"What is very remarkable?" Oswald asked drowsily as he lay on his back, his hands clasped under his head. "The change in your mother," said Georges, sitting down on the edge of the bed, "I should hardly have known her again." "I can't understand that," Oswald rejoined. "Her hair has grown gray--it grew gray when she was quite young,--but her features are the same. I think her very beautiful still." "I think her more beautiful than ever," Georges said gravely, "but...." he thoughtfully blew the smoke from his cigar upwards to the ceiling--"how old is your mother?" "Fifty-six." "Only fifty-six--and yet she seems an old woman." "An old woman....! What are you thinking of? My mother can do nearly as much as I can, she can ride for five hours at a time, and can take long walks and never...." "My dear fellow," interrupted Georges impatiently. "I did not mean to say that your respected mamma seemed at all decrepit, but only that her features, her whole bearing, wear the stamp of that calm, kindly cheerfulness that belongs to those who have done with life. She asks nothing more--she bestows. And that, Ossi, is not a characteristic of youth--no, not of even, the most generous youth." "There you are right," Oswald rejoined thoughtfully. "Many a woman of her age would still go into society and enjoy its distractions, she, since my father's death, has had no thought of anything except my education and the management of my property. It is wonderful, the knowledge she has of business. You would laugh if I should tell you of what large sums she saved up for me during my minority. Such strict economy was not to my taste, and I put a stop to it, but it must be forgiven in a mother." "And the gentleness and kindness of her manner!" Georges continued, "her unreasoning maternal nervousness! I assure you it was no easy task, the hour spent in trying to allay her anxiety. Her feeling for you is positive idolatry." "Try to be patient with this weakness of hers." "My dear boy, he would be a worthless fellow who did not respect this weakness. It only surprises me in your mother; I had not expected anything of the kind. Before I left home she kept you at such a distance. I could not then understand why she always treated you so coldly and harshly, and, to tell the truth, I took such, lack of affection on her part, very ill."