Page:The Cottagers of Glenburnie - Hamilton (1808).djvu/338

 fancies of young people—one sees such marriages. So—"

"Believe me," interrupted Mr Stewart, "such matches may always be accounted for. No unsuitable or incongruous marriage ever yet took place, but where there was some wrong bias in the mind, some disease lurking in the imagination, which inflamed the vanity in that very way which the marriage promised to gratify. Had Bell's passion for wealth been born of avarice, she would have despised this Mollins: but a man who lived among lords and ladies, was in her eyes irresistible. It is this propensity that will be her ruin. Yes, my good friend, I see it plainly. Their vanity is greater than their fortune can support. Mollins acknowledges that he is already embarrassed. He will soon be more so: they will live beyond their income, in order to keep up with the gay and giddy fools whose steps they follow. Bell's beauty, her levity, her want of fixed and solid principle;—O, Mrs