poor
man!--to flatter.

The Duchess of Winstoun and her daughter sat behind on an elevated
bench. They saw with especial advantage the attentions with which one
of the greatest of England's earls honoured the daughter of one of the
greatest of England's orators. They were shocked at his want of dignity.
Constance perceived their chagrin, and she lent a more pleased and
attentive notice to Lord Erpingham's compliments: her eyes sparkled and
her cheek blushed: and the good folks around, admiring Lord Erpingham's
immense whiskers, thought Constance in love.

It was just at this time that Percy Godolphin entered the room.

Although Godolphin's person was not of a showy order, there was
something about him that always arrested attention. His air; his
carriage; his long fair locks; his rich and foreign habits of dress,
which his high bearing and intellectual countenance redeemed from
coxcombry; all, united, gave something remarkable and distinguished to
his appearance; and the interest attached to his fortunes, and to
his social reputation for genius and eccentricity, could not fail of
increasing the effect he produced when his name was known.

From the throng of idlers that gathered around him; from the bows of the
great and the smiles of the fair; Godolphin, however, directed his whole
notice--his whole soul--to the spot which was hallowed by Constance
Vernon. He saw her engaged with a man rich, powerful, and handsome.
He saw that she listened to her partner with evident interest--that he
addressed her with evident admiration. His heart sank within him; he
felt faint and sick; then came anger--mortification; then agony and
despair. All his former resolutions--all his prudence, his worldliness,
his caution, vanished at once; he felt only that he loved, that he was
supplanted, that he was undone. The dark and fierce passions of his
youth, of a nature in reality wild and vehement, swept away at once the
projects and the fabrics of that shallow and chill philosophy he had
borrowed from the world, and deemed the wisdom of the closet. A cottage
and a desert with Constance--Constance all his--heart and hand--would
have been Paradise: he would have nursed no other ambition, nor dreamed
of a reward beyond. Such effect has jealousy upon us. We confide, and we
hesitate to accept a boon: we are jealous, and we would lay down life to
attain it.

"What a handsome fellow Erpingham is!" said a young man in a cavalry
regiment.

Godo