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Show A WOMAN'S HAIR. A "Reporter Finds a Romance in Real -Life. "I had a strange experience once in human hair," said a member of a well-known well-known firm of human hair importers the other day. "A French lady of noble blood, who has been my friend for years, wrote to me a few months ago, enclosing a lock of hair, which was a peculiar shade of drab and of silky fineness. - She wanted me to match it, and I set about doing so. I dispatched my agents all over Europe, "but nowhere could they find a thread of hair that would match the sample. "I then inserted an advertisement, in the principal Philadelphia, New York and Boston papers, offering a liberal reward for a switch of the desired quality and color. One day a woman of about 20 years of age, shabbily dressed, but with a form and face that Venus might have envied, entered my office. " 'I came in answer to your advertisement,' advertise-ment,' she said, and, removing her hat. unbound a luxuriant coil of hair, that called from me an involuntary cry. of admiration. 'Will this do?' she asked. - - v ' - - -j rm I examined her hair, and compared it with the sample sent me by the countess. The two were so similar that when I mixed then together I could not distinguish dis-tinguish one from, the other. - TWO HUNDRED DOLLAES AN OUNCE. ' ' 'This hair is exactly what I want,' said I, 'and I will give you $200 an ounce for it.' J " 'Take it off,' she said, with a nervous j trembling of her voice that at once attracted at-tracted my attention. 'I am starving, I and my baby, and what you are willing to pay is a fortune to us.s' . "I became interested and questioned her. After .a little hesitation she told me her story. Her husband had ,been a sea captain and shortly after thev were married mar-ried had sailed for the west coast of Africa: His vessel was never heard. of after leaving port, and it was presumed that she had foundered at sea and all had been lost. The presumed widow had struggled to .maintain . berself and infant child,, but -with indifferent - success. FuiaUyVwlaufi&iMifffronvthe-pftngsof hunger, she had read my- advertisement and hastened to mv place Of business. praying inwardly that her hair, which had been her husband's pride, might be of the required shade. - . ; ' : u "Well, to make a long story short, I bought her hair, which weighed four ounces, and paid her $800 for it. I sent the switch to.my customer, the countpss and wrote , her the history of the hair. She is a woman of great wealth and goodness good-ness of heart. The return mail brought me a letter authorizing me to pay the poor little sailor's widow $1,000 extra. I did so and wrote an account of the affair to our official journal, which is published in New York. The story was so romantic that the daily papers copied it and I received re-ceived several letters from charitable people peo-ple offering pecuniary assistance -to the sailor's widow. She was proud and refused re-fused to receive any help. , THE HUSBAND'S KETUHN. One day, about three weeks after the publication of the story, a man, who was bronzed and bearded, came into my office very much excited. He held in his hand a copy of a New York paper and unfolding unfold-ing it pointed to my story. " 'Can you give me the address of this woman?' he asked eagerly. 'She is mv wife. I thought her dead.' "While I wrote down the address he told me his story. His vessel had been shipwrecked on the African coast, and he and two others of the crew alone managed to reach the shore. It was several months before they managed to reach a civilized port. He immediately sent word of the disaster to the owners of the foundered vessel and wrote to his young wife. From the former he received a reply, but he heard no word from his wife, and when he reached Pliiladelphia he discovered that she had mysteriously disappeared. dis-appeared. . "One day in looking over a paper he came across my story and had hurried to my office to learn fuller particulars. I sent him to his wife in my carriage, and you can imagine what occurred at the meeting, for each believed the other dead. I wrote to the countess, giving the sequel to the story, and the result was that the shipwrecked captain now commands her yacht, and the wife who sacrificed her hair to buy bread sails with him on everv voyage." |