ortion of
the young lady's speech, though she protested against the former part.
For my part I suppose Miss Laura was right in both statements, and
with regard to the latter assertion especially, that it is an old and
received truism--love is an hour with us: it is all night and all
day with a woman. Damon has taxes, sermon, parade, tailors' bills,
parliamentary duties, and the deuce knows what to think of; Delia has
to think about Damon--Damon is the oak (or the post) and stands up, and
Delia is the ivy or the honeysuckle whose arms twine about him. Is it
not so, Delia? Is it not your nature to creep about his feet and kiss
them, to twine round his trunk and hang there; and Damon's to stand like
a British man with his hands in his breeches pocket, while the pretty
fond parasite clings round him?

Old Pendennis had only accompanied our friends to the water's edge,
and left them on board the boat, giving the chief charge of the little
expedition to Warrington. He himself was bound on a brief visit to the
house of a great man, a friend of his, after which sojourn he proposed
to join his sister-in-law at the German watering-place, whither the
party was bound. The Major himself thought that his long attentions to
his sick family had earned for him a little relaxation--and though the
best of the partridges were thinned off, the pheasants were still to
be shot at Stillbrook, where the noble owner still was; old Pendennis
betook himself to that hospitable mansion and disported there with
great comfort to himself. A royal Duke, some foreigners of note, some
illustrious statesmen, and some pleasant people visited it: it did the
old fellow's heart good to see his name in the Morning Post amongst
the list of the distinguished company which the Marquis of Steyne was
entertaining at his country-house at Stillbrook. He was a very useful
and pleasant personage in a country-house. He entertained the young
men with queer little anecdotes and grivoises stories on their
shooting-parties or in their smoking-room, where they laughed at him and
with him. He was obsequious with the ladies of a morning, in the
rooms dedicated to them. He walked the new arrivals about the park and
gardens, and showed them the carte du pays, and where there was the best
view of the mansion, and where the most favourable point to look at the
lake: he showed, where the timber was to be felled, and where the old
road went before the new bridge was built, and the hi