Possessing a fine understanding, a refined taste, and fine feelings, by some chance she had escaped love. It cannot be denied that she was much admired, much respected, and much esteemed, and that she received two or three splendid proposals from men of rank. Some of those men she admired, some she respected, and some she esteemed, but not one did she love, and she successively refused them all. Shortly after their discharge, they generally consoled themselves by marrying other women, who, perhaps, wanted both the charms and the sense of Miss Somerset; yet she congratulated them on their choice, and usually became the warm friend of the happy couple.

Thus year pa.s.sed over year; Miss Somerset continued the esteemed of every worthy heart, though she could not then kindle the embers of a livelier glow in any one of them; and at the epoch called a _certain age_, she found herself an old maid, but possessing so much good humor and affection towards the young people about her, she did not need any of her own to mingle in the circle.

This amiable old lady usually took her knitting into the library before the fair students; and whenever Thaddeus entered the room, (so natural is it for generous natures to sympathize,) his eyes first sought her venerable figure; then glancing around to catch an a.s.suring beam from the lovely countenance of her niece, he seated himself with confidence.

The presence of these ladies operated as a more than sufficient antidote to the disagreeableness of his situation. To them he directed all the attention that was not required by his occupation; he heard them only speak when a hundred others were talking; he saw them only when a hundred others were in company.

In addition to this pleasant change, Miss Euphemia's pa.s.sion a.s.sumed a less tormenting form. She had been reading Madame d'Arblay's Camilla; and becoming enamored of the delicacy and pensive silence of the interesting heroine, she determined on adopting the same character; and at the same time taking it into her ever-creative brain that Constantine's coldness bore a striking affinity to the caution of Edgar Mandelbert, she wiped the rouge from her pretty face, and prepared to "let concealment, like a worm in the bud, feed on her damask cheek."

To afford decorous support to this fancy, her gayest clothes were thrown aside, to make way for a negligence of apparel which cost her two hours each morning to compose. Her dimpling smiles were now quite banished. She was ever sighing, and ever silent, and ever lolling and leaning about; reclining along sofas, or in some disconsolate att.i.tude, grouping herself with one of the marble urns, and sitting "like Patience on a monument smiling at grief."

Thaddeus preferred this pathetic whim to her former Sapphic follies; it afforded him quiet, and relieved him from much embarra.s.sment.

Every succeeding visit induced Miss Beaufort to observe him with a more lively interest. The n.o.bleness yet humility with which he behaved towards herself and her aunt, and the manly serenity with which he suffered the insulting sarcasms of Miss Dundas, led her not merely to conceive but to entertain many doubts that his present situation was that of his birth.

The lady visitors who dropped in on the sisters' studies were not backward in espousing the game of ridicule, as it played away a few minutes, to join in a laugh with the "witty Diana." These gracious beings thought their s.e.x gave them privilege to offend; but it was not always that the gentlemen durst venture beyond a shrug of the shoulder, a drop of the lip, a wink of the eye, or a raising of the brows. Mary observed with contempt that they were prudent enough not to exercise even these specimens of a mean hostility except when its n.o.ble object had turned his back, and regarding him with increased admiration, she was indignant, and then disdainful, at the envy which actuated these men to treat with affected scorn him whom they secretly feared.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MISS EUPHEMIA DUNDAS.]

The occasional calls of Lady Tinemouth and Miss Egerton stimulated the cabal against Thaddeus. The sincere sentiment of equality with themselves which these two ladies evinced by their behavior to him, and the same conduct being adopted by Miss Dorothy and her beautiful niece, besides the evident partiality of Euphemia, altogether inflamed the spleen of Miss Dundas, and excited her _coterie_ to acts of the most extravagant rudeness.

The little phalanx, at the head of which was the superb Diana, could offer no real reason for disliking a man who was not only their inferior, but who had never offended them even by implication. It was a sufficient apology to their easy consciences that "he gave himself such courtly airs as were quite ridiculous--that his presumption was astonishing. In short, they were all idle, and it was exceedingly amusing to lounge a morning with the rich Dundases and hoax Monsieur."

Had Thaddeus known one fourth of the insolent derision with which his misfortunes were treated behind his back, perhaps even his friend's necessity could not have detained him in his employment. The brightness of a brave man's name makes shadows perceptible which might pa.s.s unmarked over a duller surface. Sobieski's delicate honor would have supposed itself sullied by enduring such contumely with toleration. But, as was said before, the male adjuncts of Miss Dundas had received so opportune a warning from an accidental knitting of the count's brow, they never after could muster temerity to sport their wit to his face.

These circ.u.mstances were not lost upon Mary; she collected them as part of a treasure, and turned them over on her pillow with the jealous examination of a miser. Like Euphemia, she supposed Thaddeus to be other than he seemed. Yet her fancy did not suppose him gifted with the blood of the Bourbons; she merely believed him to be a gentleman; and from the maternal manner of Lady Tinemouth towards him, she suspected that her ladyship knew more of his history than she chose to reveal.

Things were in this state, when the countess requested that Miss Dorothy would allow her niece to make one in her party to the Haymarket Theatre. The good lady having consented, Miss Beaufort received the permission with pleasure; and as she was to sup in Grosvenor Place, she ventured to hope that something might fall from her hostess or Miss Egerton which would throw a light on the true situation of Mr. Constantine.

From infancy Miss Beaufort had loved with enthusiasm all kinds of excellence. Indeed, she esteemed no person warmly whom she did no think exalted by their virtues above the common race of mankind. She sought for something to respect in every character; and when she found anything to greatly admire, her ardent soul blazed, and by its own pure flame lit her to a closer inspection of the object about whom she had become more than usually interested.

In former years Lady Somerset collected all the virtue and talent in the country around her table, and it was now found that they were not brought there on a vain errand. From them Miss Beaufort gathered her best lessons in conduct and taste, and from them her earliest perceptions of friendship. Mary was the beloved pupil and respected friend of the brightest characters in England; and though some of them were men who had not pa.s.sed the age of forty, she never had been in love, nor had she mistaken the nature of her esteem so far as to call it by that name. Hence she was neither afraid nor ashamed to acknowledge a correspondence she knew to be her highest distinction.

But had the frank and innocent Mary exhibited half the like attentions which she paid to these men in one hour to the common cla.s.s of young men through the course of a month, they would have declared that the poor girl was over head and ears in love with them, and have pitied what they would have justly denominated her folly.

Foolish must that woman be who would sacrifice the most precious gift in her possession--her heart--to the superficial graces or empty blandishments of a self-idolized c.o.xcomb!

Such a being was not Mary Beaufort; and on these principles she contemplated the extraordinary fine qualities she saw in the exiled Thaddeus with an interest honorable to her penetration and her heart.

When Miss Egerton called with Lady Sara Ross to take Miss Beaufort to the Haymarket, Mary was not displeased at seeing Mr. Constantine step out of the carnage to hand her in. During their drive, Miss Egerton informed her that Lady Tinemouth had been suddenly seized with a headache, but that Lady Sara had kindly undertaken to be their chaperon, and had promised to return with them to sup in Grosvenor Place.

Lady Sara had never seen Mary, though she had frequently heard of her beauty and vast fortune. This last qualification her ladyship hoped might have given an unmerited _eclat_ to the first; therefore when she saw in Miss Beaufort the most beautiful creature she had ever beheld, nothing could equal her surprise and vexation.

The happy l.u.s.tre that beamed in the fine eyes of Mary shone like a vivifying influence around her; a bright glow animated her cheek, whilst a pleasure for which she did not seek to account bounded at her heart, and modulated every tone of her voice to sweetness and enchantment.

"Syren!" thought Lady Sara, withdrawing her large dark eyes from her face, and turning them full of dissolving languor upon Thaddeus; "here are all thy charms directed!" then drawing a sigh, so deep that it made her neighbor start, she fixed her eyes on her fan, and never looked up again until they had reached the playhouse.

The curtain was raised as the little party seated themselves in the box.

"Can anybody tell me what the play is?" asked Lady Sara.

"I never thought of inquiring," replied Sophia.

"I looked in the newspaper this morning," said Miss Beaufort, "and I think it is called _Sighs_,--a translation from a drama of Kotzebue's."

"A strange t.i.tle!" was the general observation. When Mr. Suett, who personated one of the characters, began to speak, their attention was summoned to the stage.

On the entrance of Mr. Charles Kemble in the character of Adelbert, the count unconsciously turned pale. He perceived by the dress of the actor that he was to personate a Pole; and alarmed at the probability of seeing something to recall recollections which he had striven to banish, his agitation did not allow him to hear anything that was said for some minutes.

Miss Egerton was not so tardy in the use of her eyes and ears; and stretching out her hand to the back of the box, where Thaddeus was standing by Lady Sara's chair, she caught hold of his sleeve.

"There, Mr. Constantine!" cried she; "look at Adelbert! that is exactly the figure you cut in your outlandish gear two months ago."

Thaddeus bowed with a forced smile, and glancing at the stage, replied--

"Then, for the first time in my life, I regret having followed a lady's advice; I think I must have lost by the change."

"Yes," rejoined she, "you have lost much fur and much embroidery, but you now look much more like a Christian.'"

The substance of these speeches was not lost on Mary, who continued with redoubling interest to mark the changes his countenance underwent along with the scene. As she sat forward, by a slight turn of the head she could discern the smallest fluctuation in his features, and they were not a few. Placing himself at the back of Lady Sara's chair, he leaned over, with his soul set in his eye, watching every motion of Mr. Charles Kemble.

Mary knew, by some accidental words from Lady Tinemouth, that Constantine was a Polander, and the surmise she had entertained of his being unfortunate received full corroboration at the scene in which Adelbert is grossly insulted by the rich merchant. During the whole of it, she scarcely dared trust her eyes towards Constantine's flushed and agitated face.

The interview between Adelbert and Leopold commenced. When the former was describing his country's miseries with his own, Thaddeus unable to bear it longer, un.o.bserved by any but Mary, drew back into the box. In a moment or two afterwards Mr. Charles Kemble made the following reply to an observation of Leopold's, that "poverty is no dishonor."

"Certainly none to me! To Poland, to my struggling country, I sacrificed my wealth, as I would have sacrificed my life if she had required it. My country is no more; and we are wanderers on a burdened earth, finding no refuge but in the hearts of the humane and virtuous."

The pa.s.sion and force of these words could not fail of reaching the ears of Thaddeus. Mary's attention followed them to their object, by the heaving of whose breast she plainly discovered the anguish of their effect. Her heart beat with increased violence. How willingly would she have approached him, and said something of sympathy, of consolation! but she durst not; and she turned away her tearful eye, and looked again towards the stage.

Lady Sara now stood up, and hanging over Mary's chair, listened with congenial emotions to the scene between Adelbert and the innocent Rose. Lady Sara felt it all in her own bosom; and looking round to catch what was pa.s.sing in the count's mind, she beheld him leaning against the box, with his head inclined to the curtain of the door.

"Mr. Constantine!" almost unconsciously escaped her lips. He started, and discovered by the humidity on his eyelashes why he had withdrawn.

Her ladyship's tears were gliding down her cheeks. Miss Egerton, greatly amazed at the oddness of this closet scene, turned to Miss Beaufort, who a moment before having caught a glimpse of the distressed countenance of the count, could only bow her head to Sophia's sportive observation.

Who is there that can enter into the secret folds of the heart and know all its miseries? Who partic.i.p.ate in that joy which dissolves and rarifies man to the essence of heaven? Soul must mingle with soul, and the ethereal voice of spirits must speak before these things can be comprehended.

Ready to suffocate with the emotions she repelled from her eyes, Mary gladly affected to be absorbed in the business of the stage, (not one object of which she now saw), and with breathless attention lost not one soft whisper which Lady Sara poured into the ear of Thaddeus.

"Why," asked her ladyship, in a tremulous and low tone, "why should we seek ideal sorrows, when those of our own hearts are beyond alleviation? Happy Rose!" sighed her ladyship. "Mr. Constantine,"

continued she, "do not you think that Adelbert is consoled, at least, by the affection of that lovely woman?"

Like Miss Beaufort, Constantine had hitherto replied with bows only.

"Come," added Lady Sara, laying her soft hand on his arm, and regarding him with a look of tenderness, so unequivocal that he cast his eyes to the ground, while its sympathy really touched his heart.

"Come," repeated she, animated by the faint color which tinged his cheek; "you know that I have the care of this party, and I must not allow our only _cavalier_ to be melancholy."

"I beg your pardon, Lady Sara," returned he, gratefully pressing the hand that yet rested on his arm; "I am not very well. I wish that I had not seen this play."

Lady Sara sunk into the seat from which she had risen. He had never before taken her hand, except when a.s.sisting her to her carriage; this pressure shook her very soul, and awakened hopes which rendered her for a moment incapable of sustaining herself or venturing a reply.

There was something in the tones of Lady Sara's voice and in her manner far more expressive than her words: mutual sighs which breathed from her ladyship's bosom and that of Thaddeus, as they sat down, made a cold shiver run from the head to the foot of Miss Beaufort. Mary's surprise at the meaning of this emotion caused a second tremor, and with a palpitating heart she asked herself a few questions.