Fall in love, marry the man, have two children, and live happy ever afterwards.
I maintain that answer has as much wisdom in it as any other that can be given;--or perhaps more.

The advice contained in it cannot, perhaps, always be followed to the letter; but neither can the advice of the other kind, which is given by the flock of learned ladies who ask the question.
A woman's life is important to her,--as is that of a man to him,--not chiefly in regard to that which she shall do with it.

The chief thing for her to look to is the manner in which that something shall be done.

It is of moment to a young man when entering life to decide whether he shall make hats or shoes; but not of half the moment that will be that other decision, whether he shall make good shoes or bad.
And so with a woman;--if she shall have recognised the necessity of truth and honesty for the purposes of her life, I do not know that she need ask herself many questions as to what she will do with it.
Alice Vavasor was ever asking herself that question, and had by degrees filled herself with a vague idea that there was a something to be done; a something over and beyond, or perhaps altogether beside that marrying and having two children;--if she only knew what it was.
She had filled herself, or had been filled by her cousins, with an undefined ambition that made her restless without giving her any real food for her mind.

When she told herself that she would have no scope for action in that life in Cambridgeshire which Mr Grey was preparing for her, she did not herself know what she meant by action.