ired some strange influence, some mysterious hold over
you," answered the lady. "It cannot be," she added anxiously, "that you
have broken your promise,--that they have drawn you again to the
gaming-table,--that you are involved in debt to these men?"

Philip whistled an air and sauntered up to the window.

Lady Grange pressed her hand over her eyes, and a sigh, a very heavy
sigh, burst from her bosom. Philip heard, and turned impatiently round.

"There's no use in making the worst of matters," said he; "what's done
can't be helped; and my debts, such as they are, won't ruin a rich man
like my father."

"It is not that which I fear," said the mother faintly, with a terrible
consciousness that her son,--her hope, her pride, the delight of her
heart,--had entered on a course which, if persevered in, must end in his
ruin both of body and soul. "I tremble at the thought of the misery
which you are bringing on yourself. These men are making you their
victim: they are blinding your eyes; they are throwing a net around you,
and you have not the resolution to break from the snare."

"They are very pleasant, jovial fellows!" cried Philip, trying to hide
under an appearance of careless gaiety the real annoyance which he felt
at the words of his mother.

"I've asked them to dine here to-day and--"

"I shall not appear at the table," said Lady Grange, drawing herself up
with dignity; "and if your father should arrive--"

"Oh! he won't arrive to-night; he never travels so late."

"But, Philip," said the lady earnestly again laying her cold hand on his
arm. She was interrupted by her wayward and undutiful son.

"Mother, there's no use in saying anything more on the subject; it only
worries you, and puts me out of temper. I can't, and I won't be uncivil
to my friends;" and turning hastily round, Philip quitted the apartment.

"Friends!" faintly echoed Lady Grange, as she saw the door close behind
her misguided son. "Oh!" she exclaimed, throwing herself on a sofa, and
burying her face, "was there ever a mother--ever a woman so unhappy as
I am!"

Her cup was indeed very bitter; it was one which the luxuries that
surrounded her had not the least power to sweeten. Her husband was a man
possessing many noble qualities both of head and heart; but the fatal
love of gold, like those petrifying springs which change living twigs
to dead stone, had made him hardened, quarrelsome, and worldly. It had
drawn him away from the worship o