Page:Advice to young ladies on their duties and conduct in life - Arthur - 1849.djvu/37

Rh places as women. He possessed considerable wealth, and was doing a large, and, he believed, a safe business. But he had seen enough of life to be satisfied of the uncertainty of all things, and of the wisdom of making every possible provision for the future.

“Jane,” he said to his oldest daughter, one day, “I have been thinking a good deal about you and Edith lately, and have at last come to a conclusion that may surprise you. It is seriously my opinion that you ought to qualify yourselves fully for gaining your own livelihoods, in case any reverse should meet you in after life.”

Jane was the daughter of a rich man, and had all her life been so far removed from any thing like want, that the idea of ever being in the situation supposed by her father, had not once entered her mind. His remark might well occasion surprise, as it did, Jane looked doubtingly into her father’s face for a few moments, and then said,—

“Is there any danger of such a reverse, father?”

“There is nothing certain in this life, Jane. Out of every ten families raised in affluence, at least one half, perhaps two thirds, are reduced to poverty, often even before the younger members