Year: 1861

A proposal was written and sent by the
post,i the days when letters travled quietly
at the rate of ten miles an hour on the mail
coach. The anxious lover for the first
week Sreathlessly expected the reply but
it did not come. The week he pined, and
was sleepess still no answer. The third
week be became indignant. ga civil ac-
acknowledgements was his due. She was
heartless and hirt.n The next week he
6espised her, and congratulated himself on
his escape; and, when at the end OF it, he
received his own letter back from the dead
letter office, because he had, in his agita-
lion, forgotten TO direct it, he had so com,
pletely outlived his love that he never pro
posed TO that lady at all.


once saw middle aged invalid making
love TO young giIl After making great
efforts 10 secure an opportunity of meeting
her, he drew his chair close 10 hers. look
ing into her face, sighed heavily, drew his
chair still closer, and, while she looked at
him in astoni shment, and in the distance
strained my ears to hear what tender re-
mark followed all this preparation, heard
him whisper with great emphasis '.Who
is your doctor 90 | need hardly say that
the proposal failed which followed this
well-judged commencement. A more par
donable case of a mans absorption in his
own pursuits was that of very shv lover,
whose one idea was horses He never
found courage to propose till he had per-
suaded the lady to go into the stable and
look at his favorite horses. There he spoke.
aud there she answered yes. But this was
natural and pardonabIe; shy man may
feel this vantage ground, and feeling his
own inferiority in the drawing may
yet be aware of his superior knowledge and
superior power in the stable, where his
horse is his throne and he himself king.


marriage took place, not many years
ago, in the great world. where the two low
ers (long attached, but separated by the
desire of their parents,) met under an arch
way while each was taking refuge in Lon
don from sudden shower Of rain. Neither
of them had the least idea of the neighbor-
hood of the other when the sudden meet
ing occurred, which decided the course of
their future lives. In another case, The en-
gagement was broken off on account of
limited means, and the gentleman went
abroad. Returning after some years ab-
sence, he arrived late on The railway plat
form and rushed into the first carriage he
reached, Just as the train was in motion
In it he found with her mother) The lady
he had been so long vainly endeavoring TO
forget, and The meeting ended in one of the
happiest marriages. Hans Anderson gives,
in ore of his books, an amusing account of
a young man, newly appointed 10 some
official position in the court OF Copenha-
gen, ordering his court in great haste, that
he might be present at ball where he
meant TO declare his attachment TO a beau
tiful girl whom he had long loved. All
went smoothly and he was on the point of
nay, had he spoken a few pre-
iminary words, when button gave way
on the hastily made court dress The lover
rushed abruptly away, and the lady, hurt
at his unlock ed-for departure, made an en-
gagement tor sleiging party next day,
where she received and accepted the offer
of another lover.


Thus, love, as well as life, often hangs
npon thread. Always secure your retreat
in love as in war. This is a precaulion
never TO be neglected.. MIR. A., broth
er of the late Lord Z, whose proud and
naughty temper was proverbial, proposed
10 lady in Porman Square Gardens. AT
ter being refused, the rejected lover turned
away from her in great Indignation, but
finding the gate of the garden locked, was
obliged TO return 10 the lady to petition for
the key. Another case still more trying,
was that OF gentleman travelling in North
America, who, after being Hospitality re-
ceiyed in the house of an officer high in
command there, proposed to his hosts
daughter, and was refused. A deep tall of
snow came on in the night the roads be-
came impossible; and the poor man, to
his unspeakable modification, was detained
for week in the house with the lady who
had rejected him.