AN AGED BENEDICT.

Observer, Volume 4, Issue 85, 29 April 1882, Page 99

AN AGED BENEDICT.

•The funeral-baked meats served for the marriage dinner."

The quiet suburb of Karangahape lias lately been startled out of its uneventful existence by a peculiar marriage, which, has had the effect of causing an estrangement between the members of a family. About two months ago Mr M .■ (a man of sixty years of age) with marriageable grandchildren, had the misfortune to lose his betterhalf. A few weeks after he had laid her remains in the cemetery, he took unto himself a housekeeper to cheer his lonely fireside, and to minister to his comfort. She was about forty-five, a widow, moderately good-looking, and engaging in her manners. In a few weeks she had secured such an influence over the old man that the relatives became suspicious, and began to complain of the arbitrary way in which the lady controlled the household. One day, however, the old man, in a confidential mood, confessed to a married daughter that six weeks after the death of his first wife, he had secretly married his housekeeper, and inquiries at the office of the Registrar of Births, Deaths, and Marriages showed that the statement was true. The daughter reproached him with the indecent haste he had shown to make a second matrimonial venture, but the hoary-headed sinner pleaded his loneliness, and the necessity of having someone to keep his house in order. The most singular feature of the affair, however, is that the old man positively asserts that since the marriage he has been haunted by the ghost of his former wife, •who stands at his bedside wearing an expression of sorrowful reproach. Some of the relatives wish the ghostly visitor had come earlier in time to prevent the marriage, and had, like "Weller, the elder, warned him against the dangerous wiles of the "vidders."