It was most mysterious, and I could only account for it by the fact that the fairies may have, in fact _must_ have, caused him to disappear once more. The housekeeper told me, on my inquiring of her, that he had been at home the whole of the day on which the party had been held, superintending all the arrangements, 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.