otion?--a
great heart full of pent-up tenderness and manly love and gentleness was
there for her, if she might take it. But it might not be. Fate had ruled
otherwise. "Even if I could, she would not have me," George thought.
"What has an ugly, rough old fellow like me, to make any woman like him?
I'm getting old, and I've made no mark in life. I've neither good looks,
nor youth, nor money, nor reputation. A man must be able to do something
besides stare at her and offer on his knees his smooth devotion, to make
a woman like him. What can I do? Lots of young fellows have passed me in
the race--what they call the prizes of life didn't seem to me worth the
trouble of the struggle. But for her. If she had been mine and liked a
diamond--ah! shouldn't she have worn it! Psha, what a fool I am to brag
of what I would have done! We are the slaves of destiny. Our lots are
shaped for us, and mine is ordained long ago. Come, let us have a pipe,
and put the smell of these flowers out of court, poor little silent
flowers! you'll be dead to-morrow. What business had you to show your
red cheeks in this dingy place?"

By his bedside George found a new Bible which the widow had placed
there, with a note inside saying that she had not seen the book amongst
his collection in a room where she had spent a number of hours, and
where God had vouchsafed to her prayers the life of her son, and that
she gave to Arthur's friend the best thing she could, and besought him
to read in the volume sometimes, and to keep it as a token of a grateful
mother's regard and affection. Poor George mournfully kissed the book as
he had done the flowers; and the morning found him still reading in its
awful pages, in which so many stricken hearts, in which so many tender
and faithful souls, have found comfort under calamity, and refuge and
hope in affliction.

CHAPTER LV. Fanny's Occupation's gone

Good Helen, ever since her son's illness, had taken, as we have seen,
entire possession of the young man, of his drawers and closets and all
which they contained: whether shirts that wanted buttons, or stockings
that required mending, or, must it be owned? letters that lay amongst
those articles of raiment, and which of course it was necessary that
somebody should answer during Arthur's weakened and incapable condition.
Perhaps Mrs. Pendennis was laudably desirous to have some explanations
about the dreadful Fanny Bolton mystery, regarding which she had never
br