in an off-hand way.

"H'm--so so," said the Major. Whereupon this colloquy came to an end. And
Arthur Pendennis got into the postchaise with his uncle never to come
back to school any more.

As the chaise drove through Clavering, the hostler standing whistling
under the archway of the Clavering Arms, winked the postilion ominously,
as much as to say all was over. The gardener's wife came and opened the
lodge-gates, and let the travellers through with a silent shake of the
head. All the blinds were down at Fairoaks--the face of the old footman
was as blank when he let them in. Arthur's face was white too, with
terror more than with grief. Whatever of warmth and love the deceased man
might have had, and he adored his wife and loved and admired his son with
all his heart, he had shut them up within himself; nor had the boy been
ever able to penetrate that frigid outward barrier. But Arthur had been
his father's pride and glory through life, and his name the last which
John Pendennis had tried to articulate whilst he lay with his wife's hand
clasping his own cold and clammy palm, as the flickering spirit went out
into the darkness of death, and life and the world passed away from him.

The little girl, whose face had peered for a moment under the blinds as
the chaise came up, opened the door from the stairs into the hall, and
taking Arthur's hand silently as he stooped down to kiss her, led him
upstairs to his mother. Old John opened the dining-room door for the
Major. The room was darkened with the blinds down, and surrounded by all
the gloomy pictures of the Pendennises. He drank a glass of wine. The
bottle had been opened for the Squire four days before. His hat was
brushed, and laid on the hall table: his newspapers, and his letter-bag,
with John Pendennis, Esquire, Fairoaks, engraved upon the brass plate,