‘We must see you oftener. Gustav is so pleasant and so gay, he will be of great use to you. When he really takes a liking, he is delightful; and he has in your case, I assure you.’ I knew not what to say, nor how to look my gratitude for such a speech, and could only accomplish some few and broken words of thanks. ‘Besides, you are about to be a traveller,’ continued she; ‘and who can give you such valuable information of every country and people as the count? Do you intend to make a long absence from England?’ ‘Yes, at least some years. I wish to visit the East.’ ‘You ‘ll go into Poland?’ said she quickly, without noticing my reply. ‘Yes, I trust so; Hungary and Poland have both great interest for me.’ ‘You know that we are Poles, don’t you?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘We are both from beyond Varsovie. Gustav was there ten years ago. I have never seen my native country since I was a child. At the last words her voice dropped to a whisper, and she leaned her head upon her hand, and seemed lost in thought. I did not dare to break in upon the current of recollections I saw were crowding upon her, and was silent. She looked up at length, and by the faint light of the moon, just risen, I saw that her eyes were tearful and her cheeks still wet. ‘What,’ said I to myself, ‘and has sorrow come even here--here, where I imagined if ever the sunny path of life existed, it was to be found?’ ‘Would you like to hear a sad story?’ said she, smiling faintly, with a look of indefinable sweetness. ‘If it were yours, it would make my heart ache,’ said I, carried away by my feelings at the instant. ‘I ‘ll tell it to you one of these days, then: not now! not now, though!--I could not here; and there comes Gustav. How he laughs!’ And true enough, the merry sounds of his voice were heard through the garden as he approached; and strangely, too, they seemed to grate and jar upon my ear, with a very different impression from what before they brought to me.