Show the noble
Sobieski that you really deserve the devotion of a hero's heart--
deserves to be his consolation, who, in losing his mother, lost an
angel like yourself."
"Dear Pembroke," replied Miss Beaufort, wiping the gliding tears from
her burning cheek, "after the confession which you drew from me
yesterday, I will not deny that to be this to your friend would
render me the happiest of created beings; but I cannot believe what
your sanguine affection tells me. I cannot suppose, situated as I was
at Lady Dundas's, surrounded by frivolous and contemptible society,
that he could discover anything in me to warrant such a vanity. Every
way embarrassed as I was, disliking my companions, afraid of my own
interest in him, a veil was drawn over my mind, through which he
could neither judge of my good nor bad qualities. How, then, can I
flatter myself, or do the Count Sobieski so great an injury, as to
imagine that he could conceive any preference for so insignificant a
being as I must have appeared?"
It was some time before Pembroke could shake this prepossession of a
sincere humility from Miss Beaufort's mind. But after having set in
every possible light the terms with which his friend had spoken of
her, he at length convinced her of what her heart so earnestly wished
to believe--that the love of Sobieski was indeed hers.
Mr. Somerset's next achievement was to overcome her scruples against
sanctioning him with the commission he was bent on communicating to
Thaddeus.
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