FRIENDSHIP A STAFF IN HUMAN LIFE.
Pleased as the count was with the acquaintance to which his gallantry had introduced him, he did not repeat his visit for a long time.
A few mornings after his meeting with Lady Tinemouth, the hard frost broke up. The change in the atmosphere produced so alarming a relapse of the general's rheumatic fever, that his friend watched by his pillow ten days and nights. 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, and illustrating it with plans of the 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 scenes on which he delighted to dwell; yet he would often lay down his pen, shut the book, and weep like an infant.
The count left him one morning at his employment, and strolled out, with the intention of calling on Lady Tinemouth. As he walked along by Burlington House, he perceived Pembroke Somerset, with an elderly gentleman, of a very distinguished air, leaning on his arm. They approached him from 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 falter.
"But proofs," cried he to himself, "are absolute!" and turning his face to a stand of books that was near him, he stood there until Somerset had passed. He went past him, speaking these words—
"I trust, father, that ingratitude is not his vice."
"But it is yours, Somerset!" murmured Thaddeus, while 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 with 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,"