Dodd, the landlord of the hotel, was constantly bothered and worried for his opinion on the subject. At last, said Dodd, “I think the Corporation have wasted their money.” And they had. In this unromantic country the human form divine has not that opportunity to display itself which was graciously afforded to the youth of both sexes in the classic days of Greece, when the virgins of Sparta, their lovely limbs anointed with oil, wrestled nude in the arena. The nearest approach to those “good old times” which our modern prudery admits, is the short skirts and the “tights” of the ballet. Sternhold, deeply pondering, arrived at the notion, true or false, that the wife for him must possess physical development. This is a delicate subject to dwell on; but I think he was mistaken when he visited the theatres seeking such a person. He might have found ladies, not _females_ nor women, but ladies in a rank of life nearer or above his own, who exulted in the beauty of their form, and were endowed with Nature’s richest gifts of shape. But he was a child in such a search: his ideas were rude and primitive to the last degree. At all events, the fact remains. It was found out afterwards that he had visited every theatre in London, but finally was suited on the boards of a fourth-rate “gaff” in Stirmingham itself. There was a girl there—or rather a woman, for she was all five-and-twenty—who was certainly as fine a specimen of _female_ humanity as ever walked. Tall, but not too tall, she presented a splendid development of bust, torso, and limbs. Her skin was of that peculiar dusky hue—not dark, but dusky—which gives the idea of intense vitality. Her eyes were as coals of fire—large, black, deep-set, under heavy eyebrows. Her hair at a distance was superb—like night in hue, and glossy, curling in rich masses. Examined closer it was coarse, like wire. Her nose was the worse feature; it wanted shape, definition. It was a decided _retroussé_, and _thick_; but in the flush of her brilliant colour, her really grand carriage, this was passed over. Her lips were scarlet, and pouted with a tempting impudence. This was the very woman Sternhold sought. She was vitality itself impersonified. He saw her, offered his hand, and was instantly accepted. He wished her to keep it quiet; and notwithstanding her feminine triumph she managed to do so, and not a soul in Stirmingham guessed what was in the wind. Sternhold went to London, got a special licence, and the pair were married in Sternhold’s private apartments at his hotel in the presence of three people only, one of whom was the astounded Dodd. They left by the next train for London, where the bride went to Regent Street to choose her trousseau, with her husband at her side. Not a bell was rung in Stirmingham. The news spread like wildfire, and confounded the city. People gathered at the corners of the streets. “He is certainly mad,” they said. Most of them were in some way disappointed.