Well, well,--it must have come in a day or two, and it was as well that the town should have the real story.

What the Clavering folks thought of Mrs.Pendennis for spoiling her son, and of that precocious young rascal of an Arthur for daring to propose to a play-actress, need not be told here.

If pride exists amongst any folks in our country, and assuredly we have enough of it, there is no pride more deep-seated than that of twopenny old gentlewomen in small towns.

"Gracious goodness," the cry was, "how infatuated the mother is about that pert and headstrong boy who gives himself the airs of a lord on his blood-horse, and for whom our society is not good enough, and who would marry an odious painted actress off a booth, where very likely he wants to rant himself.

If dear good Mr.Pendennis had been alive this scandal would never have happened." No more it would, very likely, nor should we have been occupied in narrating Pen's history.