ear, with a positive
order to return at the expiration of that time and complete his marriage
with his cousin, or to retire into private life and three hundred a year
altogether, and never see parent or brewery more. Mr. Henry Foker went
away then, carrying with him that grief and care which passes free at
the strictest Custom-houses, and which proverbially accompanies the
exile; and with this crape over his eyes, even the Parisian Boulevard
looked melancholy to him, and the sky of Italy black.

To Sir Francis Clavering, that year was a most unfortunate one. The
events described in the last chapter came to complete the ruin of the
year. It was that year of grace in which, as our sporting readers may
remember, Lord Harrowhill's horse (he was a classical young nobleman,
and named his stud out of the Iliad)--when Podasokus won the Derby, to
the dismay of the knowing ones, who pronounced the winning horse's name
in various extraordinary ways, and who backed Borax, who was nowhere in
the race. Sir Francis Clavering, who was intimate with some of the
most rascally characters of the turf, and, of course, had "valuable
information," had laid heavy odds against the winning horse, and backed
the favourite freely, and the result of his dealings was, as his son
correctly stated to poor Lady Clavering, a loss of seven thousand
pounds.

Indeed, it was a cruel blow upon the lady, who had discharged her
husband's debts many times over; who had received as many times his
oaths and promises of amendment; who had paid his money-lenders and
horse-dealers; who had furnished his town and country houses, and who
was called upon now instantly to meet this enormous sum, the penalty of
her cowardly husband's extravagance.

It has been described in former pages how the elder Pendennis had become
the adviser of the Clavering family, and, in his quality of intimate
friend of the house, had gone over every room of ii, and even seen that
ugly closet which we all of us have, and in which, according to the
proverb, the family skeleton is locked up. About the Baronet's pecuniary
matters, if the Major did not know, it was because Clavering himself did
not know them, and hid them from himself and others in such a hopeless
entanglement of lies that it was impossible for adviser or attorney or
principal to get an accurate knowledge of his affairs. But, concerning
Lady Clavering, the Major was much better informed; and when the unlucky
mishap of the Derby