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Article THE COUNTESS AND THE SERF* Page 1 of 23 →
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
The Countess And The Serf*
THE COUNTESS AND THE SERF *
BT HISS PAEDOE . IT is well known to all who are conversant with the history of Poland , that in its clays of pride and power it boasted of few names more lofty or more honoured than that of Zamoiski . recentl
Even so y as the eighteenth century , the head of this illustrious house possessed upwards of ten thousand vassals , but his disposition was so gentle and benign that he was rather a friend than a master to those over whom he had thus been called upon to rule . Favoured by nature as eminently as by fortune , the count wooed ancl won a daughter of the illustrious race of Czartoriskib
, y whom he was tenderly beloved , ancl whose extraordinary beauty was a proverb throughout the whole country . Great , therefore , were the rejoicings among his friends ancl kinsmen when , at the termination of a year of marriage , the brilliant countess was about to become a mother ; but the sun of promise whicli had dawned so brightly Avas destined to set in tears—a child Avas indeed born , but Zamoiski in the same hour found himself a widower .
_ The wife of a serf on his estates , who had at the same period given birth to a son , was intrusted with the care of the young countess , and was at once domesticated with her infant in the castle of the bereaved noble ; who , grateful to the zealous peasant for the affection which she lavished on his motherless child , in his turn oi'erlooked the disparity of their seA'eral stationsand divided
, his mournful caresses between his oivn heiress and the humble offspring of her devoted nurse . So signal an honour in a land where the tillers of the soil were at that period regarded rather as beasts of burthen than as fellow-creatures , could not fail to win the heart of the humble foster-mother ; and throughout the whole period of her infancy the Countess
Anna remained unconscious of the loss which she had sustained , obliterated as it Avas by the ceaseless tenderness of her devoted attendant . The two children were nursed and tended together ; and , by the express directions of the generous Zamoiski , no distinction was made between them . " You are now the mother of my Anna , " he said , when the grateful woman would have removed her boy from his arms ;
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
The Countess And The Serf*
THE COUNTESS AND THE SERF *
BT HISS PAEDOE . IT is well known to all who are conversant with the history of Poland , that in its clays of pride and power it boasted of few names more lofty or more honoured than that of Zamoiski . recentl
Even so y as the eighteenth century , the head of this illustrious house possessed upwards of ten thousand vassals , but his disposition was so gentle and benign that he was rather a friend than a master to those over whom he had thus been called upon to rule . Favoured by nature as eminently as by fortune , the count wooed ancl won a daughter of the illustrious race of Czartoriskib
, y whom he was tenderly beloved , ancl whose extraordinary beauty was a proverb throughout the whole country . Great , therefore , were the rejoicings among his friends ancl kinsmen when , at the termination of a year of marriage , the brilliant countess was about to become a mother ; but the sun of promise whicli had dawned so brightly Avas destined to set in tears—a child Avas indeed born , but Zamoiski in the same hour found himself a widower .
_ The wife of a serf on his estates , who had at the same period given birth to a son , was intrusted with the care of the young countess , and was at once domesticated with her infant in the castle of the bereaved noble ; who , grateful to the zealous peasant for the affection which she lavished on his motherless child , in his turn oi'erlooked the disparity of their seA'eral stationsand divided
, his mournful caresses between his oivn heiress and the humble offspring of her devoted nurse . So signal an honour in a land where the tillers of the soil were at that period regarded rather as beasts of burthen than as fellow-creatures , could not fail to win the heart of the humble foster-mother ; and throughout the whole period of her infancy the Countess
Anna remained unconscious of the loss which she had sustained , obliterated as it Avas by the ceaseless tenderness of her devoted attendant . The two children were nursed and tended together ; and , by the express directions of the generous Zamoiski , no distinction was made between them . " You are now the mother of my Anna , " he said , when the grateful woman would have removed her boy from his arms ;