"Miss Beaufort!" echoed Thaddeus, his heart glowing with delight. "Do you think she ever heard of me by the name of Sobieski?"

"Who has not?" returned the countess; "every heart that could be interested by heroic virtue has heard and well remembers its glorious struggles against the calamities of your country. Whilst the newspapers of the day informed us of these things, they noticed amongst the first of her champions the Palatine of Masovia, Kosciusko, and the young Sobieski. Many an evening have I pa.s.sed with Miss Dorothy and Mary Beaufort, lamenting the fate of that devoted kingdom."

During this declaration, a variety of indeed happy emotions agitated the mind of Thaddeus, until, recollecting with a bitter pang the shameless ingrat.i.tude of Pembroke, when all those glories were departed from him, and the cruel possibility of being recognized by the Earl of Tinemouth as his son, he exclaimed, "My dearest madam, I entreat that what I have revealed to you may never be divulged. Miss Beaufort's friendship would indeed be happiness; but I cannot purchase even so great a bliss at the expense of memories which are knit with my life."

"How?" cried the countess; "is not your name, and all its attendant ideas, an honor which the proudest man might boast?"

Thaddeus pressed her hand to his heart.

"You are kind--very kind! yet I cannot retract. Confide, dear Lady Tinemouth, in the justice of my resolution. I could not bear cold pity; I could not bear the heartless comments of people who, pretending to compa.s.sion, would load me with a heavy sense of my calamities. Besides, there are persons in England who are so much the objects of my aversion, I would rather die than let them know I exist. Therefore, once again, dear Lady Tinemouth, let me implore you to preserve my secret."

She saw by the earnestness of his manner that she ought to comply, and without further hesitation promised all the silence he desired.

This long moonlight conversation, by awakening all those dormant remembrances which were cherished, though hidden in the depths of his bosom, gave birth to that _mirage_ of imagination which painted that night, in the rapid series of his tumultuous dreams, the images of every being whom he had ever loved, or now continued to regard with interest.

Proceeding next morning towards Harley Street, he mused on what had happened; and pleased that he had, though unpremeditatedly, paid the just compliment of his entire confidence to the uncommon friendship of the countess, he arrived at Lady Dundas's door before he was sensible of the ground he had pa.s.sed over, and in a few minutes afterwards was ushered into his accustomed purgatory.

When the servant opened the study-door, Miss Euphemia was again alone. Thaddeus recoiled, but he could not retreat.

"Come in, Mr. Constantine," cried the little beauty, in a languid tone; "my sister is going to the riding-school with Mr. Lascelles.

Miss Beaufort wanted me to drive out with her and my mother, but I preferred waiting for you."

The count bowed; and almost retreating with fear of what might next be said, he gladly heard a thundering knock at the door, and a moment after the voice of Miss Dundas ascending the stairs.

He had just opened his books when she entered, followed by her lover.

Panting under a heavy riding-habit, she flung herself on a sofa, and began to vilify "the odious heat of Pozard's odious place;" then telling Euphemia she would play truant to-day, ordered her to attend to her lessons.

Owing to the warmth of the weather, Thaddeus came out this morning without boots; and it being the first time the exquisite proportion of his figure had been so fully seen by any of the present company excepting Euphemia, Lascelles, bursting with an emotion which he would not call envy, measured the count's graceful limb with his scornful eyes; then declaring he was quite in a furnace, took the corner of his glove and waving it to and fro, half-muttered, "Come gentle air."

"The fairer Lascelles cries!" exclaimed Euphemia, looking off her exercise.

"What! does your master teach you wit?" drawled the c.o.xcomb, with a particular emphasis.

Thaddeus, affecting not to hear, continued to direct his pupil.

The indefatigable Lascelles having observed the complacence with which the count always regarded Miss Beaufort determined the goad should fret; and drawing the knitting out of his pocket which he had s.n.a.t.c.hed the night before from Mary, he exclaimed, "'Fore heaven, here is my little Beaufort's purse!"

Thaddeus started, and unconsciously looking up, beheld the well-known work of Mary dangling in the hand of Lascelles. He suffered pangs unknown to him; his eyes became dim; and hardly knowing what he saw or said, he pursued the lesson with increased rapidity.

Finding that his malice had taken effect, with a careless air the malicious puppy threw his clumsy limbs on the sofa, which Miss Dundas had just quitted to seat herself nearer the window, and cried out, as in a voice of sudden recollection:

"By the bye, that Miss Mary Beaufort, when she chooses to be sincere, is a staunch little Queen Bess."

"You may as well tell me," replied Miss Dundas, with a deriding curl of her lip, "that she is the Empress of Russia."

"I beg your pardon!" cried he, and raising his voice to be better heard, "I do not mean in the way of learning. But I will prove in a moment her creditable high-mightiness in these presumptuous times, though a silly love of popularity induces her to affect now and then a humble guise to some people beneath her. When she gave me this gewgaw," added he, flourishing the purse in his hand, "she told me a pretty tissue about a fair friend of hers, whose music-master, mistaking some condescension on her part, had dared to press her snowy fingers while directing them towards a tender chord on her harp. You have no notion how the gentle Beaufort's blue eyes blazed up while relating poor Tweedledum's presumption!"

"I can have a notion of anything these boasted meek young ladies do when thrown off their guard," haughtily returned his contemptuous auditress, "after Miss Beaufort's violent sally of impertinence to you last night."

"Impertinence to me!" echoed the fop, at the same time dipping the end of the knitting into Diana's lavender-bottle, and dabbing his temples; "she was always too civil by half. I hate forward girls."

Thaddeus shut the large dictionary which lay before him with a force that made the puppy start, and rising hastily from his chair, with a face all crimson, was taking his hat, when the door opened, and Mary appeared.

A white-chip bonnet was resting lightly on the glittering tresses which waved over her forehead, whilst her lace-shade, gently discomposed by the air, half veiled and half revealed her graceful figure. She entered with a smile, and walking up to the side of the table where Thaddeus was standing, inquired after his friend's health. He answered her in a voice unusually agitated. All that he had been told by the countess of her favorable opinion of him, and the slander he had just heard from Diana's lover, were at once present in his mind.

He was yet speaking, when Miss Beaufort, casually looking towards the other side of the room, saw her purse still acting the part of a handkerchief in the hand of Mr. Lascelles.

"Look, Mr. Constantine," said she, gayly tapping his arm with her parasol, "how the most precious things may be degraded! There is the knitting you have so often admired, and which I intended for Lady Tinemouth's pocket, debased to do the office of Mr. Lascelles's napkin."

"You gave it to him, Miss Beaufort," cried Miss Dundas; "and after that, surely he may use it as he values it!"

"If I could have given it to Mr. Lascelles, madam, I should hardly have taken notice of its fate."

Believing what her lover had advanced, Miss Dundas was displeased at Mary for having, by presents, interfered with any of her danglers, and rather angrily replied, "Mr. Lascelles said you gave it to him; and certainly you would not insinuate a word against his veracity?"

"No, not insinuate," returned Miss Beaufort, "but affirm, that he has forgotten his veracity in this statement."

Lascelles yawned. "Lord bless me, ladies, how you quarrel! You will disturb Monsieur?"

"Mr. Constantine," returned Mary, blushing with indignation, "cannot be disturbed by nonsense."

Thaddeus again drew his hat towards him, and bowing to his lovely champion, with an expression of countenance which he little suspected had pa.s.sed from his heart to his eyes, he was preparing to take his leave, when Euphemia requested him to inform her whether she had folded down the right pages for the next exercise. He approached her, and was leaning over her chair to look at the book, when she whispered, "Don't be hurt at what Lascelles says; he is always jealous of anybody who is handsomer than himself."

Thaddeus dropped his eyelids with a face of scarlet; for on meeting the eyes of Mary, he saw that she had heard this intended comforter as well as himself. Uttering a few incoherent sentences to both ladies he hurried out of the room.

CHAPTER x.x.xII.

THE OBDURACY OF VICE--THE INHUMANITY OF FOLLY.

The Count Sobieski was prevented paying his customary visit next morning in Harley Street by a sudden dangerous increase of illness in the general, who had been struck at seven o'clock by a fit of palsy.

When Dr. Cavendish beheld the poor old man stretched on the bed, and hardly exhibiting signs of life, he p.r.o.nounced it to be a death- stroke. At this remark, Thaddeus, turning fearfully pale, staggered to a seat, with his eyes fixed on the altered features of his friend.

Dr. Cavendish took his hand.

"Recollect yourself, my dear sir! Happen when it may, his death must be a release to him. But he may yet linger a few days."

"Not in pain, I hope!" said Thaddeus.

"No," returned the doctor; "probably he will remain as you now see him, till he expires like the last glimmer of a dying taper."

The benevolent Cavendish gave proper directions to Thaddeus, also to Mrs. Robson, who promised to act carefully as nurse; and then with regret left the stunned count to the melancholy task of watching by the bedside of his last early friend.

Thaddeus now retained no thought that was not riveted to the emaciated form before him. Whilst the unconscious invalid struggled for respiration, he listened to his short and convulsed breathing with sensations which seemed to tear the strings of his own breast.