The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1879-02-19
A Sewing Eirl'a Romance.

A sewing girl in this city, writes a
Springfield (Mass.) correspondent, has
had O romantic experience that is worth
the telling. Several months ago man
at Dubuque, Ia., advertised in an east
ern Massachusetts paper for wife.
Among the swarm of answers which he
received were two from two girls in this
city, who replied just for the fun of the
thing. One of them represented her
self as a young widow, and her lively
account of herself and her circumstances
was very largely fictitious, especially
that which told (very incidentally, as if
it was of no consequence of the snug
sum of money left her by the dear de.
parted. 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 earning her living with her needle);
photographs we're exchanged; the letters
grew more and more afectionate, until
the young woman, realizing that the
affair was no longer a joke, wrote to her
new.found admirer and told him frank
ly of her humble circumstances.
Of course he admired her all the
more, and at last came from Dubuque
to this city to claim her for his bride.
Instead of the sleek and intelligent
looking and manly individual whom she
had expected from his letter and his
photograph, what was her vexation to
see person of decidedly seedy appear
ance, wearing an old slouch hat. and
appearing altogether unattractive. Well,
she refused him, and he, chiding her
bitterly for so doing after the pains he
had taken to win her, returned alone to
Iowa. 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 thou
sand miles between them. Ho wrote no
more, but the distressed young wo.
man wrote, or got friends to write,
to the pastor OF the church he at
attended and to various persons in Du
buque, to find out what sort of man
this was-something she ought to have
thought of in the first place. The re-
plies were uniformly complimentary,
and every one only increased her regret
that she, poor sewing girl, had re
fused a "good match"
Never word came from him, and at
last she swallowed her pride, reopened
the correspondence herself, and told
him how she had misjudged him and
how sorry she was that she had. Prompt
ly came manly reply, from which she
discovered that when he visited her here,
he had Intentionally made himself es
unattractive as possible, from 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 man
sions in Dubuque. This true story
ought to have moral of the negative
sort-namely, that young girls are not to
infer from it that it is safe for them to
answer matrimonial advertisements, for
where one case of this sort has, like this,
happy issue, there are ten which lead
to unhappiness or something great deal
worse