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Thaddeus of Warsaw: Robert

Sir Robert Somerset flies into a passion.

He tries by every means in his power to break up the friendship. Then it develops that years before Sir Robert, under the assumed name of Sackville, went on a journey to Poland and while there met Therese Sobieski, whom he married and basely deserted. What wonder that ever since he has lived in the constant dread of being overtaken by some native of the land of his crime; or that he shrinks from beholding the son who has it in his power to blazon abroad his shame and denounce the present heir to the Somerset estates as illegitimate?

It is an ugly tangle, but the author touches it lightly and straightens it out with a gentleness Sir Robert Somerset little deserves. Thaddeus is glad to be the Englishman's son and the brother to Pembroke Somerset. Since, however, he has pledged his word never to forfeit the name of Sobieski, he must retain it; he also prefers to keep his parentage a secret; nor will he put forth any claim to the property that Pembroke is to inherit. Just why the Polander fails to resent the treatment Sir Robert has accorded his mother is a point Jane Porter glides pleasantly over. The youth is given a fortune by his titled father, marries Lady Mary Beaufort, and becomes an English gentleman.

The book is spirited and interesting, but it is of that sentimental school of old-time novelists who bring us to the realization that standards have shifted very vitally since the days when continual tears, swoons, and faintings were deemed a necessary and desirable accomplishment of heroes and heroines.