erie, and sends him onwards towards his night's resting-place,
through the lodge into Clavering avenue, and under the dark arcades of
the rustling limes.

When he sees the cottage the next time, it is smiling in sunset; those
bedroom windows are open where the light was burning the night before;
and Pen's tenant, Captain Stokes, of the Bombay Artillery (whose mother,
old Mrs. Stokes, lives in Clavering), receives his landlord's visit with
great cordiality: shows him over the grounds and the new pond he has
made in the back-garden from the stables; talks to him confidentially
about the roof and chimneys, and begs Mr. Pendennis to name a day when
he will do himself and Mrs. Stokes the pleasure to, etc. Pen, who has
been a fortnight in the country, excuses himself for not having called
sooner upon the Captain by frankly owning that he had not the heart to
do it. "I understand you, sir," the Captain says; and Mrs. Stokes, who
had slipped away at the ring of the bell (how odd it seemed to Pen
to ring the bell!), comes down in her best gown, surrounded by her
children. The young ones clamb about Stokes: the boy jumps into an
arm-chair. It was Pen's father's arm-chair; and Arthur remembers the
days when he would as soon have thought of mounting the king's throne as
of seating himself in that arm-chair. He asks if Miss Stokes--she is the
very image of her mamma--if she can play? He should like to hear a tune
on that piano. She plays. He hears the notes of the old piano once more,
enfeebled by age, but he does not listen to the player. He is listening
to Laura singing as in the days of their youth, and sees his mother
bending and beating time over the shoulder of the girl.

The dinner at Fairoaks given in Pen's honour by his tenant, and at which
old Mrs. Stokes, Captain Glanders, Squire Hobnel and the clergyman and
his lady from Tinckleton, were present, was very stupid and melancholy
for Pen, until the waiter from Clavering (who aided the captain's
stable-boy and Mrs. Stokes's butler) whom Pen remembered as a street
boy, and who was now indeed barber in that place, dropped a plate over
Pen's shoulder, on which Mr. Hobnell (who also employed him) remarked,
"I suppose, Hodson, your hands are slippery with bear's-grease. He's
always dropping the crockery about, that Hodson is--haw, haw!" On which
Hodson blushed, and looked so disconcerted, that Pen burst out laughing;
and good-humour and hilarity were the order of the evening. For