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clear, so bright, so killing, with a voice so sweet, so round, so low, that the word and the glance shot Pen through and through, and perfectly transfixed him with pleasure.

"I never knew the name was so pretty before," Pen said.

""T is a very pretty name," Ophelia said. "Pentweazle's not a pretty name. Remember, Papa, when we were on the Norwich Circuit, young Pentweazle, who used to play second old men, and married Miss Rancy, the Columbine; they're both engaged in London now, at the Queen's, and get five pounds a week. Pentweazle was n't his real name. "T was Judkin gave it him, I don't know why. His name was Harrington; that is, his real name was Potts; fawther a clergyman, very respectable. Harrington was in London, and got in debt. Ye remember, he came out in Falkland, to Mrs. Bunce's Julia."

"And a pretty Julia she was," the Captain interposed; "a woman of fifty, and a mother of ten children. "Tis you who ought to have been Julia, or my name's not Jack Costigan."

"I didn't take the leading business then," Miss Fotheringay said modestly; "I was n't fit for 't till Bows taught me."

"True for you, my dear," said the Captain: and bending to Pendennis, he added, "Rejuiced in circumstances, sir, I was for some time a fencing-master in Dublin; (there's only three men in the empire could touch me with the foil once, but Jack Costigan's getting old and stiff now, sir) and my daughter had an engagement at the thayater there; and 't was there that my friend, Mr. Bows, gave her lessons, and made her what ye see. What have ye done since Bows went, Emily?"

"Sure, I've made a pie," Emily said, with perfect simplicity. She pronounced it "Poy."

"If ye 'll try it at four o'clock, sir, say the word," said Costigan gallantly. "That girl, sir, makes the best veal and ham pie in England, and I think I can promise ye a glass of punch of the right flavor."

Pen had promised to be home to dinner at six o'clock, but the rascal thought he could accommodate pleasure and duty in this point, and was only too eager to accept this invitation. He looked on with delight and wonder whilst Ophelia busied herself about the room, and prepared for the dinner. She arranged the glasses, and laid and smoothed the little cloth, all which duties she performed with a quiet grace and good-humor, which enchanted her guest more and more. The "poy" arrived from the baker's in the hands of one of the little choir-boy's brothers at the proper hour: and at four o'clock, Pen found himself at dinner-actually at dinner with the handsomest woman in all creation — with his first and only love, whom he had adored ever since when? ever since yesterday, ever since forever. He ate a crust of her making, he poured her out a glass of beer, he saw her drink a glass of punch

- just one wine-glass full-out of the tumbler which she mixed for her papa. She was perfectly goodnatured, and offered to mix one for Pendennis too. It was prodigiously strong; Pen had never in his life drunk so much spirits-and-water. Was it the punch or the punch-maker who intoxicated him?

Pen tried to engage her in conversation about poetry and about her profession. He asked her what she thought of Ophelia's madness, and whether she was in love with Hamlet or not? "In love with such a little ojus wretch as that stunted manager of a Bing

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