But she soon dried up her grief
under Helen's motherly care.
Round her neck she had a locket with hair, which Helen had given, ah how
many years ago! to poor Francis, dead and buried. This child was all that
was left of him, and she cherished, as so tender a creature would, the
legacy which he had bequeathed to her. The girl's name, as his dying
letter stated, was Helen Laura. But John Pendennis, though he accepted
the trust, was always rather jealous of the orphan; and gloomily ordered
that she should be called by her own mother's name; and not by that first
one which her father had given her. She was afraid of Mr. Pendennis, to
the last moment of his life. And it was only when her husband was gone
that Helen dared openly to indulge in the tenderness which she felt for
the little girl.
Thus it was that Laura Bell became Mrs. Pendennis's daughter. Neither her
husband nor that gentleman's brother, the Major, viewed her with very
favourable eyes. She reminded the first of circumstances in his wife's
life which he was forced to accept, but would have forgotten much more
willingly and as for the second, how could he regard her? She was
neither related to his own family of Pendennis, nor to any nobleman in
this empire, and she had but a couple of thousand pounds for her fortune.
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