He was older than she by more than twenty years, and at no time the most
ardent of men. Perhaps he had had a love affair in early life which he
had to strangle--perhaps all early love affairs ought to be strangled or
drowned, like so many blind kittens: well, at three-and-forty he was a
collected quiet little gentleman in black stockings with a bald head, and
a few days after the ceremony he called to see her, and, as he felt her
pulse, he kept hold of her hand in his, and asked her where she was going
to live now that the Pontypool family had come down upon the property,
which was being nailed into boxes, and packed into hampers, and swaddled
up with haybands, and buried in straw, and locked under three keys in
green baize plate-chests, and carted away under the eyes of poor Miss
Helen,--he asked her where she was going to live finally.

Her eyes filled with tears, and she said she did not know. She had a
little money. The old lady had left her a thousand pounds, indeed; and
she would go into a boarding-house or into a school: in fine, she did not
know where.

Then Pendennis, looking into her pale face, and keeping hold of her cold
little hand, asked her if she would come and live with him? He was old
compared to--to so blooming a young lady as Miss Thistlewood (Pendennis
was of the grave old complimentary school of gentlemen and apothecaries),
but he was of good birth, and, he flattered himself, of good principles
and temper. His prospects were good, and daily mending. He was alone in
the world, and had need of a kind and constant companion, whom it would
be the study of his life to make happy; in a word, he recited to her a
little speech, which he had composed that morning in bed, and rehearsed
and perfected in his carriage, as he was coming to wait upon the young
lady.