that her ladyship, the wife of Sir Pepin Ribstone, of Codlingbury, in the
county of Somerset, Bart., appointed her preserver, as she called him,
apothecary to her person and family, which was very large. Master
Ribstone coming home for the Christmas holidays from Eton, over-ate
himself and had a fever, in which Mr. Pendennis treated him with the
greatest skill and tenderness. In a word, he got the good graces of the
Codlingbury family, and from that day began to prosper. The good company
of Bath patronised him, and amongst the ladies especially he was beloved
and admired. First his humble little shop became a smart one: then he
discarded the selling of tooth-brushes and perfumery, as unworthy of a
gentleman of an ancient lineage: then he shut up the shop altogether, and
only had a little surgery attended by a genteel young man: then he had a
gig with a man to drive him; and, before her exit from this world, his
poor old mother had the happiness of seeing from her bedroom window to
which her chair was rolled, her beloved John step into a close carriage
of his own, a one-horse carriage it is true, but with the arms of the
family of Pendennis handsomely emblazoned on the panels. "What would
Arthur say now?" she asked, speaking of a younger son of hers--"who never
so much as once came to see my dearest Johnny through all the time of his
poverty and struggles!"

"Captain Pendennis is with his regiment in India, mother," Mr. Pendennis
remarked, "and, if you please, I wish you would not call me Johnny before
the young man--before Mr. Parkins."

Presently the day came when she ceased to call her son by the name of
Johnny, or by any other title of endearment or affection; and his house
was very lonely without that kind though querulous voice. He had his
night-bell altered and placed in the room in which the good old lady had
grumbled for many a long year, and he slept in the great large bed there.