A CURIOUS STORY.

Waikato Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2116, 30 January 1886, Page 2 (Supplement)

A CURIOUS STORY.

A curious romance has been unfolding itself in a corner of the little village of Tarrytown. In one of ita aspects it has given rise to legal questions which the heroine is now most desirioua of having settled. The said heroine was born to humble station, but was fond of reading. By the time she was IS years of age she had read much, She was tall and slender, and attractive by reason of her inteliegence. Withal she was ignorant of society and its ways except as the latter purported to be taught in the light literature of which she had imbibed deeply. Of the realities of life she knew little. Into Tarrytown came a dashing young clergyman of a peculiar type, who carried firearms, and had shot at a fellow student while at college in Virginia. He became interested in the girl, whom he flattered ' by his visits and attentions, and to whom he read hin sermons for criticism and the " poems of their choice " for mutual delectation. His visits grew more and more frequent. One morning he asked her to marry him. Regarding this as a joke, the girl said yes. Afterwards he referred to this as a binding promise. His next step was to repeat to her a portion of the marriage service of the Episcopal Church, getting her to make the responses, telling her that it was merely a form of engagement. Then he told her that they were married hard and fast. All this time the clergyman had been trying to get the girl to go to picnics and places of amusement with him, but in vain. She had never met him except in her father's house. Now he told her that they were married, but as his Church did not wish a married pastor, they must keep it a secret until he was in a position to acknowledge her. They could, however, spend their vacation together. The f;irl steadily refined to believe in the eg.ility of the marriage. Then the clergyman til led out one of the marriage certificate blanks, signed it himself and got a firm of New York lawyers to certify to the correct hv-h of the document and the legality of the marriage. By alternately thrrateningto kill him■elf and her he tried to muke the girl sign it also. She would not, however. One day, in ft fit of anger, If destroyed it before her eyes. Then he tilled out another and got a brother clergyman to sign it, or else forged thn name, and had still another law hrm put an impriDt of their approval upon its legality. He was again unsuccessful in making her sign this one, and it, too, was finally destroyed. After failing in these repeated attempts to make the girl acknowledge the marriage the clergyman gave up the contest and left the town. During the two years which have passed since the girl his pondered the question " Married or ■ingle " until she is well nigh distracted, Legal experts consulted by her flatly contradict one another as to the law bearing on the points, and she hesitates to appeal to the courts, as she shrinks from publicity. — New York Tribune.