equented by increased numbers, who are pleased with Mrs. Lightfoot's
cuisine. Her Indian curries and Mulligatawny soup are especially
popular: Major Stokes, the respected tenant of Fairoaks Cottage, Captain
Glanders, H.P., and other resident gentry, have pronounced in their
favour, and have partaken of them more than once both in private and at
the dinner of the Clavering Institute, attendant on the incorporation
of the reading-room, and when the chief inhabitants of that flourishing
little town met together and did justice to the hostess's excellent
cheer. The chair was taken by Sir Francis Clavering, Bart., supported
by the esteemed rector, Dr. Portman; the vice chair being ably filled
by Barker, Esq. (supported by the Rev. J. Simcoe and the Rev. S. Jowls),
the enterprising head of the ribbon factory in Clavering, and chief
director of the Clavering and Chatteris Branch of the Great Western
Railway, which will be opened in another year, and upon the works of
which the engineers and workmen are now busily engaged.

"An interesting event, which is likely to take place in the life of our
talented townsman, Arthur Pendennis, Esq., has, we understand, caused
him to relinquish the intentions which he had of offering himself as
a candidate for our borough: and rumour whispers" (says the Chatteris
Champion, Clavering Agriculturist, and Baymouth Fisherman,--that
independent county paper, so distinguished for its unswerving
principles and loyalty to the British oak, and so eligible a medium for
advertisements)--rumour states, says the C. C. C. A. and B. F., "that
should Sir Francis Clavering's failing health oblige him to relinquish
his seat in Parliament, he will vacate it in favour of a young gentleman
of colossal fortune and related to the highest aristocracy of the
empire, who is about to contract a matrimonial alliance with an
accomplished and lovely lady, connected by the nearest ties with the
respected family at Clavering Park. Lady Clavering and Miss Amory have
arrived at the Park for the Christmas holidays; and we understand that a
large number of the aristocracy are expected, and that festivities of a
peculiarly interesting nature will take place there at the commencement
of the new year."

The ingenious reader will be enabled, by the help of the above
announcement, to understand what has taken place during the little break
which has occurred in our narrative. Although Lady Rockminster grumbled
a little at Laura's pr