day." His letter to his mother was full of tenderness and
remorse: he wept the bitterest tears over it--and the repentance and
passion soothed him to some degree.

He saw a party of roaring young blades from Oxbridge in the coffee-room
of his hotel, and slunk away from them, and paced the streets. He
remembers, he says, the prints which he saw hanging up at Ackermann's
window in the rain, and a book which he read at a stall near the Temple:
at night he went to the pit of the play, and saw Miss Fotheringay, but
he doesn't in the least recollect in what piece.

On the second day there came a kind letter from his tutor, containing
many grave and appropriate remarks upon the event which had befallen
him, but strongly urging Pen not to take his name off the university
books, and to retrieve a disaster which, everybody knew, was owing
to his own carelessness alone, and which he might repair by a month's
application. He said he had ordered Pen's skip to pack up some trunks of
the young gentleman's wardrobe, which duly arrived with fresh copies of
all Pen's bills laid on the top.

On the third day there arrived a letter from home; which Pen read in his
bedroom, and the result of which was that he fell down on his knees with
his head in the bedclothes, and then prayed out his heart and humbled
himself; and having gone downstairs and eaten an immense breakfast he
sallied forth and took his place at the Bull and Mouth, Piccadilly, by
the Chatteris coach for that evening.

CHAPTER XXII. Prodigal's Return

Such a letter as the Major wrote of course, sent Doctor Portman to
Fairoaks, and he went off with that alacrity which a good man shows when
he has disagreeable news to commit. He wishes the deed were done, and
done quickly. He is sorry, but que voulez-vous? the tooth must be taken
out, and he has you in the chair, and it is surprising with what courage
and vigour of wrist he applies the forceps. Perhaps he would not be
quite so active or eager if it were his tooth; but, in fine, it is your
duty to have it out. So the doctor, having read the epistle out to Myra
and Mrs. Portman, with many damnatory comments upon the young scapegrace
who was goin deeper and deeper into perdition, left those ladies to
spread the news through the Clavering society, which they did with their
accustomed accuracy and despatch, and strode over to Fairoaks to break
the intelligence to the widow.

She had the news already. She had read Pen's l