Mrs. Stafford had at first seen with concern that Godolphin, whom she sincerely esteemed, was nourishing for her friend a passion which could only serve to make him unhappy. But she now saw it's progress rather with pleasure than regret. She was piqued at the groundless jealousy and rash injustice of Delamere towards Emmeline: and disappointed and disgusted at Lord Montreville's conduct towards herself; sickening at the little sincerity of the latter, and doubtful of the temper of the former, she feared that if the alliance took place, her friend would find less happiness than splendour: and she looked with partial eyes on Godolphin; who in morals, manners, and temper, was equally unexceptionable, and whose fortune, tho' inferior to his birth, was yet enough for happiness in that style of life which she knew better calculated for the temper and taste of Emmeline than the parade and grandeur she might share with Delamere. Godolphin had no parents to accept her with disdainful and cold acquiescence--no sister to treat her with supercilious condescension.--But all his family, tho' of a rank superior to that of Delamere, would receive her with transport, and treat her with the respect and affection she deserved. Mrs. Stafford, however, spoke not to Emmeline of this revolution in her sentiments, but chose rather to let the affair take it's course than to be in any degree answerable for it's consequences. The hour in which Godolphin was to leave them now approached. Unable to determine on bidding Emmeline farewel, he would still have lingered with her, and would have gone on with them to Rouen, where Stafford waited their arrival: but this, Mrs. Stafford was compelled to decline; fearing least this extraordinary attention in a stranger should induce her husband to make enquiry into their first acquaintance, and by that means lead to discoveries which could not fail of being injurious to Lady Adelina. Of all that related to her, he was at present ignorant. He had been told, that the infant which his wife and Miss Mowbray so often visited, was the son of an acquaintance of the latter; who being obliged soon after it's birth to go to the West Indies, had sent it to Bath to Emmeline, who had undertaken to overlook the nurse to whose care it was committed. Into a circumstance which offered neither a scheme to occupy his mind, or money to purchase his pleasures, Stafford thought it not then worth his while farther to enquire; but now, in a country of which he understood not the language, and detached from his usual pursuits, Mrs. Stafford knew not what strange suspicions the assiduity of Godolphin might excite in a head so oddly constructed; and without explaining her reasons to Godolphin, she said enough to convince him that he must, with whatever reluctance, leave the lovely travellers at Havre.