"CARNEGIE'S PRIZE BEAUTY."

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXXI, Issue LXII, 11 May 1912, Page 9

"CARNEGIE'S PRIZE BEAUTY."

Mr Andrew Carnegie has a reputation as an ironmaster and lord of finance, and now he has climbed to a new pinnacle of fame as a judge of beauty. Lately he was at Hot Springs, Arkansas, and while chatting with a newspaper representative, he said- "By the way I have found the prettiest girl in the world. Here is her photograph. Do you know, Virginia Lee would make a good wife for some nice young man." Are you married Mr Reporter?" he asked. "If-I were not a Benedick myself," said the laird; "J would board the first train to PittsDurg. ' The story behind the millionaire s compliment is a simple one. Mr Lee met Mr Carnegie at Hot Springs, and thanked him for the excellent opportunity which the Margaret Morrison lechmcal Schools had offered his daughter in the way of education. Then Mr Carnegie asked for a copy of Miss Lee's I photograph. Soon after his passing comment to the reporter, the journals were publishing the portrait. In word as well as in picture they have described her. She has a wonderful wealth of brown hair, perfect features of the classic beauty type, and eyes like violets of the deepest blue. But Miss Lee is not enjoying it at all. Crowds pursue her, follow her when she goes to work in the morning, escort her at luncheon, and trail after her as she goes home in the evening. Photographees iiog her footsteps, music-hall managers are deluging her with offers, artists want to paint her picture, and every post brings numerous proposals of, marriage. If she attends the theatre she over-shad-ows the performance, and no matter where she goes, the crowd cries: "Here comes Carnegie's prize beauty." At first she was amused, but that period passed. She is modest, retiring, and businesslike, and says that nobody else will endorse Mr Carnegie's opinion. Mr Carnegie declares his willingness to leave it to anybody's judgment whether he is not right. "If I were not happily married," he says, "I would return to Pittsburg to see this young, lady * biit I imagine some enterprising young Pittsburg man has already seen in Miss Lee what 1 have seen —that she is a pearl beyond price." Others appear to be of the same opinion,' for tritnin two days she^ received 36 offers of marriage, and various tempting overtures from the-pro-prietorsof theatres and music-halls. Sh<) has, it 13 pleasant to be able to record, rejected all of them.