The beneficent old man, with a polished sincerity, declared his high gratification at this visit from the Count Sobieski, brought to him by the gracious lady who so deservedly shared his illustrious name. Thaddeus, with his usual modest dignity, received the implied compliment, and expressed his just sense of the deep obligation conferred on him and his countess by the last consecrated rite to the memory of his most revered friend.
Mary was then seated on an old-fashioned silk-embroidered settee, opposite to the flower-latticed bay-window of the apartment. The rector, with a courteous bow, which in his youth would have been called graceful, as if confident of a permitted privilege, placed himself beside her, while observing to her lord, in reply to these unfeigned thanks, that, "the reported name alone of the veteran patriot who lay there had not ceased from the day of his interment to attract, shrine-like, the pilgrim feet of many persons to the spot who respected and bewailed the fate of Poland."
Sobieski's cheek flushed and his eye kindled at this testimony. To change a subject which he found wrought too powerfully on the recently-regained serenity of his mind, he affectionately inquired for the amiable boy he had seen take so touching an interest in the mournful errand to the church-yard on that ever-remembered day, and who, like a ministering seraph, had so guardingly watched the exposed head of his revered master, under the pitiless element then pouring down.
"He is my nephew," returned the rector, in a tone of tenderness: "Lord Edward Fitz-James. He is in delicate health; the youngest son of my eldest brother, the Marquis Fitz-James, who married late in life. Edward is, indeed, what he appears, a spirit of innocent, happy love, or of condoling commiseration, wherever his gentle footsteps move. And when I rejoin him this autumn, at his father's house in Scotland, and shall tell him that the never-forgotten chief mourner at that simple bier, with whom his own young tears fell in spontaneous sympathy, was the Count Sobieski—a kinsman of his own, whose character was already known to him in its youthful fame and by its honored name—what will be that meek child's exulting ecstasy!"
"A kinsman of that noble boy!" echoed Thaddeus, in surprise. "How may
I flatter myself it can be so?"
Mary simultaneously uttered an amazed ejaculation of pleasure at the idea of any real relationship between that venerable man and herself; and he, with an answering look of kindred respect on both the astonished husband and his bride, replied to the former with the unstudied brevity of truth.
"A few sentences will explain it, for I consider it unnecessary to remind my present auditors of two great events in their respective countries. First, with regard to England; the change of royal succession in the Stuart line, from the branch of which James the Second was the head, to that of Brunswick-a backward step, originating in Elizabeth of Bohemia, the daughter of James the First, and therefore, the aunt of James the Second. At the height of these eventful circumstances, the offended sovereign retired with his exemplary queen and their infant son to the continent. There the royal boy continued to be styled, by his father's adherents, James Prince of Wales, but in the general world was usually known by the cognizance of the Chevalier St. George.
"This is the first link in our bracelet, noble lady!" observed the narrator, with a smile, and then proceeded. "I now advance to my second part, the crisis of which took place in Poland, about the same period. At the death of the great John Sobieski, King of Poland, the father of his people, there arose a deep-rooted conspiracy in certain neighboring states, jealous of his late power and glorious name, determining to undermine the accession of his family to the throne; and they found an apt soil to work on in a corresponding feeling ready to break out amongst some of the most influential nobles of the realm. Foreign and domestic revolutionists soon understand each other; and the dynasty of Sobieski being speedily overturned by the double treason of pretended friends and false allies, his three princely sons withdrew from occasioning the dire conflict of a civil war, two into distant lands, the other to the ancestral patrimony, in provinces far from the intrigues of ambition or the temptation of its treacherous lures.
"The two elder brothers, in a natural indignation against the popular ingratitude, took the expatriating destination. But Constantine, the youngest born, with the calm dignity of a son without other desired inheritance than the honor of such a parent, retired to the tranquil seclusion of the castled domain of Olesko, the ancient fortified palace of his progenitors, on the Polish border of Red Russia; and there, in philosophic quiet, he passed his blameless days with science and the arts, and in deeds of true Christian benevolence-the purport of his life. This respected seclusion was ultimately sweetly cheered when "woman smiled" upon it, in the form of a fair daughter of a neighboring magnate in the adjacent province, whose noble retirement, sharing the same patriotic principles with those of Constantine, yielded to the young philosopher a lovely helpmate for him.
"Prince James, his eldest brother, had meanwhile married a sister of their early associate in arms, the brave Charles of Newburg, when under the royal banner of Sobieski, in the memorable field of Vienna. Alexander, the second son, also met with a distinguished bride in Germany. Both princes were accomplished and handsome men; but one of our countrymen, contemporary and family physician to the late king, familiarly describes them in his curious reminiscences, thus:—'His majesty possessed a fine figure; he was tall and graceful. The nobleness and elevation of his soul were deeply depicted in his countenance and air. Prince James is dark-complexioned, slender in person, and more like a Spaniard than a Pole; he is very social, courteous and liberal. Alexander is of more manly proportions, and of a true Sarmatian physiognomy. But Constantine is an exact likeness of the king, his father.'" [Footnote: The writer of this note has seen a magnificent picture of that glorious king, a full length, the stature of life. It was nobly painted by an artist of the period.]