As Catherine finished this epistle, she lifted her eyes and beheld Philip. He had entered noiselessly, and he remained silent, leaning against the wall, and watching the face of his mother, which crimsoned with painful humiliation while she read. Philip was not now the trim and dainty stripling first introduced to the reader. He had outgrown his faded suit of funereal mourning; his long-neglected hair hung elf-like and matted down his cheeks; there was a gloomy look in his bright dark eyes. Poverty never betrays itself more than in the features and form of Pride. It was evident that his spirit endured, rather than accommodated itself to, his fallen state; and, notwithstanding his soiled and threadbare garments, and a haggardness that ill becomes the years of palmy youth, there was about his whole mien and person a wild and savage grandeur more impressive than his former ruffling arrogance of manner. “Well, mother,” said he, with a strange mixture of sternness in his countenance and pity in his voice; “well, mother, and what says your brother?” “You decided for us once before, decide again. But I need not ask you; you would never--” “I don’t know,” interrupted Philip, vaguely; “let me see what we are to decide on.” Mrs. Morton was naturally a woman of high courage and spirit, but sickness and grief had worn down both; and though Philip was but sixteen, there is something in the very nature of woman--especially in trouble--which makes her seek to lean on some other will than her own. She gave Philip the letter, and went quietly to sit down by Sidney. “Your brother means well,” said Philip, when he had concluded the epistle. “Yes, but nothing is to be done; I cannot, cannot send poor Sidney to--to--” and Mrs. Morton sobbed. “No, my dear, dear mother, no; it would be terrible, indeed, to part you and him. But this bookseller--Plaskwith--perhaps I shall be able to support you both.” “Why, you do not think, Philip, of being an apprentice!--you, who have been so brought up--you, who are so proud!” “Mother, I would sweep the crossings for your sake! Mother, for your sake I would go to my uncle Beaufort with my hat in my hand, for halfpence. Mother, I am not proud--I would be honest, if I can--but when I see you pining away, and so changed, the devil comes into me, and I often shudder lest I should commit some crime--what, I don’t know!” “Come here, Philip--my own Philip--my son, my hope, my firstborn!”--and the mother’s heart gushed forth in all the fondness of early days. “Don’t speak so terribly, you frighten me!”