Page:Advice to young ladies on their duties and conduct in life - Arthur - 1849.djvu/36

28 long afterwards, to live in independence, or to keep a parent or children above the pressure of want. A case in point may give force to what we are trying to impress upon the minds of our readers.

Some years ago, a merchant, who had experienced one or two vicissitudes, and who had seen a good deal of the rising and falling of families around him, was led to think of this subject by seeing the wife of a mercantile friend suddenly widowed, and left without a dollar in the world. She had been raised in affluence and luxury, and had lived in the same way until the death of her husband, whose estate proved to be bankrupt. Poverty found her without any resources in herself. She had three children dependent upon her for sustenance and education; but she could do nothing to sustain and educate them. The consequence was, that they were all separated from her: a distant relative took one, a friend of her husband’s another, and the third, a boy thirteen years of age, was apprenticed to a trade; while the mother, almost broken-hearted, sought refuge from want in the family of a poor cousin.

The merchant had three daughters. The two oldest had just left school, and were preparing to come out upon the world’s stage, and take their