n into the garden; for
although he had never before passed the gate, and had looked rather
carelessly at the pretty flower-beds, and the groups of pleased citizens
sauntering over the trim lawn and the broad gravel-walks by the river,
on this evening it happened, as we have said, that the young gentleman,
who had dined alone at a tavern in the neighbourhood of the Temple, took
a fancy, as he was returning home to his chambers, to take a little walk
in the gardens, and enjoy the fresh evening air, and the sight of the
shining Thames. After walking for a brief space, and looking at the
many peaceful and happy groups round about him, he grew tired of the
exercise, and betook himself to one of the summer-houses which flank
either end of the main walk, and there modestly seated himself. What
were his cogitations? The evening was delightfully bright and calm; the
sky was cloudless; the chimneys on the opposite bank were not smoking;
the wharfs warehouses looked rosy in the sunshine, and as clear as if
they, too, had washed for the holiday. The steamers rushed rapidly up
and down the stream, laden with holiday passengers. The bells of the
multitudinous city churches were ringing to evening prayers--such
peaceful Sabbath evenings as this Pen may have remembered in his early
days, as he paced, with his arm round his mother's waist, on the terrace
before the lawn at home. The sun was lighting up the little Brawl, too,
as well as the broad Thames, and sinking downwards majestically behind
the Clavering elms, and the tower of the familiar village church. Was
it thoughts of these, or the sunset merely, that caused the blush in the
young man's face? He beat time on the bench, to the chorus of the
bells without; flicked the dust off his shining boots with his
pocket-handkerchief, and starting up, stamped with his foot and said,
"No, by Jove, I'll go home." And with this resolution, which indicated
that some struggle as to the propriety of remaining where he was, or of
quitting the garden, had been going on in his mind, he stepped out of
the summer-house.

He nearly knocked down two little children, who did not indeed reach
much higher than his knee, and were trotting along the gravel-walk, with
their long blue shadows slanting towards the east.

One cried out "Oh!" the other began to laugh; and with a knowing little
infantile chuckle, said, "Missa Pendennis!" And Arthur, looking down,
saw his two little friends of the day before, Mes