kes, and his after-bath toilet was
not yet completed when Pen arrived. The elder called out to Arthur in
a cheery voice from the inner apartment, in which he and Morgan were
engaged, and the valet presently came in, bearing a little packet to
Pen's address--Mr. Arthur's letters and papers, Morgan said, which he
had brought from Mr. Arthur's chambers in London, and which consisted
chiefly of numbers of the Pall Mall Gazette, which our friend Mr.
Finucane thought his collaborateur would like to see. The papers were
tied together: the letters in an envelope, addressed to Pen, in the
last-named gentleman's handwriting.

Amongst the letters there was a little note addressed, as a former
letter we have heard of had been, to "Arther Pendennis, Esquire," which
Arthur opened with a start and a blush, and read with a very keen pang
of interest, and sorrow, and regard. She had come to Arthur's house,
Fanny Bolton said--and found that he was gone--gone away to Germany
without ever leaving a word for her--or answer to her last letter, in
which she prayed but for one word of kindness--or the books which he had
promised her in happier times, before he was ill, and which she should
like to keep in remembrance of him. She said she would not reproach
those who had found her at his bedside when he was in the fever, and
knew nobody, and who had turned the poor girl away without a word. She
thought she should have died, she said, of that, but Doctor Goodenough
had kindly tended her, and kept her life, when, perhaps, the keeping
of it was of no good, and she forgave everybody and as for Arthur, she
would pray for him for ever. And when he was so ill, and they cut off
his hair, she had made so free as to keep one little lock for herself,
and that she owned. And might she still keep it, or would his mamma
order that that should be gave up too? She was willing to obey him in
all things, and couldn't but remember that once he was so kind, oh! so
good and kind! to his poor Fanny.

When Major Pendennis, fresh and smirking from his toilet, came out of
his bedroom to his sitting-room, he found Arthur, with this note before
him, and an expression of savage anger on his face, which surprised
the elder gentleman. "What news from London, my boy?" he rather faintly
asked; "are the duns at you that you look so glum?"

"Do you know anything about this letter, sir?" Arthur asked.

"What letter, my good sir?" said the other dryly, at once perceiving
what