Show there js at least ono place in the horld where if a maiden dies unwed it will certainly be her and not her fault and that is the belgian village of ahmit a dozen miles us the cro flies from the historic field of waterloo while other maids resignedly at for lovers to come a wooling and let concealment like a worm T the bud feed on their damask cheeks the girls of realize that their mission in life is to secure husbands and that if the men are backward in coming forward it Is their duty and prerogative to take the initiative and to coax or compel them to come to them for many years these resolute spin have made their pilgrimages to a wayside shrine to pray for the husbands who are SQ coy in coming but a couple of years ago they decided that in this particular matter works were probably more effective than faith and they changed their plan of campaign they determined to try the arts of bod advertisement and with this view they arranged a banquet to which by widely circulated notices and press paragraphs they invited all the coy bachelors in the district for many a mile around their maide ii village surely the men however laggard in love could not refuse the hand of beauty thus invitingly held out to them and when they came possibly their allurements allure ments of faco and figure and tongue would secure many a captive nor were they wrong as the sequel proved on the appointed day the village of gave itself up to festivity in honor of ahls gallant bid for husbands flags fluttered gaily from windows bright bunting bridged the streets which ere also spanned by floral arches bearing every sort of appropriate device from cupid equipped with his deadly bow and arrows to burtlo noves poetic love to each other in the place on the bank of the sennette were spread the tables for this feast of love a banquet of quite arcadian simplicity for it consisted but of coffee and but the coffee be drunk from bowls wreathed with roses and the dainty tables were lavishly decorated with bright and odorous flowers the hour fixed for the feast was 4 in the afternoon and by 2 sixty mads of decked in all most seductive anery vere peeping coyly out of as many windows and sixty virginal hearts were beating fast with anticipation of coming conquest long before the hour fixed for the symposium the anxiously awaited bests began to stream into tho village from every point of the compass they came and in every gliese loutish l farm laborers arrivoli arri voI in their sunday clothes and apan young farmers drove bravely up in their dapper assistants from the shops of brussels mons and many another neighboring town trooped in in thear gayest attire sporting enormous bouquets and twirling their canes with the air of conquerors until the place swarmed with potential husbands for the maids of at the cruci al hour of 4 as if by a concerted signal the sixty fair host esses converged on the place and with heads held high marched through tho ranks of their guests as queens might march through the obsequious ous ranks of their subjects each maid then took her seat at one of the many flower decked tables leaving a suggestively vacant place at her aide and as it moved by one irresistible the waiting guesta rushed to these empty seats and almost in the twinkling of an eyo every table was full but alas those bidden to the feast far outnumbered the places provided for them and hundreds were compelled to play the passive and disappointed role of lookers on then began the fun of the feas to the sipping of coffee and the munching of cakes every jack found ils tongue loosened and began to make love to the adjacent jill under the stimulating influence of flashing eyes and smiling lips the coye st and most awkward bacelar of them all ayas converted into an eloquent and ardent wooer and long before the feast came to an end fourteen of the had irrevocably lost their clearts of the charming speech made by the principal hostess of the witty and gallant responses of the leading bach alor of the love songs the presenting bouquets and many another pleas int incident of this unique love feast there is no space to write U it suf ace to say that the banquet far ex deeded the expectations of its proved ars that fourteen weddings followed it and that this novel experiment in ausband hunting js now a permanent fixture in the calendar of the maids of A London tit bits |