contour of
the head were full of intellect, and betokening that absorption of
mind which cannot be marked in any one without exciting a certain vague
curiosity and interest.

So dark and wondrous are the workings of our nature, that there are
scarcely any of us, however light and unthinking, who would not be
arrested by the countenance of one in deep reflection--who would not
pause, and long to pierce into the mysteries that were agitating
that world, most illimitable by nature, but often most narrowed by
custom--the world within.

And this interest, powerful as it is, spelled and arrested Constance at
once. She remained for a minute gazing on the countenance of the young
stranger, and then she--the most self-possessed and stately of human
creatures--blushing deeply, and confused though unseen, turned lightly
away and stopped not on her road till she regained the old chamber and
Lady Erpingham.

The old woman was descanting upon the merits of the late Lord of
Godolphin Priory,--

"For though they called him close, and so forth, my lady, yet he was
generous to others; it was only himself he pinched. But, to be sure, the
present squire won't take after him there."

"Has Mr. Percy Godolphin been here lately?" asked Lady Erpingham.

"He is at the cottage now, my lady," replied the old woman. "He came two
days ago."

"Is he like his father?"

"Oh! not near so fine-looking a gentleman! much smaller, and quite
pale-like. He seems sickly: them foreign parts do nobody no good. He
was as fine a lad at sixteen years old as ever I seed; but now he is not
like the same thing."

So then it was evidently Percy Godolphin whom Constance had seen by
the brook--the owner of a home without coffers, and estates without a
rent-roll--the Percy Godolphin, of whom, before he had attained the age
when others have left the college, or even the school, every one had
learned to speak--some favourably, all with eagerness. Constance felt a
vague interest respecting him spring up in her mind. She checked it, for
it was a sin in her eye to think with interest on a man neither rich
nor powerful; and as she quitted the ruins with Lady Erpingham,
she communicated to the latter her adventure. She was, however,
disingenuous; for though Godolphin's countenance was exactly of that
cast which Constance most admired, she described him just as the
old woman had done; and Lady Erpingham figured to herself, from the
description, a little yellow man,