A ROMANTIC EPISODE AT INVERCARGILL.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2535, 20 February 1877, Page 3

A ROMANTIC EPISODE AT INVERCARGILL.

The following amusing story is from the Southland Times :—A little episode, containing an element of romance, came to light in Invercargill on Tuesday. Just before the steamer Express left Dunedin on her last trip to the Bluff, a respectably dressed female, accompanied by a nice- | looking little girl about six years of age, went on board and interviewed the stewardess, Mrs Gale. The stranger gave the stewardess an unsigned note, addressed to a well-known legal gentleman referred to, who would pay for the child's passage to the Bluff, her conveyance thence to Invercargill, and ako give Mrs Gale ten shillings for her trouble in taking charge of the little girl. The stewardess disliked the appearance of neither the stranger nor the child, and she knew the legal gentlemen well by repute. She therefore, although she had never before seen the parties, took the Httle girl in her charge. Mrs Gale brought her charge to Invercargill, and when the afore-referred-to legal gentleman arrived at his office on Tuesday morning, he found the child perched upon a seat. Surprised to see so young a visitor, he inquired aa to the meaning of her presence, and was told by his youngest clerk that the child had been, Drought by a lady from Dunedin, and left in the office for him to take and keep. The gentleman smiled such a smile as is generally, in the case of people suddenly distressed, accompanied .by the use of very vigorous Anglo-Saxon. He, however, spoke to the child in a kindly tone, i but she being shy, he could obtain no .information from her. Mrs Gale soon after returned to the office, and she pro- j duced the note above referred to, but it seemed to render the whole- affair only j more mysterious, and matters ended in the case being placed in the hands of the police. When the gentleman went home to lunch, he happened to mention to his housekeeper the adventure of the morning, and, as often happens in; 9uch cases, the lady was able to elucidate the whole affair. It transpired that the servant girl of the house has in Southland a relative who is the mother of the child, whom she wished to have brought from Dunedin ; that. correspondence had passed on the subject, and that it had teen decided, without consulting the head of the house, to hare the girl sent' to his address, in order to ensure quick and safe delivery. This placed the whole matter in its real light, But in the story's passage through the town many were the jokes made at the expense of the learned council who was made to figure as its hero.