Contemptuous brokers declared there never was such a shabby lot of goods. A friend of the house and poor Philip bought in his mother's picture for a few guineas; and as for the Doctor's own state portrait, I am afraid it went for a few shillings only, and in the midst of a roar of Hebrew laughter. I saw in Wardour Street, not long after, the Doctor's sideboard, and what dealers cheerfully call the sarcophagus cellaret. Poor Doctor! his wine was all drunken; his meat was eaten up; but his own body had slipped out of the reach of the hook-beaked birds of prey.

We had spoken rapidly in undertones, innocently believing that the young people round about us were taking no heed of our talk. But in a lull of the conversation, Mr. Pendennis junior, who had always been a friend to Philip, broke out with-" Philip! if you are so very poor, you'll be hungry, you know, and you may have my piece of bread and jam. And I don't want it, mamma," he added; "and you know Philip has often and often given me things."

Philip stooped down and kissed this good little Samaritan. "I'm not hungry, Arty my boy," he said; "and I'm not so poor but I have got-look here- -a fine new shilling for Arty!"

"Oh, Philip, Philip!" cried mamma.

"Don't take the money, Arthur," cried papa.

And the boy, with a rueful face but a manly heart, prepared to give back the coin. "It's quite a new one; and it's a very pretty one: but I won't have it, Philip, thank you," he said, turning very red.

"If he won't, I vow I will give it to the cabman," said Philip.

"Keeping a cab all this while? Oh, Philip, Philip!" again cries mamma the economist.

"Loss of time is loss of money, my dear lady," says Philip, very gravely. "I have ever so many places to go to. When I am set in for being ruined, you shall see what a screw I will become ! I must go to Mrs. Brandon, who will be very uneasy, poor dear, until she knows the worst."

"Oh, Philip, I should like so to go with you!" cries Laura. "Pray, give her our very best regards and respects."

"Merci!" said the young man, and squeezed Mrs. Pendennis's hand in his own big one. "I will take your message to her, Laura. J'aime qu'on l'aime, savez-vous?"

"That means, I love those who love her," cries little Laura; "but, I don't know," remarked this little person afterwards to her paternal confidant, "that I like all people to love my mamma. That is, I don't like her to like them, papa-only you may, papa,

and Ethel may, and Arthur may, and, I think, Philip may, now he is poor and quite quite alone-and we will take care of him, won't we? And, I think, I'll buy him something with my money which Aunt Ethel gave me."

"And I'll give him my money," cries a boy. "And I'll div him my-myPsha! what matters what the little sweet lips prattled in their artless kindness? But the soft words of love and pity smote the mother's heart with an exquisite pang of gratitude and joy; and I know where her thanks were paid for those tender words and thoughts of her little ones.

Mrs. Pendennis made Philip promise to come to dinner, and also to remember not to take a cab-which promise Mr. Firmin had not much difficulty in executing, for he had but a few hundred yards to walk across the Park from his club; and I must say that my wife took a special care of our dinner that day, preparing for Philip certain dishes which she knew he liked, and enjoining the butler of the establishment (who also happened to be the owner of the house) to fetch from his cellar the very choicest wine in his possession.

I have previously described our friend and his boisterous, impetuous, generous nature. When Philip was moved, he called to all the world to witness his emotion. When he was angry, his enemies were all the rogues and scoundrels in the world. He vowed he would have no mercy on them, and desired all his acquaintances to participate in his anger. How could such an openmouthed son have had such a close-spoken father? I daresay you have seen very well-bred young people, the children of vulgar and ill-bred parents; the swaggering father have a silent son; the loud mother a modest daughter. Our friend is not Amadis or Sir Charles Grandison; and I don't set him up for a moment as a person to be revered or imitated; but try to draw him faithfully, and as nature made him. As nature made him, so he was. I don't think he tried to improve himself much. Perhaps few people do. They suppose they do and you read, in apologetic memoirs, and fond biographies, how this man cured his bad temper, and t'other worked and strove until he grew to be almost faultless. Very well and good, my good people. You can learn a language; you can master a science; I have heard of an old square-toes of sixty who learned, by study and intense application, very satisfactorily to dance; but can you, by taking thought, add to your moral stature? Ah me! the Doctor who preaches is only taller than most of us by the height of the pulpit: and when he steps down, I daresay he cringes to the duchess, growls at his children,

scolds his wife about the dinner. All is vanity, look you: and so the preacher is vanity, too.

Well, then, I must again say that Philip roared his griefs: he shouted his laughter: he bellowed his applause: he was extravagant in his humility as in his pride, in his admiration of his friends and contempt for his enemies: I daresay not a just man, but I have met juster men not half so honest; and certainly not a faultless man, though I know better men not near so good. So, I believe, my wife thinks; else why should she be so fond of him? Did we not know boys who never went out of bounds, and never were late for school, and never made a false concord or quantity, and never came under the ferule; and others who were always playing truant, and blundering, and being whipped; and yet, somehow, was not Master Naughty boy better liked than Master Goodchild? When Master Naughtyboy came to dine with us on the first day of his ruin, he bore a face of radiant happiness-he laughed, he bounced about, he caressed the children; now he took a couple on his knees; now he tossed the baby to the ceiling; now he sprawled over a sofa, and now he rode upon a chair; never was a penniless gentleman more cheerful. As for his dinner, Phil's appetite was always fine, but on this day an ogre could scarcely play a more terrible knife and fork. He asked for more and more, until his entertainers wondered to behold him. 'Dine for to-day and tomorrow too; can't expect such fare as this every day, you know. This claret, how good it is! May I pack some up in paper, and take it home with me?" The children roared with laughter at this admirable idea of carrying home wine in a sheet of paper. I don't know that it is always at the best jokes that children laugh :— children and wise men too.

When we three were by ourselves, and freed from the company of servants and children, our friend told us the cause of his gaiety. "By George!" he swore, "it is worth being ruined to find such good people in the world. My dear kind Laura "—here the gentleman brushes his eyes with his fist-"it was as much as I could do this morning to prevent myself from hugging you in my arms, you were so generous, and—and so kind, and so tender, and so good, by George! And after leaving you, where do you think I went?"

"I think I can guess, Philip," says Laura.

"Well," says Philip, winking his eyes again, and tossing off a great bumper of wine. "I went to her, of course. I think she is the best friend I have in the world. The old man was out, and I told her about everything that had happened. And what do you think she has done? She says she has been expecting me-she has; and she has gone and fitted up a room with a nice little bed

at the top of the house, with everything as neat and trim as possible; and she begged and prayed I would go and stay with her -and I said I would, to please her. And then she takes me down to her room; and she jumps up to a cupboard, which she unlocks ; and she opens and takes three-and-twenty pounds out of a-out of a tea-out of a tea-caddy-confound me!-and she says, 'Here, Philip,' she says, and-Boo! what a fool I am!" and here the orator fairly broke down in his speech.

W

CHAPTER XVI

IN WHICH PHILIP SHOWS HIS METTLE

HEN the poor Little Sister proffered her mite, her all, to Philip, I daresay some sentimental passages occurred between them which are much too trivial to be narrated. No doubt her pleasure would have been at that moment to give him not only that gold which she had been saving up against rentday, but the spoons, the furniture, and all the valuables of the house, including perhaps J. J.'s bric-a-brac, cabinets, china, and so forth. To perform a kindness, an act of self-sacrifice ;-are not these the most delicious privileges of female tenderness? Philip checked his little friend's enthusiasm. He showed her a purse full of money, at which sight the poor little soul was rather disappointed. He magnified the value of his horses, which, according to Philip's calculation, were to bring him at least two hundred pounds more than the stock which he had already in hand; and the master of such a sum as this, she was forced to confess, had no need to despair. Indeed, she had never in her life possessed the half of it. Her kind dear little offer of a home in her house he would accept sometimes, and with gratitude. Well, there was a little consolation in that. In a moment that active little housekeeper saw the room ready; flowers on the mantelpiece; his looking-glass, which her father could do quite well with the little one, as he was always shaved by the barber now; the quilted counterpane, which she had herself made :-I know not what more improvements she devised; and I fear that at the idea of having Philip with her, this little thing was as extravagantly and unreasonably happy as we have just now seen Philip to be. What was that last dish which Pætus and Arria shared in common? I have lost my Lemprière's Dictionary (that treasury of my youth), and forget whether it was a cold dagger au naturel or a dish of hot coals à la Romaine, of which they partook; but, whatever it was, she smiled, and delightedly received it, happy to share the beloved one's fortune.

Yes Philip would come home to his Little Sister sometimes : sometimes of a Saturday, and they would go to church on Sunday, as he used to do when he was a boy at school. "But then, you