twenty years have elapsed since I emerged victorious from the contest;
but then the future looked blank and bleak, and I felt nonplussed and
down-hearted. Knowing, however, what a faint heart is said never to
win, I was anxious to keep mine up to the mark, and with a view to
stimulating its buoyancy I went to make a friendly call on du Maurier.
He would, I felt sure, be sympathetic, and, whatever else might be
wanting in that troublesome eye of his, there would be a certain
vivifying twinkle in it that could always set me up.

It was as I expected, and I had the full benefit of the eye, and of an
ear, too, that he lent willingly as I told him how matters stood.

"Well," he said, "if you can't smuggle in a letter, let's smuggle in
your portrait. It will be rather a joke if she comes across you in
_Punch_. I've just got a subject in which I can use you."

To be sure, I jumped at the idea, only beseeching him to make me
as handsome as he possibly could, without losing sight of the main
object, viz., that the young lady should be able to recognise me. Her
mother too, I felt sure, would not fail to be duly impressed, for to
figure in _Punch_ would raise me in her estimation as a person of no
small importance.

The drawing was made and published, and the scheme worked well;
coupled, perhaps, with a few millions of other influences, and with
the assistance of the Fates, it achieved the desired result, and
before a year had elapsed the original drawing could be presented
by du Maurier to the young lady, now become a bride, as a memento of
bygone troubles.