or two private boxes, and at leest twenty tickets, I should
say," cried the daughter, a prudent lass, who always kept her fine eyes
on the main chance.

"I'll go bail of that," answered the papa, and so their conversation
continued awhile, until the tumbler of punch was finished; and their
hour of departure soon came, too; for at half-past six Miss Fotheringay
was to appear at the theatre again, whither her father always
accompanied her; and stood, as we have seen, in the side-scene watching
her, and drank spirits-and-water in the green-room with the company
there.

"How beautiful she is," thought Pen, cantering homewards. "How simple
and how tender! How charming it is to see a woman of her commanding
genius busying herself with the delightful, though humble, offices of
domestic life, cooking dishes to make her old father comfortable, and
brewing drink for him with her delicate fingers! How rude it was of me
to begin to talk about professional matters, and how well she turned the
conversation! By the way, she talked about professional matters herself;
but then with what fun and humour she told the story of her comrade,
Pentweazle, as he was called! There is no humour like Irish humour. Her
father is rather tedious, but thoroughly amiable; and how fine of him,
giving lessons in fencing after he quitted the army, where he was the
pet of the Duke of Kent! Fencing! I should like to continue my fencing,
or I shall forget what Angelo taught me. Uncle Arthur always liked me
to fence--he says it is the exercise of a gentleman. Hang it. I'll take
some lessons of Captain Costigan. Go along, Rebecca--up the hill, old
lady. Pendennis, Pendennis--how she spoke the word! Emily, Emily! how
good, how noble, how beautiful, how perfect, she is!"

Now the reader, who has had the benefit of overhearing the entire
conversation which Pen had with Miss Fotheringay, can judge for himself
about the powers of her mind, and may perhaps be disposed to think that
she has not said anything astonishingly humorous or intellectual in the
course of the above interview. She has married, and taken her position
in the world as the most spotless and irreproachable lady since, and
I have had the pleasure of making her acquaintance: and must certainly
own, against my friend Pen's opinion, that his adored Emily is not a
clever woman. The truth is, she had not only never heard of Kotzebue,
but she had never heard of Farquhar, or Congreve, or any dramatist in