A LOCAL NOVEL (CONDENSED).

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 2999, 4 February 1881, Page 4

A LOCAL NOVEL (CONDENSED).

Among tho goods consigned to order by a vessel which recently arrived in Port Nicholson, was a young lady of two-and-twcnfcy summers. This young lady had, through circumstances, which need not bo inquired into, become betrothed in England to a woll-to-do settler in tho Timaru district, and had at an appointed time been shipped off by his English friends to join her intended husband. Whether it was through ignorance ofNew Zealand geography, or from the fact that just at that time no vessel was sailing for a nearer port to Timaru than Wellington, is not known, but the fact remains that the lady was put on board a Wellington-bound vessel and in due course arrived hero. The relatives of the intended husband had also taken advantage of the opportunity to send on with the bride-elect a number of packages filled with various articles of domestic useincluding drapery —for their colonial friend. Tho husband-expectant was exceedingly impatient for the advent of the young lady, and long before the arrival of the vessel here the agent was telegraphed to several times a week, asking if there was any news and when she might be expected, being always urgently requested to reply at once by " collect" telegram. At last the vessel came, and her agent was prepared to forward on the young lady to Timaru, for which purpose he had received £5 from the eager settler, which £5 was duly handed to the bride intended. She, however, declined to travel on without first enjoying a short period of rest here, and during that period the agent learnt that on the voyage out the young lady—who .is possessed of great personal attractions —had formed an attachment with the second mate of the vessel, and that they had utilised the £5 in getting married on landing. Here was a pretty go! The days passed on, the anxious agriculturist in the South telegraphing daily to the agent, " Where is Miss ? " " Why don't yon send on Miss ? " &c, &c, questions which the agent for some time evaded, until evasion was no longer possible, when he telegraphed the facts of tho case. How these were received by the disappointed waiter-for-a-wife is not known, and the imagination is left free to form its own conception. Meanwhile the newly-made husband get discharged from his post of second mate, tho wife being about the ship so much during the honeymoon as to interfere with the performance of his duties, and as neither of them had means, and the £5 was quickly gone, they are now in distress, and the husband yesterday consulted Mr Shaw as to how he should find a subsistence —but the Magistrate was unable to advise him. Thus the matter stands at present, and it will be seen that the prospect of "allending happily," as is the case in the orthodox novel, is somewhat remote, as the husband's profession precludes his continuing long with his wife, and it is even possible that, unless the busband-that-was-to-have-been should philosophically wash his hands of the whole affair as a bad job, the husband-that-is may find him curiously in•f ive as to what has become of the goods qvn&4> ■> f rom Home with the fickle young concerned - woman. mmm _ mmmmmm