you. The public service is closed to you. Society is closed to you. You
see, my good friend, to what you bring yourself. You may get on at the
bar to be sure, where I am given to understand that gentlemen of merit
occasionally marry out of their kitchens; but in no other profession. Or
you may come and live down here--down here, mon Dieu! for ever" (said the
Major, with a dreary shrug, as he thought with inexpressible fondness of
Pall Mall), "where your mother will receive the Mrs. Arthur that is to
be, with perfect kindness; where the good people of the county won't
visit you; and where, by Gad, sir, I shall be shy of visiting you myself,
for I'm a plain-spoken man, and I own to you that I like to live with
gentlemen for my companions; where you will have to live, with
rum-and-water--drinking gentlemen--farmers, and drag through your life
the young husband of an old woman, who, if she doesn't quarrel with your
mother, will at least cost that lady her position in society, and drag
her down into that dubious caste into which you must inevitably fall. It
is no affair of mine, my good sir. I am not angry. Your downfall will not
hurt me farther than that it will extinguish the hopes I had of seeing my
family once more taking its place in the world. It is only your mother
and yourself that will be ruined. And I pity you both from my soul. Pass
the claret: it is some I sent to your poor father; I remember I bought it
at poor Lord Levant's sale. But of course," added the Major, smacking the
wine, "having engaged yourself, you will do what becomes you as a man of
honour, however fatal your promise may be. However, promise us on our
side, my boy, what I set out by entreating you to grant,--that there
shall be nothing clandestine, that you will pursue your studies, that you
will only visit your interesting friend at proper intervals. Do you
write to her much?"

Pen blushed and said, "Why, yes, he had written."