k man and his family. His heart (and his
mother's too, as we may fancy) melted within him at the thought of so
much good-feeling and good-nature. Let Pen's biographer be pardoned
for alluding to a time not far distant when a somewhat similar mishap
brought him a providential friend, a kind physician, and a thousand
proofs of a most touching and surprising kindness and sympathy.

There was a piano in Mr. Sibwright's chamber (indeed, this gentleman, a
lover of all the arts, performed himself--and excellently ill too--upon
the instrument; and had had a song dedicated to him, the words by
himself, the air by his devoted friend Leopoldo Twankidillo), and at
this music-box, as Mr. Warrington called it, Laura, at first with a
great deal of tremor and blushing (which became her very much), played
and sang, sometimes of an evening, simple airs, and old songs of home.
Her voice was a rich contralto, and Warrington, who scarcely knew one
tune from another and who had but one tune or bray in his repertoire,--a
most discordant imitation of 'God save the King'--sat rapt in delight
listening to these songs. He could follow their rhythm if not their
harmony; and he could watch, with a constant and daily growing
enthusiasm, the pure and tender and generous creature who made the
music.

I wonder how that poor pale little girl in the black bonnet, who used to
stand at the lamp-post in Lamb Court sometimes of an evening, looking
up to the open windows from which the music came, liked to hear it? When
Pen's bedtime came the songs were hushed. Lights appeared in the upper
room: his room, whither the widow used to conduct him; and then the
Major and Mr. Warrington, and sometimes Miss Laura, would have a game at
ecarte or backgammon; or she would sit by working a pair of slippers in
worsted--a pair of gentleman's slippers--they might have been for Arthur
or for George or for Major Pendennis: one of those three would have
given anything for the slippers.

Whilst such business as this was going on within, a rather shabby old
gentleman would come and lead away the pale girl in the black bonnet,
who had no right to be abroad in the night air; and the Temple porters,
the few laundresses, and other amateurs who had been listening to the
concert, would also disappear.

Just before ten o'clock there was another musical performance, namely
that of the chimes of St. Clement's clock in the Strand, which played
the clear cheerful notes of a psalm, bef