entered society I was
sought for. I had many suitors. I had been brought up to fear
fortune-hunting, and suspected the motives of many men. Others did not
seem my equals--for I had been taught pride in my birth. Those who were
fit as regarded family were, many of them, unfit in brains or
morals--qualities not conspicuous in old families. Perhaps I might have
found one to love--if it had not been for the others. I was surrounded
wherever I went and if by chance I found a pleasant man to talk to,
_tete-a-tete,_ we were interrupted by other men coming up. Only a few
even of the men whom I met could gain an _entree_ to our house.--They
weren't thought good enough. If a working, serious man had ever been
able to see enough of me to love me, he probably would have had very
little opportunity to press his suit. But the few men I might have cared
for were frightened off by my money, or discouraged by my popularity and
exclusiveness. They did not even try. Of course I did not understand it
then. I gloried in my success and did not see the wrong it was doing me.
I was absolutely happy at home, and really had not the slightest
inducement to marry--especially among the men I saw the most. I led
this life for six years. Then my mother's death put me in mourning. When
I went back into society, an almost entirely new set of men had
appeared. Those whom I had known were many of them married--others were
gone. Society had lost its first charm to me. So my father and I
travelled three years. We had barely returned when he died. I did not
take up my social duties again till I was thirty-two. Then it was as the
spinster aunt, as you have known me. Now do you understand how hard it
is for such a girl as Dorothy to marry rightly?"

"Yes. Unless the man is in love. Let a man care enough for a woman, and
money or position will not frighten him off."

"Such men are rare. Or perhaps it is because I did not attract them. I
did not understand men as well then as I do now. Of some whom I thought
unlovable or dull at that time, I have learned to think better. A woman
does not marry to be entertained--or should not."

"I think," said Peter, "that one marries for love and sympathy."

"Yes. And if they are given, it does not matter about the rest. Even
now, thirty-seven though I am, if I could find a true man who could love
me as I wish to be loved, I could love him with my whole heart. It would
be my happiness not merely to give him social positio