s figure! Was anybody ever like him? some one
thought. He blushed--how his blushes became him! the same individual
said to herself. The children, on seeing him the day before, had been
so struck with him, that after he had gone away they had been playing
at him. And Ameliar-Ann, sticking her little chubby fingers into the
arm-holes of her pinafore, as Pen was wont to do with his waistcoat, had
said, "Now, Bessy-Jane, I'll be Missa Pendennis." Fanny had laughed
till she cried, and smothered her sister with kisses for that feat. How
happy, too, she was to see Arthur embracing the child!

If Arthur was red, Fanny, on the contrary, was very worn and pale.
Arthur remarked it, and asked kindly why she looked so fatigued.

"I was awake all night," said Fanny, and began to blush a little.

"I put out her candle, and hordered her to go to sleep and leave off
readin," interposed the fond mother.

"You were reading! And what was it that interested you so?" asked Pen,
amused.

"Oh, it's so beautiful!" said Fanny.

"What?"

"'Walter Lorraine,'" Fanny sighed out. "How I do hate that
Neaera--Neaera--I don't know the pronunciation. And I love Leonora, and
Walter, oh, how dear he is!"

How had Fanny discovered the novel of 'Walter Lorraine,' and that Pen
was the author? This little person remembered every single word which
Mr. Pendennis had spoken on the night previous, and how he wrote in
books and newspapers. What books? She was so eager to know, that she
had almost a mind to be civil to old Bows, who was suffering under
her displeasure since yesterday, but she determined first to make
application to Costigan. She began by coaxing the Captain and smiling
upon him in her most winning way, as she helped to arrange his dinner
and set his humble apartment in order. She was sure his linen wanted
mending (and indeed the Captain's linen-closet contained some curious
specimens of manufactured flax and cotton). She would mend his
shirts--all his shirts. What horrid holes--what funny holes! She put her
little face through one of them, and laughed at the old warrior in the
most winning manner. She would have made a funny little picture looking
through the holes. Then she daintily removed Costigan's dinner things,
tripping about the room as she had seen the dancers do at the play; and
she danced to the Captain's cupboard, and produced his whisky-bottle,
and mixed him a tumbler, and must taste a drop of it--a little drop; and
the Captain