ROMANTIC STORY OF GIRL.

Taihape Daily Times, 27 March 1918, Page 3

ROMANTIC STORY OF GIRL.

REFUSED BARON’S FORTUNE

LOVER’S DYING REQUEST.

A romantic and true story is told of the love of the son of an Austrian millionaire baron for an English girl, his death on the battlefield, and the result of the search of the baron in London for the mother of his son’s child

In 1913 there was living in London the only son of a well-known Austrian baron. His father is a millionaire with extensive estates in his own country, and the boy whose age was under twenty-one had been sent to England to finish his education.

The boy (whom we will call Franz) made the acquaintance of a young girl of a respectable family who -was employed as “toucher” in a photographer’s shop. The acquaintance ripened, and the young couple desired to be married. This, unfortunately, was out of the question, for, the boy’s status as an Austrian subject required that he should obtain the consent of his father, he being under age. In these circumstances the inevitable happened, and in July, 1914, Franz and his sweetheart, pseudonymously here called Cicely, had anticipated wedlock and were living together with a small son

A fortnight before the outbreak of war Franz received his recall to join the army of his country, and when war broke out he was sent with his regiment to the Russian fronL where it is understood that he fought bravely in Galicia.

In one of the fights on that front he was mortally wounded, and |mjtrusted to a comrade a letter to his father, narrating the story of his love, stating 1 that he regarded Cicely as his wife, which she would have boon but for the Austrian laws, and asking his father to take care of her and their infant son. FATHER’S QUEST SUCCEEDS The baron ultimately received his son’s letter, took it as a communication from the dead, and found his grief assuaged by the discovery that ho had a grandson. Franz had been his only son, and it had seemed that with his death there would bo no heir to inherit the title and the enormous wealth of the family. He determined to seek out Cicely, to accept her, "as ho was able to do under Austrian law, as his daughter-in-law and thereby to legitimise the child. With much difficulty a Dutch agent dispatched to England succeeded in tracing the girl, who was living in a northern suburb of London and maintaining herself and her child by working at a photographer’s shop. She was found to bo a pretty, modest girl of 20 or 21, quite happy in her independence and unconcerned as to the greatness of her lover’s family. She received the baron’s message, promising her an allowance and expressing his desire to accept the child as his legitimate heir, but she intimated that she desired no financial help and was in no concern about recognition. So the case now stands and no steps can be taken about the legal status of the boy until after the war. adcandPdatahmP ET AE E TETET