HOW GIRLS ARE PROPOSED TO.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume V, Issue 40, 4 October 1890, Page 2

HOW GIRLS ARE PROPOSED TO.

‘ Every girl makes up her mind at some time in her life, that she will never accept any man who does not propose gracefully,’ said one club man to half a dozen others. ‘ He has to be fully rigged out in a dress-suit, and has to kneel according to the Delsaite system. That is their idea at first, but theie isn’t one girl in a hundred who ever gets her proposal that way—at least from the one she accepts, — and 1 11 leave it to the present company to decide, it each one will give the circumstances of his proposal.’ ‘We’re in,' said a gray-haired Benedick. ‘Begin with your own.’ ‘ All right. I took my wife that was to be, and is now, sleigh-riding. We were talking about sentimental things, and neglected to notice that we had run on a long stretch of road which the wind had cleaied of snow. W e never noticed it until the horse stopped, utterly exhausted. There was nothing to do but to get out and lead the horse back, because he couldn't drag us. I proposed on the way back, while I was trudging along a country road with my left hand on a horse’s bridle, and the other—well, never mind that. She accepted me, but she always said it was a mistake. I refused to let her go, though, or to propose again in a dress-suit.’ ‘ My proposal ’ said the gray-haired old man, ‘ was made, also, during a sleigh-ride. My wife and myself were on the back seat in a four-seat sleigh, and in going over a bump of some kind, the seat, with us in it, was thrown off. We landed in a nice, comfortable snow-drift, and the sleigh went on for a mile before we were missed. When it came back for us, however, we were engaged. We weren't in a dignified position, but we were fairly comfortable, and we had the seat still with us. Since then my wife has frequently stated that she had intended never to accept a man unless he proposed in true novel form, but she did.’ ‘l’ll give you a summer story,’said a young man, but recently married. ‘ I did my courting in a place full of romance, but the proposal never came at a romantic time ; in fact, I don’t think a man is responsible for the time he proposes. It just conies, and that is all there is of it. I had had the most favourable occasions in romantic nooks. Finally, I had a two-mile row, in the hot sun. I apologised, and took off my hat; then I apologised again, and took off my vest. It wasn't romantic, but it came on me, and I said it. The boat drifted half a mile, and I wouldn’t have cared if it had drifted ten miles. We were engaged. And I looked like a tramp at that time.’ • And I'll tell you that sentimentality doesn't go,’said a lawyer. ‘ I know, because I’ve tried it. I proposed to my wife first at a summer resort, when the moon was full and I was sober. There was everything to inspire sentiment. But she refused me. I let it go. A little later I met her again in the parlour of the hotel, and suggested marriage again. She accepted me then. There was nothing to inspire sentiment in the last meeting, and therefore, I say, sentiment doesn’t go.’ It was the sentiment of the meeting that no girl is proposed to in the way she expects.