in England.

And he must not only give up this but all other engagements for some time
to come. Who knows how long the business might detain him. He quitted his
breakfast table for the adjoining writing-room, and there ruefully wrote
off refusals to the Marquis, the Earl, the Bishop, and all his
entertainers; and he ordered his servant to take places in the mail-coach
for that evening, of course charging the sum which he disbursed for the
seats to the account of the widow and the young scapegrace of whom he was
guardian.




CHAPTER II

A Pedigree and other Family Matters


Early in the Regency of George the Magnificent, there lived in a small
town in the west of England, called Clavering, a gentleman whose name was
Pendennis. There were those alive who remembered having seen his name
painted on a board, which was surmounted by a gilt pestle and mortar over
the door of a very humble little shop in the city of Bath, where Mr.
Pendennis exercised the profession of apothecary and surgeon; and where
he not only attended gentlemen in their sick-rooms, and ladies at the
most interesting periods of their lives, but would condescend to sell a
brown-paper plaster to a farmer's wife across the counter,--or to vend
tooth-brushes, hair-powder, and London perfumery. For these facts a few
folks at Clavering could vouch, where people's memories were more