[Editor's note: Usually, Sallie Satterthwaite's column appears on Page C1, our Weekend front. We think you'll see why we wanted to share her story with our Front Page readers as well.]

Once upon a time...

This fairy tale begins as all good fairy tales begin, even fairy tales of the '90s.

Beginning is easy. I'm just not sure yet from whose point of view I should frame this story. As in any proper fairy tale, there is a fair maiden, a Prince Charming, and a wicked witch, but this story also has three little orphans. Let's try a bi-coastal technique, West Coast and East.

Once upon a time, there lived a fair maiden at the foot of an ice-capped mountain at the western edge of the land. Comely, she was, with hair of gold and eyes of blue, but she was lonely because she had never found her one true love. She vowed she would give her heart and hand only to a man with very high standards and moral principles, and while several had come a-courting, none fit exactly the ideal she demanded. So she sent word of her quest to the ends of the earth, suggesting that only the qualified need apply.

Meanwhile, back on the eastern edge of the land, there lived a man with his two young daughters and little son. Their mother had died, after a long illness, some months before our story takes place, and he was lonely, too.

Although the older daughter was 14 and very responsible, and although friends and neighbors were helpful in caring for them, the four of them agreed it would be better if they could find someone to be his new wife and their new mother.

And so the search began, first in their own little village, then among the towns nearby, and finally, the lonely man also sent word throughout the world that he wanted a wife.

Now in the olden days, getting news spread far and wide was a matter of dispatching fast couriers on horseback to nail up notices on trees and fence posts, and to shout proclamations at the city gates.

But I said this was a tale of the '90s. These two published their search for companionship in the very cosmos, on the Internet, by way of a service called Christian Connection.

Late last June, the lonely man saw the fair maiden's picture and read her story, and he liked what he saw. He wrote to her. She wrote back. (She was also writing to a dozen others, but there was something about this one...)

Now it's usually Prince Charming who has to walk through fire to win the maiden's hand, but in my story it was the maiden from the western coast who had to travel to the southeastern corner of the land to put out fires. Brushfires, actually. And since e-mail is hard to do in a Forest Service fire camp, she suggested they telephone. This was the first week of July.

Each liked the sound of the other's voice for hours at a time, every evening, once she returned home and they made the fateful decision to meet in person.

By now, they were discussing marriage.

But first, they agreed, she would fly from the West to the East to meet her prince in person, and, if all went well, to meet his children also.

They met face to face on Aug. 8. All did go well. Very well. Moreover, she loved the children and they loved her.

She met his parents. He met her parents. Her parents met his parents.

Good will and affection flowed among them all, and the wedding date was set: Jan. 1, 1999. Six months after they began to exchange letters.

Five months after they met.

But, yes, I told you there is a wicked witch in the story. That would be the fair maiden's mother, whose anxiety level runneth over at the thought of her daughter giving up career and home to marry a man she barely knew.

Give it some time, said the witch. Get to know each other better before you take such irrevocable steps, she said. Have you thought of...? she said. Have you discussed...? she said.

But they had thought of, and they had discussed, and when the fair maiden returned to pack her belongings in her home at the foot of an ice-capped mountain at the western edge of the land, she was wearing a beautiful diamond ring which Prince Charming had ordered before they even met.

The heart of the wicked witch, thoroughly drenched with the overflowing love that has indeed welled up between the fair maiden and Prince Charming, has melted, and while still fretful, she is beginning to enjoy the prospect of becoming a mother-in-law and grandmother, roles she has long envied among her friends.

Be careful what you wish for, she warns anyone who will listen.

Because this is a fairy tale, I want to say they all fair maiden, Prince Charming, the three children, and the wicked witch and her consort lived happily ever after, but I don't know that yet. The story is far from over.