"Well, what do _you_ think of it, Mr. Godolphin?--you have seen Miss
Vernon?"

Godolphin was gone.

It was about ten days after this conversation that Godolphin, waiting at a
hotel in Dover the hour at which the packet set sail for Calais, took up
the Morning Post; and the first passage that met his eye was the one
which I transcribe:--

"Marriage in High Life.--On Thursday last, at Wendover Castle, the Earl of
Erpingham, to Constance, only daughter of the celebrated Mr. Vernon. The
bride was dressed, &c., ----" And then followed the trite, yet pompous
pageantry of words--the sounding nothings--with which ladies who become
countesses are knelled into marriage.

"The dream is over!" said Godolphin mournfully, as the paper fell to the
ground; and, burying his face within his hands, he remained motionless
till they came to announce the moment of departure.

And thus Percy Godolphin left, for the second time, his native shores.
When we return to him, what changes will the feelings now awakened within
him, have worked in his character! The drops that trickle within the
cavern harden, yet brighten into spars as they indurate. Nothing is more
polished, nothing more cold, than that wisdom which is the work of former
tears, of former passions, and is formed within a musing and solitary
mind!