e looked round and surveyed the
apartments awfully and respectfully, as if he had been at church.

"Yes, Lady Rockminster has took us up," said Lady Clavering.

"Taken us up, Mamma," cried Blanche, in a shrill voice.

"Well, taken us up, then," said my lady; "it's very kind of her, and
I dare say we shall like it when we git used to it, only at first one
don't fancy being took--well, taken up, at all. She is going to give
our balls for us; and wants to invite all our dinners. But I won't stand
that. I will have my old friends and I won't let her send all the cards
out, and sit mum at the head of my own table. You must come to me,
Arthur and Major--come, let me see, on the 14th.--It ain't one of our
grand dinners, Blanche," she said, looking round at her daughter, who
bit her lips and frowned very savagely for a sylphide.

The Major, with a smile and a bow, said he would much rather come to a
quiet meeting than to a grand dinner. He had had enough of those large
entertainments, and preferred the simplicity of the home circle.

"I always think a dinner's the best the second day," said Lady
Clavering, thinking to mend her first speech. "On the 14th we'll be
quite a snug little party;" at which second blunder, Miss Blanche
clasped her hands in despair, and said "O, mamma, vous etes
incorrigible." Major Pendennis vowed that he liked snug dinners of all
things in the world, and confounded her ladyship's impudence for daring
to ask such a man as him to a second day's dinner. But he was a man of
an economical turn of mind, and bethinking himself that he could throw
over these people if anything better should offer, he accepted with
the blandest air. As for Pen, he was not a diner-out of thirty years'
standing as yet, and the idea of a fine feast in a fine house was still
perfectly welcome to him.

"What was that pretty little quarrel which engaged itself between your
worship and Miss Amory?" the Major asked of Pen, as they walked away
together. "I thought you used to au mieux in that quarter."

"Used to be," answered Pen, with a dandified air "is a vague phrase
regarding a woman. Was and is are two very different terms, sir, as
regards women's hearts especially.

"Egad, they change as we do," cried the elder. "When we took the Cape of
Good Hope, I recollect there was a lady who talked poisoning herself for
your humble servant; and, begad, in three months she ran away from her
husband with somebody else. Don't get yourse