ngements, and had gone up early to his room
to dress, and from that time all trace of him had been lost.

I was very sorry, and the more so as days and weeks flew by and nothing
happened to give us any clue as to his whereabouts.

After a couple of months, I told the servants that they had better seek
other situations, and when they had done so I let them go. I closed the
house, and waited for events.

It must have been quite a year later when I received the following
letter--

"_Isle of San Sosta_,
"_ South Pacific._

"MY DEAR FRIEND,

"I write once more to let you know that I am again in great trouble,
but this time there is nothing in which you can help me, though I
know, in the goodness of your heart, you would wish to do so if it
were possible.

"When, in accordance with the fairies' decree, to which I must
always most humbly bow, I was called upon to disappear at the very
moment when I was hoping to welcome my guests to my newly
established home, I found myself most unexpectedly in this place.

"It is an island very little known, and far out of the beaten track
of vessels.

"Once a year, however, a trader calls, bringing and taking letters
and exchanging for the produce of this place such necessities as we
require from more civilised lands.

"The people of this country are very simple and of primitive habits,
so much so that it is the custom here if a maiden remains unmarried
after a certain age, and becomes a burden to her parents, to turn
her out of the community, and leave her to seek food for herself or
starve in the desert.

"This cruel and unnatural law I have constantly tried to get
altered, and the King and his advisers consent to do so only on one
condition, and that is, that I find a husband for the only unmarried
daughter of the King, who is at present an outcast in the
wilderness, being of most uncomely appearance and greatly deformed.

"I have been out into the wilderness to see the poor creature
myself. She is indeed in a pitiful plight, being far from fair to
look upon, and gaunt and thin with exposure and suffering.

"I conversed with her and found her intelligent, and patient
under her great afflictions; in fact, her sad case so touched my
heart that, not only fo