Dowager's Dowry

Proudest of the ex-Kings is Alfonso XIII of Spain. Though the world is welcome to the knowledge that haemophilia taints his family's blue blood, nobody must suspect that he is financially strapped. When Alfonso broke the engagement of his daughter Beatriz to her cousin Prince Alvaro d'Orleans (TIME, Nov. 16), he publicly announced that it was because she was a carrier of the dreaded disease. Not so proud was eccentric Infanta Eulalia, Prince Alvaro's grandmother. "Ridiculous!" she snapped. "Absurd! King Alfonso is not opposed. . . . We simply have been unable to make plans because none of us has any money. But I am going to sell my jewels. I've got to get money. Then, I hope, this marriage can take place."

The Infanta could not put her hand on the jewels at the moment. During the War she had sent them from Paris to Madrid for safe keeping. They were still in a trunk in a relative's house. She wrote for the trunk immediately. Last week it arrived at her Paris house. The Infanta opened it, pulled out shawl after shawl, half a dozen old umbrellas. But not a jewel did she find.

"Don't worry," optimized Infanta Eulalia. "I know they were only mislaid."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.