lewood, R.N., killed at the battle of Copenhagen. Under Lady
Pontypool's roof Miss Thistlewood found a comfortable shelter, as far as
boarding and lodging went, but suffered under such an infernal tyranny
as only women can inflict on, or bear from, one another: the Doctor, who
paid his visits to my Lady Pontypool at least twice a day, could not but
remark the angelical sweetness and kindness with which the young lady
bore her elderly relative's insults; and it was, as they were going in
the fourth mourning coach to attend her ladyship's venerated remains to
Bath Abbey, where they now repose, that he looked at her sweet pale face
and resolved upon putting a certain question to her, the very nature of
which made his pulse beat ninety, at least.

He was older than she by more than twenty years, and at no time the most
ardent of men. Perhaps he had had a love affair in early life which he
had to strangle--perhaps all early love affairs ought to be strangled or
drowned, like so many blind kittens: well, at three-and-forty he was a
collected quiet little gentleman in black stockings with a bald head,
and a few days after the ceremony he called to see her, and, as he felt
her pulse, he kept hold of her hand in his, and asked her where she
was going to live now that the Pontypool family had come down upon the
property, which was being nailed into boxes, and packed into hampers,
and swaddled up with haybands, and buried in straw, and locked under
three keys in green baize plate-chests, and carted away under the eyes
of poor Miss Helen,--he asked her where she was going to live finally.

Her eyes filled with tears, and she said she did not know. She had a
little money. The old lady had left her a thousand pounds, indeed; and
she would go into a boarding-house or into a school: in fine, she did
not know where.

Then Pendennis, looking into her pale face, and keeping hold of her cold
little hand, asked her if she would come and live with him? He was old
compared to--to so blooming a young lady as Miss Thistlewood
(Pendennis was of the grave old complimentary school of gentlemen and
apothecaries), but he was of good birth, and, he flattered himself, of
good principles and temper. His prospects were good, and daily
mending. He was alone in the world, and had need of a kind and constant
companion, whom it would be the study of his life to make happy; in
a word, he recited to her a little speech, which he had composed that
morning in