rthur Pendennis, I should neither
be sorry nor surprised, begad! and if you object to ten thousand pound,
what would you say, sir, to thirty, or forty, or fifty?" and the Major
looked still more knowingly, and still harder at Pen.

"Well, sir," he said to his godfather and namesake, "make her Mrs.
Arthur Pendennis. You can do it as well as I."

"Psha! you are laughing at me, sir," the other replied rather peevishly,
"and you ought not to laugh so near a church gate. Here we are at St.
Benedict's. They say Mr. Oriel is a beautiful preacher."

Indeed, the bells were tolling, the people were trooping into the
handsome church, the carriages of the inhabitants of the lordly quarter
poured forth their pretty loads of devotees, in whose company Pen and
his uncle, ending their edifying conversation, entered the fane. I do
not know whether other people carry their worldly affairs to the church
door. Arthur, who, from habitual reverence and feeling, was always more
than respectful in a place of worship, thought of the incongruity of
their talk, perhaps; whilst the old gentleman at his side was utterly
unconscious of any such contrast. His hat was brushed: his wig was
trim: his neckcloth was perfectly tied. He looked at every soul in the
congregation, it is true: the bald heads and the bonnets, the flowers
and the feathers: but so demurely that he hardly lifted up his eyes from
his book--from his book which he could not read without glasses. As
for Pen's gravity, it was sorely put to the test when, upon looking by
chance towards the seats where the servants were collected, he spied
out, by the side of a demure gentleman in plush, Henry Foker, Esquire,
who had discovered this place of devotion. Following the direction of
Harry's eye, which strayed a good deal from his book, Pen found that
it alighted upon a yellow bonnet and a pink one: and that these bonnets
were on the heads of Lady Clavering and Blanche Amory. If Pen's uncle
is not the only man who has talked about his worldly affairs up to
the church door, is poor Harry Foker the only one who has brought his
worldly love into the aisle?

When the congregation issued forth at the conclusion of the service,
Foker was out amongst the first, but Pen came up with him presently, as
he was hankering about the entrance, which he was unwilling to leave,
until my lady's barouche, with the bewigged coachman, had borne away its
mistress and her daughter from their devotions.

When the