New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1908-12-02
olo not relish the notion Of his ancestral lands
passing into the hands of q Romanist

passing into the hands of a Romanist.
ROMANCE WITH AN AMERICAN ENDING
The Noels have not always been Catholics. In
oeeo. Il was the late Earl Of Cafnsborough
no"heo for his piety his philanthropy and for his
loneliness. who was the first the Church
OF Rome being received into 1t by Plus TX him
sell IL Is related that at the decisive audience
MS holiness. Lord and Lady Gainsborough were
SO anected that they wept whereUpon their little
daughter Lady Blanche Noel. convinced that the
Holy Father was i'll using her parents. proceeded
70 d'Oack him most vigorously with fists and kicks
Lady Blanche. by-the-bye died in this country,
where she made her home from the time OF her
ioildhuc marriage with Thomas Murphy, with
"hom she made runaway match nearly forty
years ago sister OF the present Earl CT Gains
borough, she became infatuated with the organist
q her father's private chapel at Exton Park
FROM her interest in the chapel music she
Drought into daily contact with the young organist
NiIlsoIne, fascinating young ITishnlan, and in
the most natural and simple way II came about
Ihat after service and the rest Of the
Ia'llly and household had left the chapel she
would remain 10 practise the music with him. It
Is nothing strange that hours sitting together
after mathis and vespers the Young and enthusiast
TIC Lady Blanche and the fmpulsive young Irish
garlst should fail in love with each other.
AFTER their marriage Lady Blanche found the
preJudices Of her family and her relatives against
her husband account of his birth were too strong
10 admit OF their remaining in England without
oeIng subjected hUrniliating ostracisru. and 50
lhey came 10 the United States TO embark upon
new NE ana 10 earn their lving-L.ady Blanche
IN the realms of literature and Thomas Murphy
nrst as organist al New Rochelle. y. Y. and then
as organlst at New Conway. where ne also taught
niuslc at the Rev. Frederick Tnompson's boys
school at Three Fins. Lady Blanche wrote q good
deal for The Atlantic Monthly for ''Scribner's'
Tor The Catholic Review for The Catholic
W ord etc yet found time TO do all her house
work for she and her husband were too poor TO.
keep q servant William Dean HOwells her
nrrn friend and mentor IN literature ana was wont
70 declare that she had the most analytical mind Of
any woman he had ever known Without being
beautiful she was pretty little woman. with
fresh rosy face framed in thick golden brown hair,
very modest and very shy-altogether singularIy
tractive. She died very suddenly from pneumonia
IN lSSl- at the of thirty-fIve her husband
wing her until 1880; and while his body has
round q resting place IN this country, hers was
taken over 10 England and reposes beside that of
her mother N the family nausoleUm of the ances-
iral country seat at Exton Park from which she
had made her runaway match with Tom Murphy.
Lady Blanche's romance is by 10 means the only
one OF the kind that has found its ending in this
country There are hundreds Of theua-perhaps
thousands-of which the American public is left in
ignorance at the time; for women Of the birth and
breeding Of the sister Of the present Earl Of Gains
borough are not in the habit OF proclaiuning their
rank from the housetops when they come TO Amer
lea TOT the purpose OF escaping the prejudices Of
the Old World and TO carve out for themselves q
new and happier existence. Few Of Lady Blanches
nslghbors ar New Rochelle and al New Conway
had any idea that the quiet modest, unaffected and
wholly uno6trUsive little wife Of Thomas Murphy,
the village organisJ and music teacher was the
g7eat-granddaUghter OF King William " Of Eng
land, and descended from that Sir Andrew Noel
who figures in history a favorite Of Queen
Elizabeth. The latter, when he ruined himself by
his extravaganza for her sake, dropped him with
the following disuch upon his name and at his
pense:
The word OF denial letter Of fifty
IS that geCIlernans thrifty.
MARQUISE DE FONTENOY.