Untitled

Auckland Examiner, Volume IV, Issue 275, 23 June 1860, Page 3

A Friendly act rewarded. —The Southern Reporter states that “ about five years ago, a girl belonging to the neighborhood of Selkirk, then about fifteen years of age, went as a domestic servant to- a family in Hawick During her half year’s service there she became intimately acquainted with a young woman, to whom a youth, an engineer, was paying his addresses. Like a great many other young men at that period, he was anxious to push his fortune in Australia; but how to raise the necessary funds was the question. After all he was able to scrape together he found himself minus several pounds of the sum necessary to defray the expenses of the voyage.

His difficulties were hinted to his lover, and the fair one hacded him her all—her half year’s wages. Still he had not the necessary amount. In these circumstances our townswoman, from the esteem she bore to her friend, and the respect in which she held the character of her sweetheart, generously, some may say foolishly—offered him a pound out of her small earnings. As this terminated the difficulty, the offer was gratefully accepted, and the young adventurer set sail for the land of gold.. Years passed ; meantime the girl left Hawick and came home to Selkirk, but no word of James B or the lent pound. But such things as honor and gratitude are yet to be found, and we have a fine example in the case of the young engineer. He had prospered in Australia, and had neither been unfaithful as a lover nor unmindful as a debtor ; and the other day his fair intended received a draft for d>loO to pay for her outfit and passage for Australia, with £o>O to her friend who lent him the £1 note !”