not be. The noble and
generous people of England cannot be thus strangely misled. Whatever
prepossessions may be current among the more vulgar, the House of
Legislature cannot be deeply infected by them--they will remember their
own dignity."

"Alas! cousin," answered the Countess, "when did Englishmen, even of the
highest degree, remember anything, when hurried away by the violence
of party feeling? Even those who have too much sense to believe in
the incredible fictions which gull the multitude, will beware how they
expose them, if their own political party can gain a momentary advantage
by their being accredited. It is amongst such, too, that your kinsman
has found friends and associates. Neglecting the old friends of his
house, as too grave and formal companions for the humour of the times,
his intercourse has been with the versatile Shaftesbury--the mercurial
Buckingham--men who would not hesitate to sacrifice to the popular
Moloch of the day, whatsoever or whomsoever, whose ruin could propitiate
the deity.--Forgive a mother's tears, kinsman; but I see the scaffold
at Bolton again erected. If Derby goes to London while these bloodhounds
are in full cry, obnoxious as he is, and I have made him by my religious
faith, and my conduct in this island, he dies his father's death. And
yet upon what other course to resolve!----"

"Let me go to London, madam," said Peveril, much moved by the distress
of his patroness; "your ladyship was wont to rely something on my
judgment. I will act for the best--will communicate with those whom
you point out to me, and only with them; and I trust soon to send you
information that this delusion, however strong it may now be, is in the
course of passing away; at the worst, I can apprise you of the danger,
should it menace the Earl or yourself; and may be able also to point out
the means by which it may be eluded."

The Countess listened with a countenance in which the anxiety of
maternal affection, which prompted her to embrace Peveril's generous
offer, struggled with her native disinterested and generous disposition.
"Think what you ask of me, Julian," she replied with a sigh. "Would you
have me expose the life of my friend's son to those perils to which I
refuse my own?--No, never!"

"Nay, but madam," replied Julian, "I do not run the same risk--my person
is not known in London--my situation, though not obscure in my own
country, is too little known to be noticed in that huge assembl