pheasant-shooting at Stillbrook, and get rid
of all annoyances and tracasseries of the village. The widow and Laura
nervously set about the preparation for Pen's kit, and filled trunks
with his books and linen. Helen wrote cards with the name of Arthur
Pendennis, Esq., which were duly nailed on the boxes; and at which both
she and Laura looked with tearful wistful eyes. It was not until long,
long after he was gone, that Pen remembered how constant and tender the
affection of these women had been, and how selfish his own conduct was.

A night soon comes, when the mail, with echoing horn and blazing lamps,
stops at the lodge-gate of Fairoaks, and Pen's trunks and his uncle's
are placed on the roof of the carriage, into which the pair presently
afterwards enter. Helen and Laura are standing by the evergreens of the
shrubbery, their figures lighted up by the coach lamps; the guard cries
all right: in another instant the carriage whirls onward; the lights
disappear, and Helen's heart and prayers go with them. Her sainted
benedictions follow the departing boy. He has left the home-nest in
which he has been chafing, and whither, after his very first flight, he
returned bleeding and wounded; he is eager to go forth again, and try
his restless wings.

How lonely the house looks without him! The corded trunks and book-boxes
are there in his empty study. Laura asks leave to come and sleep in
Helen's room: and when she has cried herself to sleep there, the mother
goes softly into Pen's vacant chamber, and kneels down by the bed on
which the moon is shining, and there prays for her boy, as mothers only
know how to plead. He knows that her pure blessings are following him,
as he is carried miles away.

CHAPTER XVIII. Alma Mater

Every man, however brief or inglorious may have been his academical
career, must remember with kindness and tenderness the old university
comrades and days. The young man's life is just beginning: the boy's
leading-strings are cut, and he has all the novel delights and dignities
of freedom. He has no idea of cares yet, or of bad health, or of
roguery, or poverty, or to-morrow's disappointment. The play has not
been acted so often as to make him tired. Though the after drink, as
we mechanically go on repeating it, is stale and bitter, how pure and
brilliant was that first sparkling draught of pleasure!--How the boy
rushes at the cup, and with what a wild eagerness he drains it! But
old epicures who