l, on the other side of the River
Brawl, was shaking off the slumber in which it had lain during the lives
of two generations of masters, and giving extraordinary signs of renewed
liveliness.

Just about the time of Pen's little mishap, and when he was so absorbed
in the grief occasioned by that calamity as to take no notice of events
which befell persons less interesting to himself than Arthur Pendennis,
an announcement appeared in the provincial journals which caused no
small sensation in the county at least, and in all the towns, villages,
halls and mansions, and parsonages for many miles round Clavering
Park. At Clavering Market; at Cackleby Fair; at Chatteris Sessions; on
Gooseberry Green, as the squire's carriage met the vicar's one-horse
contrivance, and the inmates of both vehicles stopped on the road to
talk; at Tinkleton Church gate, as the bell was tolling in the sunshine,
and the white smocks and scarlet cloaks came trooping over the green
common, to Sunday worship; in a hundred societies round about--the word
was, that Clavering Park was to be inhabited again.

Some five years before, the county papers had advertised the marriage at
Florence, at the British Legation, of Francis Clavering, Esq., only son
of Sir Francis Clavering, Bart., of Clavering Park, with Jemima Augusta,
daughter of Samuel Snell, of Calcutta, Esq., and widow of the late J.
Amory, Esq. At that time the legend in the county was that Clavering,
who had been ruined for many a year, had married a widow from India with
some money. Some of the county folks caught a sight of the newly-married
pair. The Kickleburys, travelling in Italy, had seen them. Clavering
occupied the Poggi Palace at Florence, gave parties, and lived
comfortably--but could never come to England. Another year--young
Peregrine, of Cackleby, making a Long Vacation tour, had fallen in with
the Claverings occupying Schloss Schinkenstein, on the Mummel See. At
Rome, at Lucca, at Nice, at the baths and gambling places of the Rhine
and Belgium, this worthy couple might occasionally be heard of by the
curious, and rumours of them came, as it were by gusts, to Clavering's
ancestral place.

Their last place of abode was Paris, where they appear to have lived in
great fashion and splendour after the news of the death of Samuel Snell,
Esq., of Calcutta, reached his orphan daughter in Europe.

Of Sir Francis Clavering's antecedents little can be said that would be
advantageous to th