She found her grandmother waiting for her. The old lady was seated in the window, spectacles on nose, reading the morning paper. All the papers of that morning had not an account of the disaster at Chelsea, because of the late hour at which it occurred. Mrs. Grace's paper was one that did not get the news in time for insertion that morning, so that the old lady and Edith were spared the pain of believing that a man who sat in this room yesterday had met with a sudden and horrible death.
But Mrs. Grace's eye had caught a paragraph headed "The Last of the Poles." Without a word or comment she handed the paper to the girl and said merely, "Read that. It ought to interest you."
Edith looked at the heading, flushed, and then read the paragraph. It ran:
"The last survivor of one of the great historical families of Europe was buried at Chone, near Geneva, four days before Christmas. The venerable Mathilde Poniatowski, the widow of Count Szymanowski, had just passed her ninetieth year. Her family gave to Poland its last king, Stanislaus Augustus, under whose reign the death-struggle of the Polish nation began, and its last hero, Prince Joseph Poniatowski, who fell as one of Napoleon's generals when bravely attempting to cover the retreat of the French at the battle of Leipzig. The Tzar Alexander, with a generosity which did him credit, allowed his corpse to be buried in the church at Cracow amongst the old Kings and heroes of Poland. Count Szymanowski, the husband of the deceased lady, took a prominent part in the rising of the Poles in 1831, since which time she has lived a quiet and uneventful life in the hospitable republic of Geneva."
"And think," said Mrs. Grace, "that she who is just dead represented only the younger branch of Mr. Hanbury's family. It is all more like an Eastern romance than anything which could take place in Europe!"
Edith could not say much. She felt choking, and merely said it was wonderful, and that Mr. Hanbury would no doubt know all about the countess.
"I don't think so. You know he said he did not know much of the family. I must cut out this paragraph and keep it for him."
The notion of cutting a paragraph out of a penny paper and giving it to the head of the house here referred to, was grotesque. Besides, he had not said that he should come again. He said his mother would call, and he expressed a vague hope that they might be better friends. Edith knew no practical importance was to be attached to this man's parentage, as far as honours went; but still it could not be that he would move about as freely now as of yore, or mingle with the people he had formerly considered his equals. He could no more destroy the stream of noble and kingly blood in his veins than a costermonger could carry the arms of a Howard or a Percy.