county paper said, giving an account
of the entertainment afterwards; indeed, she was very distraite; and
exceedingly pained and unhappy about Pen. Captious and quarrelsome;
jealous and selfish; fickle and violent and unjust when his anger led
him astray; how could her mother (as indeed Helen had by a thousand
words and hints) ask her to give her heart to such a man? and suppose
she were to do so, would it make him happy?

But she got some relief at length, when, at the end of half an hour--a
long half-hour it had seemed to her--a waiter brought her a little note
in pencil from Pen, who said, "I met Cooky below ready to fight me;
and I asked his pardon. I'm glad I did it. I wanted to speak to you
to-night, but will keep what I had to say till you come home. God bless
you. Dance away all night with Pynsent, and be very happy.--PEN." Laura
was very thankful for this letter, and to think that there was goodness
and forgiveness still in her mother's boy.

Pen went downstairs, his heart reproaching him for his absurd behaviour
to Laura, whose gentle and imploring looks followed and rebuked him; and
he was scarcely out of the ballroom door but he longed to turn back
and ask her pardon. But he remembered that he had left her with
that confounded Pynsent. He could not apologise before him. He would
compromise and forget his wrath, and make his peace with the Frenchman.

The Chevalier was pacing down below in the hall of the inn when Pen
descended from the ballroom; and he came up to Pen, with all sorts of
fun and mischief lighting up his jolly face.

"I have got him in the coffee-room," he said, "with a brace of pistols
and a candle. Or would you like swords on the beach? Mirobolant is a
dead hand with the foils, and killed four gardes-du-corps with his own
point in the barricades of July."

"Confound it," said Pen, in a fury, "I can't fight a cook!"

"He is a Chevalier of July," replied the other. "They present arms to
him in his own country."

"And do you ask me, Captain Strong, to go out with a servant?" Pen asked
fiercely; "I'll call a policeman him but--but----"

"You'll invite me to hair triggers?" cried Strong, with a laugh. "Thank
you for nothing; I was but joking. I came to settle quarrels, not to
fight them. I have been soothing down Mirobolant; I have told him that
you did not apply the word 'Cook' to him in an offensive sense: that it
was contrary to all the customs of the country that a hired officer of
a