most hear it
throbbing.

"My best friend, my friend for ever," Pen said. "God bless you, old
boy," and he drank up the last glass of the second bottle of the famous
wine which his father had laid in, which his uncle had bought, which
Lord Levant had imported, and which now, like a slave indifferent, was
ministering pleasure to its present owner, and giving its young master
delectation.

"We'll have another bottle, old boy," Pen said, "by Jove we will.
Hurray!--claret goes for nothing. My uncle was telling me that he
saw Sheridan drink five bottles at Brookes's, besides a bottle of
Maraschino. This is some of the finest wine in England, he says. So
it is, by Jove. There's nothing like it. Nunc vino pellite curas--cras
ingens iterabimus aeq,--fill your glass, Old Smirke, a hogshead of it
won't do you any harm." And Mr. Pen began to sing the drinking song out
of Der Freischuetz. The dining-room windows were open, and his mother
was softly pacing on the lawn outside, while little Laura was looking at
the sunset. The sweet fresh notes of the boy's voice came to the widow.
It cheered her kind heart to hear him sing.

"You--you are taking too much wine, Arthur," Mr. Smirke said
softly--"you are exciting yourself."

"No," said Pen, "women give headaches, but this don't. Fill your glass,
old fellow, and let's drink--I say, Smirke, my boy--let's drink to
her--your her, I mean, not mine, for whom I swear I'll care no more--no,
not a penny--no, not a fig--no, not a glass of wine. Tell us about the
lady, Smirke; I've often seen you sighing about her."

"Oh!" said Smirke--and his beautiful cambric shirt front and glistening
studs heaved with the emotion which agitated his gentle and suffering
bosom.

"Oh--what a sigh!" Pen cried, growing very hilarious; "fill, my boy, and
drink the toast, you can't refuse a toast, no gentleman refuses a
toast. Here's her health, and good luck to you, and may she soon be Mrs.
Smirke."

"Do you say so?" Smirke said, all of a tremble. "Do you really say so,
Arthur?"

"Say so; of course, I say so. Down with it. Here's Mrs. Smirke's good
health: Hip, hip, hurray!"

Smirke convulsively gulped down his glass of wine, and Pen waved his
over his head, cheering so as to make his mother and Laura wonder on the
lawn, and his uncle, who was dozing over the paper in the drawing-room,
start, and say to himself, "That boy's drinking too much." Smirke put
down the glass.

"I accept the omen," gasped ou