ignity when he was presented to them, and they heard his name. The
Right Reverend Prelate had heard it before, and also of the little
transaction in the Dean's garden.

"The Bishop says you're a sad young man," good-natured Lady Clavering
whispered to him. "What have you been a doing of? Nothink, I hope, to
vex such a dear Mar as yours? How is your dear Mar? Why don't she come
and me? We an't seen her this ever such a time. We're a goin about a
gaddin, so that we don't see no neighbours now. Give my love to her and
Laurar, and come all to dinner to-morrow."

Mrs. Pendennis was too unwell to come out but Laura and Pen came, and
there was a great party, and Pen only got an opportunity of a hurried
word with Miss Amory. "You never come to the river now," he said.

"I can't," said Blanche, "the house is full of people."

"Undine has left the stream," Mr. Pen went on, choosing to be poetical.

"She never ought to have gone there," Miss Amory answered. "She won't go
again. It was very foolish: very wrong: it was only play. Besides, you
have other consolations at home," she added, looking him full in the
face an instant, and dropping her eyes.

If he wanted her, why did he not speak then? She might have said "Yes"
even then. But as she spoke of other consolations at home, he thought of
Laura, so affectionate and so pure, and of his mother at home, who
had bent her fond heart upon uniting him with her adopted daughter.
"Blanche!" he began, in a vexed tone,--"Miss Amory!"

"Laura is looking at us, Mr. Pendennis," the young lady said. "I must go
back to the company," and she ran off, leaving Mr. Pendennis to bite his
nails in perplexity, and to look out into the moonlight in the garden.

Laura indeed was looking at Pen. She was talking with, or appearing to
listen to the talk of, Mr. Pynsent, Lord Rockminster's son, and grandson
of the Dowager Lady, who was seated in state in the place of honour,
gravely receiving Lady Clavering's bad grammar, and patronising the
vacuous Sir Francis, whose interest in the county she was desirous to
secure. Pynsent and Pen had been at Oxbridge together, where the latter,
during his heyday of good fortune and fashion, had been the superior of
the young patrician, and perhaps rather supercilious towards him. They
had met for the first time, since they parted at the University, at
the table to-day, and given each other that exceedingly impertinent and
amusing demi-nod of recognition which is p