VILLAGE GOSSIPS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 251, 22 October 1937, Page 7

VILLAGE GOSSIPS

MARRIAGE “ARRANGED” SPINSTER EMBARRASSED MARLBOROUGH (Wilts). Miss Greenhill, 58-year-old retired school teacher, village librarian of Aidbourne, near here, told a reporter why she had this notice put in the local paper:— “The marriage of Miss Greenhill, of Castle Street, Aidbourne, which has been arranged by kind friends, will not take place probably to their great disappointment.”

“I did it to stop village gossip,” she said. “It was said I was to be married to-morrow. The other day some one told me they thought I had been married weeks ago. “The man is a 72-year-o)d widower who lives in the village. His wife died iast January. He used to come to the library to change her books when she was not well. He was a very good husband. Helped With Business “After her death he asked me to go and read her will. 1 have been to his cottage a number of times to write letters to his nephews and so on. I helped him with one or two little business matters. “Then when I heard this gossip from the maid here, where I live with an old lady friend, I told him I could not come any more. “One day he wanted to consult me about something, so he came to me, and we walked back through the village together. After that there was more talk, so I felt I must try to stop it. “I did not think of marrying him. As he knows, I have a friend in London, a university man, with whom I have corresponded for 17 years. All this gossip, has made me feel I will never do a kind action again.”