and actually put the
cigar into his mouth and lighted the match at which he kindled it. Pen
laughed, and kissed his mother's hand as it hung fondly over the back of
the sofa. "Dear old mother," he said, "if I were to tell you to burn the
house down, I think you would do it." And it is very likely that Mr. Pen
was right, and that the foolish woman would have done almost as much for
him as he said.

Besides the works of English "light literature" which this diligent
student devoured, he brought down boxes of the light literature of the
neighbouring country of France: into the leaves of which when Helen
dipped, she read such things as caused her to open her eyes with wonder.
But Pen showed her that it was not he who made the books, though it
was absolutely necessary that he should keep up his French by an
acquaintance with the most celebrated writers of the day, and that it
was as clearly his duty to read the eminent Paul de Kock, as to study
Swift or Moliere. And Mrs. Pendennis yielded with a sigh of perplexity.
But Miss Laura was warned off the books, both by his anxious mother, and
that rigid moralist Mr. Arthur Pendennis himself, who, however he might
be called upon to study every branch of literature in order to form his
mind and to perfect his style, would by no means prescribe such a course
of reading to a young lady whose business in life was very different.

In the course of this long vacation Mr. Pen drank up the bin of claret
which his father had laid in, and of which we have heard the son
remark that there was not a headache in a hogshead; and this wine
being exhausted, he wrote for a further supply to "his wine merchants,"
Messrs. Binney and Latham of Mark Lane, London: from whom, indeed, old
Doctor Portman had recommended Pen to get a supply of port and sherry
on going to college. "You will have, no doubt, to entertain your young
friends at Boniface with wine-parties," the honest rector had remarked
to the lad. "They used to be customary at college in my time, and I
would advise you to employ an honest and respectable house in London for
your small stock of wine, rather than to have recourse to the Oxbridge
tradesmen, whose liquor, if I remember rightly, was both deleterious in
quality and exorbitant in price." And the obedient young gentleman took
the Doctor's advice, and patronised Messrs. Binney and Latham at the
rector's suggestion.

So when he wrote orders for a stock of wine to be sent down to the
ce