[Illustration: LADY TINEMOUTH.]
"In such a night as this," said Thaddeus, in a low voice, as if afraid to disturb the sleeping deity of the place, "I used to walk the ramparts of Villanow with my dear departed mother, and gaze on that lovely orb; and when I was far from her, I have looked at it from the door of my tent, and fancying that her eyes were then fixed on the same object as mine, I found happiness in the idea."
A tear stole down the cheek of Thaddeus. That moon yet shone brightly; but his mother's eyes were closed in the grave.
"Villanow!" repeated the countess, in a tone of tender surprise; "surely that was the seat of the celebrated Palatine of Masovia! You have discovered yourself, Constantine! I am much mistaken if you be not his grandson, the young, yet far-famed, Thaddeus Sobieski?"
Thaddeus had allowed the remembrances pressing on his mind to draw him into a speech which had disclosed to the quick apprehension of the countess what his still too sensitive pride would forever have concealed.
"I have indeed betrayed my secret," cried he, incapable of denying it; "but, dear lady Tinemouth, as you value my feelings, never let it escape your lips. Having long considered you as my best friend, and loved you as a parent, I forgot, in the recollection of my beloved mother, that I had withheld any of my history from you."
"Mysterious Providence!" exclaimed her ladyship, after a pause, in which ten thousand admiring and pitying reflections thronged on her mind: "is it possible? 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."
"You are too young, dear Constantine, (for I am still to call you by that name,) to despair of happiness being yet reserved for you."
"No, my dear Lady Tinemouth, I do not cheat myself with such hope; I am not so importunate with the gracious Being who gave me life and reason. He bestowed upon me for awhile the tenderest connections— friends, rank, honors, glory. All these were crushed in the fall of Poland; yet I survive, I sought resignation only, and I have found it. It cost me many a struggle; but the contest was due to the decrees of that all-wise Creator who gave my first years to happiness."