THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2192, 29 March 1880, Page 2

THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE.

A Chancery Court (remarks an English paper) is the last place where one would look for a romance, and yet it has just disclosed one of an interesting character. Last month a young gentleman from Wolverhampton, named Knowles, got his sister to join him in a plot for carrying off from a boarding school a younglady of 16, an orphan, and heiress to a fortune of £SOO a year. She was at school at Southgate, whither young Knowles proceeded with his sister and acquired the necessary residence to enable him to put up the banns in the parish chund 1 . At the expiration of the three weeks a cab proceeded to the school, brought off the attractiveseholar, and the next day Mr Knowles secured her as his wife. How all this was done, even to the publication of the banns, without the authorities of the school having an inkling of what was going on is a mystery. The honeymoon was just completed, when the indignant guardians of the precocious girl reported the matter to the Vice-Chancellor, and tho delinquents were brought before him. Sir Bichard Malins lifted a cover oil’ the veil of secrecy which shrouds proceedings in chambers, and told the Court that there was the “usual painful scene ” which means tears and eutreaties that the law might not be vindicated in this particular instance. But justice was inexorable; the husband had commited a gross contempt of Court and must be imprisoned in Holloway Gaol. There he had spent twelve days, when his previous good character, his high, testimonials, and his contrition, produced such an impression that his release was ordered. Doubtless he committed a great imprudence, and he will have tc wait live years before the fortune comes into his possession. But the law cannot undo what love, laughing at schoolmistresses as well as locksmiths, had accomplished ; and it is to he hoped that the married life so irregularly begun will be as prosperous and happy as its commencement has been tempestuous.