Explore "Crowned with One Crest" by Gertrude Atherton on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
(Published in _Vanity Fair_, London, in 1895)
People were beginning to wonder if an American, having captured a title and worn it for five years, would renounce it for mere good looks and brains; in other words, if Lady Carnath, formerly Miss Edith Ingoldsby, of Washington, and still earlier -- before her father had found leisure to crown a triumphant financial career with the patriotic labors of a United States Senator -- of Boone, Iowa, would marry Butler Hedworth, M. P., a gentleman of some fortune and irreproachable lineage who had already made himself known on the floor of the House, but was not so much as heir-presumptive to a title. So many American maidens had placidly stood by while their mammas "arranged" a marriage between their gold-banked selves and the impecunious scion of an historical house, that the English, when forced to admit them well-bred, found solace in the belief that these disgustingly rich and handsome girls were without heart.