s dinner on her
dresses, and keeping her out of her inheritance. None of these, as she
felt, could comprehend her: and her solitary heart naturally pined
for other attachments, and she sought around her where to bestow the
precious boon of her unoccupied affection.

This dear girl, then, from want of sympathy, or other cause, made
herself so disagreeable at home, and frightened her mother and bored her
stepfather so much, that they were quite as anxious as she could be that
she should settle for herself in life; and hence Sir Francis Clavering's
desire expressed to his friend, in the last chapter, that Mrs. Strong
should die, and that he would take Blanche to himself as a second Mrs.
Strong.

But as this could not be, any other person was welcome to win her: and
a smart young fellow, well-looking and well educated like our friend
Arthur Pendennis, was quite free to propose for her if he had a mind,
and would have been received with open arms by Lady Clavering as a
son-in-law, had he had the courage to come forward as a competitor for
Miss Amory's hand.

Mr. Pen, however, besides other drawbacks, chose to entertain an extreme
diffidence about himself. He was ashamed of his late failures, of his
idle and nameless condition, of the poverty which he had brought on his
mother by his folly, and there was as much of vanity as remorse in his
present state of doubt and distrust. How could he ever hope for such
a prize as this brilliant Blanche Amory, who lived in a fine park and
mansion, and was waited on by a score of grand domestics, whilst a
maid-servant brought in their meagre meal at Fairoaks, and his mother
was obliged to pinch and manage to make both ends meet? Obstacles
seemed for him insurmountable, which would have vanished had he marched
manfully upon them: and he preferred despairing, or dallying with
his wishes,--or perhaps he had not positively shaped them as yet,--to
attempting to win gallantly the object of his desire. Many a young
man fails by that species of vanity called shyness, who might, for the
asking have his will.

But we do not pretend to say that Pen had, as yet, ascertained his: or
that he was doing much more than thinking about falling in love. Miss
Amory was charming and lively. She fascinated and cajoled him by a
thousand arts or natural graces or flatteries. But there were lurking
reasons and doubts, besides shyness and vanity, withholding him. In
spite of her cleverness, and her protestation