t the blushing Curate. "Oh my dear Arthur,
you--you know her----"

"What--Myra Portman? I wish you joy; she's got a dev'lish large waist;
but I wish you joy, old fellow."

"Oh, Arthur!" groaned the Curate again, and nodded his head, speechless.

"Beg your pardon--sorry I offended you--but she has got a large waist,
you know--devilish large waist," Pen continued--the third bottle
evidently beginning to act upon the young gentleman.

"It's not Miss Portman," the other said, in a voice of agony.

"Is it anybody at Chatteris or at Clapham? Somebody here? No--it ain't
old Pybus? it can't be Miss Rolt at the Factory--she's only fourteen."

"It's somebody rather older than I am, Pen," the Curate cried, looking
up at his friend, and then guiltily casting his eyes down into his
plate.

Pen burst out laughing. "It's Madame Fribsby; by Jove, it's Madame
Fribsby. Madame Frib. by the immortal Gods!"

The Curate could contain no more. "O Pen," he cried, "how can you
suppose that any of those--of those more than ordinary beings you have
named could have an influence upon this heart, when I have been daily in
the habit of contemplating perfection! I may be insane, I may be madly
ambitious, I may be presumptuous--but for two years my heart has been
filled by one image, and has known no other idol. Haven't I loved you as
a son, Arthur?--say, hasn't Charles Smirke loved you as a son?"

"Yes, old boy, you've been very good to me," Pen said, whose liking,
however, for his tutor was not by any means of the filial kind.

"My means," rushed on Smirke, "are at present limited, I own, and my
mother is not so liberal as might be desired; but what she has will be
mine at her death. Were she to hear of my marrying a lady of rank
and good fortune, my mother would be liberal, I am sure she would be
liberal. Whatever I have or subsequently inherit--and it's five hundred
a year at the very least--would be settled upon her and--and--and you at
my death--that is."

"What the deuce do you mean?--and what have I to do with your money?"
cried out Pen, in a puzzle.

"Arthur, Arthur!" exclaimed the other wildly; "you say I am your dearest
friend--Let me be more. Oh, can't you see that the angelic being I
love--the purest, the best of women--is no other than your dear, dear
angel of a--mother."

"My mother!" cried out Arthur, jumping up and sober in a minute. "Pooh!
damn it, Smirke, you must be mad--she's seven or eight years older than
you are