Study tragic Hardy girl, a noble female (8)
I believe the answer is:
contessa
'noble female' is the definition.
I know nothing about this answer so I can't judge whether it can be defined by this definition.
'study tragic hardy girl a' is the wordplay.
'study' becomes 'con' (con can mean to study).
'tragic hardy girl' becomes 'tess' (I can't justify this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'con'+'tess'+'a'='CONTESSA'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for contessa that I've seen before include "noble foreign lady" , "High-ranking female" , "European noble" , "Italian lady" , "foreign noblewoman" .)