Look at me, dearest mother, and forgive me." The Countess turned her eyes towards him, from which the tears were fast falling.
"Philip," she said, "you try me too unkindly, and too severely.

If times are changed, as I have heard you allege--if the dignity of rank, and the high feelings of honour and duty, are now drowned in giddy jests and trifling pursuits, let _me_ at least, who live secluded from all others, die without perceiving the change which has happened, and, above all, without perceiving it in mine own son.

Let me not learn the general prevalence of this levity, which laughs at every sense of dignity or duty, through your personal disrespect--Let me not think that when I die----" "Speak nothing of it, mother," said the Earl, interrupting her affectionately.

"It is true, I cannot promise to be all my father and his fathers were; for we wear silk vests for their steel coats, and feathered beavers for their crested helmets.

But believe me, though to be an absolute Palmerin of England is not in my nature, no son ever loved a mother more dearly, or would do more to oblige her.