At
present, I have not sufficient hope to keep me in good-humor.
"Meet me this day week at Dantzic: I shall there embark for England.
You had best not bring the foreign servants with you; they might
blab. Discharge them at St. Petersburg, and hire a courier for
yourself, whom we may drop at the seaport.
"I have the honor to remain,
"Dear sir,
"Your most obedient servant,
PEMBROKE SOMERSET.
"VILLANOW, _September_, 1792."
When Somerset joined his friends at supper, and imparted to them the
commands of his father, an immediate change was produced in the
spirits of the party. During the lamentations of the ladies and the
murmurs of the young men, the countess tried to dispel the effects of
the information by addressing Pembroke with a smile, and saying, "But
we hope that you have seen enough at Villanow to tempt you back again
at no very distant period? Tell Lady Somerset you have left a second
mother in Poland, who will long to receive another visit from her
adopted son."
"Yes, my dear madam," returned he; "and I shall hope, before a very
distant period, to see those two kind mothers united as intimately by
friendship as they are in my heart."
Thaddeus listened with a saddened countenance. He had not been
accustomed to the thought of a long separation, and when he met it
now, he hardly knew how to proportion his uneasiness to the
privation.
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