dBooks desire

Pendennis be her
support? In the very first winter after the accession to his mother's
fortune, Mrs. Hawxby in a country-house caused her Beatrice to learn
billiards from Mr. Pendennis, and would be driven by nobody but him in
the pony carriage, because he was literary and her Beatrice was
literary too, and declared that the young man, under the instigation
of his horrid old uncle, had behaved most infamously in trifling with
Beatrice's feelings. The truth is, the old gentleman, who knew Mrs.
Hawxby's character, and how desperately that lady would practice upon
unwary young men, had come to the country-house in question and
carried Arthur out of the danger of her immediate claws, though not
out of the reach of her tongue. The elder Pendennis would have had his
nephew pass a part of the Christmas at Clavering, whither the family
had returned; but Arthur had not the heart for that. Clavering was too
near poor old Fairoaks; and that was too full of sad recollections for
the young man.


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