PRINCESS AS HOUSEMAID

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 841, 9 December 1929, Page 9

PRINCESS AS HOUSEMAID

ROMANTIC PROPOSAL OF MARRIAGE PASSIONATE LONDONER Reed. 9 a.m. VIENNA, Sunday. Princess Ida Sulkewsky, daughter of one of the pi-oudest and wealthiest families of old Imperial Austria, is now iorced to work as a housemaid lor five shillings a week. She has just received a romantic, passionately-phrased proposal of marriage from a resident of London who recently read of her plight. He had not seen her and did not know until he received her reply that she is 48 years of age. Iho Princess says she was touched by the chivalry of the offer of the unknown suitor, but she said she felt bound to say that the young, beautiful giil of his dreams no longer existed. She wrote:—“Disappointment awaits you. A woman of 48 speaks, but the uoor to further happiness remains open. I will grant you an interview at any time.” Unhappiness has indeed aged and saddened the beautiful face of the Princess. Her life has been similar m some respects to that of the unfortunate 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 which retain the light of unquenchable courage. The Princess remains a housemaid and the housemaid remains a princess.