Pendennis, who had not expected her until night.
Alone with Helen, Laura gave an account of the scene, and gave up her
friend henceforth. "O Mamma," she said, "you were right; Blanche, who
seems so soft and so kind, is, as you have said, selfish and cruel. She
who is always speaking of her affections can have no heart. No honest
girl would afflict a mother so, or torture a dependant; and--and, I give
her up from this day, and I will have no other friend but you."
On this the two ladies went through the osculatory ceremony which they
were in the habit of performing, and Mrs. Pendennis got a great secret
comfort from the little quarrel--for Laura's confession seemed to say,
"That girl can never be a wife for Pen, for she is light-minded and
heartless, and quite unworthy of our noble hero. He will be sure to find
out her unworthiness for his own part, and then he will be saved from
this flighty creature, and awake out of his delusion."
But Miss Laura did not tell Mrs. Pendennis, perhaps did not acknowledge
to herself, what had been the real cause of the day's quarrel.
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