"Often, and with warm friendship. But he deemed you dead."
"I joined the campaign against the Turks, and lay dangerously wounded in Transylvania.----That is your son?" he asked, in sudden emotion; and lifting up the little Henry, he kissed him heartily--"His true eye betrays the father--."
He set the boy down again, and paced hastily up and down the room to collect himself.
"We are both too much agitated," he resumed, "to carry on this conversation any longer. Permit me now to deliver a letter to you, which your friend Sternberg, of Gitschin, requested me to take with me, when she understood that I was going to Schweidnitz."
"We are near neighbours and good friends. My father lives at Tirschkokrig, not far from Gitschin, and I was frequently with the Sternberg family. The lady Thekla has talked so much of you, and so much in your praise, that I knew, before I saw, you."
"I doubt whether she has shown me truly, for friendship is a partial painter."
"Forgive me if I contradict you. Such, as you now stand before me, has your beautiful and friendly form long floated before my imagination."
Althea cast down her eyes in confusion; but the little Henry relieved her from the answer to this embarrassing discourse. He had grown as weary of the conversation as the two gaping nobles, and now began to twitch his mother's gown, and teaze for his evening meal; upon which she said, "Excuse me if I retire for a moment; I will but satisfy the little tormentor here, and read through my Thekla's letter, while, in the meantime, my brother-in-law, Netz, will be happy to grow more intimately acquainted with you. Hereafter I will at leisure welcome you to Schweidnitz, and you shall tell me all about our friends at Gitschin."
She left the room with her son. Tausdorf looked after for awhile, and then seemed lost in thought. After a short pause, Netz renewed the conversation by saying, "You are a native of Bohemia, then?"
Tausdorf courteously replied, "My father settled some years ago in the hereditary domains of Austria as an imperial feodatory. I have the honour to be a native of Silesia."
"Does any business call you back to your native land?" asked Netz, with increasing cordiality: "If I can serve you in any thing, you have only to say so; I know from my brother's own mouth that you were his very good friend."