one. She did not want to mingle in the
fashionable world herself, she was not clever enough; but the great
Society was the very place for her Charles: he shone in it: he was
respected in it. Indeed, Shandon had once been asked to dinner by the
Earl of X; his wife treasured the invitation-card in her workbox at that
very day.

Mr. Bungay presently had enough of this talk and got up to take leave,
whereupon Warrington and Pen rose to depart with the publisher, though
the latter would have liked to stay to make a further acquaintance with
this family, who interested him and touched him. He said something about
hoping for permission to repeat his visit, upon which Shandon, with
a rueful grin, said he was always to be found at home, and should be
delighted to see Mr. Pennington.

"I'll see you to my park-gate, gentlemen," said Captain Shandon, seizing
his hat, in spite of a deprecatory look and a faint cry of "Charles"
from Mrs. Shandon. And the Captain, in shabby slippers, shuffled out
before his guests, leading the way through the dismal passages of the
prison. His hand was already fiddling with his waistcoat pocket, where
Bungay's five-pound note was, as he took leave of the three gentlemen
at the wicket; one of them, Mr. Arthur Pendennis, being greatly relieved
when he was out of the horrid place, and again freely treading the flags
of Farringdon Street.

Mrs. Shandon sadly went on with her work at the window looking into the
court. She saw Shandon with a couple of men at his heels run rapidly
in the direction of the prison tavern. She had hoped to have had him to
dinner herself that day: there was a piece of meat, and some salad in
a basin, on the ledge outside of the window of their room which she had
expected that she and little Mary were to share with the child's father.
But there was no chance of that now. He would be in that tavern until
the hours for closing it; then he would go and play at cards or drink in
some other man's room and come back silent, with glazed eyes, reeling a
little on his walk, that his wife might nurse him. Oh, what varieties of
pain do we not make our women suffer!

So Mrs. Shandon went to the cupboard, and, in lieu of a dinner, made
herself some tea. And in those varieties of pain of which we spoke anon,
what a part of confidante has that poor tea-pot played ever since the
kindly plant was introduced among us! What myriads of women have cried
over it, to be sure! What sick-beds it has s