Propinquity, opportunity, almost a mental suggestion are quite enough to produce a long chain of events affecting a lifetime. "Ask half the men you are acquainted with why they are married, and their answer, if they speak the truth, will be, 'Because I met Miss Such-a-One at such a place, and we were continually together.' 'Propinquity, propinquity,' as my father used to say, and he was married five times, and twice to heiresses." So speaks Mrs. Broadhurst, a match-making mother in _The Absentee_. And this is the reason why most of Miss Edgeworth's heroes and heroines love. But the advances of a designing woman are quite sufficient, as in _Vivian_, to make a fond lover forget his plighted troth to another, and the flattery of an unscrupulous man makes him suspicious of his real friends. Character is destiny, if the character is strong, but circumstances are destiny, if the character is weak. It is the aim of her novels to show how certain traits of character, as indecision, pride, love of luxury, indolence, lead to misfortune, and how these dangerous traits may be overcome. * * * * * Notwithstanding her moral, her plots are never hackneyed and never repeated. They are drawn from life and have the variety of life. In the story of _Ennui_, there is the twice-told tale of the nurse's son substituted for the real heir; but when he learns the true story of his birth, and resigns the castle, the title, and all its wealth to the rightful Earl of Glenthorn, who has been living in the village working at the forge, there is a great change from the usual story. The heir of the ancient family of Glenthorn accepts the earldom for his son, but with reluctance. The manners of the peasant remain with the earl, and the poor man, at last, begs the one who has been educated for the position to accept the title and the estates. In this she emphasised again what she constantly taught, that education and environment are more powerful than heredity. As she taught that reason should be the guide of life, so she lived. Her fourscore years and three were spent largely at her ancestral home of Edgeworthstown. She assisted her father in making improvements to better the condition of the tenantry, and to promote their happiness. When in Paris, she met a Mr. Edelcrantz, a gentleman in the service of the king of Sweden. Admiration was succeeded by love. But he could not leave the court at Stockholm, and Miss Edgeworth felt that neither duty nor inclination would permit her to leave her quiet life in Ireland. Reason was stronger than love. So they parted like her own heroes and heroines. All that history records of him is that he never married. She resumed her responsibilities at home, and if the thought of this separation sometimes brought the tears to her eyes, as her stepmother once wrote to a friend, she was as cheerful, gay, and light-hearted in the home circle as she had always been. * * * * *