HEIRESS TO A MILLION.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIV, Issue 1073, 21 July 1924, Page 9

HEIRESS TO A MILLION.

TEN THOUSAND SUITORS.

GLORIA FOY’S INHERITANCE. Gloria Toy, an American musical comedy actress, aged 22, has been, left £1,000,000 by an uncle on condition that she marlies before she is 25. It is not surprising that shu has already received 10,000 others of marriage. Lady Tree, in ail open letter published by the Weekly Dispatch, gives Gloria some advice. She writes: ‘ Dear Gloria,—A star you have become, and under a lucky star must you have been horn, for the inheritance of a million pounds sterling, upon the desirable condition that you, a girl of 22, shall marry before you are 25, has brought you oilers of marriage in numbers, beyond the wildest dreams of womanhood. Gloria, dear, I wonder if indeed you are so lucky after all! For, of course, you are giving grave consideration to each oiler as it presents itself. In the first place, no girl must engage herself to one whom she has never seen; therefore, you have the task before you of personally interviewing ten thousand men. “It is not a review at Aldershot, you know. Each applicant must have individual attention; and —why, let me see! even if you inspect 27 candidates every day, including Sundays, it will take you a year to perform your task; and personally, Gloria dear, *1 think that 27 a day would be scamping it. A really conscientious and scrupulous young woman would give up three years to such an object. “And at tho end of three years you would have attained the nge of 25, you would have to forego your million, and you would liuve wrecked the lives and broken the spirits of ten thousand wouldbe wooers. But well I know the New World capacity to hustle, and, even as your great cities are huilded in a night, so your great undertaking of decision may occupy hut a few months instead of years. In making that decision, Gloria, however, god-liko his form and face, avoid the widower with seven children; the elderly bachelor with fads and pasts; the raw youths with neither chins nor features. “Avoid actors, for they will make you jealous; tenors, for they will bore you; lawyers, because they will see through you; sailors, because they will go to sea. This elimination will leave you u large number of types upon which your favour may more safely fall.

THE MEN TO BE AVOIDED. “And have you given thought, Gloria, to a possibility thut among the many claimants to your hand there may be one or two who, however godly their outward appearance and manner, may yet he inwardly those- ravening wolves, fortune hunters? I hint at this with diffidence, because I hold it a sin. to plant suspicion in a guileless breast. But, have a care! for, although all but extinct, yet in that, sweet Utopia upon whose threshold we are entering there are, alas! from time to time, rare instances of fortune-hunting still extant; and to have you the victim of it, Gloria? No —a thousand times No!

“But you, almost a child, how could you recognise the monster beneath the smooth exterior of his class ? Beware, if while he holds your little hand his gaze grow rigid on the great, emerald of your ring. Beware, if in that caressing, tender voice of his, ho beg you for one tiny, tiny peep at your uncle’s will. Beware,' if, mingled with passionate pleading, he discourse too narrowly upon the subject of investments, stocks and shares. And, oh, beloved Gloria, especially beware if he should ask you for a temporary loan, or if. with playful reminder of the delicate health of your ancestors, lie urge upon you tho immediate execution of a will iri his favour.

■“[ hate myself, Gloria, for endeavouring thus to put you on your guard; and I may be utterly old-fashioned and wrong-headed. Your wooer may do all things I bid you shrink from and yet he may be proved a proper man. Oh—but Gloria, dear, what utter nonsense I am writing. Of course, you have made up your mind long, long ago—before there was a question of uncle's defunct and suitors galore. Yon never ho has loved since your pretty hair riplie has loved sinee your pretty hairr ippled over your shoulder and hung down to your waist. You are engaged to he married to him, and you have but to send ten thousand of your picture postcards to the poor unfortunate importunates to tell them so. You arc only waiting until the end of your present theatrical season and your wedding will take place. “DO NOT LET HIM CO.” “But will it, though ? Now that, you are a great heiress, will not your lover — noble but, without fortune —will lie not draw hack in fear, lest the slur of for-tune-hunting lie cast upon him? There’s a fearful thought! . . . "Gloria, you must, not let him go. Either in pretence or in earnest give away your wealth, or retain but so much of it as will match his own. Or, swearing that you will hold him to his vows, tel! him you will not wed till you are twenty-five—-three long years for him to wait for you; by which time you will be heiress to but a vanished million.

“This proof of self-sacrifice on your part will break his pride; ho will return to his allegiance and will dare to reaffirm his love. But, do not, lose him 1 Forfeit, fortune, forfeit friends, forfeit all the world, hut do not forfeit honouring unselfish love.”