Pen added: and Laura was glad to hear him say that; although some of the young bucks said, "No, hang the fellow, hang those impudent foreigners - little thrashing would do them good."

"You will go and shake hands with him before you go to sleep-won't you, Pen?" said Laura, coming up to him. "Foreigners may be more susceptible than we are, and have different manners. If you hurt a poor man's feelings, I am sure you would be the first to ask his pardon. Would n't you, dear Pen?"

She looked all forgiveness and gentleness, like an angel, as she spoke, and Pen took both her hands, and looked into her kind face, and said indeed he would.

"How fond that girl is of me!" he thought, as she stood gazing at him. "Shall I speak to her now? No-not now. I must have this absurd business with the Frenchman over."

Laura asked - Would n't he stop and dance with her? She was as anxious to keep him in the room, as he to quit it. "Won't you stop and waltz with me, Pen? I'm not afraid to waltz with you."

This was an affectionate, but an unlucky speech. Pen saw himself prostrate on the ground, having tumbled over Miss Roundle and the dragoon, and flung Blanche up against the wall saw himself on the ground, and all the people laughing at him, Laura and Pynsent amongst them.

"I shall never dance again," he replied, with a dark and determined face. "Never. I'm surprised. you should ask me."

"Is it because you can't get Blanche for a partner?" asked Laura, with a wicked, unlucky captiousness.

VOL. X.-2

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"Because I don't wish to make a fool of myself, for other people to laugh at me," Pen answered "for you to laugh at me, Laura. I saw you and Pynsent. By Jove! no man shall laugh at me."

"Pen, Pen, don't be so wicked!" cried out the poor girl, hurt at the morbid perverseness and savage vanity of Pen. He was glaring round in the direction of Mr. Pynsent as if he would have liked to engage that gentleman as he had done the cook. "Who thinks the worse of you for stumbling in a waltz?" If Laura does, we don't. "Why are you so sensitive, and ready to think evil?"

Here again, by ill luck, Mr. Pynsent came up to Laura, and said, "I have it in command from Lady Rockminster to ask whether I may take you in to supper?"

"I-I was going in with my cousin," Laura said. "Oh-pray, no!" said Pen. "You are in such good hands, that I can't do better than leave you: and I'm going home."

"Good night, Mr. Pendennis," Pynsent said, dryly -to which speech (which in fact, meant, "Go to the deuce for an insolent, jealous, impertinent jackanapes, whose ears I should like to box") Mr. Pendennis did not vouchsafe any reply, except a bow: and, in spite of Laura's imploring looks, he left the

room.

"How beautifully calm and bright the night outside is!" said Mr. Pynsent; "and what a murmur the sea is making! It would be pleasanter to be walking on the beach than in this hot room."

"Very," said Laura.

"What a strange congregation of people," continued Pynsent. "I have had to go up and perform the agreeable to most of them - the attorney's daughters- the

There

apothecary's wife-I scarcely know whom. was a man in the refreshment-room, who insisted upon treating me to champagne-a seafaring looking man -extraordinarily dressed, and seeming half tipsy. As a public man, one is bound to conciliate all these people, but it is a hard task-especially when one would so very much like to be elsewhere"- and he blushed rather as he spoke.

"I beg your pardon," said Laura-"I-I was not listening. Indeed-I was frightened about that quarrel between my cousin and that-that- French person."

"Your cousin has been rather unlucky to-night," Pynsent said. "There are three or four persons whom he has not succeeded in pleasing - Captain Broadwood; what is his name - the officer - and the young lady in red with whom he danced- and Miss Blanche and the poor chef - and I don't think he seemed to be particularly pleased with me."

"Did n't he leave me in charge to you?" Laura said, looking up into Mr. Pynsent's face, and dropping her eyes instantly, like a guilty little story-telling coquette.

"Indeed, I can forgive him a good deal for that," Pynsent eagerly cried out, and she took his arm, and he led off his little prize in the direction of the supper-room.

She had no great desire for that repast, though it was served in Rincer's well-known style, as the county paper said, giving an account of the entertainment afterwards; indeed, she was very distraite; and exceedingly pained and unhappy about Pen. Captious and quarrelsome; jealous and selfish; fickle and violent and unjust when his anger led him astray; how could her mother (as indeed Helen had by a thousand

words and hints) ask her to give her heart to such a man? and suppose she were to do so, would it make him happy?

But she got some relief at length, when, at the end of half an hour a long half-hour it had seemed to her a waiter brought her a little note in pencil from Pen, who said, "I met Cooky below ready to fight me; and I asked his pardon. I'm glad I did it. I wanted to speak to you to-night, but will keep what I had to say till you come home. God bless you. Dance away all night with Pynsent, and be very happy. PEN."Laura was very thankful for this letter, and to think that there was goodness and forgiveness still in her mother's boy.

Pen went down stairs, his heart reproaching him for his absurd behavior to Laura, whose gentle and imploring looks followed and rebuked him: and he was scarcely out of the ball-room door before he longed to turn back and ask her pardon. But he remembered that he had left her with that confounded Pynsent. He could not apologize before him. He would compromise and forget his wrath, and make his peace with the Frenchman.

The Chevalier was pacing down below in the hall of the inn when Pen descended from the ball-room; and he came up to Pen, with all sorts of fun and mischief lighting up his jolly face.

"I have got him in the coffee-room," he said, "with a brace of pistols and a candle. Or would you like swords on the beach? Mirobolant is a dead hand with the foils, and killed four gardes-du-corps with his own point in the barricades of July."

"Confound it," said Pen, in a fury, "I can't fight a cook!"

"He is a Chevalier of July," replied the other. "They present arms to him in his own country."

"And do you ask me, Captain Strong, to go out with a servant ?" Pen asked fiercely; "I'll call a policeman for him; but-but-"

"You'll invite me to hair triggers?" cried Strong, with a laugh. "Thank you for nothing; I was but joking. I came to settle quarrels, not to fight them. I have been soothing down Mirobolant; I have told him that you did not apply the word 'Cook' to him in an offensive sense that it was contrary to all the customs of the country that a hired officer of a household, as I called it, should give his arm to the daughter of the house." And then he told Pen the grand secret which he had had from Madame Fribsby, of the violent passion under which the poor artist was laboring.

When Arthur heard this tale, he broke out into a hearty laugh, in which Strong joined, and his rage against the poor cook vanished at once. He had been absurdly jealous himself all the evening, and had longed for a pretext to insult Pynsent. He remembered how jealous he had been of Oaks in his first affair; he was ready to pardon anything to a man under a passion like that: and he went into the coffee-room where Mirobolant was waiting, with an outstretched hand, and made him a speech in French, in which he declared that he was "Sincèrement fâché d'avoir usé une expression qui avoit pu blesser Monsieur Mirobolant, et qu'il donnoit sa parole comme un gentilhomme qu'il ne l'avoit jamais, jamais-intendé," said Pen, who made a shot at a French word for "intended," and was secretly much pleased with his own fluency and correctness in speaking that language.

"Bravo, bravo!" cried Strong, as much amused