of balls, and of
young dandies with their chin-tips, and of the insolent great ladies
who know us one day and cut us the next--and of the world altogether. I
should like to leave it and to go into a convent, that I should. I shall
never find anybody to understand me. And I live here as much alone in
my family and in the world, as if I were in a cell locked up for ever.
I wish there were Sisters of Charity here, and that I could be one and
catch the plague, and die of it--I wish to quit the world. I am not
very old: but I am tired, I have suffered so much--I've been so
disillusionated--I'm weary, I'm weary--O that the Angel of Death would
come and beckon me away!"

This speech may be interpreted as follows. A few nights since a great
lady, Lady Flamingo, had cut Miss Amory and Lady Clavering. She was
quite mad because she could not get an invitation to Lady Drum's ball:
it was the end of the season and nobody had proposed to her: she had
made no sensation at all, she who was so much cleverer than any girl of
the year, and of the young ladies forming her special circle. Dora who
had but five thousand pounds, Flora who had nothing, and Leonora who
had red hair, were going to be married, and nobody had come for Blanche
Amory!

"You judge wisely about the world, and about your position, my dear Miss
Blanche," the Major said. "The Prince don't marry nowadays, as you say:
unless the Princess has a doosid deal of money in the funds, or is a
lady of his own rank.--The young folks of the great families marry
into the great families: if they haven't fortune they have each other's
shoulders, to push on in the world, which is pretty nearly as good.--A
girl with your fortune can scarcely hope for a great match: but a girl
with your genius and your admirable tact and fine manners, with a clever
husband by her side, may make any place for herself in the world.--We
are grown doosid republican. Talent ranks with birth and wealth now,
begad: and a clever man with a clever wife, may take any place they
please."

Miss Amory did not of course in the least understand what Major
Pendennis meant.--Perhaps she thought over circumstances in her mind and
asked herself, could he be a negotiator for a former suitor of hers, and
could he mean Pen? No, it was impossible--He had been civil, but nothing
more.--So she said laughing, "Who is the clever man, and when will you
bring him to me, Major Pendennis? I am dying to see him."

At this moment a