Page:A hairdresser's experience in high life.djvu/236

238 and everything seemed fair; on leaving, he was not to come again until he came to claim his bride.

Some months rolled around, and he came to claim his prize, when, to his great surprise, the word was, no, not now, and he was requested to go, and come again. He was about to do so, when he received an anonymous letter, saying "don't leave her or she will be run off; if you want her, marry her now, and take her with you." So he went to her and told her she must go with him, now or never. She consented to be married immediately.

When her friends found she was determined, and all ready, bag and baggage, consent was given for her to be married in the house. I went there in the morning, and I must say, among the hundred and fifty brides I have dressed, I have never seen so many rolls of paper unrolled, or so many lawyers in my life. I don't know whether they were afraid of herself, or her property running away, but certain it is, she had to sign one paper after another, and he the same, till they were tired; at length, they were married.

One day a lady came to my house in a private carriage when I was not at home, and left a message for me to comb her, as she had cut her hand so badly she could not comb her own hair; and as she said I had combed her at the Burnet House, I took it for granted she must be a lady I had been in the habit of combing. I was very tired when I came home, yet as the lady had cut her hand I felt it my duty to comb her.

On going to her house I found it to be in the center of the city, and on one of our best streets, but it looked like a boarding house. It was not a customary thing for me to dress hair in a common boarding house but