s grow up in these sweet
woods and calm solitudes, like those flowers which won't bloom in
London, you know. The gardener comes and changes our balconies once a
week. I don't think I shall bear to look London in the face again--its
odious, smoky, brazen face! But, heigho!"

"Why that sigh, Blanche?"

"Never mind why."

"Yes, I do mind why. Tell me, tell me everything."

"I wish you hadn't come down;" and a second edition of 'Mes Soupirs'
came out.

"You don't want me, Blanche?"

"I don't want you to go away. I don't think this house will be very
happy without you, and that's why I wish that you never had come."

'Mes Soupirs' were here laid aside, and 'Mes Larmes' had begun.

Ah! What answer is given to those in the eyes of a young woman? What is
the method employed for drying them? What took place? O ringdoves and
roses, O dews and wildflowers, O waving greenwoods and balmy airs of
summer! Here were two battered London rakes, taking themselves in for
a moment, and fancying that they were in love with each other, like
Phillis and Corydon!

When one thinks of country houses and country walks, one wonders that
any man is left unmarried.

CHAPTER LXV. Temptation

Easy and frank-spoken as Pendennis commonly was with Warrington, how
came it that Arthur did not inform the friend and depository of all his
secrets, of the little circumstances which had taken place at the villa
near Tunbridge Wells? He talked about the discovery of his old tutor
Smirke, freely enough, and of his wife, and of his Anglo-Norman church,
and of his departure from Clapha to Rome; but, when asked about Blanche,
his answers were evasive or general: he said she was a good-natured
clever little thing, that rightly guided she make no such bad wife after
all, but that he had for the moment no intention of marriage, that his
days of romance were over, that he was contented with his present lot,
and so forth.

In the meantime there came occasionally to Lamb Court, Temple, pretty
little satin envelopes, superscribed in the neatest handwriting, and
sealed with one of those admirable ciphers, which, if Warrington had
been curious enough to watch his friend's letters, or indeed if the
cipher had been decipherable, would have shown George that Mr. Arthur
was in correspondence with a young lady whose initials were B. A.
To these pretty little compositions Mr. Pen replied in his best and
gallantest manner; with jokes, with news of the town, w