The position of an heiress is almost always a difficult and dangerous one. There are a great many unprincipled men in the world, who seek to better their fortunes by marriage, and who are constantly on the look-out for some rich young girl, whose affections they can win, and thus acquire a fortune without the labor of making it themselves. Some of these persons cultivate every exterior grace of body and mind, with no other end than to make themselves attractive in the eyes of the other sex, and render more certain any conquest that may seem to them worth making. To fall a victim to the heartless