years go, when I loved Godolphin, I had thrown the
whole world of my heart upon him?"

"Why, he has generosity; he would not have deserted you."

"But I should have wearied him," answered Fanny; "and that would have
been quite enough for me. But I did love him well, and purely--(ah! you
may smile!)--and disinterestedly. I was only fortified in my resolution
not to love any one too much, by perceiving that he had _affection_ but
no _sympathy_ for me. His nature was different from mine. I am _woman_
in everything, and Godolphin is always sighing for a _goddess!_"

"I should like to sketch your character, Fanny. It is original, though
not strongly marked. I never met with it in any book; yet it is true to
your sex, and to the world."

"Few people could paint me exactly," answered Fanny. "The danger is
that they would make too much or too little of me. But such as I am,
the world ought to know what is so common, and, as you think, so
undescribed."

And now, beautiful Constance, farewell for the present! I leave you
surrounded by power, and pomp, and adulation. Enjoy as you may that for
which you sacrificed affection!

CHAPTER XXVI.

THE VISIONARY AND HIS DAUGHTER--AN ENGLISHMAN, SUCH AS FOREIGNERS
IMAGINE THE ENGLISH.

We must now present the reader to characters very different from those
which have hitherto passed before his eye. Without the immortal city,
along the Appia Via, there dwelt a singular and romantic visionary, of
the name of Volktman. He was by birth a Dane; and nature had bestowed on
him that frame of mind which might have won him a distinguished career,
had she placed the period of his birth in the eleventh century. Volktman
was essentially a man belonging to the past time: the character of his
enthusiasm was weird and Gothic; with beings of the present day he
had no sympathy; their loves, their hatreds, their politics, their
literature, awoke no echo in his breast. He did not affect to herd with
them; his life was solitude, and its occupation study--and study of that
nature which every day unfitted him more and more for the purposes of
existence. In a word, he was a reader of the stars; a believer in the
occult and dreamy science of astrology. Bred up to the art of sculpture,
he had early in life sought Rome, as the nurse of inspiration; but
even then he had brought with him the dark and brooding temper of his
northern tribe. The images of the classic world; the bright, and cold,
and beautif