But although Tekla's mother warmly encouraged Kościuszko's cause, her father looked askance at his daughter's suitor: either on account of the disparity of age between them, or, which seems more probable, for the reason that Kościuszko possessed neither large estates nor a great family name. On one occasion Kościuszko, not finding himself pressed to make a longer stay under the Żurowski roof, took an early departure, telling Tekla that:
"It is always a bad thing for the uninvited to stay on. Through my natural delicacy I understood that I was one too many. I had to go, albeit with sorrow. I will now ask you where you are going to-morrow. If I could find a good excuse I would go there too. … May Heaven bless the mother and daughter, and may it also send down upon the father, even though he is unfriendly to me, bountiful riches of health. … I kiss your little feet, and when you are dining with an Englishman and Frenchman forget not the Pole who wishes you well."[1]
"Captains P. and P. told me," he says later, "that I was the cause of your shedding tears. That such precious drops from lovely springs should be shed through suspicion of me causes the greatest anguish to my heart. Therefore I kneel and kiss your little hands until I win your pardon. But think not that I ever had any idea of casting an aspersion on you. It was only the result of my native frankness. I never have failed to relate to a friendly person what I see, think, and hear. Now I will correct myself. Never henceforth will I
- ↑ Op. cit.
5
