Food, properly served, will attract a proposal at almost any time, especially if it is known that the pleasing viands were of the girl's own making. Cooking and love may seem at first glance to be widely separated, but no woman can have one without the other. The brotherly love for all creation, which emanates from the well-fed man, overflows, concentrates, and naturally becomes a proposal.
Written Proposals
Other things being equal, a written proposal is apt to be genuine, especially if it is signed with the full name and address of the writer, and the date is not omitted. Long and painful experience in the courts of his country has made man wary of direct evidence.
But a written proposal is extremely bad form. A girl never can be sure that her lover did not attempt to fish it out of the letter-box after it had slipped from his fingers. The author of How to Be Happy, Though Married, once saw a miserable young man attempting to get his convicting letter back by means of a forked stick. The sight must be quite common everywhere. Proposing in haste and repenting at leisure is not by any means unusual.
Then, too, a girl misses a possible opportunity of seeing a man blush and stammer. One does not often get a chance to see a man willingly making himself ridiculous, and the spectacle is worth waiting for.
Confusion and Awkwardness
Confusion and awkwardness are high trumps with a woman, for they indicate inexperience and uncertainty. The man who proposes in a finished and nonchalant manner, as if he had done it frequently and were sure of the result, is now and then astonished at a refusal. It is also a risk to offer a ring immediately after acceptance. The suspicion is that the ring has been worn before, or else the man was sure enough of the girl to invest heavily in his future.
Sometimes a man will disclose to a platonic friend the form he habitually employs in proposals. The hero of battle engagements has proverbial charm for woman, and the hero of matrimonial engagements is meat and drink to the spinster athirst for knowledge.
Feed the man, and when the brotherly love for the entire universe begins to radiate, approach him gently upon the subject.
"Why, bless your little heart," the man will say, "of course I'll tell you about it. Yes, you're right in supposing that I know more about it than anyone else you know. I've never been refused in my life and I know I've asked a hundred. I've had medals for that.