CHAPTER XIII.
A BALL ANNOUNCED .-- GODOLPHIN'S VISTT TO WENDOVER CASTLE .-- HIS MANNERS AND CONVERSATION.
Lady Erpingham (besides her daughter, Lady Eleanor, married to Mr.
Clare, a county member, of large fortune) was blessed with one son.
The present Earl had been for the last two years abroad.

He had never, since his accession to his title, visited Wendover Castle; and Lady Erpingham one morning experienced the delight of receiving a letter from him, dated Dover, and signifying his intention of paying her a visit.
In honour of this event, Lady Erpingham resolved to give a grand ball.
Cards were issued to all the families in the county; and, among others, to Mr.Godolphin.
On the third day after this invitation had been sent to the person I have last named, as Lady Erpingham and Constance were alone in the saloon, Mr.Percy Godolphin was announced.

Constance blushed as she looked up, and Lady Erpingham was struck by the nobleness of his address, and the perfect self-possession of his manner.

And yet nothing could be so different as was his deportment from that which she had been accustomed to admire--from that manifested by the exquisites of the day.

The calm, the nonchalance, the artificial smile of languor, the evenness, so insipid, yet so irreproachable, of English manners when considered most polished,--all this was the reverse of Godolphin's address and air.