has met my uncle Arthur at Lord Hill's, he thinks. His own family is one
of the most ancient and respectable in Ireland, and indeed is as good as
our own. The Costigans were kings of Ireland."

"Why, God bless my soul," shrieked out the Doctor, hardly knowing whether
to burst with rage or laughter, "you don't mean to say you want to marry
her?"

Pen put on his most princely air. "What else, Dr. Portman," he said, "do
you suppose would be my desire?"

Utterly foiled in his attack, and knocked down by this sudden lunge of
Pen's, the Doctor could only gasp out, "Mrs. Pendennis, ma'am, send for
the Major."

"Send for the Major? with all my heart," said Arthur Prince of Pendennis
and Grand Duke of Fairoaks, with a most superb wave of the hand. And the
colloquy terminated by the writing of those two letters which were laid
on Major Pendennis's breakfast-table, in London, at the commencement of
Prince Arthur's most veracious history.




CHAPTER VII

In which the Major makes his Appearance


Our acquaintance, Major Arthur Pendennis, arrived in due time at