e renders marriage a
holy institution. She has undesirable qualities which ought not to be
transmitted to children, and she is absolutely devoid of maternal
instincts.

I have heard her say she would consider motherhood the greatest
disaster which could befall her. But she is unfitted for a
self-supporting career, and she wants a home and position.

She has beauty, kind and generous impulses, and a love of playing Lady
Bountiful. It is not so much that she wants to benefit the needy, as
that she likes to place people under obligations and to have them look
up to her as a superior being.

Old Mr. Volney is a miser, and his money is doing no one good. He has
only distant relatives, and by taking Elise for a wife (according to
law) he will wrong no one, and she will make much better use of his
fortune than his heirs would make.

Your mother will be relieved of worry and care. Many worthy poor people
and charities will receive help, and Elise will have her heart's
desire--fine apparel, jewels, a social position, and no one to bother
her. The valet and nurse will look after Mr. Volney, and his simple old
heart will bask in the pride of an old man--the possession of a pretty
young wife.

Had he full use of his mental faculties, and did he long for love and
devotion, I would try and dissuade Elise from the marriage, but solely
on _his_ account, not on hers.

The young man you mention, as your choice of a suitor for the hand of
your sister, might better go up in a balloon to seek for Eutopia than to
expect happiness as her husband. He has a sweet, gentle, loving nature,
a taste for quiet home joys, fondness for children, and he has two
thousand a year, with small prospects of more in the near future.

He should marry a modest, domestic girl, with tastes similar to his own,
and with no overweening ambitions. Elise would simply drive him mad in a
year's time, with her restless discontent, her extravagance, and her
desire for the expensive pleasures of earth. It is useless to reason
with her, or to expect her to model her ideas to suit her circumstances.
Inheritance and twenty-one years of wrong education must be taken into
consideration. What would mean happiness for many women would mean
misery for her. I can imagine no more dreadful destiny than to be tied
to a senile old man by a legal ceremony, even were I given his millions
in payment. But that will mean happiness to Elise.

I think we should let people seek their