Pybus,
who looked at everybody's letters as the Post brought them (for the
Clavering Reading-room, as every one knows, used to be held at Baker's
Library, London Street, formerly Hog Lane), and read every advertisement
in the paper.
It may be imagined how great a sensation was created in this amiable
little community when the news reached it of Mr. Pen's love-passages at
Chatteris. It was carried from house to house, and formed the subject of
talk at high-church, low-church, and no-church tables; it was canvassed
by the Misses Finucane and their teachers, and very likely debated by the
young ladies in the dormitories for what we know; Wapshot's big boys had
their version of the story, and eyed Pen curiously as he sate in his pew
at church, or raised the finger of scorn at him as he passed through
Chatteris. They always hated him and called him Lord Pendennis, because
he did not wear corduroys as they did, and rode a horse, and gave himself
the airs of a buck.
And if the truth must be told, it was Mrs. Portman herself who was the
chief narrator of the story of Pen's loves.
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