those words which had arisen from a fear that, by an imprudent avowal on my part, I should risk both his happiness and my own. He informed me that he was heir to one of the first fortunes in England; he had pledged his honour with his father never to enter into any matrimonial engagement, without first acquainting him with the particulars of the lady and her family. Should he omit this duty, his father declared, that though she were a princess, he would disinherit him, and never again admit him to his presence.

“Consider this, my dear Therese,' continued he ; ' could you endure to behold me a beggar, and stigmatised with a parent's curse, when a little forbearance on your part would make all right? I know I have been hasty in acting as I have done, but now I cannot remedy my error. To-morrow I will write to my father, describe your rank and merits, and request his consent to our immediate marriage. The moment his permission arrives, I will cast myself on the palatine's friendship and reveal what has passed.' The tenderness of my husband blinded my reason; and with many tears, I sealed his forgiveness, and pledged my faith on his word.

"My dear deceived parent little suspected the perfidy of his guest. He detained him as his visitor; and often rallied himself on the hold which his distinguished accomplishments had taken on his esteem. Sackville's manner to me in public was obliging and free; it was in private only that I found the tender, the capricious, the unfeeling husband. Night after night I have washed the memory of my want of duty to my father with bitter tears; but my husband was dear to me, was more precious than my life: one kind look from him, one fond word, would solace every pain, and make me wait the arrival of his father's letter with all the gay anticipations of youth and love.

"A fortnight passed away. A month, a long and lingering month. Another month, and a packet of letters was presented to Sackville. He was at breakfast with us. At sight of the superscription he coloured, tore open the paper, ran his eyes over a few lines, and then, pale and trembling, rose from his seat and left the room. My emotions were almost uncontrollable. I had already half risen from my

chair to follow him, when the palatine exclaimed, 'What can be in that letter? Too plainly I see some afflicting tidings.' And without observing me, or waiting for a reply, he hurried out after him. I stole to my chamber, where, throwing myself on my bed, I tried, by all the delusions of hope, to obtain some alleviation from the pangs of suspense.

"The dinner bell roused me from my reverie. Dreading to excite suspicion, and anxious to read in the countenance of my husband the denunciation of our fate, I obeyed the summons, and descended to the dining-room. On entering it, my eyes irresistibly wandered round to fix themselves on Sackville. He was leaning against a pillar, his face pale as death. My father looked grave, but immediately took his seat, and tenderly placed his friend beside him. I sat down in silence. Little dinner was eaten, and few words spoken. As for myself, my agitations almost choked me. I felt that the first word I should attempt to pronounce must give them utterance, and that their vehemence would betray our fatal secret.

"When the servants withdrew, Sackville rose, and taking my father's hand, said, in a faltering voice, Count, I must leave you.''It is a wet evening,' replied the palatine; 'you are unwell-disturbed-stay till to-morrow!'— ' I thank your excellency,' answered he, but I must go to Florence to-night, You shall see me again before to-morrow afternoon all will then, I hope, be settled to my wish.' Sackville took his hat. Motionless, and incapable of speaking, I sat fixed to my chair, in the direct way that he must pass. His eye met mine. He stopped, and looked at me, abruptly caught my hand; then as abruptly quitting it, darted out of the room. I never saw him more.

I

"I had not the power to dissemble another moment. fell back, weeping, into the arms of my father. He did not, even by this imprudence, read what I almost wished him to guess; but, with all the indulgence of perfect confidence, lamented the distress of Sackville, and the sensibility of my nature, which sympathised so painfully with his friend. I durst not ask what was the distress of his friend; abashed at my duplicity to him, and overwhelmed with a thousand dreads, I obtained his permission to retire to my chamber,

"The next day I met him with a serene air, for I had schooled my heart to endure the sufferings it had deserved. The palatine did not remark my recovered tranquillity; neither did he appear to think any more of my tears; so entirely was he occupied in conjecturing the cause of Sackville's grief, who had acknowledged having received a great shock, but would not reveal the occasion. This ignorance of my father surprised me; and to all his suppositions I said little. My soul was too deeply interested in the subject to trust to the faithfulness of my lips.

"The morning crept slowly on, and the noon appeared to stand still. I anxiously watched the declining sun, as the signal for my husband's return. Two hours had elapsed since his promised time, and my father grew so impatient that he went out to meet him. I eagerly wished that they might miss each other. I should then see Sackville a few minutes alone, and by one word be comforted or driven to despair.

66

I was listening to every footstep that sounded under the colonnade, when my servant brought me a letter which had just been left by one of Mr. Sackville's grooms. I tore open the seal; and fell senseless on the floor, ere I had read half the killing contents-"

Thaddeus, with a burning cheek, and a heart all at once robbed of that elastic spring which till now had ever made him the happiest of the happy, took up the letter of his father. The paper was worn, and blistered with his mother's tears. His head seemed to swim as he contemplated the handwriting, and he said to himself, "Am I to respect or to abhor him ?" He proceeded in the perusal.

"To Therese, Countess Sobieski.

"How, Therese, am I to address you? But an attempt at palliating my conduct would be to no purpose, indeed it is impossible. You cannot conceive a viler opinion of me than I have of myself. I know that I forfeit all claim to honour; that I have sacrificed your tenderness to my distracted passions: but you shall no more be subject to the caprices of a man who cannot repay your love with his

own. You have no guilt to torture you; and you possess virtues which will render you tranquil under every calamity. I leave you to your own innocence. Forget the ceremony which has passed between us: my wretched heart disclaims it for ever. Your father is happily ignorant of it; pray spare him the anguish of knowing that I was so completely unworthy of his kindness; I feel that I am more than ungrateful to you and to him. Therese, your most inveterate hate cannot more strongly tell me, than I tell myself, that I have treated you like a villain. But I cannot retract. I am going where all search will be vain; and I now bid you an eternal farewell. May you be happier than ever can be the wretched, self-abhorring

"Florence.

"R. S

Thaddeus went on with his mother's narrative.

"When my senses returned I was lying on the ground, holding the half-perused paper in my hand. Grief and horror locked up the avenues of complaint, and I sat as one petrified to stone. My father entered. At the sight of me, he started as if he had seen a spectre. known features opened at once my agonised heart. With fearful cries I cast myself at his feet, and putting the letter into his hand, clung, almost expiring, to his knees.

His well

"When he had read it, he flung it from him, and dropping into a chair, covered his face with his hands. I looked up imploringly, for I could not speak. My father stooped forward, and raising me in his arms, pressed me to his bosom. My Therese,' said he, 'it is I who have done this. Had I not harboured this villain, he never could have had an opportunity of ruining the peace of my child.' In return for the unexampled indulgence of this speech, and his repeated assurances of forgiveness, I promised to forget a man who could have so little respect for gratitude, or his own honour. The palatine replied, that he expected such a resolution, in consequence of the principles which he had taught me; and to show me how far dearer to him was my real tranquillity than any false idea of impossible restitution, he would not remove even from one principality to another, were he sure by that means to discover

Mr. Sackville, and to avenge my wrongs. My understanding assented to the justice of all his reasoning; but long and severe were the struggles before I could erase from my soul the image of that being who had been the lord of all its joys and sorrows.

"It was not until you, my dear Thaddeus, were born that I could repay the goodness of my father with the smiles of cheerfulness. He would not permit me to give you any name which could remind him, or myself, of the cruel parent who gave you being; and by his desire I christened you Thaddcus Constantine, after himself, and his best-beloved friend General Kosciuszko. You have not yet seen that illustrious Polander, whose prescient watchfulness for his country has always kept him on the frontiers. He is now with the army at Winnica, whither you must soon go: in him you will see a second Sobieski. In him you may study one of the brightest models of patriotic and martial virtue that ever was presented to mankind. It may well be said of him,—' That he would have shone with distinguished lustre in the ages of chivalry.' Gallant, generous, and strictly just, he commands obedience by the reverence in which he is held, and attaches the troops to his person by the affability of his manners and the purity of his life. He teaches them discipline, endurance of fatigue, and contempt of danger, by his dauntless example; and inspires them with confidence, by his tranquillity in the tumult of action, and the invincible fortitude with which he meets the most adverse strokes of misfortune. His modesty in victory shows him to be one of the greatest among men; and his magnanimity under defeat confirms him to be little less than a god.

"Such is the man whose name you bear: how bitterly do I lament that the one to which nature gave you a claim, was so unworthy to be united with it, and that of my no less heroic father!

"On our return to Poland, the story which the palatine related, when questioned about my apparently forlorn state, was simply this: My daughter was married, and widowed in the course of two months. Since then, to root from her memory as much as possible all recollection

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