e passion
of love, it is like examining the character of some great roan; we are
astonished to perceive the littlenesses that belong to it. We ask in
wonder, "How come such effects from such a cause?"

Godolphin continued talking sentiment with Lady Delmour, until her lord,
who was very fond of his carriage horses, came up and took her away; and
then, perhaps glad to be relieved, Percy sauntered into the ballroom,
where, though the crowd was somewhat thinned, the dance was continued
with that spirit which always seems to increase as the night advances.

For my own part, I now and then look late in at a ball as a warning and
grave memento of the flight of time. No amusement belongs of right so
essentially to the young, in their first youth,--to the unthinking, the
intoxicated,--to those whose blood is an elixir.

"If Constance be woman," said Godolphin to himself, as he returned to
the ballroom, "I will yet humble her to my will. I have not learned the
science so long, to be now foiled in the first moment I have seriously
wished to triumph."

As this thought inspired and excited him, he moved along at some
distance from, but carefully within the sight of Constance. He paused
by Lady Margaret Midgecombe. He addressed her. Notwithstanding the
insolence and the ignorance of the Duchess of Winstoun, he was well
received by both mother and daughter. Some persons there are, in all
times and in all spheres, who command a certain respect, bought neither
by riches, rank, nor even scrupulous morality of conduct. They win it
by the reputation that talent alone can win them, and which yet is not
always the reputation of talent. No man, even in the frivolous societies
of the great, obtains homage without certain qualities, which, had
they been happily directed, would have conducted him to fame. Had the
attention of a Grammont, or of a ----, been early turned towards what
ought to be the objects desired, who can doubt that, instead of the
heroes of a circle, they might have been worthy of becoming names of
posterity?

Thus the genius of Godolphin had drawn around him an eclat which made
even the haughtiest willing to receive and to repay his notice; and Lady
Margaret actually blushed with pleasure when he asked her to dance.
A foreign dance, then only very partially known in England, had been
called for: few were acquainted with it,--those only who had been
abroad; and as the movements seemed to require peculiar grace of person,