I ran this business for about two months. It began slowly, but after the first fortnight I really had as much as I could do. I always asked the people to whom I sent letters to recommend me to their friends, and in many cases I know that they did so. I gave the best advice that I could, and I had a small shilling book on the marriage laws which I found very useful. Not one couple in a hundred that wants to get married really knows how it may or may not be done. My clients were chiefly women, and I have grave doubts as to the seriousness of some of the few men who applied to me. But I did not mind in the least so long as their postal orders were enclosed. The women seemed to belong almost exclusively to two sets--domestic servants and foolish people in smart society. The middle-class would have nothing to do with me, and I am not sure, although I always gave the best advice I could, that the middle-class was not right. Only once or twice, in the curious confessions that were poured out on me, did I come upon anything that I should have called real romance. There was plenty of vanity, there was plenty of sentimentality, and there was a good deal of acute money-grubbing. It was really interesting work, though it kept me a great deal indoors, and though I am not sure even now that it was quite honest. At the end of the first month some blessed young man, whom I am glad to have this opportunity of thanking, wrote a short and chaffing article about my advertisement. For days after this I was simply inundated with letters, and I had to send out post cards to my clients explaining that, owing to the pressure of business, my letters of advice to them would probably be delayed for some days. Among those letters was one bearing the address of a house in Berkeley Square, which was so extraordinary that I give it in full. It was one of the few letters that I received from men:-- “DEAR MADAM,--I have seen your advertisement, and also the short article upon it in the _Daily Courier_, and my own case is so curious that I have decided to address you. I enclose a postal order for half a crown as required, but I am a man of means, and in the event of your being able to assist me I shall, as you will see, propose a more adequate remuneration. I have been a great traveller and sportsman, and you may possibly have come upon my recent work on _Sport in Thibet_. I have now returned to England and am anxious to marry. But I am prevented by a strange psychological characteristic of my own.