With these recollections had arisen the image of the pale,
delicately-formed boy who had gazed so compassionately into his eyes
while taking as he thought his last look at that humble grave; and
with this bland recurrence came also the almost closing words of the
solemn service, seeming again to proclaim to his heart, "I heard a
voice from heaven, saying unto me, Write, From henceforth blessed are
the dead who die in the Lord!"
With calmed feelings and perfectly recovered self-possession,
Thaddeus now followed his beloved wife (his solace and his joy), led
by her delighted host, into the bright-panelled parlor of the
rectory, where the mutual introduction instantly took place.
The beneficent old man, with a polished sincerity, declared his high
gratification at this visit from the Count Sobieski, brought to him
by the gracious lady who so deservedly shared his illustrious name.
Thaddeus, with his usual modest dignity, received the implied
compliment, and expressed his just sense of the deep obligation
conferred on him and his countess by the last consecrated rite to the
memory of his most revered friend.
Mary was then seated on an old-fashioned silk-embroidered settee,
opposite to the flower-latticed bay-window of the apartment. The
rector, with a courteous bow, which in his youth would have been
called graceful, as if confident of a permitted privilege, placed
himself beside her, while observing to her lord, in reply to these
unfeigned thanks, that, "the reported name alone of the veteran
patriot who lay there had not ceased from the day of his interment to
attract, shrine-like, the pilgrim feet of many persons to the spot
who respected and bewailed the fate of Poland.
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