"Ah, Godolphin, you seem pensive," whispered Fanny; "yet we are tolerably
amusing, too."

"My dear Fanny," answered Godolphin, rousing himself, "the dialogue is
gay, the actors know their parts, the lights are brilliant; but--the
scene--the scene cannot shift for me! Call it what you will, I am not
deceived. I see the paint and the canvas, but--and yet, away these
thoughts! Shall I fill your glass, Fanny?"

CHAPTER XXI.

AN EVENT OF GREAT IMPORTANCE TO THE PRINCIPAL ACTORS IN THIS
HISTORY.--GODOLPHIN A SECOND TIME LEAVES ENGLAND.

Goldolphin was welcomed with enthusiasm by the London world. His graces,
his manners, his genius, his bon ton, and his bonnes fortunes, were the
theme of every society. Verses imputed to him,--some erroneously, some
truly,--were mysteriously circulated from hand to hand; and every one
envied the fair inspirers to whom they were supposed to be addressed.

It is not my intention to reiterate the wearisome echo of novelists, who
descant on fashion and term it life. No description of rose-coloured
curtains and buhl cabinets--no miniature paintings of boudoirs and
salons--no recital of conventional insipidities, interlarded with affected
criticisms, and honoured by the name of dramatic dialogue, shall lend
their fascination to these pages. Far other and far deeper aims are mine
in stooping to delineate the customs and springs of polite life. The
reader must give himself wholly up to me; he must prepare to go with me
through the grave as through the gay, and unresistingly to thread the dark