"Announced that all was going on well at home; and it is precisely because my lord is desirous of expressing as early as possible his entire satisfaction, that he wishes a courier to be despatched this very day to Prince Herkhaüsen-Oldenzaal, Chief of the Supreme Council."
"That is so like his royal highness; were it to blame instead of commend, he would observe less haste."
"Nothing new has transpired with us, my dear baron,—nothing at all. Our mysterious adventures—"
"Are wholly unknown. You know that, since the arrival of his royal highness in Paris, his friends have become used to see him but little in public; it is understood that he prefers seclusion, and is in the habit of making frequent excursions to the environs of Paris, and, with the exception of the Countess Sarah Macgregor and her brother, no person is aware of the disguises assumed by his royal highness; and neither of the personages I have mentioned have the smallest interest in betraying the secret."
"Ah! my dear baron," exclaimed Murphy, heaving a deep sigh, "what an unfortunate thing it is that this accursed countess should be left a widow at this very important moment!"
"She was married, I think, in 1827 or 1828?"
"In 1827, shortly after the death of the unfortunate child, who would now be in her sixteenth or seventeenth year, and whose loss his royal highness seems daily more to deplore."
"Far more so, indeed, than he appears to feel for the loss of his legitimate offspring."
"And thus, my dear baron, we may account for the deep interest his royal highness takes in the poor Goualeuse, arising as it does from the fact that the daughter so deeply deplored would, had she lived, have been precisely the same age as this unfortunate young creature."
"It is, indeed, an unfortunate affair that the Countess Sarah, from whom we fancied we were for ever freed, should have become a widow exactly eighteen months after his royal highness had been deprived by death of the wife with whom he had passed years of wedded happiness. The countess, I am persuaded, looks upon this double freedom from all marriage vows as a signal intervention of Providence to further her views."