CURIOUS COURTSHIPS.

Mataura Ensign, Issue 856, 21 February 1901, Page 3

CURIOUS COURTSHIPS.

On one of the American railways some time since, a romantic incident occurred under circumstances of a singular character. A young ghl, residing at a remote station, fell passionately in love with a famous engine-driver on the express route of the express section of that line. In order that she might be near him she donned tho masculine drees, and got a posil ion as fireman on her lorer's engine. For a time he did not discOTer her secret, but, when her rnse stood revealed, he so admired her pluck that be proposed marriage to her there and then on the tenders, and was accepted while the train rushed through the route at sixty miles an hour. The Boquel waß a very happy union. A sailor lad, residing at Plymouth, pro* posed to his sweetheart by means of the heliograph Bignals, which he first taught her during their earlier acquaintance. The lad flashed his messages of love from his cabiu window in the surging Sound, and his ladyelect translated tfrein and gave him his answer a favourable one from her chamber high up in the pleasant Plymouth Hoe. Another original wooer, in order to escape the unwelcome attentions of the maternal parent, who stood between him and the lady of bis choice, invited the latter to accompany him on a balloon trip. The voyage waa ventured on by the sagacious young lady, who had the novel satisfaction of accepting a proposal of marriage whilst whirling through masses of snowy olouds, two miles above the earth. Drifting in an open boat as castaways from a foundered vessel in the surges of the Atlantic Ocean, a gentleman made love to his sole companion, a charming girl, whom he bad met on board the lost ship. She accepted the singular proposal, and they were subsequently saved by a passing steamer, and war* happily wedded at the next port of call.