Should he speak his mind and go down on his knees to the widow? He
thought over any indications in her behaviour which flattered his hopes.
She had praised his sermons three weeks before: she had thanked him
exceedingly for his present of a melon, for a small dinner-party which
Mrs. Pendennis gave: she said she should always be grateful to him for
his kindness to Arthur, and when he declared that there were no bounds to
his love and affection for that dear boy, she had certainly replied in a
romantic manner, indicating her own strong gratitude and regard to all
her son's friends. Should he speak out?--or should he delay? If be spoke
and she refused him, it was awful to think that the gate of Fairoaks
might be shut upon him for ever--and within that door lay all the world
for Mr. Smirke.
Thus, oh friendly readers, we see how every man in the world has his own
private griefs and business, by which he is more cast down or occupied
than by the affairs or sorrows of any other person. While Mrs. Pendennis
is disquieting herself about losing her son, and that anxious hold she
has had of him, as long as he has remained in the mother's nest, whence
he is about to take flight into the great world beyond--while the Major's
great soul chafes and frets, inwardly vexed as he thinks what great
parties are going on in London, and that he might be sunning himself in
the glances of Dukes and Duchesses, but for those cursed affairs which
keep him in a wretched little country hole--while Pen is tossing between
his passion and a more agreeable sensation, unacknowledged yet, but
swaying him considerably, namely, his longing to see the world--Mr.
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