ck official paper from the Marquis of Steyne,
telling him to come to Richmond to a little party at the Star and
Garter, and speak French, which language the Major possessed very
perfectly; and another from the Bishop of Ealing and Mrs. Trail,
requesting the honour of Major Pendennis's company at Ealing House,
all of which letters Pendennis read gracefully, and with the more
satisfaction, because Glowry, the Scotch surgeon, breakfasting opposite
to him, was looking on, and hating him for having so many invitations,
which nobody ever sent to Glowry.

These perused, the Major took out his pocket-book to see on what days he
was disengaged, and which of these many hospitable calls he could afford
to accept or decline.

He threw over Cutler, the East India Director, in Baker Street, in order
to dine with Lord Steyne and the little French party at the Star and
Garter--the Bishop he accepted, because, though the dinner was slow, he
liked to dine with bishops--and so went through his list and disposed of
them according to his fancy or interest. Then he took his breakfast
and looked over the paper, the gazette, the births and deaths, and the
fashionable intelligence, to see that his name was down among the guests
at my Lord So-and-so's fete, and in the intervals of these occupations
carried on cheerful conversation with his acquaintances about the room.

Among the letters which formed Major Pendennis's budget for that morning
there was only one unread, and which lay solitary and apart from all the
fashionable London letters, with a country postmark and a homely seal.
The superscription was in a pretty delicate female hand, and though
marked 'Immediate' by the fair writer, with a strong dash of anxiety
under the word, yet the Major had, for reasons of his own, neglected up
to the present moment his humble rural petitioner, who to be sure could
hardly hope to get a hearing among so many grand folks who attended
his levee. The fact was, this was a letter from a female relative of
Pendennis, and while the grandees of her brother's acquaintance were
received and got their interview, and drove off, as it were, the patient
country letter remained for a long time waiting for an audience in the
ante-chamber under the slop-bason.

At last it came to be this letter's turn, and the Major broke a seal
with 'Fairoaks' engraved upon it, and 'Clavering St. Mary's' for a
postmark. It was a double letter, and the Major commenced perusing the
e