A ROMANTIC EXPERIENCE.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XVI, Issue 199, 22 August 1881, Page 4

A ROMANTIC EXPERIENCE.

A sewing-girl in Springfield. Ma?s., has bad a romantic experience which is . worth the telling. Several months ago a man at Dubuque, la., advertised for a wife. Among a swarm of answers which he received were two from two girls in that city, who replied just for the fun of the thing. One of them represented herself as a young widow, and the lively account of herself and her circumstances was very largely fictitious, especially that which told (very incidentally, as it was of no consequence) of the snug sum of money left her by her dear departed. She never expected to hear of the matter again, but that was the one letter out of all the advertiser received which struck his fancy He wrote to the supposed "widow" (who, in fact, had never been married, and who was then earoiDg her living with her needle) ; photographs were exchanged ; the letters grew more and more affectionate, until the young woman, realising that the affiair was no longer a joke, wroie to her new found admirer and told him frankly of her humble circumstances. Of course he admired her ail the more, and at last he came from Dubuque to this city lo claim her for his bride. Instead of the sleek and intelligent-look-ing and manly individual whpnj ehe had expected from his letter nnd his photograph, wlmt was her yeMcm . to see

a person of decidedly seedy appearance, wjearing an old slouch hat, and appearing altogether unattractive. Well, she refused him, and he, chiding her bitterly for so doing after all the pains he had taken to win her, returned alone to lowa. I suppose he hadn't left the house before she was sorry— such is the flexible character of female affection —and it is certainly true that she was very sorry, indeed, before he had put a thousand miles between them, He wrote no more, but the distressed young woman wrote, or got friends to write, to the pastor of the church he attended and to various persons in Dubuque, to find out what sort of a man this was —something she ought to have done in the first place. The replies were upiformly complimentary, and every one increased her regret that she a poor sewing girl had refusen a "good match." Never a word came from him, and at last she swallowed her pride, re-opened the correspondence herself, and told him how she had misjudged him, and how sorry she was that she had. Promptly came a manly reply, from which she discovered that when he visited her here, he had intentionally made himself as.unattractive as possible, from a romantic notion that she ought to take him for what he was and not for what he wore. Of course they were married, and the poor sewing-girl has for her husband one of the leading citizens of Dubuque, and for her home one of the finest mansions in Dubuque. This true story ought to have a moral of a negative sort— namely^ that young girls are not to infer from it that' it is safe for them to apswer matrimonial advertisements, for, where one case of this sort has, like this, a happy issue, there are ten which lead to unhappiness or something a good deal worse.