"Excuse me," said Godfrey, "I am engaged--I am obliged to join my regiment
immediately." He bowed gravely to Miss Hauton--wished her a good morning;
and, without trusting himself to another look, retreated, saying to
himself,

"Sir, she's yours--You have brushed from the grape its soft blue;
From the rosebud you've shaken its tremulous dew:
What you've touched you may take.--Pretty waltzer, adieu!"

From this moment he mentioned Miss Hauton's name no more in his own family.
His whole mind now seemed, and not only seemed, but was, full of military
thoughts. So quickly in youth do different and opposite trains of ideas and
emotions succeed to each other; and so easy it is, by a timely exercise
of reason and self-command, to prevent a _fancy_ from becoming a passion.
Perhaps, if his own happiness alone had been in question, Godfrey might not
have shown precisely the same prudence; but on this occasion his generosity
and honour assisted his discretion. He plainly saw that Miss Hauton was
not exactly a woman whom he could wish to make his wife--and he was too
honourable to trifle with her affections. He was not such a coxcomb as to
imagine that, in the course of so slight an acquaintance, he could have
made any serious impression on this young lady's heart: yet he could not
but perceive that she had distinguished him from the first hour he was
introduced to her; and he was aware that, with her extreme sensibility, and
an unoccupied imagination, she might rapidly form for him an attachment
that might lead to mutual misery.

Mr. Percy rejoiced in his son's honourable conduct, and he was particularly
pleased by Godfrey's determining to join his regiment immediately. Mr.
Percy thought it advantageous for the eldest son of a man of fortune to be