I am come, young ladies, in a very moralizing strain, to observe that our pleasures of this world are always to be for, and that we often purchase them at a great disadvantage, giving readi-monied actual happiness for a draft on the future, that may not be honoured.

More from Northanger Abbey

• A woman, especially, if she have the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can.
• I am pleased that you have learned to love a hyacinth. The mere habit of learning to love is the thing; and a teachableness of disposition in a young lady is a great blessing.
• I consider a country-dance as an emblem of marriage. Fidelity and complaisance are the principle duties of both; and those men who do not choose to dance or to marry them selves, have no business with the partners or wives of the neighbors.
• No man is offended by another man’s admiration of the woman he loves, it is the woman only who can make it a torment.
• No man is offended by another man's admiration of the woman he loves; it is the woman only who can make it a torment.