n of the world, and thought it
but common delicacy to give them all occasion to renew it. She always,
therefore, took occasion to retire from the immediate vicinity of
Constance whenever Godolphin approached, and, as if by accident, to
leave them the opportunity to be sufficiently alone. This was a danger
that Godolphin had, however, hitherto avoided. One day fate counteracted
prudence, and a conference ensued which perplexed Constance and tried
severely the resolution of Godolphin.

They went together to the Capitol, from whose height is beheld perhaps
the most imposing landscape in the world. It was a sight pre-eminently
calculated to arouse and inspire the ambitious and working mind of the
young countess.

"Do you think," said she to Godolphin, who stood beside her, "that there
lives any one who could behold these countless monuments of eternal
glory, and not sigh to recall the triteness, or rather burn to rise from
the level, of our ordinary life?"

"Nay," said Godolphin, "to you the view may be an inspiration, to others
a warning. The arch and the ruin you survey speak of change yet more
eloquently than glory. Look on the spot where once was the temple of
Romulus:--there stands the little church of an obscure saint. Just below
you is the Tarpeian Rock: we cannot see it; it is hidden from us by a
crowd of miserable houses. Along the ancient plain of the Campus Martins
behold the numberless spires of a new religion, and the palaces of a
modern race! Amidst them you see the triumphal columns of Trajan and
Marcus Antoninus; but whose are the figures that crown their summits?
St. Peter's and St. Paul's! And this awful wilderness of men's
labours--this scene and token of human revolutions--inspires you with
a love of glory; to me it proves its nothingness. An irresistible--a
crushing sense of the littleness and brief life of our most ardent
and sagacious achievements seems to me to float like a voice over the
place!"

"And are you still, then," said Constance, with a half sigh, "dead to
all but the enjoyment of the present moment?"

"No," replied Godolphin, in a low and trembling voice: "I am not dead to
the regret of the past!"

Constance blushed deeply; but Godolphin, as if feeling he had committed
himself too far, continued in a hurried tone:--"Let us turn our eyes,"
said he, "yonder among the olive groves. There

'Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife,'

were the summer retreats of Rome's brightes