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"Like him! yes, excessively; just the word for him for you all. If love were thrown into the stream of life, my little sail would be upset in an instant. But in truth, what with dressing, and playing, and all the grave business of life, I am not idle enough to love. And oh, Godolphin, I'm so improved!
She thought again and again what a charming couple they would make so handsome so gifted: and if Prudence whispered also so poor, the kind Countess remembered, that she herself had saved from her ample jointure a sum which she had always designed as a dowry for Constance, and which, should Godolphin be the bridegroom, she felt she should have a tenfold pleasure in bestowing.
Constance smilingly acknowledged the compliment; and as they passed up the straight walks of the old-fashioned and stately gardens, Godolphin turned the conversation upon the varieties of garden scenery; upon the poets who have described those varieties best; upon that difference between the town life and the country, on which the brothers of the minstrel craft have, in all ages, so glowingly insisted.
Conscious of his talents nay, swayed to and fro by the unquiet stirrings of no common genius Godolphin yet foresaw that he was not henceforth destined to play a shining part in the crowded drama of life. His career was already closed; he might be contented, prosperous, happy, but never great.
Godolphin had certainly felt no small curiosity to see again the frank, fair, laughing face which had shone on his boyhood, and his mind ran busily back to that summer evening when, with a pulse how different from its present languid tenor, and a heart burning with ardour and the pride of novel independence, the young adventurer first sallied on the world.
They loved each other still; they loved each other warmly; they never quarrelled; for the temper of Constance was mild, and that of Godolphin generous: but neither believed there was much love on the other side; and both sought abroad that fellowship and those objects they had not in common at home.
But when once, in a very gay and occupied life, a husband and wife have admitted a seeming indifference to creep in between them, the chances are a thousand to one against its after-removal. How much more so with a wife so proud as Constance, and a husband so refining as Godolphin!
"A person arrived in it, sir, a little after you would not retire to bed and waits you in your sitting-room." "A person! what person!" "A lady, sir, a young lady;" said the servant, suppressing a smile. "Good heavens!" ejaculated Godolphin: "leave me." The valet obeyed.
Godolphin being there; particularly of the removal of the bodies of all the dead Kings of Spain that could be got together, and brought to the Pantheon at the Escuriall, when it was finished, and there placed before the altar, there to lie for ever; and there was a sermon made to them upon this text, "Arida ossa, audite verbum Dei;" and a most eloquent sermon, as they say, who say they have read it.
But hang politics; it always brings disagreeable reflections. Glad, my old pupil, glad am I to see that you still retain your august contempt for these foolish strugglers insects splashing and panting in the vast stream of events, which they scarcely stir, and in which they scarcely drop before they are drowned " "Or the fishes, their passions, devour them," said Godolphin.
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