Mrs Thistleton's Princess by Antonio Hope

It was no use telling me -- as the Rector had told me more than once -- that the same sort of thing had happened before in history, that a French _marquis_ of the old _régime_ was at least as good as a Boravian princess, and that if the one had taught dancing as an _émigré_ the other might teach French verbs in her banishment. The consideration was no doubt just, and even assuaged to some degree the absurdity of the situation -- since absurd things that have happened before seem rather less absurd somehow -- but it did not console my feelings, nor reconcile my imagination to Mrs Perkyns of Maida Hill, "nice and high" though Maida Hill might be. On the morning of Fräulein's departure I rose out of temper with the world.

Then I opened the morning paper, and there it was! In a moment it seemed neither strange nor unexpected. It was bound to be there some morning.