LORD GARIMOYLE’S BREACH OF PROMISE CASE.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume I, Issue 112, 22 April 1884, Page 2

LORD GARIMOYLE’S BREACH OF PROMISE CASE.

The fairy of “lolanthe” is not (writes a Londjn correspondent) to wear the coronet of a countess. The lady lost her opportunity and has now therefore lost her lover, and the prospects which rendered him acceptable. Unquestionably she has been badly treated. The pair have been seen everywhere together for the last six months-—at first nights In the theatres, at private views in picture galleries, in society, and in the street. At first it was Lord Garmole who displayed Miss Finney; more lately it was perhaps the other way about. The family played the waiting game. The mesalliance they were set against: but Lord Garmoyle is independent of his father, Earl Cairns, and is a headstrong person, as fools mostly are. So Miss Fortcscu, restored to her patronymic as Miss Finney, was received by the Cairns family, and indeed made suspiciously much of. It was explained to her that his Sandhurst duty would prevent Lord Garmoyle from going to the alter right away, and she accepted the postponement believing in the noblesse oblige, in the face of warnings given by friends who know the world, and what a treacherous world it can be when it tries. “ Nail him, my dear,” had said to her that gentle cynic Sir Arthur Sullivan who wished her well, because she had been a fairy in his opera. But she believed in her own power to hold, perhaps regarding Garnioyle as too great a fool to think of wandering from his allegiance. In the interval she has been fully silly. Her prospects intoxicated her, she assumed that she held already a sort of brevet rank among the aristocracy, and played up to the role of a fast, although perfectly proper, lady of the upper thousand. She saw that there are great ladies who do pretty much what they please and yet hold their own. It did not strike her that these were born into their position, while she had not even yet been married into hers. So she was somewhat negligent of adequate chaperonship ; she adopted the extremity of the decollete mode, and carried a pretty bijou of a cigarette case. In waiting as she was for entry into a serious—an cxircmely serious family, this was not a wise lino of conduct*. A few day •* ago th» b >lt fell; it h fl b n impendin : f< r > ne little t ime. There came a letl rom the distracted Garmoyle. He loved her — he would never love anyone else—bnt he owed his first duty to his mother, and she had bidden him to take the step ho now so reluctantly took. Then he became poetical. “ Never again shall that golden head rest upon my breast,” ho wrote, and concluded by the businesslike s’si ion that her lawyer should see his, and that so matters might bo arranged. There was a second letter, not less affectionate than the first, but in which the maternal objection was equally peremptory, and it also concluded by urging a

meeting between the legal gentlemen. But the lady does not see things in that light by any means. She is going to have the law of the young lord: and she is wise in her generation. There can be no defence; she can put in the witness-box the ex-Lord Chancellor to prove the acceptance by Lord Garmoy’e’s family; and she will get dam« ages that will make her a lady of fortune. Should she return to the stage, as I hear is probable, she will have gained an advertisement that will “ boom ” her through England and America. Already, I am told, an American speculator has telegraphed an offer of a tempting character contingent on there being a trial. As for Lord Garmoyle, he is going on a long foreign tour. The time may come when the family may he sorry that he did not marry Miss Finney, actress as she has been. She is of irreproachable reputation, is well educated, and a clever woman. With his predilections he may go further and fare worse. Ho may fall into hands where the policy of “ nailing ” is fully understood and not likely to be neglected.