he had to bring them to London, where a
score of old friends would assuredly be ready to help him. And if the
Colonel, too, could be got away from the domination of the Campaigner,
I felt certain that the dear old gentleman could but profit by his leave
of absence. My wife and I at this time inhabited a spacious old house
in Queens Square, Westminster, where there was plenty of room for
father and son. I knew that Laura would be delighted to welcome these
guests--may the wife of every worthy gentleman who reads these pages be
as ready to receive her husband's friends. It was the state of Rosa's
health, and the Campaigner's authority and permission, about which I
was in doubt, and whether this lady's two slaves would be allowed to go
away.

These cogitations kept the present biographer long awake, and he did not
breakfast next day until an hour before noon. I had the coffee-room
to myself by chance, and my meal was not yet ended when the waiter
announced a lady to visit Mr. Pendennis, and Mrs. Mackenzie made her
appearance. No signs of care or poverty were visible in the attire or
countenance of the buxom widow. A handsome bonnet, decorated within
with a profusion of poppies, bluebells; and ears of corn; a jewel on
her forehead, not costly, but splendid in appearance, and glittering
artfully over that central spot from which her wavy chestnut hair parted
to cluster in ringlets round her ample cheeks; a handsome India shawl,
smart gloves, a rich silk dress, a neat parasol of blue with pale yellow
lining, a multiplicity of glittering rinks, and a very splendid gold
watch and chain, which I remembered in former days as hanging round poor
Rosey's white neck;--all these adornments set off the widow's person, so
that you might have thought her a wealthy capitalist's lady, and never
could have supposed that she was a poor, cheated, ruined, robbed,
unfortunate Campaigner.

Nothing could be more gracious than the accueil of this lady. She
paid me many handsome compliments about my literary work--asked most
affectionately for dear Mrs. Pendennis and the dear children--and then,
as I expected, coming to business, contrasted the happiness and genteel
position of my wife and family with the misery and wrongs of her own
blessed child and grandson. She never could call that child by the
odious name which he received at his baptism. I knew what bitter reasons
she had to dislike the name of Thomas Newcome.

She again rapidly enumerate