onship being acknowledged; though perhaps not over well pleased
that Lady Rockminster took Miss Bell home with her for a couple of days
to Baymouth, and did not make the slightest invitation to Mr. Arthur
Pendennis. There was to be a ball at Baymouth, and it was to be Miss
Laura's first appearance. The dowager came to fetch her in her carriage,
and she went off with a white dress in her box, happy and blushing, like
the rose to which Pen compared her.

This was the night of the ball--a public entertainment at the Baymouth
Hotel. "By Jove!" said Pen, "I'll ride over--No, I won't ride, but I'll
go too." His mother was charmed that he should do so; and, as he was
debating about the conveyance in which he should start for Baymouth,
Captain Strong called opportunely, said he was going himself, and that
he would put his horse, The Butcher Boy, into the gig, and drive Pen
over.

When the grand company began to fill the house at Clavering Park, the
Chevalier Strong, who, as his patron said, was never in the way or out
of it, seldom intruded himself upon its society, but went elsewhere to
seek his relaxation. "I've seen plenty of grand dinners in my time," he
said, "and dined, by Jove, in a company where there was a king and royal
duke at top and bottom, and every man along the table had six stars
on his coat; but dammy, Glanders, this finery don't suit me; and the
English ladies with their confounded buckram airs, and the squires with
their politics after dinner, send me to sleep--sink me dead if they
don't. I like a place where I can blow my cigar when the cloth is
removed, and when I'm thirsty, have my beer in its native pewter." So on
a gala-day at Clavering Park, the Chevalier would content himself
with superintending the arrangements of the table, and drilling the
major-domo and servants; and having looked over the bill-of-fare with
Monsieur Mirobolant, would not care to take the least part in the
banquet. "Send me up a cutlet and a bottle of claret to my room," this
philosopher would say, and from the windows of that apartment, which
commanded the terrace and avenue, he would survey the company as they
arrived in their carriages, or take a peep at the ladies in the hall
through an oeil-de-boeuf which commanded it from his corridor. And the
guests being seated, Strong would cross the park to Captain Glanders's
cottage at Clavering, or to pay the landlady a visit at the Clavering
Arms, or to drop in upon Madame Fribsby ove