his whiskers was black, and Mr. P.'s is red."

"Law, Mai they are a most beautiful hawburn," Fanny
said.

"He used to come for Emly Budd, who danced Columbine
in ' Arleykin Ornpipe, or the Battle of Navarino,' when Miss
De la Bosky was took ill — a pretty dancer, and a fine stage
figure of a woman — and he was a great sugar-baker in the
city, with a country ouse at Omerton; and he used to drive
her in the tilbry down Goswell Street Road ; and one day they
drove and was married at St. Bartholomew's Church , Smith-
field, where they ad their bands read quite private; and she
now keeps her carriage, and I sor her name in the paper as
patroness of the Manshing-House Ball for the Washywomen's
Asylum. And look at Lady Mirabel — Capting Costigan's
daughter — she was profeshnl, as all very well know." Thus,
and more to this purpose, Mrs. Bolton spoke, now peeping
through the window-curtain, now cleaning the mugs and
plates, and consigning them to their place in the corner cup-
board ; and finishing her speech as she and Fanny shook out
and folded up the dinner-cloth between them, and restored it
to its drawer in the table.

Although Costigan had once before been made pretty ac-
curately to understand what Pen's pecuniary means and ex-
pectations were, I suppose Cos had forgotten the information
acquired at Chatteries years ago , or had been induced by his



51



natural enthusiasm to exaggerate his friend's Income. He had
described Fairoaks Park in the most glowing terms to Mrs.
Bolton, on the preceding evening, as he was walking about
with her during Pen's little escapade with Fanny, had dilated
upon the enormous wealth of Pen's famous uncle, the Major,
and shown an intimate acquaintance with Arthur's funded and
landed property. Very likely Mrs. Bolton, in her wisdom, had
speculated upon these matters during the night; and had had
visions of Fanny driving in her carriage, like Mrs. Bolton's
old comrade, the dancer of Sadler's Wells.

In the last operation of table-cloth folding, these two
foolish women, of necessity, came close together; and as
Fanny took the cloth and gave it the last fold, her mother put
her finger under the young girl's chin, and kissed her. Again
the red signal flew out, and fluttered on Fanny's cheek. What
did it mean? It was not alarm this time. It was pleasure which
caused the poor little Fanny to blush so. Poor little Fanny !
What? is love sin ; that it is so pleasant at the beginning , and
so bitter at the end?

After the embrace, Mrs. Bolton thought proper to say that
she was a-goin out upon business, and that Fanny must keep
the lodge; which Fanny, after a very faint objection indeed,
consented to do. So Mrs. Bolton took her bonnet and market-
basket, and departed; and the instant she was gone, Fanny
went and sate by the window which commanded Bow's's door,
and never once took her eyes away from that quarter of Shep-
herd's Inn.

Betsy-Jane and Amellar-Ann were buzzing in one comer
of the place, and making believe to read out of a picture-book,
which one of them held topsy-turvy. It was a grave and
dreadful tract, of Mr. Bolton's collection. Fanny did not
hear her sisters prattling over it. She noticed nothing but
Bows's door.

4*



52



At last she gave a little shake , and her eyes lighted up.
He had come out. He would pass the door again. But her
poor little countenance fell in an instant more. Pendennis,
indeed , came out ; but Bows followed after him. They passed
under the archway together. He only took off his hat, and
bowed as he looked in. He did not stop to speak.

In three or four minutes — Fanny did not know how long,
but she looked furiously at him when he came into the lodge
— Bows returned alone, and entered into the porter's
room.

"Where 's your Ma, dear? " he said to Fanny.

"I don't know," Fanny said, with an angry toss. "I
don't follow Ma's steps wherever she goes, I suppose, Mr.
Bows."

" Am I my mother's keeper? " Bows said , with his usual
melancholy bitterness. "Come here, Betsy-Jane and Ameliar-
Ann ; I 've brought a cake for the one who can read her letters
best, and a cake for the other who can read them the next
best."

When the young ladies had undergone the examination
through which Bows put them , they were rewarded with their
gingerbread medals , and went off to discuss them in the court.
Meanwhile Fanny took out some work, and pretended to busy
herself with it, her mind being in great excitement and anger,
as she plied her needle. Bows sate so that he could command
the entrance from the lodge to the street. But the person
whom, perhaps, he expected to see, never made his appear-
ance again. And Mrs. Bolton came in from market, and
found Mr. Bows in place of the person whom she had ex-
pected to see. The reader perhaps can guess what was his
name?

The interview between Bows and his guest, when those
two mounted to the apartment occupied by the former in



53



common with the descendant of the Milesian kings , was not
particularly satisfactory to either party. Pen was sulky. If Bows
had anything on his mind , he did not care to deliver himself of
his thoughts in the presence of Captain Costigan, who re-
mained in the apartment during the whole of Pen's visit; ha-
ving quitted his bed-chamber, indeed, but a very few minutes
before the arrival of that gentleman. We have witnessed the
deshabille of Major Pendennis : will any man wish to be valet-
de-chambre to our other hero , Costigan? It would seem that
the Captain, before issuing from his bed-room, scented him-
self with otto of whisky. A rich odour of that delicious per-
fume breathed from out him, as he held out the grasp of cor-
diality to his visitor. The hand which performed that grasp
shook wofully: it was a wonder how it could hold the
razor with which the poor gentleman daily operated on his
chin.

Bows's room was as neat, on the other hand, as his com-
rade's was disorderly. His humble wardrobe hung behind a
curtain. His books and manuscript music were trimly arranged
upon shelves. A lithographed portrait of Miss Fotheringay,
as Mrs. Haller, with the actress's sprawling signature at the
corner, hung faithfully over the old gentleman's bed. Lady
Mirabel wrote much better than Miss Fotheringay had been
able to do. Her Ladyship had laboured assiduously to acquire
the art of penmanship since her marriage ; and, in a common
note of invitation or acceptance , acquitted herself very gen-
teelly. Bows loved the old handwriting best, though; the
fair artist's earlier manner. He had but one specimen of the
new style, a note in reply to a song composed and dedicated
to Lady Mirabel, by her most humble servant Robert Bows ;
and which document was treasured in his desk amongst his
other state papers. He was teaching Fanny Bolton now to
sing and to write, as he had taught Emily in former days. It



54



was the nature of the man to attach himself to something.
When Emily was torn from him he took a substitute : as a man
looks out for a crutch when he loses a leg, or lashes himself to
a raft when he has suffered shipwreck. Latude had given his
heart to a woman, no doubt, before he grew to be so fond of
a mouse in the Bastille. There are people who in their youth
have felt and inspired an heroic passion, and end by being
happy in the caresses, or agitated by the illness of a poodle.
But it was hard upon Bows , and grating to his feelings as a
man and a sentimentalist,- that he should find Pen again upon
his track , and in pursuit of this little Fanny.

Meanwhile, Costigan had not the least idea but that his
company was perfectly welcome to Messrs. Pendennis and
Bows, and that the visit of the former was intended for himself.
He expressed himself greatly pleased with that mark of po-
loightness, and promised, in his own mind, that he would repay
that obligation at least; which was not the only debt which the
Captain owed in life ; by several visits to his young friend. He
entertained him affably with news of the day , or rather of ten
days previous; for Pen, in his quality of Journalist, remem-
bered to have seen some of the Captain's opinions in the
Sporting and Theatrical Newspaper, which was Costigan's
oracle. He stated that Sir Charles and Lady Mirabel were
gone to Baden-Baden, and were most pressing in their in-
vitations that he should join them there. Pen replied with
great gravity, that he had heard that Baden was very pleasant,
and the Grand Duke exceedingly hospitable to English. Costi-
gan answered, that the laws of hospitalitee bekeam a Grand
Juke; that he sariously would think about visiting him; and
made some remarks upon the splendid festivities at Dublin
Castle, when his Excellency the Earl of Portansherry held the
Viceraygal Coort there, and of which he Costigan had been a
humble but pleased spectator. And Pen — as he heard these



55



oft-told well- remembered legends— recollected the time when
he had given a sort of credence to them, and had a certain re-
spect for the Captain. Emily and first love, and the little room
at Chatteries ; and the kind talk with Bows on the bridge came
back to him. He felt quite kindly disposed towards his two
old friends ; and cordially shook the hands of both of them
when he rose to go away.

He had quite forgotten about little Fanny Bolton whilst the
Captain was talking, and Pen himself was absorbed in other
selfish meditations. He only remembered her again as Bows
came hobbling down the stairs after him, bent evidently upon
following him out of Shepherd's Inn.

Mr. Bows's precaution was not a lucky one. The wrath of
Mr. Arthur Pendennis rose at the poor old fellow's feeble
persecution. Confound him, what does he mean by dogging
me? thought Pen. And he burst out laughing when he was in
the Strand and by himself, as he thought of the elder's strata-
gem. It was not an honest laugh, Arthur Pendennis. Perhaps
the thought struck Arthur himself, and he blushed at his own
sense of humour.

He went off to endeavour to banish the thoughts which oc-
cupied him, whatever those thoughts might be, and tried vari-
ous places of amusement with but indifferent success. He
struggled up the highest stairs of the Panorama ; but when he
had arrived , panting, at the height of the eminence. Care had
come up with him, and was bearing him company. He went
to the Club , and wrote a long letter home , exceedingly witty
and sarcastic, and in which, if he did not say a single word
about Vauxhall and Fanny Bolton, it was because he thought
that subject, however interesting to himself, would not be very
interesting to his mother and Laura. Nor could the novels or
the library table fix his attention, nor the grave and re-
spectable Jawkins (the only man in town), who wished to en-



56



gage him in conversation; nor any of the amusements which
he tried, after flying from Jawkins. He passed a Comic Thea-
tre on his way home, and saw "Stunning Farce," "Roars of
Laughter," " Good Old English Fun and Frolic," placarded in
vermilion letters on the gate. He went into the pit, and saw
the lovely Mrs. Leary, as usual, in a man's attire; and that
eminent buffo actor, Tom Horseman, dressed as a woman.
Horseman's travestie seemed to him a horrid and hideous de-
gradation; Mrs. Leary's glances and ankles had not the least
effect. He laughed again, and bitterly, to himself, as he thought
of the effect which she had produced upon him, on the first
night of his arrival in London, a short time — what a long long
time ago.

CHAPTER V.

In or near the Temple Garden.

Fashion has long deserted the green and pretty Temple
Garden, in which Shakespeare makes York and Lancaster to
pluck the innocent white and red roses which became the bad-
ges of their bloody wars ; and the learned and pleasant writer
of the Handbook of London tells us that "the commonest and
hardiest kind of rose has long ceased to put forth a bud " in
that smoky air. Not many of the present occupiers of the
buildings round about the quarter know or care, very likely,
whether or not roses grow there, or pass the old gate, except
on their way to chambers. The attornies' clerks don't carry
flowers in their bags, or posies under their arms, as they run to
the counsel's chambers — the few lawyers who take constitu-
tional walks think very little about York and Lancaster,
especially since the railroad business is over. Only anti-
quarians and literary amateurs care to look at the gardens with
much interest , and fancy good Sir Roger de Coverley and Mr.



57



Spectator with his short face pacing up and down the road;
or dear Oliver Goldsmith in the summer-house, perhaps me-
ditating about the next "Citizen of the World," or the new
suit that Mr. Filby, the tailor, is fashioning for him, or the
dunning letter that Mr. Newbery has sent. Treading heavily
on the gravel, and rolling majestically along in a snuff-coloured
suit, and a wig that sadly wants the barber's powder and irons,
one sees the Great Doctor step up to him, (his Scotch lackey
following at the lexicographer's heels, a little the worse for
Port wine that they have been taking at the Mitre,) and Mr.
Johnson asks Mr. Goldsmith to come home and take a dish of
tea with Miss Williams. Kind faith of Fancy ! Sir Roger and
Mr. vSpectator are as real to us now as the two doctors and the
boozy and faithful Scotchman. The poetical figures live in our
memoryjust as much as the real personages, — and as Mr. Arthur
Pendennis was of a romantic and literary turn, by no means
addicted to the legal pursuits common in the neighbourhood
of the place, we may presume that he was cherishing some such
poetical reflections as these, when, upon the evening after the
events recorded in the last chapter, the young gentleman chose
the Temple Gardens as a place for exercise and meditation.

On the Sunday evening the Temple is commonly calm.
The chambers are for the most part vacant : the great lawyers
are giving grand dinner parties at their houses in the Bel-
gravian or Tyburnian districts ; the agreeable young barristers
are absent, attending those parties, and paying their respects
to Mr. Kewsy's excellent claret, or Mr. Justice Ermine's ac-
complished daughters : the uninvited are partaking of the eco-
nomic joint, and the modest half-pint of wine at the Club , en-
tertaining themselves, and the rest of the company in the Club-
room, with Circuit jokes and points of wit and law. Nobody
is in chambers at all, except poor Mr. Cockle, who is ill, and
whose laundress is making him gruel; or Mr. Toodle, who is



58



an amateur of the flute , and whom you may hear piping soli-
tary from his chambers in the second floor; or young Tiger,
the student, from whose open windows comes a great gush of
cigar smoke, and at whose door are a quantity of dishes and
covers, bearing the insignia of Dicks' or the Cock. But stop I
Whither does Fancy lead us ? It is vacation time ; and with the
exception of Pendennis, nobody is in Chambers at all.

Perhaps it was solitude, then, which drove Pen into the
garden; for although he had never before passed the gate , and
had looked rather carelessly at the pretty flower-beds , and the
groups of pleased citizens sauntering over the trim lawn and
the broad gravel- walks by the river, on this evening it hap-
pened, as we have said, that the young gentleman, who had
dined alone at a tavern in the neighbourhood of the Temple,
took a fancy, as he was returning home to his chambers, to
take a little walk in the gardens, and enjoy the fresh evening
air, and the sight of the shining Thames. After walking for a
brief space, and looking at the many peaceful and happy
groups round about him, he grew tired of the exercise, and
betook himself to one of the summer houses which flank either
end of the main walk, and there modestly seated himself.
What were his cogitations? The evening was delightfully
bright and calm ; the sky was cloudless ; the chimneys on the
opposite bank were not smoking; the wharfs and warehouses
looked rosy in the sunshine, and as clear as if they, too, had
washed for the holiday. The steamers rushed rapidly up and
down the stream, laden with holiday passengers. The bells
of the multitudinous city churches were ringing to evening
prayers, — such peaceful Sabbath evenings as this Pen may have
remembered in his early days, as he paced, with his arm round
his mother's waist, on the terrace before the lawn at home.
The sun was lighting up the little Brawl, too, as well as the
broad Thames, and sinking downwards majestically behind



59



the Clavering elms, and the tower of the familiar village
church. Was it thoughts of these, or the sunset merely, that
caused the blush in the young man's face? He beat time on
the bench, to the chorus of the bells -without; flicked the dust
off his shining boots with his pocket-handkerchief, and start-
ing up, stamped with his foot and said, "No, by Jove, I '11 go
home." And with this resolution, which indicated that some
struggle as to the propriety of remaining where he was , or of
quitting the garden, had been going on in his mind, he stepped
out of the summer-house.

He nearly knocked down two little children, who did not
indeed reach much higher than his knee, and were trotting
along the gravel-walk, with their long blue shadows slanting
towards the east.

One cried out "Oh!" the other began to laugh ; and with
a knowing little infantine chuckle, said, "Missa Pen-dennis ! "
And Arthur, looking down, saw his two little friends of the
day before, Mesdemoiselles Ameliar-Ann and Betsy- Jane.
He blushed more than ever at seeing them, and seizing the
one whom he had nearly upset, jumped her up into the air,
and kissed her : at which sudden assault Ameliar-Ann began
to cry in great alarm.

This cry brought up instantly two ladies in clean collars
and new ribbons, and grand shawls, namely: Mrs. Bolton in
a rich scarlet Caledonian Cashmere, and a black silk dress,
and Miss F. Bolton with a yellow scarf and a sweet sprigged
muslin, and a parasol — quite the lady. Fanny did not say
one single word: though her eyes flashed a welcome, and
shone as bright — as bright as the most blazing windows in
Paper Buildings. But Mrs. Bolton, after admonishing Betsy-
Jane, said, "Lor Sir — how very odd that we should meet
yo2i year? I ope you ave your ealth well, Sir. — Ain't it odd,
Fanny, that we should meet Mr. Pendennis? " What do you



60



mean by sniggering, Mesdames? When young Croesus has
been staying at a country-house, have you never, by any
singular coincidence, been walking with your Fanny in the
shrubberies? Have you and your Fanny never happened to
be listening to the band of the Heavies at Brighton, when
young De Boots and Captain Padmore came clinking down
the Pier? Have you and your darling Frances never chanced
to be visiting old widow Wheezy at the cottage on the com-
mon, when the young curate has stepped in with a tract
adapted to the rheumatism? Do you suppose that, if singular
coincidences occur at the Hall, they don't also happen at the
Lodge?

It was a coincidence, no doubt: that was all. In the
course of the conversation on the day previous, Mr. Pen-
dennis had merely said, in the simplest way imaginable, and
in reply to a question of Miss Bolton , that although some of
the courts were gloomy, parts of the Temple were very cheer-
ful and agreeable, especially the chambers looking on the
river and around the gardens, and that the gardens were a
very pleasant walk on Sunday evenings and frequented by a
great number of people — and here, by the merest chance,
all our acquaintances met together, just like so many people
in genteel life. What could be more artless, good-natured,
or natural?

Pen looked very grave, pompous, and dandified. He was
unusually smart and brilliant in his costume. His white duck
trowsers and white hat, his neckcloth of many colours, his
light waistcoat, gold chains, and shirt studs, gave him the air
of a prince of the blood at least. How his splendour became
his figure! Was anybody ever like him? some one thought.
He blushed — how his blushes became him I the same indi-
vidual said to herself. The children, on seeing him the day
before, had been so struck with him, that after he had gone



61



away they had been playing at him. And Ameliar-Ann,
sticking her little chubby fingers into the arm-holes of her
pinafore, as Pen was wont to do with his waistcoat, had said,
"Now, Bessy-Jane, I'll be Missa Pendennis." Fanny had
laughed till she cried, and smothered her sister with kisses for
that feat. How happy, too, she was to see Arthur embracing
the child !

If Arthur was red, Fanny, on the contrary, was very worn
and pale. Arthur remarked it, and asked kindly why she
looked so fatigued.

"I was awake all night," said Fanny, and began to blush
a little.

"I put out her candle, and hordered her to go to sleep and
leave off readin," interposed the fond mother.

"You were reading ! And what was it that interested you
so?" asked Pen, amused.

"Oh, It's so beautiful!" said Fanny.

"What?"

"Walter Lorraine," Fanny sighed out. "How I do hate
that Neara — Nssra — I don't know the pronounciatlon.
And how I love Leonora, and Walter, oh, how dear he Is!"

How had Fanny discovered the novel of Walter Lorraine,
and that Pen was the author? This little person remembered
every single word which Mr. Pendennis had spoken on the
night previous, and how he wrote in books and newspapers.
What books ? She was so eager to know, that she had almost
a mind to be civil to old Bows, who was suffering under her
displeasure since yesterday, but she determined first to make
application to Costigan. She began by coaxing the Captain
and smiling upon him In her most winning way, as she helped
to arrange his dinner and set his humble apartment in order.
She was sure his linen wanted mending (and Indeed the Cap-
tain's linen-closet contained some curious specimens of manu-



62



factured flax and cotton). She would mend his shirts — all
his shirts. What horrid holes — what funny holes ! She put
her little face through one of them, and laughed at the old
warrior in the most winning manner. She would have made
a funny little picture looking through the holes. Then she
daintily removed Costigan's dinner things, tripping about the
room as she had seen the dancers do at the play; and she
danced to the Captain's cupboard, and produced his whisky
bottle, and mixed him a tumbler, and must taste a drop of
it — a little drop ; and the Captain must sing her one of his
songs, his dear songs, and teach it to her. And when he had
sung an Irish melody in his rich quavering voice, fancying it
was he who was fascinating the little Syren, she put her little
question about Arthur Pendennis and his novel, and having
got an answer, cared for nothing more, but left the Captain
at the piano about to sing her another song, and the dinner
tray on the passage, and the shirts on the chair, and ran down
stairs quickening her pace as she sped.

Captain Costigan, as he said, was not a lltherary cyarkter,
nor had he as yet found time to peruse his young friend's
ellygant perfaurumance, though he intended to teak an early
opporchunitee of purchasing a cawpee of his work. But he
knew the name of Pen's novel from the fact that Messrs.
Finucane, Bludyer, and other frequenters of the Back-
Kitchen, spoke of Mr. Pendennis (and not all of them with
great friendship ; for Bludyer called him a confounded cox-
comb, and Hoolan wondered that Doolan did not kick
him, &c.) by the sobriquet of Walter Lorraine, — and was
hence enabled to give Fanny the information which she re-
quired.

"And she went and ast for it at the llbery," Mrs. Bolton
said, — "several liberies — and some ad it and it was hout,
and some adn't It. And one of the liberies as ad it wouldn't



63



let er ave It without a sovering : and she adn't one, and she
came back a-cryin to me — didn't you, Fanny? — and I gave
her a sovering."

"And, oh, I was in such a fright lest any one should have
come to the libery and took it while I was away," Fanny
said, her cheeks and eyes glowing. "And, oh, I do like
it so!"

Arthur was touched by this artless sympathy, immensely
flattered and moved by it. "Do you like it?" he said. "If
you will come up to my chambers I will — No , I will bring
you one — no, I will send you one. Good night. Thank
you, Fanny. God bless you. I mustn't stay with you. Good-
bye, good-bye." And, pressing her hand once, and nodding
to her mother and the other children, he strode out of the
gardens.

He quickened his pace as he went from them, and ran