The dream-like amazement which enveloped the count's faculties after the preceding scene was dissipated next morning by the appearance of Dr. Cavendish. When he saw the general, he declared it to be his opinion that, in consequence of his long and tranquil slumbers, some favorable crisis seemed near. "Probably," added he, "the recovery of his intellects. Such phenomena in these cases often happen immediately before death."

"Heaven grant it may in this!" ejaculated Thaddeus; "to hear his venerable voice again acknowledge that I have acted by him as became the grandson of his friend, would be a comfort to me."

"But, sir," replied the kind physician, touching his burning hand, "you must not forget the cares which are due to your own life. If you wish well to the general during the few days he may have to live, you are indispensably obliged to preserve your own strength. You are already ill, and require air. I have an hour of leisure," continued he, pulling out his watch; "I will remain here till you have taken two or three walks round St. James's Park. It is absolutely necessary; in this instance I must take the privilege of friendship, and insist on obedience."

Seeing the benevolent Cavendish would not be denied, Thaddeus took his hat, and with harassed spirits walked down the lane towards Charing Cross.

On entering Spring Garden gate, to his extreme surprise the first objects that met his sight were Miss Euphemia Dundas and Miss Beaufort.

Euphemia accosted him with ten thousand inquiries respecting his friend, besides congratulations on his own good looks.

Thaddeus bowed; then smiling faintly, turned to the blushing Mary, who, conscious of what had passed in the late conversation between herself and Lady Tinemouth, trembled so much that, fearing to excite the suspicion of Euphemia by such tremor, she withdrew her arm, and walked forward alone, tottering at every step.

"I thought, Miss Beaufort," said he, addressing himself to her, "that
Lady Tinemouth was to have had the happiness of your company at
Harwold Park?"

"Yes," returned she, fearfully raising her eyes to his face, the hectic glow of which conveyed impressions to her different from those which Euphemia expressed; "but to my indescribable alarm and disappointment, the morning after I had written to fix my departure with her ladyship, my aunt's foot caught in the iron of the stair- carpet as she was coming down stairs, and throwing her from the top to the bottom, broke her leg. I could not quit her a moment during her agonies; and the surgeons having expressed their fears that a fever might ensue, I was obliged altogether to decline my attendance on the countess."

"And how is Miss Dorothy?" inquired Thaddeus, truly concerned at the accident.

"She is better, though confined to her bed," replied Euphemia, speaking before her companion could open her lips; "and, indeed, poor Mary and myself have been such close nurses, my mother insisted on our walking out to-day."

"And Lady Tinemouth," returned Thaddeus, again addressing Miss
Beaufort, "of course she went alone?"

"Alas, yes!" replied she; "Miss Egerton was forced to join her family in Leicestershire."

"I believe," cried Euphemia, sighing, "Miss Egerton is going to be married. Hers has been a long attachment. Happy girl! I have heard Captain Ross say (whose lieutenant her intended husband was) that he is the finest young man in the navy. Did you ever see Mr. Montresor?" added she, turning her pretty eyes on the count.

"I never had that pleasure."

"Bless me! that is odd, considering your intimacy with Miss Egerton.
I assure you he is very charming."

Thaddeus neither heard this nor a great deal more of the same trifling chit-chat which was slipping from the tongue of Miss Euphemia, so intently were his eyes (sent by his heart) searching the downcast but expressive countenance of Miss Beaufort. His soul was full; and the fluctuations of her color, with the embarrassment of her step, more than affected him.

"Then you do not leave town for some time, Miss Beaufort?" inquired he; "I may yet anticipate the honor of seeing—" he hesitated a moment, then added in a depressed tone—"your aunt, when I next wait on the Misses Dundas."

"Our stay depends entirely on her health" returned she, striving to rally herself; "and I am sure she will be happy to find you better; for I am sorry to say I cannot agree with Euphemia in thinking you look well."

"Merely a slight indisposition," replied he, "the effect of an anxiety which I fear will too soon cease in the death of its cause. I came out now for a little air, whilst the physician remains with my revered friend."

"Poor old gentleman!" sighed Mary; "how venerable was his appearance the morning in which we saw him in the Park! What a benign countenance!"

"His countenance," replied Thaddeus, his eyes turning mournfully towards the lovely speaker, "is the emblem of his character. He was the most amiable of men."

"And you are likely to lose so interesting a friend; dear Mr. Constantine, how I pity you!" While Euphemia uttered these words, she put the corner of her glove to her eye.

The count looked at her, and perceiving that her commiseration was affectation, he turned to Miss Beaufort, who was walking pensively by his side, and made further inquiries respecting Miss Dorothy. Anxious to be again with his invalid, he was preparing to quit them, when Mary, as with a full heart she curtseyed her adieu, in a hurried and confused manner, said—"Pray, Mr. Constantine, take care of yourself. You have other friends besides the one you are going to lose. I know Lady Tinemouth, I know my aunt—" She stopped short, and, covered with blushes, stood panting for another word to close the sentence; when Thaddeus, forgetting all presence but her own, with delighted precipitancy caught hold of the hand which, in her confusion, was a little extended towards him, and pressing it with fervor, relinquished it immediately; then, overcome by confusion at the presumption of the action, he bowed with agitation to both ladies, and hastened through the Friary passage into St. James's Street.

"Miss Beaufort!" cried Euphemia, reddening with vexation, and returning a perfumed handkerchief to her pocket, "I did not understand that you and Mr. Constantine were on such intimate terms!"

"What do you mean, Euphemia?"

"That you have betrayed the confidence I reposed in you," cried the angry beauty, wiping away the really starting tears with her white lace cloak. "I told you the elegant Constantine was the lord of my heart; and you have seduced him from me! Till you came, he was so respectful, so tender, so devoted! Bat I am rightly used! I ought to have carried my secret to the grave."

In vain Miss Beaufort protested; in vain she declared herself ignorant of possessing any power over even one wish of Constantine's. Euphemia thought it monstrous pretty to be the injured friend and forsaken mistress; and all along the Park, and up Constitution-hill, until they arrived at Lady Dundas's carriage, which was waiting opposite Devonshire wall, she affected to weep. When seated, she continued her invectives. She called Miss Beaufort ungenerous, perfidious, traitor to friendship, and every romantic and disloyal name which her inflamed fancy could devise; till the sight of Harley Street checked her transports, and relieved her patient hearer from a load of impertinence and reproach.

During this short interview, Thaddeus had received an impulse to his affections which hurried them forward with a force that neither time nor succeeding sorrows could stop nor stem.

Mary's heavenly-beaming eyes seemed to have encircled his head with love's purest halo. The command, "Preserve yourself for others besides your dying friend," yet throbbed at his heart; and with ten thousand rapturous visions flitting before his sight, he trod in air, until the humble door of his melancholy home presenting itself, at once wrecked the illusion, and offered sad reality in the person of his emaciated friend.

On the count's entrance to the sick chamber, Doctor Cavendish gave him a few directions to pursue when the general should awake from the sleep into which he had been sunk for so many hours. With a heart the more depressed from its late unusual exaltation, Thaddeus sat down at the side of the invalid's bed for the remainder of the day.

At five in the afternoon, General Butzou awoke. Seeing the count, he stretched out his withered hand, and as the doctor predicted, accosted him rationally.

"Come, dear Sobieski! Come nearer, my dear master."

Thaddeus rose, and throwing himself on his knees, took the offered hand with apparent composure. It was a hard struggle to restrain the emotions which were roused by this awful contemplation the return of reason to the soul on the instant she was summoned into the presence of her Maker!

"My kind, my beloved lord!" added Butzou, "to me you have indeed performed a Christian's part; you have clothed, sheltered and preserved me in your bosom. Blessed son of my most honored master!"

The good old man put the hand of Thaddeus to his lips. Thaddeus could not speak.

"I am going, dear Sobieski," continued the general, in a lower voice, "where I shall meet your noble grandfather, your mother, and my brave countrymen; and if Heaven grants me power, I will tell them by whose labor I have lived, on whose breast I have expired."

Thaddeus could no longer restrain his tears.

"Dear, dear general!" exclaimed he, grasping his hand; "my grandfather, my mother, my country! I lose them all again in thee! O! would that the same summons took me hence!"

"Hush!" returned the dying man; "Heaven reserves you, my honored lord, for wise purposes. Youth and health are the marks of commission: [Footnote: I cannot but pause here, in revising the volume, to publicly express the emotion (grateful to Heaven) I experienced on receiving a letter quoting these words, many, many years ago. It was from the excellent Joseph Fox, the well-known Christian philanthropist of our country, who spent both his fortune and his life in establishing and sustaining several of our best charitable and otherwise patriotic institutions. And once, when some of his anxious friends would gladly have persuaded him to grant himself more personal indulgences, and to labor less in the then recently-begun plans for national education, he wrote "to the author of Thaddeus of Warsaw," and, quoting to her those words from the work, declared "they were on his heart! and he would, with the blessing of God, perform what he believed to be his commission to the last powers of his youth and health."

This admirable man has now been long removed to his heavenly country— to the everlasting dwelling-place of the just made perfect. And such recollections cannot but make an historical novel-writer at least feel answerable for more, in his or her pages, than the purposes of mere amusement. They guide by examples. Plutarch, in his lives of Grecian and Roman Worthies taught more effectually the heroic and virtuous science of life than did all his philosophical works put together.] you possess them, with virtues which will bear you through the contest. I have done; and my merciful Judge has evinced his pardon of my errors by sparing me in my old age, and leading me to die with you."

Thaddeus pressed his friend's hand to his streaming eyes, and promised to be resigned. Butzou smiled his satisfaction; then closing his eyelids, he composed himself to a rest that was neither sleep nor stupor, but a balmy serenity, which seemed to be tempering his lately recovered soul for its immediate entrance on a world of eternal peace.

At nine o'clock his breath became broken with quick sighs. The count's heart trembled, and he drew closer to the pillow. Butzou felt him; and opening his eyes languidly, articulated, "Raise my head."

Thaddeus put his arm under his neck, and lifting him up, reclined him against his bosom. Butzou grasped his hands, and looking gratefully in his face, said, "The arms of a soldier should be a soldier's death-bed. I am content."

He lay for a moment on the breast of the almost fainting Thaddeus; then suddenly quitting his hold, he cried, "I lose you, Sobieski! But there is——" and he gazed fixedly forward.

"I am here," exclaimed the count, catching his motionless hand. The dying general murmured a few words more, and turning his face inward, breathed his last sigh on the bosom of his last friend.

For a minute Sobieski continued incapable of thought or action. When he recovered recollection, he withdrew from his melancholy station. Laying the venerable remains back on the bed, he did not trust his rallied faculties with a second trial, but hastening down stairs, was met by Mrs. Robson.

"My dear madam," said he, "all is over with my poor friend. Will you do me the kindness to perform those duties to his sacred relics which I cannot?"

Thaddeus would not allow any person to watch by his friend's coffin besides himself. The meditations of this solitary night presented to his sound and sensible mind every argument rather to induce rejoicing than regret that the eventful life of the brave Butzou was terminated.

"Yes, illustrious old man!" cried he, gazing on his marble features; "if valor and virtue be the true sources of nobility, thou surely wast noble! Inestimable defender of Stanislaus and thy country! thou hast run a long and bright career; and though thou art fated to rest in the humble grave of poverty, it will be embalmed by the tears of Heaven—it will be engraven on my heart."

Thaddeus did not weep whilst he spoke. Nor did he weep when he beheld the mold of St. Paul's, Covent Garden, close from his view the last remains of his friend. It began to rain. The uncovered head of the officiating minister was wet; and so was that of a little delicate boy, in a black cloak, who stood near, holding the aged rector's hat during the service. As the shower descended faster, Dr. Cavendish put his arm through the count's to draw him away, but he lingered an instant, looking on the mold while the sexton piled it up. "Wretched Poland!" sighed he; "how far from thee lies one of thy bravest sons!" The words were breathed in so low a murmur, that none heard them except the ear of Heaven! and that little boy, whose gaze had been some time fixed on Thaddeus, and whose gentle heart never forgot them.

Dr. Cavendish, regarding with redoubled pity the now doubly desolated exile in this last resignation of his parental friend to a foreign grave, attempted to persuade him to return with him to dinner. He refused the kind invitation, alleging, with a faint smile, that under every misfortune he found his best comforter in solitude.

Respecting the resignation and manliness of this answer, Doctor Cavendish urged him no further; but expressing his regret that he could not see him again until the end of the week, as he was obliged to go to Stanford next day on a medical consultation, he shook hands with him at the door of Mrs. Robson and bade him farewell.

Thaddeus entered his lonely room, and fell on his knees before the "ark of his strength,"—the Holy Book, that had been the gift of his mother. The first page he opened presented to him the very words which had poured consolation onto his sad heart, from the lips of the venerable clergyman when he met him on his entrance into the church- porch before the coffin of his friend!

"I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord. He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth, and believeth in me, shall never die."

After reading this, how truly did the young mourner feel that "Death had lost its sting—the grave its victory."

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