AUSTRIAN PRINCESS

Hokitika Guardian, 10 December 1929, Page 8

AUSTRIAN PRINCESS

OFFER OF MARRIAGE. (United Press Association.—By Electrh Telegraph.—Copyright.) VIENNA, Dec. 7. Princess Ida Suekowsky, the daughter of one' of the proudest and wealthiest families of old Imperial Austria, is now forced to work as a housemaid for live shillings per week. Pho has just received a romantic, passionately phrased proposal of marriage from a Londoner, who recently read of her plight. He had not seen her, and he did not know, until lie received her reply, most gracefully enlightening him that she was fortyeight years of age. The princess was touched by the chivalry of the offer of her unknown suitor, and she replied that islic felt .bound to say that the young, beautiful girls of his dreams no longer existed. The reply was brief, but with a hint of happiness to oorne, viz; “You seek in mo a maiden still young. Disappointment awaits you. A woman of forty-eight speaks, but the door of further happiness remains open. I will grant ybu an interview any time. —Sincere regards, Ida Suekowsky.” Unhappiness has indeed, aged and saddened the beautiful face of the princess. Her life is similar in some respects to that of the unfortunate late Princess Victoria Zoubkoff, sister of the ex-Kaiser. She divorced her first husband, after the mysterious death of their only child. Her second romance was equally unhappy. Her third marriage, to a Polish aristocrat, led to a life of cruelty, but great kindness still gleams out of the tired eyes of the princess, which retain a light of unquenchable courage. The princess remains a housemaid and the housemaid remains a piinccss.