but she has denied it, as he is
not worthy of it. He owns as much with shame and remorse; confesses how
much better and loftier her nature is than his own--confesses it, and
yet is glad to be free. "I am not good enough for such a creature," he
owns to himself. He draws back before her spotless beauty and innocence,
as from something that scares him. He feels he is not fit for such a
mate as that; as many a wild prodigal who has been pious and guiltless
in early days, keeps away from a church which he used to frequent
once--shunning it, but not hostile to it--only feeling that he has no
right in that pure place.

With these thoughts to occupy him, Pen did not fall asleep until the
nipping dawn of an October morning, and woke considerably refreshed when
the coach stopped at the old breakfasting place at B----, where he had
had a score of merry meals on his way to and from school and college
many times since he was a boy. As they left that place, the sun broke
out brightly, the pace was rapid, the horn blew, the milestones flew by,
Pen smoked and joked with guard and fellow-passengers and people along
the familiar road; it grew more busy and animated at every instant; the
last team of greys came out at H----, and the coach drove into London.
What young fellow has not felt a thrill as he entered the vast place?
Hundreds of other carriages, crowded with their thousands of men, were
hastening to the great city. "Here is my place," thought Pen; "here is
my battle beginning, in which I must fight and conquer, or fall. I have
been a boy and a dawdler as yet. Oh, I long, I long to show that I can
be a man." And from his place on the coach-roof the eager young fellow
looked down upon the city, with the sort of longing desire which young
soldiers feel on the eve of a campaign.

As they came along the road, Pen had formed acquaintance with a cheery
fellow-passenger in a shabby cloak, who talked a great deal about men
of letters with whom he was very familiar, and who was, in fact, the
reporter of a London newspaper, as whose representative he had been
to attend a great wrestling-match in the west. This gentleman knew
intimately, as it appeared, all the leading men of letters of his day,
and talked about Tom Campbell, and Tom Hood, and Sydney Smith, and this
and the other, as if he had been their most intimate friend. As they
passed by Brompton, this gentleman pointed out to Pen Mr. Hurtle, the
reviewer, walking with his umbrella.