Fashions in Proposals.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXIX, Issue IV, 26 July 1902, Page 253

Fashions in Proposals.

THE CONFESSIONS OF A MUCHLOVED GIRL.

Different ways of proposing are as

numerous this spring as are the different men who propose. Some propose flippantly, lightly, as if they invited you to luncheon, instead of

matrimony, preparing to hedge if

they get “No,” and to say they were only flirting; Others there are. straightforward, manly and honourable, who take

"No” with such serious grace that they win your respect and liking, if they cannot win your love. Some men propose on their knees, some sitting right back in a corner of the sofa, and others standing up boldly; but whatever way it may be. they’ all always look funny. They have such a dazed and dazzled expression, as if they had been struck right between the eyes, and I believe science asserts that Cupid strikes somewhere on the left side. I have only had one man ever get on his knees to propose to me. This one had on white duck trousers, and he knelt down in the dusty path in which we were walking. His mother would have spanked him had she been there. When he got up there were two great dirt spots.one on each knee, of his otherwise immaculate ducks. He might just as well have put on a placard, saying. “I’ve just proposed.” It was really pathetic. Next to seeing a man on his knees a girl loves to see him cry. after he has proposed. The length of time it takes a man to propose, after he has first met the girl, depends upon the nature of the man, the climate, the weather, the surroundings, the moon, the state of his mind, and a little bit on the way the girl treats him. Sometimes they propose all of a sudden, without any treatment at all beforehand. If the moon is full and the man is not. the average man should be expected to propose within fifteen days after he has first met the girl. If he sees her three times a day. for three hours at a time, he can usually become well acquainted with her nature and all her little characteristics in that time, provided the girl is simple, as is apt to be the case. Very few women are complex. It isn’t so important whether the girl understands the man's nature or not. But. anyway, she can learn it in no time at all. because all men are alike. They mostly all are brainy, and can smoke and

love with equal ease. There are men who say very fiercely, as if thev were really desperate. “Will you. or won’t you marry me?” That sort of men are not much good, because you can’t flirt with them and keep them dangling. They make you say either “Yes” or “No” right away. You can’t fool them.

There are many ways in which a girl can tell that a man is going to propose. l>efore he does. First, there is the tone in his voice. Then his eyes always follow you about the room in the most admiring, adoring way. He looks at you with a vague, far-away gaze, as if he really saw a vision, or an angel; but he thinks he does, so let him alone. At this stage of the game he wouldn’t even dare to call you “darling.” But he has other ways of showing how he likes you. Sometimes he drops little hints about his ideal of a woman. He says he never met now. Again, he makes allusions to his income, and says he supposes it seems so little to you. Some men propose by showing you their bank books, and saying, “Will that be enough?” '•Tie only way to propose is the old way—the way’ Adam must have proposed to Eve, before there was an v money, or reason, or anything in the world but—Love. Go to her and sav, “You’ve got to marry me because Ilove you and you love me, and I can’t live without you.” And that style of proposal is always in fashion.