with the ends of their hair-plaits tied up in dirty pink ribbon. Not
having acquired the art of dancing, the youth avoided such chances as he
might have had of meeting with the fair sex at the Chatteris' Assemblies;
in fine, he was not in love, because there was nobody at hand to fall in
love with. And the young monkey used to ride out, day after day in
quest, of Dulcinea; and peep into the pony-chaises and gentlefolks'
carriages, as they drove along the broad turnpike roads, with a heart
beating within him, and a secret tremor and hope that she might be in
that yellow postchaise coming swinging up the hill, or one of those three
girls in beaver bonnets in the back seat of the double gig, which the fat
old gentleman in black was driving, at four miles an hour. The
postchaise contained a snuffy old dowager of seventy, with a maid, her
contemporary. The three girls in the beaver bonnets were no handsomer
than the turnips that skirted the roadside. Do as he might, and ride
where he would, the fairy princess that he was to rescue and win, had not
yet appeared to honest Pen.

Upon these points he did not discourse to his mother. He had a world of
his own. What generous, ardent, imaginative soul has not a secret
pleasure-place in which it disports? Let no clumsy prying or dull
meddling of ours try to disturb it in our children. Actaeon was a brute
for wanting to push in where Diana was bathing. Leave him occasionally
alone, my good madam, if you have a poet for a child. Even your admirable
advice may be a bore sometimes. You are faultless; but it does not follow
that everybody in your family is to think exactly like yourself. Yonder
little child may have thoughts too deep even for your great mind, and
fancies so coy and timid that they will not bare themselves when your
ladyship sits by.

Helen Pendennis by the force of sheer love divined a great number of her