The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-03-15

lady who might be cross about 1t Wouldn't make them very well off. So she wrote Arthur Pendennis a little note that made him ride distractedly around the country, toss wretchedly through sleepless nights and deem that he should die.
 But he did not; and at last the Major thankfully saw his martyrdom at an end and returned to his beloved clubs. Pen wrote tragedies more burning than ever, cultivated more Byronic gloom and talked of his blighted love to MT. Smirke until that gentleman feebly confessed to him that he, too, loved passionately; and on Pens laughingly asking her name said that it was his mother; which made the Prince of Fairoaks roar out most in- dignantly and send the poor curate out of the house in sore disgrace.
 His Majesty now decided to go to OK bridge where Harry Poker and other friends from Greyfriars were reading for their degrees. The widow scraped to- gether all her savings and dispatched him there in magnificence. Soon Pendennis of Fairoaks was the leader in all that classical place of learning and life. His rooms were the finest, his wines were the best, his words were quoted by eager admirers and his costumes copied by all the college dandies.
 All declared that he was easily the best man in the university; but somehow another man carried off the Greek ode prlZe and a. rlVal won the Lalln ueAdlle- ter prize, and at the last poor Pen got nothing but a minor Reclamation prize, which his mother marveled at and cher ished as the finest thing ever won in a college.
 All the young nobles and spendthrifts at Oxbridge belonged to Pens set. Hon est Harry Poker, who was presently sent down" because of a little dinner that he gave in college in which prize fighting guest operated on proctor who came to investigate said to Pen before he left: Its not me m bothered about. As long as people drink beer 1 don't care. But you're goin' too fast, my boy. You can't keep up the pace. tell you. Presently Foker's prediction came true. One day the crash came. Pens allow ance had long since been spent. he had borrowed right and left, tradesmen open ly besieged his door, and Pen sat down to realize that he had spent more than f1400 in his two years, and still owed a70o. In the midst of his troubles the lists came out and Pendennfs found that he had been 'plucked."
 He fled from Oxbridge and went to Lon don to see the Major. That gentleman, who had been vastly delighted with the fine acquaintances his nephew had made at Oxbridge received him with pleasure that changed to trembling indignation when he learned the truth, and he stalked VI would not permit him to see much of Pen during his stay in London.
 Poor Pendennis skulked about London after writing to his mother such a let ter as prodigals have had to write ever since there were mothers and prodigals. The gentle soul who received 1t did not care one-half so much about the great sum of money or the loss of the degree as she did to know that her son, of whose wild career in Oxbridge she had learned from many sources, was coming back to her, repentant.
 And as to the money, why, wasn't all of Pens fathers money his? Hadn't he right to spend it? Besides, the prob lem of raising the cash was not at all a difficult one, for Helen's eyes were not the only ones that went over Pen s penitent letter.
 You know, mama" said the owner of the other, pair of eyes (and remark ably fine ones they were). 'I Lave been living with you all my life, and if had had to go to school it would have cost me a great deal. So I am sure that the e500 that are in my bank belong to you, and I shall be very angry If you do not take them."
 Mrs. Pendennis embraced the owner of the fine eyes and wept again and called her dearest Laura" Who was this dear est Laura who is introduced this un- expectedly at this financially opportune moment?
 Once upon a time, long before Miss Helen Thistlewood ever imagined that she would marry an elderly little gen. tleman with bald head, there was a young gentleman of Cambridge university who was as poor as she was. His name was the Rev. Frank Bell, and he was waiting for living. Before it fell in they were separated, and finally he went away to a colony where he married years afterward. There he and his wife died after Helen's marriage to Pendennis, and she sent for Laura, the child whom the Bells had left all alone in the world, and brought her up as her own.
 It was Helens dream that some day her beautiful clever Pen should marry her beloved Laura; and that young gen. tleman sometimes thought that he might gratify the two women ultimately when he had seen enough of life.
 Pen came home very much lumbled He blushed when he saw Laura, who re- ceived him with all her true old-tame aS.