had occurred. And in this resolve she was strengthened by perceiving that
Godolphin's mind had become gradually calmed from its late excitement, and
that he had begun to consider, or at least appeared to consider the
apparition of Lucilla at his window, as the mere delusion of a heated
imagination. His nights grew once more tranquil, and freed from the dark
dreams that had tormented his brain; and even the cool and unimaginative
Constance could scarcely divest herself of the wild fancy that, when
Lucilla was near, a secret and preternatural sympathy between Godolphin
and the reader of the stars had produced that influence over his nightly
dreams which paled, and receded, and vanished, as Lucilla departed from
the actual circle in which he lived.

It was at this time, too, that a change was perceptible in Godolphin's
habits, and crept gradually over the character of his thoughts.
Dissipation ceased to allure him, the light wit of his parasites palled
upon his ear; magnificence had lost its gloss, and the same fastidious,
exacting thirst for the ideal which had disappointed him in the better
objects of life, began now to discontent him with its glittering
pleasures.

The change was natural and the causes not difficult to fathom. The fact
was, that Godolphin had now arrrived at that period of existence when a
man's character is almost invariably subject to great change; the crisis
in life's fever, when there is a new turn in our fate, and our moral death
or regeneration is sealed by the silent wavering, or the solemn decision
of the Hour. Arrived at the confines of middle age, there is an outward
innovation in the whole system; unlooked-for symptoms break forth in the
bodily, unlooked-for symptoms in the mental, frame. It happened to
Godolphin that, at this critical period, a chance, a circumstance, a
straw, had reunited his long interrupted, but never stifled affections to