My aunt never believed in this sort of thing, though, the institution of marriage.   Marrying for money, if one were to marry at all, remained the best of all possible reasons to do so.  Sandy liked to repeat the axiom, “it’s just as easy to love a rich man, as it is a poor one.”    After a close friend of my aunt’s insisted on getting married to a man she truly loved, my aunt refused to speak to her for a year.  My aunt’s sentiments were well known, so much so that Libby, who had intentionally kept her new marriage a secret; she was afraid my aunt would never speak to her again if she found out.  I figured she was probably more concerned about  being cut out of my aunt’s will.  I saw her new husband at my aunt’s funeral the following week.  The man was at least twenty years Libby’s senior, hunched and a foot shorter than herself.  But her new husband afforded Libby the opportunity of opening her own business, and this she snatched up immediately.

Read this story in its entirety