.

In which the Major opens the Campaign.
Let those who have a real and heartfelt relish for London society and the privilege of an entree into its most select circles, admit that Major Pendennis was a man of no ordinary generosity and affection, in the sacrifice which he now made.

He gave up London in May,--his newspapers and his mornings--his afternoons from club to club, his little confidential visits to my Ladies, his rides in Rotten Row, his dinners, and his stall at the Opera, his rapid escapades to Fulham or Richmond on Saturdays and Sundays, his bow from my Lord Duke or my Lord Marquis at the great London entertainments, and his name in the Morning Post of the succeeding day,--his quieter little festivals, more select, secret, and delightful--all these he resigned to lock himself into a lone little country house, with a simple widow and a greenhorn of a son, a mawkish curate, and a little girl of ten years of age.
He made the sacrifice, and it was the greater that few knew the extent of it.

His letters came down franked from town, and he showed the invitations to Helen with a sigh.

It was beautiful and tragical to see him refuse one party after another--at least to those who could understand, as Helen didn't, the melancholy grandeur of his self-denial.
Helen did not, or only smiled at the awful pathos with which the Major spoke of the Court Guide in general: but young Pen looked with great respect at the great names upon the superscriptions of his uncle's letters, and listened to the Major's stories about the fashionable world with constant interest and sympathy.
The elder Pendennis's rich memory was stored with thousands of these delightful tales, and he poured them into Pen's willing ear with unfailing eloquence.