e admires him, and is dreadfully
afraid of him. He is taller and handsomer, and richer and cleverer than
Captain Hoby, certainly."

"I should think so, indeed," breaks out Mr. Pendennis. "Why, my dear,
Clive is as fine a fellow as one can see on a summer's day. It does one
good to look at him. What a frank pair of bright blue eyes he has, or
used to have, till this mishap overclouded them! What a pleasant laugh
he has! What a well-built, agile figure it is--what pluck, and spirit,
and honour, there is about my young chap! I don't say he is a genius of
the highest order, but he is the staunchest, the bravest, the cheeriest,
the most truth-telling, the kindest heart. Compare him and Hoby! Why,
Clive is an eagle, and yonder little creature a mousing owl!"

"I like to hear you speak so," cries Mrs. Laura, very tenderly. "People
say that you are always sneering, Arthur; but I know my husband better.
We know papa better, don't we, baby?" (Here my wife kisses the infant
Pendennis with great effusion, who has come up dancing on his nurse's
arms.) "But," says she, coming back and snuggling by her husband's side
again--"But suppose your favourite Clive is an eagle, Arthur, don't you
think he had better have an eagle for a mate? If he were to marry little
Rosey, I dare say he would be very good to her; but I think neither
he nor she would be very happy. My dear, she does not care for his
pursuits; she does not understand him when he talks. The two captains,
and Rosey and I, and the campaigner, as you call her, laugh and talk,
and prattle, and have the merriest little jokes with one another, and we
all are as quiet as mice when you and Clive come in."

"What, am I an eagle, too? I have no aquiline pretensions at all, Mrs.
Pendennis."

"No. Well, we are not afraid of you. We are not afraid of papa, are
we, darling?" this young woman now calls out to the other member of her
family; who, if you will calculate, has just had time to be walked twice
up and down the deck of the steamer, whilst Laura has been making her
speech about eagles. And soon the mother, child, and attendant descend
into the lower cabins: and then dinner is announced: and Captain Jackson
treats us to champagne from his end of the table and yet a short while,
and we are at sea, and conversation becomes impossible: and morning
sees us under the grey London sky, and amid the million of masts in the
Thames.

CHAPTER LVII. Rosebury and Newcome

The friends