ADVERTISING FOR A WIFE.

Globe, Volume IV, Issue 322, 24 June 1875, Page 3

ADVERTISING FOR A WIFE.

A Melbourne correspondent of a country paper relates the following adventure, which happened to a gentleman through advertising for a wife :—A gentleman of this city, not entirely unknown in the “ soft goods” line, a widower, with something of a family, and —as rumor says—a goodly bank account, advertised for a wife over a fictitious signature. Several answers were received, among which was one that particularly pleased him. The chirography was delicate and graceful, the language chaste, the signature, like his own, evidently fictitious. After a brief and mutually happy correspondence, a time and place were agreed upon for a meeting. At the appointed hour the gentleman was waiting in a private parlor of a certain fashionable hotel, _ and shortly afterwards a lady entered, thickly veiled. She came in tremblingly, and did not venture to look up until the voice of the gentleman, in respectful greeting, fell upon her car, at which she started convulsively, raised her eyes to the face of her swain, and then uttered a suppressed cry—a cry, the tone of which struck upon the gentleman’s ear with a sound not unfamiliar. He lifted the veil and looked upon the scared face of his own daughter, whom he had supposed industriously pursuring her studies at a school in a town, some distance west from Melbourne. The young lady has since been installed as housekeeper in the paternal mansion, and her papa is not likely to advertise for a wife again until this daughter is married.