the
widow's countenance, always soft and gentle, assumed an expression so
cruel and inexorable, that the Doctor saw it was in vain to ask her for
justice or pity, and he broke off all entreaties, and ceased making
any further allusions regarding his little client. There is a complaint
which neither poppy, nor mandragora, nor all the drowsy syrups of
the East could allay, in the men in his time, as we are informed by
a popular poet of the days of Elizabeth; and which, when exhibited
in women, no medical discoveries or practice subsequent--neither
homoeopathy, nor hydropathy, nor mesmerism, nor Dr. Simpson, nor Dr.
Locock can cure, and that is--we won't call it jealousy, but rather
gently denominate rivalry and emulation in ladies.

Some of those mischievous and prosaic people who carp and calculate at
every detail of the romancer, and want to know, for instance, how, when
the characters in the 'Critic' are at a dead lock with their daggers
at each other's throats, they are to be got out of that murderous
complication of circumstances, may be induced to ask how it was possible
in a set of chambers in the Temple, consisting of three rooms, two
cupboards, a passage, and a coal-box, Arthur a sick gentleman, Helen his
mother, Laura her adopted daughter, Martha their country attendant, Mrs.
Wheezer a nurse from St. Bartholomew's Hospital, Mrs. Flanagan an Irish
laundress, Major Pendennis a retired military officer, Morgan his
valet, Pidgeon Mr. Arthur Pendennis's boy, and others could be
accommodated--the answer is given at once, that almost everybody in the
Temple was out of town, and that there was scarcely a single occupant
of Pen's house in Lamb Court except those who were occupied round the
sick-bed of the sick gentleman, about whose fever we have not given a
lengthy account, neither enlarge we very much upon the more cheerful
theme of his recovery.

Everybody we have said was out of town, and of course such a fashionable
man as young Mr. Sibwright, who occupied chambers on the second floor
in Pen's staircase, could not be supposed to remain in London. Mrs.
Flanagan, Mr. Pendennis's laundress was acquainted with Mrs. Rouncy who
did for Mr. Sibwright; and that gentleman's bedroom was got ready for
Miss Bell, or Mrs. Pendennis, when the latter should be inclined
to leave her son's sick-room, to try and seek for a little rest for
herself.

If that young buck and flower of Baker Street, Percy Sibwright, could
have known