MAITLAND'S MARRIAGE

Star (Christchurch), Issue 10926, 15 November 1913, Page 3

MAITLAND'S MARRIAGE

(By J. M. LEGATT.) [Ail Rights Reserved.] In the little township which stands where three rivers flow into the Hauraki Gulf there lived a banker by name James Maitland. At the time cur story opens he was a bachelor, getting well into the forties, and lived in a fine cottage built on the first gentle slope of the hills, which, rising from tho seaboard, run up to a great height behind the town. • . For years Maitland had lived with his mother, who was a widow, and to whom he was devoted. Upon her death he had experimented in housekeeping with more or less unsatisfactory results, his domestics either gaining an undue mastery over him and having to bo summarily dismissed or getting, as he was ever tempted to think, inconsiderately married. ' Next to the banker's house stood another, almost a facsimile to itself. Both residences were trim and neatly kept and commanded a good view over tho Gulf. Maitland was sitting on his verandah, a couple of letters in his hand. He had a pair of kindly grey eyes, a firm yet gentle-looking mouth, a good, manly face with not a littlo of the wistful look upon it, so characteristic of the countenance of the man, who, being by nature genial and companionable, yet knows loneliness. It was the face of a gentle and true man, who all unconsciously was searching for what ho could not find. It so Tiappened that the letters which ho had lust received by mail concerned the house next door, for both residence's, with a good deal more property in the town, belonged to the banker, "ihe adjoining house to his own was vacant, and two applications had come from would-be tenants. The first was from a gentleman in his own profession, who, having reached the age limit, was about to retire, and desired just such a residence as Maitland had to offer, where his wife and himself might spend tho evening of their days. They had no family, a ' consideration for a houseproprietor.

This gentleman's credentials were excellent,, and he should have made a most satisfactory tenant, but there was a difficulty which presented itself to the banker's mind, on the oneniug of the second letter. This was from a Mrs Stormont, a widow, who wished to rent the house with a view to opening a kindergarten school. The lady was