rs. "Forgive me," he said, in
broken words; "I--I meant not to taunt you. I am but a giddy boy!--send
me to school!--do with me as you will!"

"Ay," said the old man, shaking his head gently, "you know not what pain
a son's bitter word can send to a parent's heart. But it is all natural,
perfectly natural! You would reproach me with a love of money, it is the
sin to which youth is the least lenient. But what! can I look round the
world and not see its value, its necessity? Year after year, from my
first manhood, I have toiled and toiled to preserve from the hammer
these last remnants of my ancestor's remains. Year after year fortune
has slipped from my grasp; and, after all my efforts, and towards the
close of a long life, I stand on the very verge of penury. But you
cannot tell--no man whose heart is not seared with many years can tell
or can appreciate, the motives that have formed my character. You,
however,"--and his voice softened as he laid his hand on his son's head,
"you, however,--the gay, the bold, the young,--should not have your brow
crossed and your eye dimmed by the cares that surround me. Go! I will
accompany you to town; I will see Saville myself. If he be one with whom
my son can, at so tender an age, be safely trusted, you shall pay him
the visit you wish."

Percy would have replied but his father checked him; and before the end
of the evening, the father had resolved to forget as much as he pleased
of the conversation.

The elder Godolphin was one of those characters on whom it is vain
to attempt making a permanent impression. The habits of his mind were
durably formed: like waters, they yielded to any sudden intrusion, but
closed instantly again. Early in life he had been taught that he ought
to marry an heiress for the benefit of his estate--his ancestral estate;
the restoration of which he had been bred to consider the grand object
and ambition of life. His views had been strangely baffled; but the more
they were thwarted the more pertinaciously he clung to them. Naturally
kind, generous, and social, he had sunk, at length, into the anchorite
and the miser. All other speculations that should retrieve his ancestral
honours had failed: but there is one speculation that never fails--the
speculation of _saving!_ It was to this that he now indissolubly
attached himself. At moments he was open to all his old habits; but such
moments were rare and few. A cold, hard, frosty penuriousness was his
prevale