"Not I," she replied, folding her arms submissively on her breast, "and still less that poor trembling girl. No, Pendarves, my only resource now is supplication and entreaty: and I conjure you, by the dear name of your beloved mother, and by the memory of past fond and endearing circumstances, and hours, to grant the prayer of a dying woman, and not to force your wife to this abode of revelry and riot. I feel my days are already numbered; and when I am taken from you, bitter will be your recollections if you refuse, my son, and soothing if you grant my prayer. I know you, Seymour, and I know that you cannot do any great cruelty without great remorse." It was some moments before Pendarves could speak; at length he said--"Your request alone would have been sufficient, without your calling up such agonizing ideas. Helen, my best love, tell your mother you shall never go to Oswald Lodge again." He then put his handkerchief to his eyes, and rushed out of the room. "The foolish boy's heart is in the right place still," said my mother, giving way to tears, but smiling at the same time. But I, alas! could neither smile nor speak. She had called herself a dying woman; and through the rest of the day I could do nothing but look at and watch her, and go out of the room to weep; and my night was passed in wretchedness and prayer. The next day I found my husband cold and sullen in manner; and I suspected that, having engaged to bring me to Oswald Lodge, he was mortified and ashamed to go thither without me, and would, I doubted not, make some excuse for my staying away which was not strictly true. No one could feel more strongly or more virtuously than Pendarves: but good feelings, unless they are under the guard of strict principles, are subject to run away when summoned by the voice of pleasure and of error: and before he set off for the archery ground, he told me he sincerely repented his promise to my mother. I did not reply, but shook my head mournfully. "Psha!" said he, "that ever a fine woman like you, Helen, should wish to appear in her husband's eyes little better than a constant _memento mori_! Helen, an arrow cannot fly as far in a wet as in a dry air; and a laughing eye hits where a tearful one fails. You see I already steal my metaphors from my new study. But, good bye, sweet Helen! and when I return let me find you a little less dismal."