"I suppose Miss Amory means 'Walter Lorraine,'" said the major, looking knowing, and nodding at Pen.
"I suppose so, sir. There was a famous review in the Pall Mall this morning. It was Warrington's doing, though, and I must not be too proud."
"A review in Pall Mall?—Walter Lorraine? What the doose do you mean?" Foker asked. "Walter Lorraine died of the measles, poor little beggar, when we were at Gray Friars. I remember his mother coming up."
"You are not a literary man, Foker," Pen said, laughing, and hooking his arm into his friend's. "You must know I have been writing a novel, and some of the papers have spoken very well of it. Perhaps you don't read the Sunday papers?"
"I read Bell's Life regular, old boy," Mr. Foker answered: at which Pen laughed again, and the three gentlemen proceeded in great good-humor to Lady Clavering's house.
The subject of the novel was resumed after luncheon by Miss Amory, who indeed loved poets and men of letters if she loved any thing, and was sincerely an artist in feeling. "Some of the passages in the book made me cry, positively they did," she said.
Pen said, with some fatuity, "I am happy to think I have a part of vos larmes, Miss Blanche"—And the major (who had not read more than six pages of Pen's book) put on his sanctified look, saying, "Yes, there are some passages quite affecting, mons'ous affecting: and,"—"O, if it makes you cry,"—Lady Amory declared she would not read it, "that she wouldn't."
"Don't, mamma," Blanche said, with a French shrug of her shoulders; and then she fell into a rhapsody about the book, about the snatches of poetry interspersed in it, about the two heroines, Leonora and Neaera; about the two heroes, Walter Lorraine and his rival the young duke—"and what good company you introduce us to," said the young lady, archly, "quel ton! How much of your life have you passed at court, and are you a prime minister's son, Mr. Arthur?"
Pen began to laugh—"It is as cheap for a novelist to create a duke as to make a baronet," he said. "Shall I tell you a secret, Miss Amory? I promoted all my characters at the request of the publisher. The young duke was only a young baron when the novel was first written; his false friend the viscount, was a simple commoner, and so on with all the characters of the story."
"What a wicked, satirical, pert young man you have become! Comme vous voilà formé!" said the young lady, "How different from Arthur Pendennis of the country! Ah! I think I like Arthur Pendennis of the country best, though!" and she gave him the full benefit of her eyes—both of the fond, appealing glance into his own, and of the modest look downward toward the carpet, which showed off her dark eyelids and long fringed lashes.