WAITRESS' WINDFALL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18888, 10 December 1924, Page 11

WAITRESS' WINDFALL.

LEGACY OF £15,000.

GRAND - UNCLE'S DEATH.

"MISSING FRIENDS" INQUIRY.

[FROM OUR own CORRESPONDENT.]

SYDNEY. Dec. 7.

An orphan girl, Miss Gwendoline Bailey, who has recently been engaged as a waitress at one of the large seaside boarding establishments at St. Kilda, Melbourne, has unexpectedly come into possession of a fortune of £15,700. Nobody was more surprised than she was to hear of such a legacy from a granduncle, who had carried on business as a wholesale draper in Liverpool, England, and whom she had never even met..

It was the merest chance that Miss Bailey heard of her good fortune. She happened one day to visit the Carlton branch of the Commonwealth Savings Bank, where she was well known, and one of the officials remarked to her that he had seen her name in a "Missing friends" column, with a notification that it would be to her advantage to call at a certain address. This she did without delay, and soon learned of the death of her grand-uncle, and his generosity toward her.

It is 13 years since Miss Bailey left her home at Ulverstone, on the northwest coast of Tasmania, and her path in life had not been strewn with roses. While she was a little girl her grand-aunt, wife of the uncle who has just died, visited the family in Tasmania, and took a great fancy to the child, whom she desired to take back to England. The child's mother was unwilling to part with her, and the idea was abandoned.

The child for some time corresponded with her grand-aunt, until, after the death of her mother and her arrival in Australia, she lost touch, and had no idea of the death of her grand-uncle until informed by the bank official, although tho advertisement had been appearing at intervals for several months.

Miss Bailey remarked, upon being congratulated upon her good fortune, that it gave her the funniest sensation imaginable. At first she was bewildered, and she had hardly been able to sleep since hearing of it. For some time she has been engaged to a young contractor, and she remarked that probably her grand-aunt would want her to go to England. "But," she remarked, "I shall not go without my boy."