in Fairoaks
kitchen, and John and the maids drank their evening beer there by the
light, of a single candle. All this was Mr. Pen's doing, and the state
of things did not increas his cheerfulness.

For some time Pen said no power on earth could induce him to go back to
Oxbridge again, after his failure there; but one day Laura said to him,
with many blushes, that she thought, as some sort of reparation, of
punishment on himself for his--for his idleness, he ought to go back and
get his degree, if he could fetch it by doing so; and so back Mr. Pen
went.

A plucked man is a dismal being in a university; belonging to no set of
men there, and owned by no one. Pen felt himself plucked indeed of
all the fine feathers which he had won during his brilliant years, and
rarely appeared out of his college; regularly going to morning chapel,
and shutting himself up in his rooms of nights, away from the noise and
suppers of the undergraduates. There were no duns about his door, they
were all paid--scarcely any cards were left there. The men of his
year had taken their degrees, and were gone. He went into a second
examination, and passed with perfect ease. He was somewhat more easy in
his mind when he appeared in his bachelor's gown.

On his way back from Oxbridge he paid a visit to his uncle in London;
but the old gentleman received him with very cold looks, and would
scarcely give him his forefinger to shake. He called a second time, but
Morgan, the valet, said his master was from home.

Pen came back to Fairoaks, and to his books and to his idleness, and
loneliness and despair. He commenced several tragedies, and wrote many
copies of verses of a gloomy cast. He formed plans of reading and broke
them. He thought about enlisting--about the Spanish legion--about a
profession. He chafed against his captivity, and cursed the idleness
which had caused it. Helen said he was breaking his heart, and was sad
to see his prostration. As soon as they could afford it, he should go
abroad--he should go to London--he should be freed from the dull society
of two poor women. It was dull--very, certainly. The tender widow's
habitual melancholy seemed to deepen into a sadder gloom; and Laura
saw with alarm that the dear friend became every year more languid and
weary, and that her pale cheek grew more wan.

CHAPTER XXIII. New Faces

The inmates of Fairoaks were drowsily pursuing this humdrum existence,
while the great house upon the hil