Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 May 1884 — A Belle’s Inspiration. [ARTICLE]

A Belle’s Inspiration.

While speaking of romance aucl beauty, I have an authentic account of how a noted Louisville belle first met her husband, which sounds more like fiction than matter of fact. About thirty-five years ago the landing of a steamboat carrying passengers was considered a social event of some importance, not only because this was the chief mode of travel where navigation made it possible, but because the superb boats that then plied up and down the Mississippi were floating palaces, and carried on board constantly the most brilliant crowds of society people. The time spent on the water was passed in dancing, feasting, and flirting; and on the occasion of which I am speaking an unusually gay and distinguished party were on their way to St. Louis. The party included some of the most famous beaus of the day, and the belle of the trip was a well-known Louisville beauty. . It seems that, notwithstanding the nightly promenades on the moon-flood-ed deck, when “eyes looked love to eyes that spake again,” while the music of the band in attendance floating out on the water added to the magic of the hour, the daily flirtations in snug corners, and the constant propinquity which is said to foster sentiment, the Louisville girl reached her destination fancy free. For, as the boat drew up to tlie landing and the crowd on the shore surged down to the water’s edge to secure a glimpse of the new-comers, ]\li sß , who was leaning over the guards, became absorbed in watching the movements of a gentleman by the gangway; he was tall and elegant-look-ing, and strikingly handsome. Hiss did not know his name, nor if he were benedict or bachelor, but conviction suddenly seized her, and, turning to a companion, she said impressively: “There”—pointing out the gentleman in question—“stands the man whom I will marrv.” In an incredibly short period of time she did marry him; but the cream of the story lies in the fact that he had made a precisely similar remark in regard to her on first beholding the fair Louisvillian as she stood surrounded by her admirers on the steamer. — A Lady in the New Orleans Times-Democrat.