Beautiful! how
beautiful!--Ah me!"

"Did you observe what beautiful eyes that young girl had?" asked
Constance, as the carriage whirled off.

"What girl? I saw nothing but you!"

"Hark! there is a noise behind."

Godolphin looked out; the crowd seemed collected round one person.

"Only a young woman fainted, sir!" said his servant seated behind. "She
fell down in a fit just before the horses; but they started aside, and
did not hurt her."

"That is fortunate!" said Godolphin, reseating himself by his new bride;
"drive on faster."

At Florence, Godolphin revealed to Constance the outline of Lucilla's
history, and Constance shared somewhat of the feelings with which he
told it.

"I left," said he, "in the hands of the abbess a sum to be entirely at
Lucilla's control, whether she stay in the convent or not, and which
will always secure to her an independence. But I confess I should like
now, once more to visit the convent, and learn on what fate she has
decided."

"You would do well, dear Percy," replied Constance, who from her high
and starred sphere could stoop to no vulgar jealousy; "indeed, I think
you could do no less."

And Godolphin covered those generous lips with the sweet kisses in which
esteem begins to mingle with passion. What has the earth like that first
fresh union of two hearts long separated, and now blended for ever?
However close the sympathy between woman and her lover--however each
thinks to have learned the other--what a world is there left un-learned,
until marriage brings all those charming confidences, that holy and
sweet intercourse, which leaves no separate interest, no undivided
thought! But there is one thing that distinguishes the conversation of
young married people from that of lovers on a less sacred footing--they
talk of the future! Other lovers talk rather of the past; an uncertainty
pervades their hereafter; they feel they recoil from, it; they are
sensible that their plans are not one and indivisible.' But married
people are always laying out the "to come;" always talking over their
plans: this often takes something away from the tenderness of affection,
but how much it adds to its enjoyment!

Seated by each other, and looking on the silver Arno, Godolphin
and Constance, hand clasped in hand, surrendered themselves to the
contemplation of their future happiness. "And what would be your
favorite mode of life, dear Percy?"

"Why, I have now no schemings left me, Constanc