"Yours truly,
"——."
WAITING.
I was puzzled to know what to do with this letter—I really felt for my correspondent. I therefore printed his request in a London letter I was writing at the time and which appeared in the principal local papers in the United Kingdom, and also in the papers of America and Australia, and added a portrait of the lady I had selected, with the following note:
"Unless the publication of this letter leads to some favourable offers I shall send my unknown, but hymeneally disposed, correspondent this sketch of a lady capable of looking after so young and venturesome a man, seated at the docks waiting his arrival, for unless he has a sketch or photograph how is he to identify his 'love' amidst the crowd which greets the homeward-bound steamer?"
And I have preserved a few out of the scores of letters I received, to hand to this gentleman should I ever have the pleasure of meeting him.
Judging from this, the manager of a matrimonial agency must indeed get a curious insight into the minds of the maids of Merry England. This single experience has been quite enough for me.