servant threw open the door, and announced Mr. Henry
Foker: at which name, and at the appearance of our friend, both the lady
and the gentleman burst out laughing.

"That is not the man," Major Pendennis said. "He is engaged to his
cousin, Lord Gravesend's daughter.--Good-bye, my dear Miss Amory."

* * * * *

Was Pen growing worldly, and should a man not get the experience of the
world and lay it to his account? "He felt, for his part," as he said,
"that he was growing very old very soon." "How this town forms and
changes us," he said once to Warrington. Each had come in from his
night's amusement; and Pen was smoking his pipe, and recounting, as his
habit was, to his friend the observations and adventures of the evening
just past. "How I am changed," he said, "from the simpleton boy at
Fairoaks, who was fit to break his heart about his first love! Lady
Mirabel had a reception to-night, and was as grave and collected as if
she had been born a Duchess, and had never seen a trap-door in her
life. She gave me the honour of a conversation, and patronised me about
'Walter Lorraine,' quite kindly."

"What condescension!" broke in Warrington.

"Wasn't it?" Pen said, simply--at which the other burst out laughing
according to his wont. "Is it possible," he said, "that anybody should
think of patronising the eminent author of 'Walter Lorraine?'"

"You laugh at both of us," Pen said, blushing a little--"I was coming
to that myself. She told me that she had not read the book (as indeed
I believe she never read a book in her life), but that Lady Rockminster
had, and that the Duchess of Connaught pronounced it to be very clever.
In that case, I said, I should die happy, for that to please those
two ladies was in fact the great aim of my existence, and having their
approbation, of course I need look for no other. Lady Mirabel looked
at me solemnly out of her fine eyes, and said, 'Oh, indeed,' as if she
understood me, and then she asked me whether I went to the Duchess's
Thursdays, and when I said No, hoped she should see me there, and that
I must try and get there, everybody went there--everybody who was in
society: and then we talked of the new ambassador from Timbuctoo, and
how he was better than the old one; and how Lady Mary Billington was
going to marry a clergyman quite below her in rank; and how Lord and
Lady Ringdove had fallen out three months after their marriage about
Tom Pouter of the Blues, Lad