Jane Porter

“ When Thaddeus seated Lady Sara in her drawing room, he offered to take a respectful leave; but she laid one hand on his arm, whilst with the other she covered her convulsed features, and said, "Constantine, before you go, before we part perhaps eternally, O! tell me that you do not, even now, hate me!—that you do not hate me!" repeated she, in a firmer tone; "I know too well how deeply I am despised."
"Cease, ah, cease these vehement self-reproaches!" returned he, tenderly replacing her on the sofa. "Shame does not depend on possessing passions, but in yielding to them. ”

“ Mary's displeasure was at the austerity of her own words, and not at her auditor. Raising her eyes with a smile, she gently replied, "I do not mean, my dear girl, to be severe; but I would wish, for the honor of our sex, that the objects which attract either our love or our compassion should have something more precious than mere exterior beauty to engage our interest."
"Well, I will soon be satisfied," cried Euphemia, in a gayer tone, as they drove through Grosvenor Gate; "we all know that Constantine is sensible and accomplished: he writes poetry like an angel, both in French and Italian. ”

“ Thaddeus smiled and gently bent his head. "Since, my dear Lady Tinemouth, her groundless malice and Miss Euphemia's folly have failed in estranging either your confidence or the esteem of Miss Beaufort from me, I pardon them both. Perhaps I ought to pity them; for is it not difficult to pass through the brilliant snares of wealth and adulation and emerge pure as when we entered them? Unclouded fortune is, indeed, a trial of spirits; and how brightly does Miss Beaufort rise from the blaze! Surrounded by splendor, homage and indulgence, she is yet all nature, gentleness and virtue!" ”

“ Blackmore shook him by the hand, and wishing him good-evening, returned home, pitying the worldliness of his friend's mind, and musing on the interesting stranger, whom he could not but admire, and compassionate with a lively sorrow, for he believed him to be a gentleman, unhappy and unfortunate. Had he known that the object of his solicitude was the illustrious subject of many a former eulogium from himself, how increased would have been his regret—that he had seen Count Thaddeus Sobieski, that he had seen him an exile, and that he had suffered him to pass out of the reach of his services! ”

“ Thaddeus looked at them as he was driven along. "Happy creatures!" thought he; "you have each a home to go to; you have each expectant friends to welcome you; every one of you knows some in the world who will smile when you enter; whilst I, wretched, wretched Sobieski where are now all thy highly-prized treasures, thy boasted glory, and those beloved ones who rendered that glory most precious to thee? Alas! all are withdrawn; vanished like a scene of enchantment, from which I have indeed awakened to a frightful solitude."
His reflections were broken by the stopping of the carriage. ”

“ Can it be the Count Sobieski, that brave and illustrious youth of whom every foreigner spoke with wonder? Can it be him that I behold in the unknown, unfriended Constantine?"
"Even so," returned Thaddeus, pressing her hand. "My country is no more. I am now forgotten by the world, as I have been by fortune. I have nothing to do on the earth but to fulfil the few duties which a filial friendship has enjoined, and then it will be a matter of indifference to me how soon I am laid in its bosom." ”

“ No man possessed more power to attract friends than Lord Tinemouth, and no man had less power to retain them; as fast as he made one he offended the other, and has at last deprived himself of every individual out of his own house who would not regard his death as a fortunate circumstance."
"But, Lady Somerset," cried Thaddeus, impatient to change a subject every word of which was a dagger to his heart, "I mean Miss Dorothy Somerset, Miss Beaufort—"
"Yes," returned her ladyship; "I see, kind Mr. Constantine, your friendly solicitude to disengage me from retrospections so painful! ”

“ Constantine."
The count looked at her with surprise. She laughed at the expression of his countenance.
"I don't mean such friends as one's father, mother, sisters and relations: most people have enough of them. I mean a tender, confiding friend, to whom you unbosom all your secrets: who is your other self—a second soul! In short, a creature in whose existence you forget your own!"
Thaddeus followed with his eyes the heightened color of the fair enthusiast, who, accompanying her rhapsody with action expressive as her words, had to repeat her question, "Have you such a friend?" ”

“ The Chancellor Zamoyisko at that moment being announced, Thaddeus rose from his knee, and was preparing to leave the room, when his majesty, perceiving his intention, desired him to stop.
"Stay, count!" cried he, "I will burden you with one request. I am now a king without a crown, without subjects, without a foot of land in which to bury me when I die. I cannot reward the fidelity of any one of the few friends of whom my enemies have not deprived me; but you are young, and Heaven may yet smile upon you in some distant nation. Will you pay a debt of gratitude for your poor sovereign? ”

“ He dwelt on her lovely, unsophisticated character with an enthusiasm bordering on idolatry. He recollected that she had been educated by the mother of Pembroke Somerset; and turning from the double remembrance with a sigh fraught with all the bitterness and sweetness of love, he acknowledged how much wisdom (which includes virtue) gives spirit and immortality to beauty. "Yes," cried he, "it is the fragrance of the flower, which lives after the bloom is withered."
From such reflections of various hues Thaddeus was one evening awakened by the entrance of the chief jailer into his cell. ”

“ Thaddeus found his calmed spirits again disturbed; and, rising from his seat, he retired unobserved by the people, who were too happy to attend to anything which did not agree with their own transports. The cabin was as deserted as himself. Feeling that there is no solitude like that of the heart, when it looks around and sees in the vast concourse of human beings not one to whom it can pour forth its sorrows, or receive the answering sigh of sympathy, he threw himself on one of the lockers, and with difficulty restrained the tears from gushing from his eyes. ”

“ In a few days you will become of age. You will be your own mistress. Marry him, my beloved cousin," cried Pembroke, pressing her hand to his lips, "and relieve my heart from a load of misery! Be generous, my sweet Mary," added he, supporting her now trembling frame against his breast; "act up to your noble nature, and offer him, by me, that hand which his calamities and disinterestedness preclude him from wooing himself."
Miss Beaufort, hardly able to articulate, replied, "I would give him all that I possess could it purchase him one tranquil hour. ”

“ Lady Tinemouth, who, however, rejoined, "Be satisfied, Mr.
Constantine, that I believe you."
The count bowed.
"Fie, Lady Tinemouth!" cried the lady; "you are partial: nay, you are absurd; did you ever yet hear a man speak truth to a woman?"
"Lady Sara!" replied her ladyship, with one of those arch glances which seldom visited her eyes, "where will be your vanity if I assent to this?"
"In the moon, with man's sincerity."
Thaddeus paid little attention to this dialogue. His thoughts, in spite of himself, were wandering after the figures of Somerset and his father. ”

“ Is any we honor, and love, ill unto death?" His pale face showed that he apprehended it, and he thought it might be Mary.
"No, no," returned Pembroke; "everybody is well, excepting myself and my father, who, I verily believe, has lost his senses; at any rate he will drive me mad."
The manner in which this reply was uttered astonished Thaddeus so much, that he could only gaze with wonder on the convulsed feature of his friend. Pembroke observed his amazement, and laying his hand on his arm, said, "My dear, dear Sobieski! what do I not owe to you? Good Heaven! how humbled am I in your sight! ”