n this far land!) told
me that a Korean girl of twenty or twenty-one is regarded as a rather
desperate old maid, and the go-betweens, who arrange the marriages
here as they do in Japan, are likely to charge a rather steep sum for
getting a husband for one so far advanced in spinsterhood! The chances
are that the groom doesn't see his bride until the ceremony, and she
doesn't even see him then, for according to the curious custom here
the bride's eyes are sealed up until late afternoon of her wedding
day. More than this, custom requires that the bride must keep
absolutely unbroken silence all the day long, and for a varying length
of time thereafter. Mrs. Bishop in her book on Korea asserts that "it
may be a week or several months before the husband knows the sound of
his wife's voice,"--and the nature of the dear creatures in America
will of course insure the ready acceptance of her statement!

The go-betweens are often not very scrupulous, and for good fees
sometimes manage to palm off damsels of unsatisfactory features on
unsuspecting swains, or match undesirable young fellows with girls
vastly superior to them. A rather amusing instance was reported to me
by the young lady from whom I have just quoted. One of the officials
or noblemen in Seoul had a daughter whom the go-between was preparing
to marry off into a family of rank in another city. A few days before
the wedding-day-set-to-be, some one came to {64} the father of the
bride and said: "Did you know that your prospective son-in-law has a
hare-lip?" Now a hare-lip in Korea is not merely such an undesirable
addition to one's countenance as to make a Mrs. Wiggs happy because of
being without it, but under the old dispensation no one with a
harelip, or other like facial blemish, could be presented at court and
thereby introduced into the Four Hundred of this capital city.
Therefore the father waxed thoughtful from his topknot to the end of
his long-stem pipe. "I tell you what I'll do," he finally said to his
wife. "We'll go ahead with the ceremony, but instead of my daughter
I'll substitute my orphan niece." And he did, and the young fellow
didn't know any better for a week.

Fortunately, however, my story doesn't end here. I am extremely glad
to add the usual "lived-happily-ever-after" peroration, for that was
really what happened in this case. The father of my young lady
informant, who is a doctor, sewed up the young fellow's lip, he was
presented at court, and