Godolphin smiled to think how the untutored daughter of nature had
unconsciously uttered the sparkling aphorism of the most artificial of
maxim-makers.[1] Lucilla saw the smile, and her tears flowed instantly.
"Thou mockest me."

"Thou art a little fool," said Godolphin, kindly, and he kissed away the
storm.

And this was ever an easy matter. There was nothing unfeminine or sullen
in Lucilla's irregulated moods; a kind word--a kind caress--allayed them
in an instant, and turned the transient sorrow into sparkling delight.
But they who know how irksome is the perpetual trouble of conciliation to
a man meditative and indolent like Godolphin, will appreciate the pain
that even her tenderness occasioned him.

There in one thing very noticeable in women when they have once obtained
the object of their life--the sudden check that is given to the impulses
of their genius!--Content to have found the realisation of their chief
hope, they do not look beyond to other but lesser objects, as they had
been wont to do before. Hence we see so many who, before marriage, strike
us with admiration, from the vividness of their talents, and after
marriage settle down into the mere machine. We wonder that we ever
feared, while we praised, the brilliancy of an intellect that seems now
never to wander from the limits of house and hearth. So with poor
Lucilla; her restless mind and ardent genius had once seized on every
object within their reach:--she had taught herself music; she had learned
the colourings and lines of art; not a book came in her way, but she would
have sought to extract from it a new idea. But she was now with
Godolphin, and all other occupations for thought were gone; she had
nothing beyond his love to wish for, nothing beyond his character to