good-natured body who drops her h's, though
Florac is not aware of their absence. Pendennis and Warrington, I know,
would send you their regards. Pen is conceited, but much kinder in
reality than he has the air of being. Fred Bayham is doing well, and
prospering in his mysterious way.

"Mr. Binnie is not looking at all well: and Mrs. Mack--well, as I know
you never attack a lady behind her lovely back, I won't say a word of
Mrs. Mack--but she has taken possession of Uncle James, and seems to me
to weigh upon him somehow. Rosey is as pretty and good-natured as
ever, and has learned two new songs; but you see, with my sentiments
in another quarter, I feel as it were guilty and awkward in company of
Rosey and her mamma. They have become the very greatest friends with
Bryanstone Square, and Mrs. Mack is always citing Aunt Hobson as
the most superior of women, in which opinion, I daresay, Aunt Hobson
concurs.

"Good-bye, my dearest father; my sheet is full; I wish I could put my
arm in yours and pace up and down the pier with you, and tell you more
and more. But you know enough now, and that I am your affectionate son
always, C. N."

In fact, when Mr. Clive appeared at Steyne Gardens stepping out of the
fly, and handing Miss Ethel thence, Miss Honeyman of course was very
glad to see her nephew, and saluted him with a little embrace to show
her sense of pleasure at his visit. But the next day, being Sunday, when
Clive, with a most engaging smile on his countenance, walked over to
breakfast from his hotel, Miss Honeyman would scarcely speak to him
during the meal, looked out at him very haughtily from under her Sunday
cap, and received his stories about Italy with "Oh! ah! indeed!" in
a very unkind manner. And when breakfast was over, and she had done
washing her age chins, she fluttered up to Clive with such an agitation
of plumage, redness of craw, and anger of manner, as a maternal hen
shows if she has reason to think you menace her chickens. She fluttered
up to Clive, I say, and cried out, "Not in this house, Clive,--not in
this house, I beg you to understand that!"

Clive, looking amazed, said, "Certainly not, ma'am; I never did do it
in the house, as I know you don't like it. I was going into the Square."
The young man meaning that he was about to smoke, and conjecturing that
his aunt's anger applied to that practice.

"You know very well what I mean, sir! Don't try to turn me off in that
highty-tighty way. My din