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

lection. He sold his mare and felt that he mad done very virtuous act. He lounged around the house. whose state, never great, was much diminished now to help pay his debts. He commenced several tragedies and wrote innumerable verses of frightful melancholy. At last however, reused by the insistence of
 Laura, he went back to Oxbridge where he shut himself up for while and passed
 his second examination with perfect ease.
 When he returned with his degree he
 resumed his idleness. He fell asleep with great regularity after dinner and
 prevailed the house with gloom and de-
 spondency, until an unusual event awoke him.
 Clavering Park was to be reopened.
 The Claverings had not honored their country with their presence in some
 years. The father of the present
 baronet, Sir Francis C1avering, had
 lived on the continent as an outlaw. Sir
 Francis had left his regiment in dis
 grace. and passed through many shady
 transactions, winding up in the debt ors' prison of the Fleet, and had at
 last slipped over to France, where he
 h elped his father improve the Clavering
 reputation as blacklegs and outcasts.
 When the paternal rake died, Sir
 Francis married the widow Amory,
 who was daughter of an immensely wealthy indigo planter named Shell, in
 Calcutta. A few old East Indians spoke with a good deal of malicious pleasure about the disreputable old father, and
 declared that 1t was indigo smuggling
 and not indigo planting that had made
 him wealthy. As to the late MT. Amory, they said that he had been the mate of an East Indiaman, whom the impressionable Miss Shell had married after knowing him only a few weeks. And they hinted that he had died as
 convict in New South Wales after hav- ing kindly signed his father's-in- law name to note in order to save the old gentleman trouble r1 However, Mrs. Amory was the best natured, if the most vulgar of women. She paid Sir Francis debts and pres .ently the Clavering family crest blazed from rejuvenated carriages and Clavering Park was opened with splen- dor to which it had been stranger for many generations
 With Sir and Lady Clavering arrived Miss Blanche Amory, daughter of Lady | Clayerlng by the late MT. Amory. Miss Blanche had been educated most ex- pensively in France. She was fair. like @ sylph her mouth was rosebud, she composed music and sketched and wrote poetry, and in a word, was most romantic and interesting beauty. pendennis' spirits seemed to come hack soon after the family opened clavering Park Before long he and MISS Blanche were exchanging poetry. Soon afterward he took to fishing the little stream, where, strangely enough, MISS Blanche took to walking. And there was a certain hollow tree that served very well as postoffice. sRut in time the great families that ...lra at a were tempted to call by the magnifi- cance of the entertainments and the svlph found her way less and less often to the little river while invitations did not reach FairoaKs so plentifully as in the beginning.
 IT suddenly seemed to MT. Pendennis that it was time for him to make his mothers heart happy. lie would go to London and read for the bar, and as soon as he had assured himself a place In tbe world he would return and marry Laura. so he told Laura that he was old and weary. having met with so many disap- pointments that he had hardly heart to offer, but what there was ne very kindly laid at her feet
 Vastly surprised and vastly offended was the Prince of Fairoaks when Laura thankfully declined the proffered frag- ments In high dignity he went away to London, where he took possession of part sthe chambers occupied by his old frien ;eorge Warrington, younger son of Si, Miles Warrington.
 Wan ington was so poor that he was nearly reduced to rags. Indeed, his dressjng gown and his furniture were tattered and ragged beyond repair. He drank beer like coal heaver and pre- ferred any kind of company to that of his own rank, but for all that he had "gentleman" written all over him. Warrington had married out of his own circle His wife turned out to be a selfish. malicious boor. When he found that she and her wretched, rapacious fa,nilv had trapped him of set purpose, he gave them all he had on condition | that they should not dishonor his fam ily's name by laying claim to it., He signed over his younger sons allowance, dropped out of his world and began life broken and defeated before his race had we'll started.
 Psndsnnis. with his wild ambitions. his