A 'REMARKABLE COINCIDENCE

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 305, 17 May 1913, Page 9

A 'REMARKABLE COINCIDENCE

' LONG ABSENT BROTHER AND SISTER MEET DRAMATICALLY. I am indebted to a correspondent in an obscure little Warwickshire village for details of an extraordinary reunion, writes a contributor of notes to 'the Birmingham Weekly Post. The story has its,genesis in the leaving home, some twenty-five years ago, of the only son, who had become dissatisfied with the monotony of rural toil, for a region unknown, and the next chapter of. the drama was the departure of the, second daughter for domestic service in New Zealand. In course of time the old father joined the great majority, and the bereaved wife and the only child who had remained faithful to the village of her birth, a daughter, were left alone. No word had been heard of the son, and, tin ee, years after her departure, the emigrant to New Zealand had ceased to correspond. By dint of hard toil the faithful daugther had managed to keep the wolf from the door, but nine months ago the brave woman was stricken with illness, and little by little the home was bnken up to provide the necessities of life for the two lonesome women. The mother is Hearing eighty years of age and, despite the self-sacrifice of their neighbors and the bounty of the local church society, it appeared that their pathetic struggle could only end in the seemingly inevitable tragedy of the workhouse. But less than a fortnight ago the village was thrown into great excitement and two old women into a paroxysm of joy by the advent of three strangers. The three had travelled in the same train, from a seaport town, witho.it any recognition, and it was not until they faced each other at the door of the old cottage that the man recognised ! n the well-dressed woman his sister. She had married her employer in New Zealand, and the stranger with her was her husband. It was a remarkable coiiincideiice that the brother, who had been working in Canada, should reach his home at the same time, each of them being absolutely unaware of the other's whereabouts ;and it took a long time to convinced the old mother that her hopes of a reunion had been so strangely realised. The conclusion is somewhat marred by the fact that the son did not return with his pockets full of gold; but it is gratifying to know that his mother and sister need not lack any comforts they desire.