“So then,” said she, “Mr. Godfrey Percy is like all the rest of his sex, and I must not expect to hear the truth from him.”--She paused--and looked at a print which he was examining.--“I would, however, rather have him speak severely than think hardly of me.” “He has no right to speak, and certainly no inclination to think hardly of Miss Hauton,” replied Godfrey gravely, but with an emotion which he in vain endeavoured to suppress. To change the conversation, he asked her opinion about a figure in the print. She took out her glass, and stooped to look quite closely at it.--“Before you utterly condemn me,” continued she, speaking in a low voice, “consider how fashion silences one’s better taste and feelings, and how difficult it is when all around one--” Miss Chatterton, Miss Drakelow, and some officers of their suite came up at this instant; a deputation, they said, to bring Miss Hauton back, to favour them with another song, as she must now have recovered her voice. “No--no--excuse me,” said she, smiling languidly; “I beg not to be pressed any more. I am really not well--I absolutely cannot sing any more this morning. I have already sung so much--_too much_,” added she, when the deputation had retired, so that the last words could be heard only by him for whom they were intended. Though Miss Hauton’s apologizing thus for her conduct, and making a young gentleman, with whom she was but just acquainted, the judge of her actions, might be deemed a still farther proof of her indiscretion, yet the condescension was so flattering, and it appeared such an instance of ingenuous disposition, that Godfrey was sensibly touched by it. He followed the fair Maria to her ottoman, from which she banished Pompey the Great, to make room for him. The recollection of his father’s warning words, however, came across Godfrey’s mind; he bowed an answer to a motion that invited him to the dangerous seat, and continued standing with an air of safe respect. “I hope you will have the goodness to express to Mrs. Percy how much I felt her kindness to me last night, when--when I wanted it so much. There is something so soothing, so gentle, so indulgent about Mrs. Percy, so _loveable!_” “She is very good, very indulgent, indeed,” said Godfrey, in a tone of strong affection,--“very _loveable_--that is the exact word.” “I fear it is not English,” said Miss Hauton. “_Il mérite bien de l’être_,” said Godfrey. A profound silence ensued.--Colonel Hauton came up to this pair, while they were still silent, and with their eyes fixed upon the ground. “D----d agreeable you two seem,” cried the colonel.--“Buckhurst, you have always so much to say for yourself, do help your cousin here: I’m sure I know how to pity him, for many a time the morning after a ball, I’ve been with my partner in just as bad a quandary--without a word to throw to a dog.”