Thaddeus could only reply by pressing his friend's hand. His brain whirled. He could not decide on the nature of his feelings; one moment he would have given worlds to throw himself at Miss Beaufort's feet, and the next he trembled at the prospect of meeting her so soon. "Dear Sobieski!" cried Pembroke, "how strangely you receive this intelligence! Is it possible such sentiments from Mary Beaufort can be regarded by a soul like yours with coldness?" "O no!" cried the count, his fine face flushed with emotion. "I adore Miss Beaufort. Her virtues possess my whole heart. But can I forget that I have only that heart to offer? Can I forget that I am a beggar?--that even now I exist on her bounty?" The eyes of Thaddeus, and the sudden tremor which shook his frame, finished this appeal to his fate. Pembroke found it enter his soul. To hide its effect, he threw himself on his friend's breast, and exclaimed, "Do not injure me and my father by such thoughts. You are come, dearest Sobieski, to a second home. Sir Robert Somerset will consider himself ennobled in supplying the place of your lamented grandfather--in endowing you like a son! Oh, Thaddeus, you must be my cousin, dear as a brother, as well as my friend!" Thaddeus replied with an agitated affection as true as that of the generous speaker. "But," added he, "I must not allow the noble heart of my now regained Somerset to believe that I can live a dependant on any power but the Author of my being. Therefore, if Sir Robert Somerset will assist me to procure some unobtrusive way of acquiring my own support in the simplicity I wish, I shall thank him from my soul. In no other way my kindest friend, can I ever be brought to tax the munificence of your father." Pembroke colored at this, and exclaimed, in a voice of distress and displeasure, "Sobieski! what can you mean? Do you imagine that ever my father or myself can forget that you were little less than a prince in your own country?--that when in so high a station you treated me like a brother; that you preserved me even when I lifted my arm against your life. Can we be such monsters as to forget all this, or to think that we act justly by you in permitting you to labor for your bread? No, Thaddeus; my very soul spurns the idea. Your mother sheltered me as a son; and I insist that you allow my father to perform the same part by you! Besides, you shall not be idle; you may have a commission in the army, and I will follow you."