"What, picked up and sound ?" he cried out laughing.

"Come along back, old fellow, and eat my dinner--I have had mine: but we will have a bottle of the old wine and drink her health, Smirke." Poor Smirke turned the pony's head round, and jogged along with Arthur.
His mother was charmed to see him in such high spirits, and welcomed Mr.
Smirke for his sake, when Arthur said he had forced the curate back to dine.

He gave a most ludicrous account of the play of the night before, and of the acting of Bingley the Manager, in his rickety Hessians, and the enormous Mrs.Bingley as the Countess, in rumpled green satin and a Polish cap; he mimicked them, and delighted his mother and little Laura, who clapped her hands with pleasure.
"And Mrs.Haller ?" said Mrs.Pendennis.
"She's a stunner, ma'am," Pen said, laughing, and using the words of his revered friend, Mr.Foker.
"A what, Arthur ?" asked the lady.
"What is a stunner, Arthur ?" cried Laura, in the same voice.
So he gave them a queer account of Mr.Foker, and how he used to be called Vats and Grains, and by other contumelious names at school: and how he was now exceedingly rich, and a Fellow Commoner at St.Boniface.
But gay and communicative as he was, Mr.Pen did not say one syllable about his ride to Chatteris that day, or about the new friends whom he had made there.
When the two ladies retired, Pen, with flashing eyes, filled up two great bumpers of Madeira, and looking Smirke full in the face said, "Here's to her!" "Here's to her," said the curate with a sigh, lifting the glass and emptying it, so that his face was a little pink when he put it down.
Pen had even less sleep that night than on the night before.

In the morning, and almost before dawn, he went out and saddled that unfortunate Rebecca himself, and rode her on the Downs like mad.

Again Love had roused him--and said, "Awake, Pendennis, I am here." That charming fever--that delicious longing--and fire, and uncertainty; he hugged them to him--he would not have lost them for all the world..