A COLONIAL ROMANCE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5456, 7 January 1896, Page 2

A COLONIAL ROMANCE.

The Dunedin correspondent of the Tcmri Advocate, writing on Jan. 3, gives the following outline of facts, whioh seem " stranger than fiction " : — Twenty-six years ago a man named Tyrell left Bendigo for Melbourne, taking with him gold, &c, to the amount of .£6OO. He left his wife and a daughter at Bendigo, and promised to return in four months' time. He never came back, and it was thought he had either met with an accident or had been murdered, and his money stolen. His wife eventually made her way to New Zealand, and died at Christchurch some six years ago. The daughter, now a, young woman of twenty-eight years, never remembered her father, but, strange to 6ay, she frequently expressed the opinion that he had not been . killed between Bendigo and Melbourne, otherwise his body would have been found. After the death of her mother she came to Dunedin, where she obtained employment as a domestic. And now for the sequel. A few months back she saw an advertisement in a Sydney paper, asking for information as to.tho whereabouts of James Tyrell or any of his family. She corresponded with the solicitors advertising, and received a letter asking her to leave for Sydney as ' soon as possible. She did so, called on the solicitors, and was then told that a man named James Tyrell, residing at Queensland, had corresponded with the firm, and had stated, as did the daughter, that he had left bis wife and daughter at Bendigo twentysix years ago. He explained his disappearance, stating that he had left Melbourne in company with another woman. A meeting was arranged, and the man came from Queensland and satisfied the solicitors and the young woman^ that he was her father. He expressed his contrition for what he had done, said he had corresponded with two firms in Melbourne three or four years after deserting his wife with the object of finding her, but had failed. The solicitors informed the man that a brother had left him an estate in Scotland and a fairly large sum of money, ( and the man, anxibufc to do something for the child he had wronged, agreed to hand the money to his daughter. Matters were subsequently arranged by the daughter agreeing to forgive he* father, and the pair left a short time ago for Scotland. This, in brief, is the story related to me by a gentleman who knows both parties well.