Woodroffe, much her senior, was her father's friend, and it
therefore seemed to me more than likely that Leithcourt was pressing a
matrimonial alliance upon his daughter for some ulterior motive. In the
mad hurry for place, power, and wealth, men relentlessly sell their
daughters in the matrimonial market, and ambitious mothers scheme and
intrigue for their own aggrandizement at sacrifice of their daughter's
happiness more often than the public ever dream. Tragedy is, alas!
written upon the face of many a bride whose portrait appears in the
fashion-papers and whose toilette is so faithfully chronicled in the
paragraph beneath. Indeed, the girl in Society who is allowed her own
free choice in the matter of a husband is, alas! nowadays the exception,
for parents who want to "get on" up the social scale have found that
pretty daughters are a marketable commodity, and many a man has been
placed "on his legs," both financially and socially, by his son-in-law.
Hence the marriage of convenience is fast becoming common, while in the
same ratio the divorce petitions are unfortunately on the increase.
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