-step, as her ladyship leaned for
support on the arm of the unbending Jeames, by the enraptured observer
of female beauty who happened to be passing at the time of this imposing
ceremonial.

The Pendennises senior and junior beheld those charms as they came up to
the door--the Major looking grave and courtly, and Pen somewhat abashed
at the carriage and its owners; for he thought of sundry little passages
at Clavering, which made his heart beat rather quick.

At that moment Lady Clavering, looking round the pair,--she was on
the first carriage-step, and would have been in the vehicle in another
second, but she gave a start backwards (which caused some of the powder
to fly from the hair of ambrosial Jeames), and crying out, "Lor, if it
isn't Arthur Pendennis and the old Major!" jumped back to terra
firma directly, and holding out two fat hands, encased in tight
orange-coloured gloves, the good-natured woman warmly greeted the Major
and his nephew.

"Come in both of you.--Why haven't you been before?--Get out, Blanche,
and come and see your old friends.--O, I'm so glad to see you. We've
been waitin and waitin for you ever so long. Come in, luncheon ain't
gone down," cried out this hospitable lady, squeezing Pen's hand in both
hers (she had dropped the Major's after a brief wrench of recognition),
and Blanche, casting up her eyes towards the chimneys, descended from
the carriage presently, with a timid, blushing, appealing look, and gave
a little hand to Major Pendennis.

The companion with the spaniel looked about irresolute, and doubting
whether she should not take Fido his airing; but she too turned right
about face and entered the house, after Lady Clavering, her daughter,
and the two gentlemen. And the carriage, with the prancing greys, was
left unoccupied, save by the coachman in the silver wig.

CHAPTER XXXVIII. In which the Sylph reappears

Better folks than Morgan, the valet, were not so well instructed as
that gentleman, regarding the amount of Lady Clavering's riches; and the
legend in London, upon her Ladyship's arrival in the polite metropolis,
was, that her fortune was enormous. Indigo factories, opium clippers,
banks overflowing with rupees, diamonds and jewels of native princes,
and vast sums of interest paid by them for loans contracted by
themselves or their predecessors to Lady Clavering's father, were
mentioned as sources of her wealth. Her account at her London banker's
was positively