enough at Fairoaks
Park. Why not go and be a lady? I could go on with the fiddle, and the
General live on his half-pay. Why don't you marry him? You know he likes
you."

"There's others that likes me as well, Bows, that has no money and
that's old enough," Miss Milly said sententiously.

"Yes, d---- it," said Bows, with a bitter curse--"that are old enough
and poor enough and fools enough for anything."

"There's old fools, and young fools too. You've often said so you silly
man," the imperious beauty said, with a conscious glance at the old
gentleman. "If Pendennis has not enough money to live upon, it's folly
to talk about marrying him: and that's the long and short of it."

"And the boy?" said Mr. Bows. "By Jove! you throw a man away like an old
glove, Miss Costigan."

"I don't know what you mean, Bows," said Miss Fotheringay, placidly,
rubbing the second shoe. "If he had had half of the two thousand a year
that Papa gave him, or the half of that, I would marry him. But what is
the good of taking on with a beggar? We're poor enough already. There's
no use in my going to live with an old lady that's testy and cross,
maybe, and would grudge me every morsel of meat." (Sure, it's near
dinner time, and Suky not laid the cloth yet.) "And then," added Miss
Costigan quite simply, "suppose there was a family?--why, Papa, we
shouldn't be as well off as we are now."

"'Deed, then, you would not, Milly dear," answered the father.

"And there's an end to all the fine talk about Mrs. Arthur Pendennis
of Fairoaks Park--the member of Parliament's lady," said Milly, with a
laugh. "Pretty carriages and horses we should have to ride!--that you
were always talking about, Papa! But it's always the same. If a man
looked at me, you fancied he was going to marry me; and if he had a good
coat, you fancied he was as rich as Crazes."

"--As Croesus," said Mr. Bows.

"Well, call 'um what ye like. But it's a fact now that Papa has married
me these eight years a score of times. Wasn't I to be my Lady Poldoody
of Oystherstown Castle? Then there was the Navy Captain at Portsmouth,
and the old surgeon at Norwich, and the Methodist preacher here last
year, and who knows how many more? Well, I bet a penny, with all your
scheming, I shall die Milly Costigan at last. So poor little Arthur
has no money? Stop and take dinner, Bows; we've a beautiful beef-steak
pudding."

"I wonder whether she is on with Sir Derby Oaks," thought Bows, whose
e