which decorated her apartment--"Depend
upon it when Master Pendennis goes to College, his Ma will find herself
very lonely. She is quite young yet.--You wouldn't suppose her to be
five-and-twenty. Monsieur le Cury, song cure est touchy--j'ang suis
sure--Je conny cela biang--Ally Monsieur Smirke."

He softly blushed; he sighed; he hoped; he feared; he doubted; he
sometimes yielded to the delightful idea--his pleasure was to sit in
Madame Fribsby's apartment, and talk upon the subject, where, as
the greater part of the conversation was carried on in French by the
Milliner, and her old mother was deaf, that retired old individual (who
had once been a housekeeper, wife and widow of a butler in the Clavering
family) could understand scarce one syllable of their talk.

Thus it was, that when Major Pendennis announced to his nephew's tutor
that the young fellow would go to College in October, and that Mr.
Smirke's valuable services would no longer be needful to his pupil,
for which services the Major, who spoke as grandly as a lord, professed
himself exceedingly grateful, and besought Mr. Smirke to command
his interests in any way--thus it was, that the Curate felt that the
critical moment was come for him, and was racked and tortured by those
severe pangs which the occasion warranted.

Madame Fribsby had, of course, taken the strongest interest in the
progress of Mr. Pen's love affair with Miss Fotheringay. She had been
over to Chatteris, and having seen that actress perform, had pronounced
that she was old and overrated: and had talked over Master Pen's passion
in her shop many and many a time to the half-dozen old maids, and old
women in male clothes, who are to be found in little country towns, and
who formed the genteel population of Clavering. Captain Glanders, H.P.,
had pronounced that Pen was going to be a devil of a fellow, and
had begun early: Mrs. Glanders had told him to check his horrid
observations, and to respect his own wife, if he pleased. She said it
would be a lesson to Helen for her pride and absurd infatuation about
that boy. Mrs. Pybus said many people were proud of very small things,
and for her part, she didn't know why an apothecary's wife should give
herself such airs. Mrs. Wapshot called her daughters away from that
side of the street, one day when Pen, on Rebecca, was stopping at the
saddler's, to get a new lash to his whip--one and all of these people
had made visits of curiosity to Fairoaks, an