avoided; and as your girls have pretensions that might secure their being courted in the best society, it would mortify any one who loves them to witness a complete failure in their _debut_, through a want of that circumspection which mothers, _so_ inferior to you, know how to exercise. Dear little Fan is young and volatile; there is more danger of her betraying herself than of her sisters' being giddy. Much might be done still with your elder girls, who are so reasonable and so docile, that they would probably take a hint immediately; but it is quite a _sin_ not to snatch Fanny from perdition, by allowing what _azure_ she has already contracted, to fade away as quickly as possible. Elegant and accomplished, pretty and pleasing, my cousins are formed for the world, and would shine in it: but Greek, Latin, chemistry, _etcetera_, are like forgery, never to be forgiven." Here I paused, and my aunt calmly replied, "I fear, my dear boy, that I shall make matters worse rather than better by my answer to your advice; but, notwithstanding, I must run the risk, and boldly hazard the loss of your esteem, by detailing some opinions of mine, which do not harmonize at all with your's. First, then, you will stare at me perhaps when I tell you, that I am very far from thinking marriage necessary to the happiness of my children, though should I live to see them find such partners as I think worthy of them, I should rejoice, inasmuch as, under _certain_ circumstances, I look upon marriage as the happiest lot of life in this chequered scene; but, Arthur, rank and fortune are only _accidents_, and make no part of the _essence_ in my creed of such requisites as constitute felicity in domestic union. My dear girls will not be rich, but they will have enough to make them independent. If they marry, I think I may venture to say, that it will not be through worldly motives of aggrandizement; and should they remain single, they will, I trust in the Almighty, be both useful and contented."