o moral or edifying in the days of which we write, as
they are at present) she had got to be so absurdly sentimental, that in
her eyes life was nothing but an immense love-match; and she never
could see two people together, but she fancied they were dying for one
another.

On the day after Mrs. Pendennis's visit to the Curate, which we have
recorded many pages back, Madame Fribsby settled in her mind that Mr.
Smirke must be in love with the widow, and did everything in her power
to encourage this passion on both sides. Mrs. Pendennis she very seldom
saw, indeed, except in public, and in her pew at church. That lady had
very little need of millinery, or made most of her own dresses and caps;
but on the rare occasions when Madame Fribsby received visits from
Mrs. Pendennis or paid her respects at Fairoaks, she never failed to
entertain the widow with praises of the Curate, pointing out what an
angelical man he was, how gentle, how studious, how lonely; and she
would wonder that no lady would take pity upon him.

Helen laughed at these sentimental remarks, and wondered that Madame
herself did not compassionate her lodger, and console him. Madame
Fribsby shook her Madonna front, "Mong cure a boco souffare," she said,
laying her hand on the part she designated as her cure. "It est more
en Espang, Madame," she said with a sigh. She was proud of her intimacy
with the French language, and spoke it with more volubility than
correctness. Mrs. Pendennis did not care to penetrate the secrets of
this wounded heart: except to her few intimates she was a reserved and
it may be a very proud woman; she looked upon her son's tutor merely
as an attendant on that young Prince, to be treated with respect as a
clergyman certainly, but with proper dignity as a dependant on the
house of Pendennis. Nor were Madame's constant allusions to the Curate
particularly agreeable to her. It required a very ingenious sentimental
turn indeed to find out that the widow had a secret regard for Mr.
Smirke, to which pernicious error however Madame Fribsby persisted in
holding.

Her lodger was very much more willing to talk on this subject with his
soft-hearted landlady. Every time after that she praised the Curate to
Mrs. Pendennis, she came away from the latter with the notion that
the widow herself had been praising him. "Etre soul au monde est bien
ouneeyoung," she would say, glancing up at a print of a French carbineer
in a green coat and brass cuirass