“Do you not know that?” exclaimed Orloff, with astonishment.
She sadly shook her head. “They would never tell it me,” said she. “But I have her image in my heart, and that, at least, I shall never lose or forget!”
“I knew your mother,” said Orloff; “she was beautiful as you are, and mild and merciful.”
“You knew her!” exclaimed the young maiden, grasping his hand and looking at him with a confiding friendliness. “Oh, you knew her! You will now be doubly dear to me, for those bright eyes have seen my mother, and perhaps this hand which now rests in mine has also touched hers!”
“That,” said Count Orloff, with a smile, “I should not have dared to do; it would have been high-treason!”
“Was she, then, so great a sublime a princess?” asked Natalie.
“She was an empress!”
“An empress!” And the young maiden, sprang up with beaming eyes and glowing cheeks. “My mother was an empress!” said she, breathing hard.
“Empress Elizabeth of Russia.”
Overcome by the feelings suddenly excited by this news, Natalie sank again upon her seat and covered her face with her hands. Tears gushed out between her delicate, slender fingers; her whole being was in violent, feverish commotion. Then, raising her arms toward heaven, with a celestial smile, while the tears overflowed her face, she said: “I am, then, no longer a homeless orphan; I have a fatherland, and my mother was an empress!”