“May I not surprise you by the fact that I desire an acquaintance with you.  I send you my photograph (which however is too light to be perfect), hoping yours in return.  If answered, I in my next will give my age and history generally.

“Yours truly

“------ ------.”

Another was from a widow with a son at college, who was very badly in debt.  The mother appealed to Ida as a lady of fortune and generosity, and the only person to whom they could look for aid, to pay the son’s debts, “And,” Ida added with mock indignation, “she does not even promise that I shall be ultimately rewarded with the young man’s hand.”

A third was dated Illinois, and bore the sonorous signature of Greeley
Barnum M------.   This epistle was extremely prolific, inasmuch as it
gave the occupations, ages, and a personal description of not only the
immediate members of the writer’s family, but even extended to cousins
once or twice removed.   He had also much to say about his name of
Greeley; sometimes he was proud of it, and sometimes the reverse,
according to the company he was in.   Passing over all this prelude, we
discovered that Greeley Barnum M------’s object in writing was to
request a complete outfit for his sister who was about to go to school. 
“You are a young Lady, Miss greeley,” the writer touchingly said, “and
know everything that my sister would be likely to want.”   The clothes,
he kindly intimated, could be put up in a box, and sent by express,
prepaid; and having done so, Ida was requested to notify his sister and
also an uncle and aunt at some distant point, that they might not be
distressed by thinking their niece was going to school without a
suitable outfit.

The next letter that Ida took up was from a Kansas man, more modest in his requests than the others, for he neither asked for her hand nor a loan, but being anxious for self-improvement, solicited a little assistance from her in that line.  This letter was written in an even, flowing hand, with very few mis-spelt words.

“WICHITA, KANSAS.

“MISS IDA GREELY: 

“Well, here is another fool, will no doubt be the first thought that will pass through your mind, and it is quite likely that you may in the main be correct.

“I have a very high regard for all womankind.  I have read so much about your sympathetic nature, I thought perhaps our sympathies might be mutual in some respects.

“I am always desirous of improving, and have heretofore looked to much to persons no better qualified than myself to instruct or improve in correspondence of any kind.  Knowing that you are educated and refined I apply to you as a perfect Gentleman for a small portion of your time say one half-hour in four weeks as a time set aside to answer any letter I might write, at same time corract misspell’d words etc.  And do it unreservedly.  I am formerly from the east:  come west less than one year ago, have lost my wife, am thirty years old,