Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1880-01-15

..ither a designing wretch OF a man, who
wishes to laugh at and expose the tollies of
silly womanhood, or else, and that's a, great
rleal worse, a scandal-loviDg female who would
tickle her gossipy palate with the discovered
geaknesses OF her own sex. II you are the
after, / despise you, tor can't get any fun
put of a Irritation with woman; but If you
are the former, I'll excuse your enormities if
you'll only make yourself amusing. What
you are time may discover; what / am you
shall now hear. In the first place-yo men
always take that into first consideration m
a decided brunette and better looking than the
average woman, at least, SO my friends and
my glass tell me. L am in my nineteenth
year; to be exact, was eighteen last January,
and am not the least bit sentimental, but full
of mischief as any poor cooped-up girl you
aver saw. Now isn't il a shame?-I'm not out
OF boarding school yet--and that's the reason
you get this letter; for Pm older than most Of
the other girls, and feel like doing something
that ism t real bad, you know, but that's just
little restless, and they'll think it's awiully
wicked when they find out that I'm corre-
spending with man don't know. as sneg
II you are woman-but don't think any
woman could have published such a thing, SO
well pretend you are not weman-if you are
man, then, and put that piece in the paper
just for lark-isn't that an awful word for
INC W uSc!-NHy Will prOuliSo 10 dDSW6T your
letters so long as they are pleasant and polite;
for you must not think am not a lady be-
cause have written this letter. OF course, l
have no idea OF marrying anybody, and espe-
cially not you, for l am rather fond OF some
body else and he likes me, at least he sends
me boxes OF candy and the swee, est flowers;
but I'm tired of this poky life and need some
sort of q tonic. If you wish you can write to
Yours, suspiciously, arf
e JOSIE MASON, gg7
Box -, Milwaukee, Wis.
P. S.-This isn't my real name, you see,
any more than yours is Edward Clarke but it
is the only name you must know me by. And
if by any chance your advertisement should be
in earnest, | should be dreadiully sorry to
have written to you in this way, but Pm sure
that in that case you'll forgive harmless Joke
from young girl who has scarcely any amuse-
ments.
'That girls little trump" said
Will, when he mad finished reading the
letter, and I'm just the boy to help her
drive the blues away. You can have all
the rest of the letters, but this one drops
to my ink"
1t struck me that there might be more
fun in this correspondence than in any
of the others that offered, so / mildly
suggested the ippropriety and possible
risk of epistolary ventures on the part
of a married man. Ny friend detected
the motive, however, and laughingly
remarked that man engaged would
run more danger than man married
50 he stuck to his prize, and then ard
there answered it in bright and spark
ling letter, which oyerfowed with fun,
and yet bore marks of prudence and of
re- cunat for thn uor1nn 1odx- Tr bo
acknowledged the falsity of that per-
sonal, and declared that his object was
gained in securing so jovial, and proba-
bly, so pretty correspondent, vowed
that he would write to none of the other
damsels who had answered the matri
monial card, and promi ed, on all the
honor an unknown man could possess,
that he would make no attempt to dis
cover the identity of ''Josie Mason"
He took precious good pains, the scamp,
not to say anything about his iEcum-
brances, and cheerfully avoided touch
ing upon his personal affairs
A voluminous correspondence ensued
between these two lunatics, to which |
was party, in so far that Will ALWAYS
read me the letters from both sides.
After some months of this sort of thing
had passed, noticed, and remarked the
tact to him, that Josie's style had
greatly changed since her first letter;
she was less fippant, and evidently
strove to appear more womanly. 1t
could also be seen that she regretted her
mention of the young man of flowers and
candy boxes, for several times she
limited that she invented that sweet
gifted youth as a convincing argument
to the unknown correspondent that she
was in search of amusement, not of a
husband. Her photograph sent about
this time showed very pretty and
rather intellectual face, and in return
Fowler enclosed the likeness Of a good
looking Eastern friend of his. About
this time | again urged upon him the
of stopping correspondence
which afford him but little more pleas
ure, and which might lead to disagree
able results, limiting, ut the same time.
my belief that the girl was becoming too
much Interested in him. He treated
this advice cavalierly, and spoke in SO
caustic manner about the virtue of
that neither asked to
see, nor did he offer to show me, any
more of the letters; and although we re-
manned as good friends as ever, that
card was, by tacit consent,
dropped from our list of conv ersational
subjects. My correspondence with
three of tke unknown fair had ceased
long since.
Some six weeks after our Josie Ma
son tiff, Will suddenly said to me:
1t was very considerate of you, old
fellow, not to flare up when / got so
huffy the other day about your advice
in that correspondence matter. The
fact is, was beginning to feel uncom-
about it myself, and didn't find
my temper improve at recalling of your
which have been flying
around nae like evil omens ever since /
began this affair. 1t is coming too close
home now, however, and l must ac-
the fear that you are right,
and that ] have been wrong since the
first"
What's up nowp" l asked.
Well, nothing in particular, but
ust sort of feeling that I've been
making an ass of myself. l like that
little girl first-rate. but, confound it all.
she's coming in q wee bit too strong.
Not that she has written ANYTHING very
pointed, you know, but there's sinner
ing air of spoons and danger about her
letters of late. At all events I'm re-
solved to pull out of it, SO have written
this letter to her on the subject
This letter. proved to be a half
and-half sort of epistle, full of regrets
for what had been and of regrets for
what rnugt no lon opr ho full <f aDoIo