MARRIED THROUGH A SUGGESTION.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1868, 21 March 1889, Page 3

MARRIED THROUGH A SUGGESTION.

“ Butterfly ” contributes the following to the Dunedin Morning Herald : —An odd mistake, yet one that led to the happiest results, arose about a friend of mine a little while ago. The partner who had halved his sorrows and doubted his joys had been dead for years, and he had employed a governess for his daughter Emily, a bright young thing of seven. The girl and her governess bad been despatched to Melbourne somewhere about Christmas time, my friend going over himself a while later to see the Exhibition; and all three returned in the same steamer. There were several friends on the Rattray street wharf to welcome the wanderers home again, hut my friend couldn’t quite make out what some of them meant. “ Blank, old man,” said one, wringing his hand and slapping him heartily on the back, “ I congratulate you. You couldn’t have done a better thing. I hope you’ll be happy, do ’pon my soul, But, you sly dog you, how close you were about it all.” Now, Blank had made a sudden pot of money on the other side, and thought this was what he was being congratulated on, so he looked wise, and | said, “Thanks, old fellow, I knew-you j would rejoice iu a friend’s good luck. It all depends on hoff you go abou fc

it, you know.” “Cunning dog, cunning dog,” said the other, screwing up one eye and shaking his head mysteriously. It’ll be a good thing for Miss Emily.” “ Ob, yes; but I was able to provide for her amply before, you know.” “Yes, yes; I know, I know,” said the other; “ but now she’ll know what it is to have a mother——A light broke in on Blank, and he said, “ Iley ? Whew! ” and made off up the jetty, but before he got into a cab another friend began to congratulate him in the same way, and someone said something about “ the happy Benedict.” But all this had its effect, and Blank muttered once or twice to himself, “ Tush, I’m not so old.” “Why shouldn’t I.” “More unlikely things than that,” and so on. And nob long after the sound of the loud timbrel was heard in Blank’s house, and friends received little packets of cake and cards with something written on the cards that made one or two mammas say spitefully: “There, that scheming creature! Just what I thought it would be!” But Blank doesn’t care and neither does the governess, who is now Mrs Blank, and all this domestic felicity might have been missed, simply because not thought of, if it hadn’t been for the mistaken idea that had got about among Blank’s friends.