The Sun.
London, England, 1863-12-21 00:00:00

Extraordinary Infatuation of a Devonshire

Heiress.

The foltowing appears in the TVestern Morning
.News of Saturday Gossip has been busy for
some weeks past with an instance of infatuation on
the part of a young lady, which bears out the old
saying that truth is stranger than fiction. The names
of the parties in question are known to us, but the
object of withholding them will be obvious, although
the correctness of the incidents narrated is guaran-
teed. Miss Nemo, as we shall call her, is the daugh-
ter of a clergyman and a doctor of divinity, not long
dead, and who resided at his rectory in the county
of Devon. Nemo is about 25 years of age, good look-
ing, and accomplished, and it caused no small trou-
ble to the family some time previous to her father's
death to find that she had formed a clandestine ac-
quaintance with a stonemason to whom was en-
trusted the repair of her father's church. On this
discovery Nemo was sent to Exeter to reside with
a brother, that there might be broken the tie she
had formed. Ooly a short time afterwards she
eloped with her " lover of low degree" to H—, where
she remeined with his friends until the marriage
prelimicaries could be arranged. On the morning
fixed for the wedding, the bridegroom not being
orthcoming at the appointed time, the lady wentin
search of him, when, to her astonishment, he in-
formed her that he was in no particular hurry, and
should not marry yet. On finding herself thus de-
ceived, the unfortunate girl ran away, and waded
into a sheet of water waist high in her wedding
dress, from which predicament, however, she was
luckily extricated by two labouring men, taken back
to where she had been staying, and eventually
home. A few days afterwards the stonemason lover
called at her residence, bat was refused an interview
by her brother. He then went to another of Nemo's
relatives, a lady of wealth and position, with whom
he endeavoured to turn his heartlessness to pecu-
niary profits, offering to marry somebody else if
a hundred pounds were given him, adding
the interesting information that three other
ladies were already in glove with him.
This extortionate demand was refused ; but the
mercenary man was offered a handsome present if
he became the husband of either of the three candi-
dates he had mentioned. This, it seems, did not
suit " his book," and fortunately his cupidity
effected that which
nothing else could do—deter-
mined Nemo to throw offaltogether, the result being
that he is now a presiding and unmarried genius in
a common public-house. A short time after this oc-
currence the father of Nemo died, leaving her a very
respectable income; but in order to prevent her ,
from forming a connection with anybody beneath
her, the receipt of this income was made to be con-
tingent on her remaining single, to revert to her
only if she became a widow. Her brother having
succeeded her father in his ecclesiastical office, Nemo
resided alone at lodgings in Exeter up to the middle
of last summer. One morning, however, she was
seized with a fit of infatuation, which surpassed
even that which we have already narrated. While
sitting at her open window she saw on the opposite
side a man begging from door to door. She rang
the bell lor her servant and ordered the man to be
fetched. He was introduced into her room, served
with refreshments, during, or after which, Nemo
requested to hear his history. The beggar informed
her that he was connected with a very high family
in Ireland, from whom he ran away when he was
14 years of age, and had not returned since. He
travelled in foreign parts, and eventually enlisted in
a foreign army, where he sti uck his superior officer
and was sentenced to be shot. That punishment,
however, was subsequently mitigated to bard
labour for life in the mines. He underwent some
years of his punishment, which was the cause of
deformity on his right side, one shoulder becoming
considerably lower than the other. After some
years he succeeded in escaping from the mines, re-
turned to England, enlisted as a soldier, but having
deserted from his regiment, he was taking up,
punished, and turned out, branded with the letter
1) on the shoulder, which mark he showed our
heroine. Since that he had been compelled to earn
his livelihood as a beggar. This pathetic recital
seems to have moved the susceptible heart of
Nemo, for she forthwith interested herself for
him with various contributors to the Strangers'
Friendly Society, and rigged him out with linen and
outer garments, brushes, combs, and other articles
necessary for the proper performance of his toilette.
This done, she visited him at a notoriously common
lotlging hcuee in a back lane, but being disgusted
with that habitation, she obtained lodgings for him
at an eating-house, where, when he was duly in-
stalled, she visited him, exchange visits being made
by the gentleman at the lady's lodgings. Not con-
tent with these marks of favour, she purchased far
him a handsome ring, receiving one made of his hair
in return, the latter, as well as the former, being of
course paid for by Nemo. Thus matters continued
up to a short time ago, when, on being remonstrated
with on the impropriety of such a connection, she
absented herself suddenly without leaving the
slightest notion of her whereabouts being enter-
tained, until her return, when it transpired that
she had gone off with the man to Devonport, and
been married at a dissenting place of worship, the
interesting office of bridesmaid having been per-
formed by an old woman, a sextoness at one of the
Exeter churches, whom Nemo had taken with her.
14"ey by this time was getting short, and the pair
reteemes
u to Exeter, the lady visiting her friends and
ihuultni`ani4aF them of the high respectability of her
their an a Connections, and eventually so softening
fi t her foget x
Ireland,
they agreed to give her money and
husband eland, to which country she said her
intended to take her. He was consequently
admitted to
several interviews with the family, and
no end of
were provided for Nemo be-
•tjtn:re nhte r
meonat ete
eraen Was into " polite Irish society.''esociety.''given her to enable them
to pay a visit to her relatives
her in London, while their
bore, in which Was ht
portion of the family plate,
&c , were forwarded to Liverpool to await the pair
.
when they reached that Dort
en route for Ireland,
They kindly b..J their London friends,'
They were
whom they visited often daring es a
week, when the
newly-made husband took
it into his head one
evening to go down into the kitchen
of
a .friend's
pipe, and not retura.
house to smoke a
his wife considered reasonable time, itn,g In what
uve
iw,,ent in
search of him, but searched in vain,
to their loagin La some
misgiving, Nemo proceeded
when
she found her boxes broken open, and thee ever
article of value they contained had disappeared
Without delay she sought, aid, and searched
the
metropolis for days—her (rolls being eventually
crowned by finding her husband in a low pot house,
every penny he had taken from her having been
squandered. Nemo induced her degraded spouse to
go with her to the railway station, when, on making
the names of her relatives known, she obtained a
pees for both to Exeter, but on their arrival there
they were entirely discarded by their former friends.
having by some means obtained a little money, the
couple proceeded to Plymouth, and only a few days
since were located in anything but a first class house

in one of the Three Towns. An offer was sent the
lady by her friends to receive her again if she would
leave the man who had treated her so badly ; but
this Nemo, with womanly heart and head, peremp-
torily declined. She will shortly become a mother,
and she has expressed her determination to beg, or
even starve, with the husband of her rash choice.
It will occasion no surprise to the reader to learn
that it has been found by a letter from Ireland,
couched in a peculiar diction, that the man's high
connections there are a myth. So ends for the pre-
sent this remarkable and painful episode in the life
c f en accomplished Devonshire

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