dictate her decision. The happiness of others, though founded on
mistaken views, she did not consider as unworthy of her regard. The
choice was such as was not likely to obtain the parental sanction, to
whom the moral qualities of their son-in-law, though not absolutely
weightless in the balance, were greatly inferior to the considerations
of wealth and dignity.

The brother set no value on any thing but the means of luxury and power.
He was astonished at that perverseness which entertained a different
conception of happiness from himself. Love and friendship he considered
as groundless and chimerical, and believed that those delusions would,
in people of sense, be rectified by experience; but he knew the
obstinacy of his sister's attachment to these phantoms, and that to
bereave her of the good they promised was the most effectual means of
rendering her miserable. For this end he set himself to thwart her
wishes. In the imbecility and false indulgence of his parents he found
the most powerful auxiliaries. He prevailed upon them to forbid that
union which wanted nothing but their concurrence, and their consent to
endow her with a small portion of their patrimony, to render completely
eligible. The cause was that of her happiness and the happiness of him
on whom she had bestowed her heart. It behooved her, therefore, to call
forth all her energies in defence of it, to weaken her brother's
influence on the minds of her parents, or to win him to be her advocate.
When I reflect upon her mental powers, and the advantages which should
seem to flow from the circumstance of pleading in the character of
daughter arid sister, I can scarcely believe that her attempts
miscarried. I should have imagined that all obstacles would yield before
her, and particularly in a case like this, in which she must have
summoned all her forces, and never have believed that she had struggled
sufficiently.