For a long while Hele had not seen the boy looking so cheerful.

He put his arm round her waist, and walked her up and down the walk in front of the house.

Laura began to drub on the drawing-room window and nod and laugh from it.

"Come along, you two people," cried on Major Pendennis, "your coffee is getting quite cold." When Laura was gone to bed, Pen, who was big with his secret, burst out with it, and described the dismal but ludicrous scene which had occurred.

Helen heard of it with many blushes, which became her pale face very well, and a perplexity which Arthur roguishly enjoyed.
"Confound the fellow's impudence," Major Pendennis said as he took his candle, "where will the assurance of these people stop ?" Pen and his mother had a long talk that night, full of love, confidence, and laughter, and the boy somehow slept more soundly and woke up more easily than he had done for many months before.
Before the great Mr.Dolphin quitted Chatteris, he not only made an advantageous engagement with Miss Fotheringay, but he liberally left with her a sum of money to pay off any debts which the little family might have contracted during their stay in the place, and which, mainly through the lady's own economy and management, were not considerable.
The small account with the spirit merchant, which Major Pendennis had settled, was the chief of Captain Costigan's debts, and though the Captain at one time talked about repaying every farthing of the money, it never appears that he executed his menace, nor did the laws of honour in the least call upon him to accomplish that threat.
When Miss Costigan had seen all the outstanding bills paid to the uttermost shilling, she handed over the balance to her father, who broke out into hospitalities to all his friends, gave the little Creeds more apples and gingerbread than he had ever bestowed upon them, so that the widow Creed ever after held the memory of her lodger in veneration, and the young ones wept bitterly when he went away; and in a word managed the money so cleverly that it was entirely expended before many days, and that he was compelled to draw upon Mr.Dolphin for a sum to pay for travelling expenses when the time of their departure arrived.
There was held at an inn in that county town a weekly meeting of a festive, almost a riotous character, of a society of gentlemen who called themselves the Buccaneers.