A ROMANTIC STORY.

Waikato Times, Volume XXIII, Issue 1890, 16 August 1884, Page 3

A ROMANTIC STORY.

The American papers record a romantic episode in the lives of two lovers which has recently excited a good deal of interest at Coalton, in Pennsylvania. William Craig, a young farmer, and Mary Barker, the eighteen-year-old daughter of another farmer, were to have been married on Christmas Day, liS(53. On the evening of the 7th December in the above-named year, there was a. social party in the vicinity, at which Miss Barker danced twice in succession with one of the guests. Young Craig reproved her for such marked attention to another, and said he did not wish her to dance with the young man in question. This aroused the spirit of the young lady, and she replied that she would dance with him or anyone else she chose, and as many times as .she liked. Craig then informed her that she might do so, but that she would not see him again for twenty years. To this she tauntingly replied that " he couldn't stay from her twenty hours if he tried ever so hard." Craig went home, and the next day he was missing. Search wasinstituted, but no trace of him could be found. Miss Barker vowed she would never go into or receive company again umtil he returned. As years passed by and no traces of the missing son were received, his parents came to look upon him as dead. Miss Barker, however, had a singular faith that he would come back some day. She kept her vow as to living a secluded life, and few people ever saw her after the night siie had quarrelled with her lover. • On the evening of the 7th December, 1883, a stranger knocked at the door of her father's residence, and asked to see Miss Barker. He was a fine-looking man, about forty years of age. He was admitted, and when Miss Barker appeared he held out his hand and said, " Mary Barker, didn't I tell you that you wouldn't see ine again for twenty yeais." It. was William Craig. He had returned to his parents' home in the afternoon. Both his father and mother were still living. The secret of his arrival was kept, and when he appeared in so dramatic a manner in the presence of his sweetheart, she fainted in his arms. Craig's story of his disappearance and long absence was that he had gone straight to Philadelphia after leaviug home, and there enlisted in the army under an assumed name. He served until tht end of the war, and was mustered out'at Philadelphia. He longed very much to return home, but he permitted his determination to stay away twenty years to control him, and he went directly to Nebraska. There he took up a tract of land, and went to farming, remaining there until his twenty years were up. He resolved to time his return, and the meeting of his old sweetheart, if she were still alive and unmarried, at as near the hour of his leaving as it was possible to do. He came back with an ample

fortune, and found matters much as he had left them. The wedding that did not come p off twenty years ago was celebrated on Christmas Day.