nd, perhaps, he exaggerated the good-humour and
contentedness which he had himself, as he thought, witnessed in her
behaviour in the scene with Mr. Huxter.

Now, all Bows's statements had been coloured by an insane jealousy and
rage on that old man's part; and instead of allaying Pen's renascent
desire to see his little conquest again, Warrington's accounts inflamed
and angered Pendennis, and made him more anxious than before to set
himself right, as he persisted in phrasing it, with Fanny. They arrived
at the church door presently; but scarce one word of the service, and
not a syllable of Mr. Shamble's sermon, did either of them comprehend,
probably--so much was each engaged with his own private speculations.
The Major came up to them after the service, with his well-brushed hat
and wig, and his jauntiest, most cheerful air. He complimented them upon
being seen at church; again he said that every comme-il faut person made
a point of attending the English service abroad; and he walked back with
the young men, prattling to them in garrulous good-humour, and making
bows to his acquaintances as they passed; and thinking innocently that
Pen and George were both highly delighted by his anecdotes, which they
suffered to run on in a scornful and silent acquiescence.

At the time of Mr. Shamble's sermon (an erratic Anglican divine, hired
for the season at places of English resort, and addicted to debts,
drinking, and even to roulette, it was said), Pen, chafing under the
persecution which his womankind inflicted upon him, had been meditating
a great act of revolt and of justice, as he had worked himself up to
believe; and Warrington on his part had been thinking that a crisis
in his affairs had likewise come, and that it was necessary for him to
break away from a connexion which every day made more and more wretched
and dear to him. Yes, the time was come. He took those fatal words,
"Perhaps that is what you wished," as a text for a gloomy homily, which
he preached to himself, in the dark pew of his own heart, whilst Mr.
Shamble was feebly giving utterance to his sermon.

CHAPTER LVIII. "Fairoaks to let"

Our poor widow (with the assistance of her faithful Martha of Fairoaks,
who laughed and wondered at the German ways, and superintend the affairs
of the simple household) had made a little feast in honour of Major
Pendennis's arrival, of which, however, only the Major and his two
younger friends partook, for Helen se