"Come, come Maria," cried Lady Tinemouth; "though no woman has less cause to speak well of mankind than I have, I will not permit my countrymen to be run down in toto. I dare say this gentleman will agree with it neither shows a candid nor a patriotic spirit?"

me, that

"I dare to say he will not agree with you, Lady Tinemouth. No gentleman yet, who had his wits about him, ever agreed with an elder lady against a younger. Now, Mr. Gentleman! for it seems that is the name by which we are to address you; what do you say?"

Thaddeus almost laughed at the singular way she had chosen to ask his name; and allowing some of the gloom which generally obscured his fine eyes, to disperse, he answered with a smile.

"My name is Constantine.”

"Well, you have replied to my last question first; but I will not let you off about my bearish countrymen. Don't you think, Mr. Constantine, that I may call them so, without any breach of good manners to them, or duty to my countrymen? For you see her ladyship hangs much upon patriotism?

Lady Tinemouth shook her head.

"OʻMaria, Maria, you are a strange mad-cap.”

"I don't care for that; I will have Mr. Constantine's unprejudiced reply. I am sure, if he had taken as long a time in answering your call, as he does mine, the ruffian might have killed and eaten you too, before he moved to your assistance. Come sir, may I not say that they are bears?"

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"Certainly. A pretty woman may say anything." Positively, Mr. Constantine, I won't endure contempt! Say such another word, and I will call you as abominable an animal as the worst of them."

"Bat I am not a proper judge, Miss Egerton. I have never been in company with any of these men ; so to be impartial, I must suspend my opinion."

"And not believe my word?"

Thaddeus bowed.

"There, Lady Tinemouth," cried she, affecting pet, take your champion to yourself; he is too great a save age for me."

"Thank you, Maria, returned her ladyship, giving her hand to the Count to lead her to the supper room; "this is the way she quarrels with every man that comes into my house, and then her ill humour transforms them to its own likeness."

"And where is the man," observed Thaddeus, "that would not be happy under the spells of so beautiful Circe !"

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"It won't do, Mr. Constantine," cried she, taking her place opposite to him; my anger is not to be appeased by calling me names; you don't mend the matter much, by likening me to be a heathen and a witch."

Lady Tinemouth bore her part in the conversation of the evening, in a strain more in unison with the Count's mind. However he found no inconsiderable degree of amusement, from the unreflecting volubility and giddy sallies of her friend; and on the whole, spent the few hours that he passed there, with some resemblance to his almost forgotten sense of pleasure.

He was in an elegant apartment, he was in the company of two lovely and accomplished women, and he was the object of their entire attention and gratitude. He had been used to such scenes in his days of happiness, when he felt himself the expectancy and rose of the fair state the glass of fashion, and the mould of form, the observed of all observers; and its re-appearance awaked, with tender remembrances, associating feelings, that made him rise with regret, when the clock struck one.

Lady Tinemouth bade him good night, with an earnest request that he would shortly repeat his visit. This invitation gratified him much; and they parted mutually delighted with each other.

CHAPTER XIV.

PLEASED as the Count was with the acquaintance to which his gallantry had introduced him, he did not repeat is call for a long time.

A few mornings after his meeting with Lady Tinemouth, the hard frost broke up. The change in the atmosphere o dreadfully affected the general, by producing a relapse of his rheumatic fever, that his friend had to watch by his pillow night and day for ten days. At the end of this period he recovered sufficiently to sit up and read, or to amuse himself by registering the melancholy events of the last campaigns, in a large book, with plans of the different battles. The sight of this volume would have distressed Thaddeus, had he not seen that it afforded comfort to the poor veteran, whom it transported back into the midst of scenes, on which he delighted to dwell; yet he would often lay down his pen, shut the book, and weep like an in.fant !

The Count left him one morning at this employment, and strolled out, with the intention of calling on Lady Tinemouth. As he walked along by York-house, he pereived Pembroke Somerset with a gentleman leaning on us arm, coming out of Bond-street.

All the blood in the Count's body seemed rushing to his heart. He trembled. The ingenuous smile on his friend's countenance, and his features so sweetly marked with frankness, made his resolution faulter.

"But proofs," cried he to himself, "are absolute !" and turning his face to a stand of books that was near him, he stood there till Somerset had passed. He went by him speaking these words;

"I trust, father, that ingratitude is not his vice."

"But it is yours, Somerset !" murmured Thaddeus, as for a moment he gazed after them, and then proceeded on his walk.

When his name was announced at Lady Tinemouth's he found her ladyship and another lady, but not Miss Egerton. Lady Tinemouth expressed her pleasure at this visit, and her surprise that it had been so long deferred.

"The pain of such an apparent neglect of your ladyship's goodness," replied he," has been added to my anxiety for the declining health of a friend, whose increased illness is my apology.

"I wish," returned her ladyship, her eyes beaming ap

probation," that all my friends could excuse their absence so well."

Perhaps they might if they chose," observed the other lady," and with equal sincerity."

'Thaddeus understood the incredulity couched under these words. So did Lady Tinemouth.

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However," rejoined she, "be satisfied Mr. Constantine, that I believe you sincere."

The Count bowed.

"Fie, Lady Tinemouth!" cried, the lady, "you are partial; nay, you are absurd; did you ever hear a man speak truth to a woman!"

"Lady Sara!" replied her ladyship, with one of those arch glances that 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.

Lady Tinemouth, whose fancy had not been quiet about him since chance had introduced him to her acquaintance, observed his present absence without noticing it. And, indeed, the fruitful imagination of Maria Egerton had not lain still. She declared," he was a soldier from his dress, a man of rank by his manners, an Appollo by his person, and a hero from his gallantry!"

Thus did Miss Egerton describe him to Lady Sara Roos; "and," added she, "what convinces me that he is a man of fashion, he has not been within these walls since we told him that we should take it as a favour."

Lady Sara had been eager to see this handsome stran. ger. Having previously determined to drop in at Lady Tinemouth's under some excuse or other, every morning, till her curiosity was gratified, she was not a little pleased when she heard his name announced.

Lady Sara was married; but she was also young and beautiful, and she liked that her power should be felt by others besides her husband. The instant she beheld the Count Sobieski, she formed the wish to entangle him in her chains. She learnt, by his pale countenance and

thoughtful air, that he was a melancholy character, and, above all things, she had sighed for such a lover. She expected to receive, from one of that cast, a tenderness, a devotedness: in short, a fervent, wild and romantic passion, which would feed on her sighs and its own fires to eternity. Thaddeus appeared to her to be the very creature of whom she had been in search. His abstraction, his voice and eyes, the one so touching, the other so neglectful of any thing but the ground, all were irresistible, and she resolved from that moment (in her own words) "to make a dead set at him."

Lady Tinemouth, not less pleased with this second view of her new acquaintance than she had been at the first, directed her discourse to him, accompanied by all that winning interest so endearing to a liberal heart. Whilst she was speaking, lady Sara, who never augured well to the success of her fascinations when the Countess addressed herself to any of her victims, tried every mean in her power to draw aside the attention of the count. She played with her ladyship's dog; but, that not succeeding, she determined to strike him at once with the elegance of her figure.-Complaining of the heat, she threw off a large green velvet mantle which she had on, and rising from the chair, walked towards the window.

When she looked round to enjoy her victory, she saw that this manœuvre had failed like the rest; for the provoking countess was still standing between her and Thaddeus. Almost angry, she flung open the sash, and putting her head out exclaimed in her best modulated tones:

"How d'ye do?"

"I hope your ladyship is well this morning!" was answered in the voice of Pembroke Somerset.

Thaddeus grew pale, and the countess feeling the cold, turned round to ask lady Sara to whom she was speaking. "To a pest of mine, my dear," returned she, and then stretching out her neck she resumed, "But where in the name of heaven, are you going, Somerset, with all that travelling apparatus ?"

"To Deerhurst; we are going to take lord Arun down. But I keep your ladyship in the cold. Good morning." "My compliments to Sir Robert. Good bye! Good