may, you will never find the happiness you ask: you exact too much."

At that moment Lady Erpingham's page entered with a note from Constance,
and a present of flowers. No one ever wrote half so beautifully, so
spiritually as Constance, and to Percy the wit was so intermingled with
the tenderness!

"No," said he, burying his lips among the flowers; "no! I discard the
foreboding; with you I must be happy!" But conscience, still unsilenced,
whispered Lucilla!

The marriage was to take place at Rome. The day was fixed; and, owing to
Constance's rank, beauty and celebrity, the news of the event created
throughout "the English in Italy" no small sensation. There was a great
deal of gossip, of course, on the occasion; and some of this gossip found
its way to the haughty ears of Constance. It was said that she had made a
strange match--that it was a curious weakness in one so proud and
brilliant, to look no loftier than a private and not very wealthy
gentleman; handsome, indeed, and reputed clever; but one who had never
distinguished himself in anything--who never would!

Constance was alarmed and stung, not at the vulgar accusation, the paltry
sneer, but at the prophecy relating to Godolphin: "he had never
distinguished himself in anything--he never would." Rank, wealth, power,
Constance felt these she wanted not, these she could command of herself;
but she felt also that a nobler vanity of her nature required that the man
of her mature and second choice should not be one, in repute, of that mere
herd, above whom, in reality, his genius so eminently exalted him. She
deemed it essential to her future happiness that Godolphin's ambition
should be aroused, that he should share her ardour for those great objects