"
"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 of his God; for there is deep truth in
the declaration of the apostle, that the covetous man is _an idolater_.
It was this miserable love of gold which had induced Sir Gilbert to
break with the family of his wife, and separate her from those to whom
her loving heart still clung with the fondest affection.
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