replace my image: thousands younger, fairer, warmer of
heart, will aspire to your love; that love for them will be exposed to
no peril--no shame: forget me; select another; be happy and respected.
Permit me alone to fill the place of your friend--your brother. I
will provide for your comforts, your liberty: you shall be restrained,
offended no more. God bless you, dear, dear Lucilla; and believe,"
(he said almost in a whisper), "that, in thus flying you, I have acted
generously, and with an effort worthy of your loveliness and your love."

He said, and hurried from the apartment. Lucilla turned slowly round as
the door closed and then fell motionless on the ground.

Meanwhile Godolphin, mastering his emotion, sought the host and hostess;
and begging them to visit his lodging that evening, to receive certain
directions and rewards, hastily left the house.

But instead of returning home, the desire for a brief solitude and
self-commune, which usually follows strong excitement, (and which, in
all less ordinary events, suggested his sole counsellors or monitors to
the musing Godolphin), led his steps in an opposite direction. Scarcely
conscious whither he was wandering, he did not pause till he found
himself in that green and still valley in which the pilgrim beholds the
grotto of Egeria.

It was noon, and the day warm, but not overpowering. The leaf slept on
the old trees that are scattered about that little valley; and amidst
the soft and rich turf the wanderer's step disturbed the lizard, basking
its brilliant hues in the noontide, and glancing rapidly through the
herbage as it retreated. And from the trees, and through the air,
the occasional song of the birds (for in Italy their voices are rare)
floated with a peculiar clearness, and even noisiness of music, along
the deserted haunts of the Nymph.

The scene, rife with its beautiful associations, recalled Godolphin from
his reverie. "And here," thought he, "Fable has thrown its most lovely
enduring enchantment: here, every one who has tasted the loves of earth,
and sickened for the love that is ideal, finds a spell more attractive
to his steps--more fraught with contemplation to his spirit, than aught
raised by the palace of the Caesars or the tomb of the Scipios."

Thus meditating, and softened by the late scene with Lucilla, (to which
his thoughts again recurred), he sauntered onward to the steep side of
the bank, in which faith and tradition have hollowed out t