it?" Arthur asked.

"That you will make no private marriage--that you won't be taking a trip
to Scotland, you understand."

"That would be a falsehood. Pen never told his mother a falsehood,"
Helen said.

Pen hung down his head again, and his eyes filled with tears of
shame. Had not this whole intrigue been a falsehood to that tender and
confiding creature who was ready to give up all for his sake? He gave
his uncle his hand.

"No, sir--on my word of honour, as a gentleman," he said, "I will never
marry without my mother's consent!" and giving Helen a bright parting
look of confidence and affection unchangeable, the boy went out of the
drawing-room into his own study.

"He's an angel--he's an angel," the mother cried out in one of her usual
raptures.

"He comes of a good stock, ma'am," said her brother-in-law--"of a good
stock on both sides." The Major was greatly pleased with the result of
his diplomacy--so much so, that he once more saluted the tips of Mrs.
Pendennis's glove, and dropping the curt, manly, and straightforward
tone in which he had conducted the conversation with the lad, assumed
a certain drawl which he always adopted when he was most conceited and
fine.

"My dear creature," said he, in that his politest tone, "I think it
certainly as well that I came down, and I flatter myself that last botte
was a successful one. I tell you how I came to think of it. Three years
ago my kind friend Lady Ferrybridge sent for me in the greatest state of
alarm about her son Gretna, whose affair you remember, and implored
me to use my influence with the young gentleman, who was engaged in an
affaire de coeur with a Scotch clergyman's daughter, Miss MacToddy. I
implored, I entreated gentle measures. But Lord Ferrybridge was furious,
and tried the high hand. Gretna was sulky and silent, and his parents
thought they had conquered. But what was the fact, my dear creature? The
young people had been married for three months before Lord Ferrybridge
knew anything about it. And that was why I extracted the promise from
Master Pen."

"Arthur would never have done so," Mrs. Pendennis said.

"He hasn't,--that is one comfort," answered the brother-in-law.

Like a wary and patient man of the world, Major Pendennis did not press
poor Pen any farther for the moment, but hoped the best from time, and
that the young fellow's eyes would be opened before long to see the
absurdity of which he was guilty. And having found out how k