She was proud of her intimacy with the French language, and spoke it with more volubility than correctness.

Mrs.Pendennis did not care to penetrate the secrets of this wounded heart: except to her few intimates she was a reserved and it may be a very proud woman; she looked upon her son's tutor merely as an attendant on that young Prince, to be treated with respect as a clergyman certainly, but with proper dignity as a dependant on the house of Pendennis.

Nor were Madame's constant allusions to the Curate particularly agreeable to her.

It required a very ingenious sentimental turn indeed to find out that the widow had a secret regard for Mr.
Smirke, to which pernicious error however Madame Fribsby persisted in holding.
Her lodger was very much more willing to talk on this subject with his soft-hearted landlady.

Every time after that she praised the Curate to Mrs.Pendennis, she came away from the latter with the notion that the widow herself had been praising him.