In 1913 Owen Seaman's god-daughter, Dorothy de Selincourt (Daphne to friends), was persuaded to marry me. Owen had taken me to her coming-out dance, and we had gone about together in a way common enough now, but less usual in those days. When I wanted a present for a sister-in-law or a new suit for myself, I would summon her to help me; when she wanted a man to take her to a dance she would ring me up. She laughed at my jokes, she had my contributions to Punch by heart before she met me, she had (it is now clear) the most perfect sense of humour in the world; and I, in my turn, had a pianola to which she was devoted, and from which I could not keep her away. We might have gone on like this for ever.

…

I proposed to her at eleven o'clock one morning in a snow-storm. I had to, because she was going back to London that afternoon, where also there were other people, and it was clear to me now that it was my mission to save her from them.
This is the autobiography of a writer, not of a married man. My next book was dedicated 'to my collaborator who buys the ink and paper, laughs, and in fact does all the really difficult part of the business', and it is as a collaborator that Daphne plays her part in this book.

We were married in June, and took a flat in Embankment Gardens, Chelsea. I was now getting eight guineas a week for my contributions to Punch, which was then the top price for writers on the staff. When I stopped writing for The Sphere, the Proprietors compensated me by raising my salary to £500, so that with double pay for Almanacs and Summer Numbers, and a trickle of royalties from the books, I was making about £1,000 a year. We were very comfortable and very happy.

from A.A. Milne's Autobiography - Its Too Late Now