Louis re-opened his eyes on a superb couch, in a magnificent bed-chamber, and surrounded by the physicians who had accompanied the suite of his father from Madrid. A few minutes more restored him the possession of all his faculties; and looking around, he did not seek in vain for the noble form, whose parental embrace was yet warm on his heart. Seeing that his son was recovered, the Duke made a sign for every person to leave the room. Louis was going to rise, but his father checked him by a motion of his hand; and drawing near him, sat down by his side.

They were now alone. The Duke had taken his hand.—Louis kissed it reverentially. "Ah, my father!" cried he, "if words could utter all that is in my soul, towards your honoured self! Revered for your own sake,—sacred for that of my angelic mother!" Tears bathed the hand, which he sealed again with a son's devoted lips.

"Louis," said the Duke. Louis started, and looked around, and then turned to his father. Ripperda silently regarded the enquiring movements of his son.

"Sir," said Louis, "did I not hear the Sieur Ignatius speak to me?"

"You heard the voice of your father," returned the Duke, and he smiled. It was the smile which Louis had never beheld on other mouth but one! He gazed on his father's face with searching amazement. Ripperda still wore his plumed hat. He took it off, to submit himself the more completely to the inspection of his son. Louis felt that the voice and smile were those of the dark-visaged and reserved Ignatius; but the face, on which he now looked, was refulgent with manly beauty, and the undisguised consciousness of high desert. Though the resemblance was so extraordinary in two respects, yet, as in every other point the dissimilarity was as striking, Louis had no suspicion of the truth; and concluding that the Jesuit was some illustrious Spanish branch of the Ripperda family, he earnestly replied,—"but where is the Sieur? Your voice, my father, is so exactly his, I guess I must revere him as a near relation, as well as your steadfast friend! But where is he? For many reasons, I am anxious to know that he is safe."

"He is safe," returned the Duke, "and it gives me no small satisfaction that you have been obliged to ask that question of me."

"Oh, Sir," replied his son, "though I might not always conduct myself in the manner the Sieur Ignatius would approve; yet, I had hoped you could not doubt that I would eventually give him all my reverence."

"I did not refer to that," resumed the Duke, "but, as you had suspicions respecting the real situation and authority of that man; and did not misconceive the character of your father; when, through all the long months in which you obeyed commands that would not suffer an appeal; and you so often doubted that the Baron de Ripperda could really submit his son to such uncontrolable delegated power; how did it happen, that you never suspected the mysterious Ignatius, and your father to be one and the same person?"

"How?" exclaimed Louis, hardly conscious that he had spoken, while, in hesitating astonishment his eye hastily scanned the august form before him. It was indeed like that of Ignatius, majestic in every proportion, but with more meridian vigour, with a more gracious air of command. No trace of age discomposed the lofty symmetry of his figure; no mark of time was visible on his capacious brow; cleared from the darkening dye with which he had stained his complexion and his hair, his eyes shone bright as the heavens, which their hue resembled. On the side of his forehead, under the hair, Louis could discern the scar which had been inflicted under the portico of the Jesuits' College. He shuddered at what might have been the issue of that stroke; and thought what would have been his agony, had he known that it was his father's hand which closed so deathfully upon his, in the dark chamber of murder. He could not speak, but his eyes and quivering lip, told all that was passing in his mind.

"It was necessary," resumed the Duke, "that the negotiation with Austria should be managed with dispatch and secrecy. The Queen proposed that I should undertake it in disguise. I left Madrid under an ostensible rumour, that I was gone to Russia on an affair connected with the Baltic trade. At the place of usual embarkation, I dismissed all my attendants, excepting Castanos and Martini. They were essential to my proceedings. In the same day, I assumed the habit of a Jesuit; and with my credentials disposed about my person, made my way to Vienna. Besides the persons I have named, the Empress Elizabeth alone was privy to my disguise. Her confidence in me inspired the idea of the negociation; and her own interest in some of its articles warranted my faith in her secrecy;—our success, you know. But while I was effecting these great objects for my country, I chose the opportunity to give my son his first lesson in the science to which fate has destined him. Louis, I am fully satisfied with all you then performed. But you have yet much to learn, and more to practise. You are now to be plunged into the world, to stem the eddies of two contending vortices, duty and pleasure! Mark me, and write on the tablets of your heart what I am going to say. Use the one, to serve the other! But let me see that your choice will be that of Hercules. You will meet many to persuade you to the contrary; but remember, you may have a prompt guide in him who has most interest in your welfare; therefore, Louis, I ask your fearless confidence?"

While Ripperda continued to speak, his son thought within himself; if my father were disguised in the sombre vestments of the Jesuit, his spirit was even under a darker mask; I cannot recognise the harsh and despotic Ignatius, in the mild exhortations of this gracious parent!

"Oh, my father!" exclaimed he, throwing himself on the Duke's bosom, "you have your son's heart!—and in that, where is the thought that can be hidden from you!"

Ripperda smiled, "Louis," said he, "these impassioned emotions may be convincing witnesses of your southern origin!—but you must imitate your father; and temper your Spanish blood with some of the phlegm of the country in which you received your education. With one half of mankind, this sort of feeling would be ridiculed, because not understood, while those who could comprehend it, would watch it as the betrayer of your secrets, and manage it to the establishment of their own. The heart is man's citadel, it is only open country with feeble woman! And perhaps, there is too much of her nature in all vehement expressions of sensibility!"

Louis coloured, as checked in heart, he raised himself from his father's arms. "Sir," said he, "I dared to shew these sensibilities to my father, because I trusted he knew I was not wanting in the mental strength to prove myself a man."

"True, Louis; but that is a character which ought not to require occasional proofs. It should be manifest in the unvarying equability of your conduct."

Louis looked on his father.

"One of my books is the human countenance;" resumed the Duke, "and your's is very legible at present. I do not require you to change your constitution, but to control its impulses. Endearments are rejected between man and man, because they admit hypocrisy. All can affect to caress; but the sober aspect of real fidelity is not easily assumed. In temperate discourse you look into your companion's eyes, and read his soul. But when the heart is shewn, by the agitation of the nerves, and the head is thrown on the bosom; how can you then find an avenue to the mind? Man, therefore, demands of man, the open, unreserved countenance; and leaves to woman, that caressing enthusiasm, which may either express tenderness, veil modesty, or mask a deceptious heart. Hence, my son, we are oftener deceived in love than friendship; but you must beware of both."

Louis was agitated by the concluding remark. It recalled the image of the Countess, and the last scene wherein he beheld her, which made him wish to forget the rest: quelling, however, every appearance of disturbance, and only returning the kind pressure of his father's hand; with more emphasis than he intended, he exclaimed, "in all things, honoured Sir, I will strive to be obedient to your counsels. But do not despise the expressions of an affection, which would not know a dearer object than yourself!"

"I do not despise, but I restrain them; for you must be habituated to self-command. Cherish the confidence that you now possess. Let me be, indeed, the repository of all your thoughts; and though, in some cases, I may disapprove, you shall never have cause to remember the Sieur Ignatius in your father."

The smile which had so often lightened from the dark lip of the Sieur, now beamed in sun-like radiance over the bright countenance of Ripperda. Louis could have thrown himself again into his arms, and pressed to his grateful bosom, the gracious heart of his father; but he remembered the lesson he had received, and merely clasped his hand to his lips.

Ripperda passed the remainder of the time in which he sat with his son, in giving him instructions relative to their present situation at Vienna. He told him, that in right of his restored rank, he was now Marquis de Montemar; and to honour his father's services in this momentous embassy Their Majesties of Spain had appointed him Secretary of Legation.

"You are young for so responsible an office," continued he; "but the Queen knows how ably you fulfilled my duties, during my wounds; and herself suggested to the King, rewarding your zeal by so answerable an appointment. The courts of both countries are ignorant of this reason; therefore, you must make up in dignity of deportment, what you want in years; and, to common eyes, in previous service. The world is governed by appearance."

Ripperda then spoke on the causes and terms of his re-union with Spain. And with some astonishment, and more regret, Louis comprehended that his father had also been received into the pale of its established church. Louis ventured to express his sentiments on this communication.

"It was my original religion," returned the Duke, "the free-thinking spirit of independence had betrayed me in youth to the cavils of Reformation, but time and study reconciled me to the faith of my ancestors. Two learned Jesuits at Madrid completed the work, and I am now as good a Catholic as any in the Spanish dominions. The same masters may convert my son; and then, Louis, I shall have no wish ungratified."

"I was born a protestant, Sir;" replied Louis, "and I believe I shall die one."

"Be what your conscience dictates," returned the Duke, "only remember that your father and your king are Catholics; and you will not fail in honour to their church."

Louis bowed his head in respectful acquiescence. The Duke soon after withdrew to his chamber of audience. Many of the old Spanish settlers in Austria, who had been oppressed there since the changed succession in Spain, were in waiting, to petition the ambassador of their ancient country, to interfere with the Imperial court in their behalf.

Titles were never points in the ambition of Louis but as they were symbols of pre-eminence in nobler respects; he, therefore, was not insensible to the satisfaction of having the alienated honours of his race restored to him by the virtues of his father. Such were his thoughts, when the subject occurred to him; but when the Duke de Ripperda first left the room, the mind of his son was wholly absorbed in the happiness of having at last seen, and conversed with, and been received to the heart of such a parent. That the stern Ignatius, from whom he had shrunk, while he revered him, and this benignant parent were one, amazed, while it called forth all his gratitude to heaven for the preservation of that parent through the perils of his disguise.

As he meditated on the complete change which had taken place in his father, since he had dismissed the garb of the Jesuit; and recollected the lessons he had received from him in both characters;—from the one, on the policy of assuming the thing that is not; and from the other, the recent injunction to conceal his real feelings;—he conceived a hope that the Duke de Ripperda might not be so averse to the Duke of Wharton, as the Sieur Ignatius had thought it expedient to represent. In his next discourse with his father, he determined to name the Duke; for in spite of the late reproof to his indulged sensibility, his heart yearned to utter all its affection and gratitude to the friend, who had rewarded his repeated apparent insulting avoidance, by twice having been his preserver.

After the Duke de Ripperda dismissed his Spanish suppliants, he repaired to a private council of the Austrian ministers, to discuss the preliminaries to his public reception by Their CÆsarean Majesties. Louis did not leave his apartments, till he heard the wheels of his father's carriage in the court-yard. It was then near ten o'clock at night, and the colonades and palace were lit up in every direction with lamps and chandeliers.

He hastened towards the great saloon, and met the Duke in the anti-room.—They entered together. Several persons were present, who greeted Ripperda with an equal air of deference, though with different degrees of ceremonial obeisance. Their personal ranks were distinctly marked in each individual demeanour; and when the Duke introduced Louis as his son, they paid him compliments, which the young Marquis answered with little more than respectful bows. His father immediately led the way to the supper-room; and he, with the rest of the company, followed through a suite of superb chambers lined with attendants. The entertainment was served in a style to which the Duke was accustomed, but which was novel to his son. The simple elegance of his Pastor-Uncle's table possessed every comfort; the hospitable board at Athelstone and Bamborough groaned with the weight of the feast; and the feudal state he had seen at the banquets of the chiefs of Scotland, was that of plenty with barbarous festivity;—but here, all that was elegant and hospitable, stately and grand, were united in one assemblage of courtly magnificence.

The manners of Ripperda to his company were like his entertainment.—None could forget that he was the first man at table; but the condescending graces of his conversation, and a peculiar address, to which only the individual to whom it was pointed could be conscious, charmed all that were present, with a conviction that each one in particular was his especial favourite. Louis's spirits were so absorbed in attention to his father's eloquent discourse on a variety of subjects, addressed to himself and others, that he spoke very little; and thought the time had flown, when the Duke rose from his chair, and the party, obeying the signal, bade him adieu for the night. When Louis was preparing to follow, his father stopped him.

"I am pleased with your general deportment this evening," said he. "The dignified respect with which you treated those persons, (who, though holding subordinate situations to yourself in the embassy, are your seniors in years, and all of them men of family;) while it maintains your own superiority, will conciliate their good-will; and propitiate the envy that might busy itself in search of your faults."

"Sir," said Louis, blushing at the implied arrogance, "I had no idea of shewing any thing to those gentlemen, but simple respect. And I am sorry that what I had no thought of should have appeared in my manner, to lessen the expression of that sentiment."

Ripperda shook his head, but not with gravity.

"I know you are a man of nice distinctions; and, that on the meaning of some terms, you and I have yet to agree. But I will trust your humility in some respects, to your haughtiness in others."

"My father?" exclaimed Louis. The Duke smiled.

"Ignatius might help us on this subject!" said he; "but I wish to speak with you about another order of persons. To-morrow you will be introduced to young men of the highest rank in Spain, the sons of Spanish Grandees of the first order. Wishing to see Vienna, they are nominally attached to this embassy; and though residing where they please, have places every day at my table. These you must treat with the suavity of equality and confidence; but beware of really giving them your friendship, or your trust. They are your future rivals with your sovereign. At present, their pursuit is pleasure. And, while you steadily keep your eye upon the one aim of your life—honourable distinction! to these young men you must appear as inclined to folly as themselves."

Louis's bright eye turned on his father.

"It is even so!" continued the Duke, "you must lull the circumventing watchfulness of their ambitious fathers, by seeming to share the dissipation of their sons. Me, they know, they dare not touch. But were you to appear all that I trust you are or will be, their roused jealousy would seize the accessible point; and through you, they would seek to undermine the new superstructure I am raising to the glory of the house of Ripperda. Seem, therefore, careless of advancement, and eager for pleasure; and they may quietly submit to the growth of your early honours, when they are made to believe that your encreasing folly will render them the last. Use this caution now, and a time is not far distant, when you may shew yourself in these respects, according to the sentiments which direct your present questioning looks; if, indeed, such sentiments will then be yours. They are going through an ordeal. You must prepare yourself for trials of a different nature from those you found so galling at the Chateau de Phaffenberg. There, you had only to endure; here, you are called upon to endure and to resist:—to endure, nay to court temptation; and to resist, and overcome it. You must be in the midst of every pleasure that can seduce or intoxicate the senses of man; and you must see, and taste all, without allowing yourself to feel it enjoyment. To derive enjoyment, is to yield independence; and you must be independent of all, but the resources within yourself."

Ripperda's voice sounded to his son like that of a trumpet. He loved to feel his strength; to struggle, and to conquer; though the war might only be in his own bosom. He listened, and longed for an opportunity of proving to his father, that whatever might be his sensibilities, he had no effeminacy in his soul. The Duke continued.—

"Your father does all that to which he exhorts you. He draws every one to his purpose, without permitting any thing to fix a link on him. From the age of twenty-one, I have been master of myself; and, from that circumstance, master of every human being, on whom I turned my eye, to do me service. From being the son of a banished man; and alienated from the land and honours of my race; I became a soldier, a statesman, a counsellor of nations! The country which had exiled my father, solicited the return of his son! And now, the progress of my undeviating career, has brought me to the restoration of all the rights of my name; and raised it to a reputation, that is only bounded by the limits of the civilized world! Louis what I am, you must be."

During this speech, Louis, more than once saw the proud and lightning glance of the Sieur Ignatius. He felt an answering triumph; for the throes of an eager emulation were busy in his youthful heart. Unconsciously, his countenance reflected all his father's; for then, perhaps, there was not a sentiment within him, that was not absorbed in the single blaze of ambition. The Duke rose, speaking his last sentence; and with so undefinable an air of even fearful grandeur, that, for a moment, he seemed transformed a third time before his son. But the next instant, turning from the door to which he had advanced, the awful splendours of his countenance were softened into the agreeable light of general complacency; and, in his usual tone, he bade Louis retire to his chamber; and be ready, at a certain hour on the morrow, to accompany his official presentation to the Emperor.