that she felt would for ever be dear to her.

"I love Rome!" said she, passionately, one day, as accompanied by
Godolphin, she left the Vatican; "I feel my soul grow larger amidst its
ruins. Elsewhere, through Italy, we live in the present, but here in the
past."

"Say not that that is the better life, dear Constance; the present--can we
surpass it?"

Constance blushed, and thanked her lover with a look that told him he was
understood.

"Yet," said she, returning to the subject, "who can breathe the air that
is rife with glory, and not be intoxicated with emulation? Ah, Percy!"

"Ah, Constance! and what wouldst thou have of me? Is it not glory enough
to be thy lover?"

"Let the world be as proud of my choice as I am." Godolphin frowned; he
penetrated in those words to Constance's secret meaning. Accustomed to be
an idol from his boyhood, he resented the notion that he had need of
exertion to render him worthy even of Constance; and sensible that it
might be thought he made an alliance beyond his just pretensions, he was
doubly tenacious as to his own claims. Godolphin frowned, then, and
turned away in silence. Constance sighed; she felt that she might not
renew the subject. But, after a pause, Godolphin himself continued it.

"Constance," said he, in a low firm voice, "let us understand each other.
You are all to me in the world; fame, and honor, and station and