AMOROUS HEIR.

Auckland Star, Volume LIII, Issue 86, 11 April 1922, Page 5

AMOROUS HEIR.

TALE OF SCHOOL GIRL'S WOOING. LONDON", April 1. The mutual fascination of a baronet's ■heir and a school girl, culminating in a secret marriage, has its upshot in the Divorce Court, where the wife is seeking a judicial separation, and the husband is cross-petitioning for the restitution of conjugal rights. The wife is Kathleen, daughter of Major Stephen Howard, "M.P., and the husband Alas,tair, son of Sir William Miller (fifth baronet) who served as a captain in the war. The courtship began in 1915, when Kathleen was 13 and Alastair -3 years old, Alastair taking her to fashionable resorts in London like Prince's Restaurant. Kathleen's father was unaware of the courtship, but a letter from Kathleen's mother to AlastaiT showed that the mother knew. It ran: "If Stephen gets to .hear of this the fat will be in the fire. Burn this." The father consented to the engagement on Kathleen's sixteenth birthday. Kathleen alleges that Alastair afterwards seduced her in his garage. After a quarrel Alastair wrote to Kathleen, saying: "It would be a social failure for mc to marry into your set. I hope that you will not try to elevate yourse>lf and your family at my expense." Alastatr'c family opposed the engagement, but marriage became urgent, and a secret ceremony was performed at a registry office in 1919. Kathleen's father subsequently insisted upon a public ceremony. The wife, in giving her evidence, told a pathetic story of her husband's alleged heartlessness before and after the birth of the futuTe "baronet, including attempts to take away the child and ostracism by the Miller family. Cross-examination elicited that Kathleen while at school accepted Alasiairs weekly allowance, also livers "for chocolates." and spent week-ends at ! fashionable West End hotels with parties which included Miller.