"
Sobieski's cheek flushed and his eye kindled at this testimony. To
change a subject which he found wrought too powerfully on the
recently-regained serenity of his mind, he affectionately inquired
for the amiable boy he had seen take so touching an interest in the
mournful errand to the church-yard on that ever-remembered day, and
who, like a ministering seraph, had so guardingly watched the exposed
head of his revered master, under the pitiless element then pouring
down.
"He is my nephew," returned the rector, in a tone of tenderness:
"Lord Edward Fitz-James. He is in delicate health; the youngest son
of my eldest brother, the Marquis Fitz-James, who married late in
life. Edward is, indeed, what he appears, a spirit of innocent, happy
love, or of condoling commiseration, wherever his gentle footsteps
move. And when I rejoin him this autumn, at his father's house in
Scotland, and shall tell him that the never-forgotten chief mourner
at that simple bier, with whom his own young tears fell in
spontaneous sympathy, was the Count Sobieski--a kinsman of his own,
whose character was already known to him in its youthful fame and by
its honored name--what will be that meek child's exulting ecstasy!"
"A kinsman of that noble boy!" echoed Thaddeus, in surprise. "How may
I flatter myself it can be so?"
Mary simultaneously uttered an amazed ejaculation of pleasure at the
idea of any real relationship between that venerable man and herself;
and he, with an answering look of kindred respect on both the
astonished husband and his bride, replied to the former with the
unstudied brevity of truth.
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