"It is not Frank. It is only a bolster, Lady Kew, and I don't keep him in a noisy room towards the street," said Lady Walham.

"Ho! how do you do? This is the way to him, I suppose;" and she went to another door—it was a cupboard full of the relics of Frank's illness, from which Lady Walham's mother-in-law shrunk back aghast. "Will you please to see that I have a comfortable room, Maria; and one for my maid, next me? I will thank you to see yourself," the Empress of Kew said, pointing with her stick, before which many a time the younger lady had trembled.

This time Lady Walham only rang the bell. "I don't speak German; and have never been on any floor of the house but this. Your servant had better see to your room, Lady Kew. That next is mine; and I keep the door, which you are trying, locked on other side."

"And I suppose Frank is locked up there!" cried the old lady, "with a basin of gruel and a book of Watts's hymns." A servant entered at this moment, answering Lady Walham's summons. "Peacock, the Countess of Kew says that she proposes to stay here this evening. Please to ask the landlord to show her ladyship rooms," said Lady Walham; and by this time she had thought of a reply to Lady Kew's last kind speech.

"If my son were locked up in my room, madam, his mother is surely the best nurse for him. Why did you not come to him three weeks sooner, when there was nobody with him?"

Lady Kew said nothing, but glared and showed her teeth—those pearls set in gold.

"And my company may not amuse Lord Kew—"

"He-e-e!" grinned the elder, savagely.

"—But at least it is better than some to which you introduced my son," continued Lady Kew's daughter-in-law, gathering force and wrath as she spoke. "Your ladyship may think lightly of me, but you can hardly think so ill of me as of the Duchesse d'Ivry, I should suppose, to whom you sent my boy, to form him, you said; about whom, when I remonstrated—for though I live out of the world I hear of it sometimes—you were pleased to tell me that I was a prude and a fool. It is you I thank for separating my child from me—yes, you—for so many years of my life; and for bringing me to him when he was bleeding and almost a corpse, but that God preserved him to the widow's prayers;—and you, you were by, and never came near him."

"I—I did not come to see you—or—or—for this kind of scene, Lady Walham," muttered the other. Lady Kew was accustomed to triumph, by attacking in masses, like Napoleon. Those who faced her routed her.

"No; you did not come for me, I know very well," the daughter went on. "You loved me no better than you loved your son, whose life, as long as you meddled with it, you made wretched. You came here for my boy. Haven't you done him evil enough? And now God has mercifully preserved him, you want to lead him back again into ruin and crime. It shall not be so, wicked woman! bad mother! cruel, heartless parent!—George!" (Here her younger son entered the room, and she ran towards him with fluttering robes and seized his hands.) "Here is your grandmother; here is the Countess of Kew, come from Baden at last; and she wants—she wants to take Frank from us, my dear, and to—give—him—back to the—Frenchwoman again. No, no! Oh, my God! Never! never!" And she flung herself into George Barnes's arms, fainting with an hysteric burst of tears.

"You had best get a strait-waistcoat for your mother, George Barnes," Lady Kew said, scorn and hatred in her face. (If she had been Iago's daughter, with a strong likeness to her sire, Lord Steyne's sister could not have looked more diabolical.) "Have you had advice for her? Has nursing poor Kew turned her head? I came to see him. Why have I been left alone for half an hour with this madwoman? You ought not to trust her to give Frank medicine. It is positively——"

"Excuse me," said George, with a bow; "I don't think the complaint has as yet exhibited itself in my mother's branch of the family. (She always hated me," thought George; "but if she had by chance left me a legacy, there it goes.) You would like, ma'am, to see the rooms upstairs? Here is the landlord to conduct your ladyship. Frank will be quite ready to receive you when you come down. I am sure I need not beg of your kindness that nothing may be said to agitate him. It is barely three weeks since M. de Castillonnes's ball was extracted; and the doctors wish he should be kept as quiet as possible."

Be sure that the landlord, the courier, and the persons engaged in showing the Countess of Kew the apartments above spent an agreeable time with Her Excellency the Frau Graefinn von Kew. She must have had better luck in her encounter with these than in her previous passages with her grandson and his mother; for when she issued from her apartment in a new dress and fresh cap, Lady Kew's face wore an expression of perfect serenity. Her attendant may have shook her fist behind her, and her man's eyes and face looked Blitz and Donnerwetter; but their mistress's features wore that pleased look which they assumed when she had been satisfactorily punishing somebody. Lord Kew had by this time got back from the garden to his own room, where he awaited grandmamma. If the mother and her two sons had in the interval of Lady Kew's toilette tried to resume the history of Bumble the Beadle, I fear they could not have found it very comical.

"Bless me, my dear child! How well you look! Many a girl would give the world to have such a complexion. There is nothing like a mother for a nurse! Ah, no! Maria, you deserve to be the Mother Superior of a House of Sisters of Charity, you do. The landlord has given me a delightful apartment, thank you. He is an extortionate wretch; but I have no doubt I shall be very comfortable. The Dodsburys stopped here, I see by the travellers' book-quite right, instead of sleeping at that odious buggy Strasbourg. We have had a sad, sad time, my dears, at Baden. Between anxiety about poor Sir Brian, and about you, you naughty boy, I am sure I wonder how I have got through it all. Doctor Finck would not let me come away to-day; would I would come."

"I am sure it was uncommonly kind, ma'am," says poor Kew, with a rueful face.

"That horrible woman against whom I always warned but you—but young men will not take the advice of old grandmammas—has gone away these ten days. Monsieur le Duc fetched her; and if he locked her up at Moncontour, and kept her on bread-and-water; for the rest of her life, I am sure he would serve her right. When a woman once forgets religious principles, Kew, she is sure to go wrong. The Conversation-room is shut up. The Dorkings go on Tuesday. Clara is really a dear little artless creature; one that you will like, Maria—and as for Ethel, I really think she is an angel. To see her nursing her poor father is the most beautiful sight; night after night she has sate up with him. I know where she would like to be, the dear child. And if Frank falls ill again, Maria, he won't need a mother or useless old grandmother to nurse him. I have got some pretty messages to deliver from her; but they are for your private ears, my lord; not even mammas and brothers may hear them."

"Do not go, mother! Pray stay, George!" cried the sick man (and again Lord Steyne's sister looked uncommonly like that lamented marquis). "My cousin is a noble young creature," he went on. "She has admirable good qualities, which I appreciate with all my heart; and her beauty, you know how I admire it. I have thought of her a great deal as I was lying on the bed yonder" (the family look was not so visible in Lady Kew's face), "and—and—I wrote to her this very morning; she will have the letter by this time, probably."

"Bien! Frank!" Lady Kew smiled (in her supernatural way) almost as much as her portrait, by Harlowe, as you may see it at Kewbury to this very day. She is represented seated before an easel, painting a miniature of her son, Lord Walham.

"I wrote to her on the subject of the last conversation we had together," Frank resumed, in rather a timid voice, "the day before my accident. Perhaps she did not tell you, ma'am, of what passed between us. We had had a quarrel; one of many. Some cowardly hand, which we both of us can guess at, had written to her an account of my past life, and she showed me the letter. Then I told her, that if she loved me she never would have showed it me: without any other words of reproof. I bade her farewell. It was not much, the showing that letter; but it was enough. In twenty differences we have had together, she had been unjust and captious, cruel towards me, and too eager, as I thought, for other people's admiration. Had she loved me, it seemed to me Ethel would have shown less vanity and better temper. What was I to expect in life afterwards from a girl who before her marriage used me so? Neither she nor I could be happy. She could be gentle enough, and kind, and anxious to please any man whom she loves, God bless her! As for me, I suppose, I'm not worthy of so much talent and beauty, so we both understood that that was a friendly farewell; and as I have been lying on my bed yonder, thinking, perhaps, I never might leave it, or if I did, that I should like to lead a different sort of life to that which ended in sending me there, my resolve of last month was only confirmed. God forbid that she and I should lead the lives of some folks we know; that Ethel should marry without love, perhaps to fall into it afterwards; and that I, after this awful warning I have had, should be tempted to back into that dreary life I was leading. It was wicked, ma'am, I knew it was; many and many a day I used to say so to myself, and longed to get rid of it. I am a poor weak devil, I know, I am only too easily led into temptation, and I should only make matters worse if I married a woman who cares for the world more than for me, and would not make me happy at home."

"Ethel care for the world!" gasped out Lady Kew; "a most artless, simple, affectionate creature; my dear Frank, she——"

He interrupted her, as a blush came rushing over his pale face. "Ah!" said he, "if I had been the painter, and young Clive had been Lord Kew, which of us do you think she would have chosen? And she was right. He is a brave, handsome, honest young fellow, and is a thousand times cleverer and better than I am."

"Not better, dear, thank God," cried his mother, coming round to the other side of his sofa, and seizing her son's hand.

"No, I don't think he is better, Frank," said the diplomatist, walking away to the window. And as for grandmamma at the end of this little speech and scene, her ladyship's likeness to her brother, the late revered Lord Steyne, was more frightful than ever.

After a minute's pause, she rose up on her crooked stick, and said, "I really feel I am unworthy to keep company with so much exquisite virtue. It will be enhanced, my lord, by the thought of the pecuniary sacrifice which you are making, for I suppose you know that I have been hoarding—yes, and saving, and pinching,—denying myself the necessities of life, in order that my grandson might one day have enough to support his rank. Go and live and starve in your dreary old house, and marry a parson's daughter, and sing psalms with your precious mother; and I have no doubt you and she—she who has thwarted me all through life, and whom I hated,—yes, I hated from the moment she took my son from me, and brought misery into my family, will be all the happier when she thinks that she has made a poor, fond, lonely old woman more lonely and miserable. If you please, George Barnes, be good enough to tell my people that I shall go back to Baden," and waving her children away from her, the old woman tottered out of the room on her crutch.

So the wicked fairy drove away disappointed in the chariot with the very dragons which had brought her away in the morning, and just had time to get their feed of black bread. I wonder whether they were the horses Clive and J. J. and Jack Belsize had used when they passed on their road to Switzerland? Black Care sits behind all sorts of horses, and gives a trinkgelt to postillions all over the map. A thrill of triumph may be permitted to Lady Walham after her victory over her mother-in-law. What Christian woman does not like to conquer another? and if that other were a mother-in-law, would the victory be less sweet? Husbands and wives both will be pleased that Lady Walham has had the better of this bout: and you, young boys and virgins, when your turn comes to be married, you will understand the hidden meaning of this passage. George Barnes got Oliver Twist out, and began to read therein. Miss Nancy and Fanny again were summoned before this little company to frighten and delight them. I dare say even Fagin and Miss Nancy failed with the widow, so absorbed was she with the thoughts of the victory which she had just won. For the evening service, in which her sons rejoiced her fond heart by joining, she lighted on a psalm which was as a Te Deum after the battle—the battle of Kehl by Rhine, where Kew's soul, as his mother thought, was the object of contention between the enemies. I have said, this book is all about the world and a respectable family dwelling in it. It is not a sermon, except where it cannot help itself, and the speaker pursuing the destiny of his narrative finds such a homily before him. O friend, in your life and mine, don't we light upon such sermons daily?—don't we see at home as well as amongst our neighbours that battle betwixt Evil and Good? Here on one side is Self and Ambition and Advancement; and Right and Love on the other. Which shall we let to triumph for ourselves—which for our children?

The young men were sitting smoking the vesper cigar. (Frank would do it, and his mother actually lighted his cigar for him now, enjoining him straightway after to go to bed.) Kew smoked and looked at a star—shining above in the heaven. "Which is that star?" he asked: and the accomplished young diplomatist answered it was Jupiter.

"What a lot of things you know, George!" cries the senior, delighted; "you ought to have been the elder, you ought, by Jupiter! But you have lost your chance this time."

"Yes, thank God!" says George.

"And I am going to be all right—and to turn over a new leaf, old boy—and paste down the old ones, eh? I wrote to Martins this morning to have all my horses sold; and I'll never beg—so help me—so help me, Jupiter. I made a vow—a promise to myself, you see, that I wouldn't if I recovered. And I wrote to Cousin Ethel this morning.—As I thought over the matter yonder, I felt quite certain I was right, and that we could never, never pull together. Now the Countess is gone, I wonder whether I was right—to give up sixty thousand pounds, and the prettiest girl in London?"

"Shall I take horses and go after her? My mother's gone to bed, she won't know," asked George. "Sixty thousand is a lot of money to lose."

Kew laughed. "If you were to go and tell our grandmother that I could not live the night through, and that you would be Lord Kew in the morning, and your son Viscount Walham, I think the Countess would make up a match between you and the sixty thousand pounds, and the prettiest girl in England: she would, by—by Jupiter. I intend only to swear by the heathen gods now, Georgy.—No, I am not sorry I wrote to Ethel. What a fine girl she is!—I don't mean her beauty merely, but such a noble-bred one! And to think that there she is in the market to be knocked down to—I say, I was going to call that three-year-old, Ethelinda.—We must christen her over again for Tattersall's, Georgy."

A knock is heard through an adjoining door, and a maternal voice cries, "It is time to go to bed." So the brothers part, and, let us hope, sleep soundly.

The Countess of Kew, meanwhile, has returned to Baden; where, though it is midnight when she arrives, and the old lady has had two long bootless journeys, you will be grieved to hear, that she does not sleep a single wink. In the morning she hobbles over to the Newcome quarters; and Ethel comes down to her pale and calm. How is her father? He has had a good night: he is a little better, speaks more clearly, has a little more the use of his limbs.

"I wish I had had a good night!" groans out the Countess.

"I thought you were going to Lord Kew, at Kehl," remarked her granddaughter.

"I did go, and returned with wretches who would not bring me more than five miles an hour! I dismissed that brutal grinning courier; and I have given warning to that fiend of a maid."

"And Frank is pretty well, grandmamma?"

"Well! He looks as pink as a girl in her first season! I found him, and his brother George, and their mamma. I think Maria was hearing them their catechism," cries the old lady.

"N. and M. together! Very pretty," says Ethel, gravely. "George has always been a good boy, and it is quite time for my Lord Kew to begin."

The elder lady looked at her descendant, but Miss Ethel's glance was impenetrable. "I suppose you can fancy, my dear, why I came back?" said Lady Kew.

"Because you quarrelled with Lady Walham, grandmamma. I think I have heard that there used to be differences between you." Miss Newcome was armed for defence and attack; in which cases we have said Lady Kew did not care to assault her. "My grandson told me that he had written to you," the Countess said.

"Yes: and had you waited but half an hour yesterday, you might have spared me the humiliation of that journey."

"You—the humiliation—Ethel!"

"Yes, me," Ethel flashed out. "Do you suppose it is none to have me bandied about from bidder to bidder, and offered for sale to a gentleman who will not buy me? Why have you and all my family been so eager to get rid of me? Why should you suppose or desire that Lord Kew should like me? Hasn't he the Opera; and such friends as Madame la Duchesse d'Ivry, to whom your ladyship introduced him in early life? He told me so: and she was good enough to inform me of the rest. What attractions have I in comparison with such women? And to this man from whom I am parted by good fortune; to this man who writes to remind me that we are separated—your ladyship must absolutely go and entreat him to give me another trial! It is too much, grandmamma. Do please to let me stay where I am; and worry me with no more schemes for my establishment in life. Be contented with the happiness which you have secured for Clara Pulleyn and Barnes; and leave me to take care of my poor father. Here I know I am doing right. Here, at least, there is no such sorrow, and doubt, and shame, for me, as my friends have tried to make me endure. There is my father's bell. He likes me to be with him at breakfast and to read his paper to him."

"Stay a little, Ethel," cried the Countess, with a trembling voice. "I am older than your father, and you owe me a little obedience—that is, if children do owe any obedience to their parents nowadays. I don't know. I am an old woman—the world perhaps has changed since my time; and it is you who ought to command, I dare say, and we to follow. Perhaps I have been wrong all through life, and in trying to teach my children to do as I was made to do. God knows I have had very little comfort from them: whether they did or whether they didn't. You and Frank I had set my heart on; I loved you out of all my grandchildren—was it very unnatural that I should wish to see you together? For that boy I have been saving money these years past. He flies back to the arms of his mother, who has been pleased to hate me as only such virtuous people can; who took away my own son from me; and now his son—towards whom the only fault I ever committed was to spoil him and be too fond of him. Don't leave me too, my child. Let me have something that I can like at my years. And I like your pride, Ethel, and your beauty, my dear; and I am not angry with your hard words; and if I wish to see you in the place in life which becomes you—do I do wrong? No. Silly girl! There—give me the little hand. How hot it is! Mine is as cold as a stone—and shakes, doesn't it?—Eh! it was a pretty hand once! What did Anne—what did your mother say to Frank's letter.

"I did not show it to her," Ethel answered.

"Let me see it, my dear," whispered Lady Kew, in a coaxing way.

"There it is," said Ethel pointing to the fireplace, where there lay some torn fragments and ashes of paper. It was the same fireplace at which Clive's sketches had been burned.



CHAPTER XXXIX. Amongst the Painters

When Clive Newcome comes to be old, no doubt he will remember his Roman days as amongst the happiest which fate ever awarded him. The simplicity of the student's life there, the greatness and friendly splendour of the scenes surrounding him, the delightful nature of the occupation in which he is engaged, the pleasant company of comrades, inspired by a like pleasure over a similar calling, the labour, the meditation, the holiday and the kindly feast afterwards, should make the Art-students the happiest of youth, did they but know their good fortune. Their work is for the most part delightfully easy. It does not exercise the brain too much, but gently occupies it, and with a subject most agreeable to the scholar. The mere poetic flame, or jet of invention, needs to be lighted up but very seldom, namely, when the young painter is devising his subject, or settling the composition thereof. The posing of figures and drapery; the dexterous copying of the line; the artful processes of cross-hatching, of stumping, of laying on lights, and what not; the arrangement of colour, and the pleasing operations of glazing and the like, are labours for the most part merely manual. These, with the smoking of a proper number of pipes, carry the student through his day's work. If you pass his door you will very probably hear him singing at his easel. I should like to know what young lawyer, mathematician, or divinity scholar can sing over his volumes, and at the same time advance with his labour? In every city where Art is practised there are old gentlemen who never touched a pencil in their lives, but find the occupation and company of artists so agreeable that they are never out of the studios; follow one generation of painters after another; sit by with perfect contentment while Jack is drawing his pifferaro, or Tom designing his cartoon, and years afterwards when Jack is established in Newman Street, and Tom a Royal Academician, shall still be found in their rooms, occupied now by fresh painters and pictures, telling the youngsters, their successors, what glorious fellows Jack and Tom were. A poet must retire to privy places and meditate his rhymes in secret; a painter can practise his trade in the company of friends. Your splendid chef d'ecole, a Rubens or a Horace Vernet, may sit with a secretary reading to him; a troop of admiring scholars watching the master's hand; or a company of court ladies and gentlemen (to whom he addresses a few kind words now and again) looking on admiringly; whilst the humblest painter, be he ever so poor, may have a friend watching at his easel, or a gentle wife sitting by with her work in her lap, and with fond smiles or talk or silence cheering his labour.

Amongst all ranks and degrees of painters assembled at Rome, Mr. Clive found companions and friends. The cleverest man was not the best artist very often: the ablest artist not the best critic nor the best companion. Many a man could give no account of the faculty within him, but achieved success because he could not help it; and did, in an hour and without effort, that which another could not effect with half a life's labour. There were young sculptors who had never read a line of Homer, who took on themselves nevertheless to interpret and continue the heroic Greek art. There were young painters with the strongest natural taste for low humour, comic singing, and Cyder-Cellar jollifications, who would imitate nothing under Michael Angelo, and whose canvases teemed with tremendous allegories of fates, furies, genii of death and battle. There were long-haired lads who fancied the sublime lay in the Peruginesque manner, and depicted saintly personages with crisp draperies, crude colours, and haloes of gold-leaf. Our friend marked all these practitioners of Art with their various oddities and tastes, and was welcomed in the ateliers of all of them, from the grave dons and seniors, the senators of the French and English Academy, down to the jovial students who railed at the elders over their cheap cups at the Lepre. What a gallant, starving, generous, kindly life, many of them led! What fun in their grotesque airs, what friendship and gentleness in their poverty! How splendidly Carlo talked of the marquis his cousin, and the duke his intimate friend! How great Federigo was on the subject of his wrongs, from the Academy at home, a pack of tradesmen who could not understand high art, and who had never seen a good picture! With what haughtiness Augusto swaggered about at Sir John's soirees, though he was known to have borrowed Fernando's coat, and Luigi's dress-boots! If one or the other was ill, how nobly and generously his companions flocked to comfort him, took turns to nurse the sick man through nights of fever, contributed out of their slender means to help him through his difficulty. Max, who loves fine dresses and the carnival so, gave up a costume and a carriage so as to help Paul, when he sold his picture (through the agency of Pietro, with whom he had quarrelled, and who recommended him to a patron), gave a third of the money back to Max, and took another third portion to Lazaro, with his poor wife and children, who had not got a single order all that winter—and so the story went on. I have heard Clive tell of two noble young Americans who came to Europe to study their art; of whom the one fell sick, whilst the other supported his penniless comrade, and out of sixpence a day absolutely kept but a penny for himself, giving the rest to his sick companion. "I should like to have known that good Samaritan, Sir," our Colonel said, twirling his mustachios, when we saw him again, and his son told him that story.

J. J., in his steady silent way, worked on every day, and for many hours every day. When Clive entered their studio of a morning, he found J. J. there, and there he left him. When the Life Academy was over, at night, and Clive went out to his soirees, J. J. lighted his lamp and continued his happy labour. He did not care for the brawling supper-parties of his comrades; liked better to stay at home than to go into the world, and was seldom abroad of a night except during the illness of Luigi before mentioned, when J. J. spent constant evenings at the other's bedside. J. J. was fortunate as well as skilful: people in the world took a liking to the modest young man, and he had more than one order for pictures. The Artists' Club, at the Lepre, set him down as close with his money; but a year after he left Rome, Lazaro and his wife, who still remained there, told a different tale. Clive Newcome, when he heard of their distress, gave them something—as much as he could spare; but J. J. gave more, and Clive was as eager in acknowledging and admiring his friend's generosity as he was in speaking of his genius. His was a fortunate organisation indeed. Study was his chief amusement. Self-denial came easily to him. Pleasure, or what is generally called so, had little charm for him. His ordinary companions were pure and sweet thoughts; his out-door enjoyment the contemplation of natural beauty; for recreation, the hundred pleasant dexterities and manipulations of his craft were ceaselessly interesting to him: he would draw every knot in an oak panel, or every leaf in an orange-tree, smiling, and taking a gay delight over the simple feats of skill: whenever you found him he seemed watchful and serene, his modest virgin-lamp always lighted and trim. No gusts of passion extinguished it; no hopeless wandering in the darkness afterwards led him astray. Wayfarers through the world, we meet now and again with such purity; and salute it, and hush whilst it passes on.

We have it under Clive Newcome's own signature, that he intended to pass a couple of years in Italy, devoting himself exclusively to the study of his profession. Other besides professional reasons were working secretly in the young man's mind, causing him to think that absence from England was the best cure for a malady under which he secretly laboured. But change of air may cure some sick people more speedily than the sufferers ever hoped; and also it is on record, that young men with the very best intentions respecting study, do not fulfil them, and are led away from their scheme by accident, or pleasure, or necessity, or some good cause. Young Clive worked sedulously two or three months at his vocation at Rome, secretly devouring, no doubt, the pangs of sentimental disappointment under which he laboured; and he drew from his models, and he sketched round about everything that suited his pencil on both sides of Tiber; and he laboured at the Life Academy of nights—a model himself to other young students. The symptoms of his sentimental malady began to abate. He took an interest in the affairs of Jack, and Tom, and Harry round about him: Art exercised its great healing influence on his wounded spirit, which to be sure had never given in. The meeting of the painters at the Cafe Greco, and at their private houses, was very jovial, pleasant, and lively. Clive smoked his pipe, drank his glass of Marsala, sang his song, and took part in the general chorus as gaily as the jolliest of the boys. He was the cock of the whole painting school, the favourite of all; and to be liked by the people, you may be pretty sure that we for our parts must like them.

Then, besides the painters, he had, as he has informed us, the other society of Rome. Every winter there is a gay and pleasant English colony in that capital, of course more or less remarkable for rank, fashion, and agreeability with every varying year. In Clive's year some very pleasant folks set up their winter quarters in the usual foreigners' resort round about the Piazza di Spagna. I was amused to find, lately, looking over the travels of the respectable M. de Poellnitz, that, a hundred and twenty years ago, the same quarter, the same streets and palaces, scarce changed from those days, were even then polite foreigners' resort. Of one or two of the gentlemen Clive had made the acquaintance in the hunting-field; others he had met during his brief appearance in the London world. Being a youth of great personal agility, fitted thereby to the graceful performance of polkas, etc.; having good manners, and good looks, and good credit with Prince Poloni, or some other banker, Mr. Newcome was thus made very welcome to the Anglo-Roman society; and as kindly received in genteel houses, where they drank tea and danced the galop, as in those dusky taverns and retired lodgings where his bearded comrades, the painters held their meetings.

Thrown together every day, and night after night; flocking to the same picture-galleries, statue-galleries, Pincian drives, and church functions, the English colonists at Rome perforce became intimate, and in many cases friendly. They have an English library where the various meets for the week are placarded: on such a day the Vatican galleries are open: the next is the feast of Saint So-and-so: on Wednesday there will be music and vespers at the Sistine Chapel—on Thursday, the Pope will bless the animals—sheep, horses, and what-not: and flocks of English accordingly rush to witness the benediction of droves of donkeys. In a word, the ancient city of the Caesars, the august fanes of the Popes, with their splendour and ceremony, are all mapped out and arranged for English diversion; and we run in a crowd to high mass at St. Peter's, or to the illumination on Easter Day, as we run when the bell rings to the Bosjesmen at Cremorne, or the fireworks at Vauxhall.

Running to see fireworks alone, rushing off to examine Bosjesmen by one's self, is a dreary work: I should think very few men would have the courage to do it unattended, and personally would not prefer a pipe in their own rooms. Hence if Clive went to see all these sights, as he did, it is to be concluded that he went in company; and if he went in company and sought it, we may suppose that little affair which annoyed him at Baden no longer tended to hurt his peace of mind very seriously. The truth is, our countrymen are pleasanter abroad than at home; most hospitable, kindly, and eager to be pleased and to please. You see a family half a dozen times in a week in the little Roman circle, whom you shall not meet twice in a season afterwards in the enormous London round. When Easter is over and everybody is going away at Rome, you and your neighbour shake hands, sincerely sorry to part: in London we are obliged to dilute our kindness so that there is hardly any smack of the original milk. As one by one the pleasant families dropped off with whom Clive had spent his happy winter; as Admiral Freeman's carriage drove away, whose pretty girls he had caught at St. Peter's kissing St. Peter's toe; as Dick Denby's family ark appeared with all Denby's sweet young children kissing farewells to him out of the window; as those three charming Miss Baliols with whom he had that glorious day in the Catacombs; as friend after friend quitted the great city with kind greetings, warm pressures of the hand, and hopes of meeting in a yet greater city on the banks of the Thames, young Clive felt a depression of spirit. Rome was Rome, but it was pleasanter to see it in company; our painters are smoking still at the Oafs Greco, but a society all smoke and all painters did not suit him. If Mr. Clive is not a Michael Angelo or a Beethoven, if his genius is not gloomy, solitary, gigantic, shining alone, like a lighthouse, a storm round about him, and breakers dashing at his feet, I cannot help myself: he is as Heaven made him, brave, honest, gay, and friendly, and persons of a gloomy turn must not look to him as a hero.

So Clive and his companion worked away with all their hearts from November until far into April when Easter came, and the glorious gala with which the Roman Church celebrates that holy season. By this time Clive's books were full of sketches. Ruins, imperial and mediaeval; peasants and bagpipemen; Passionists with shaven polls; Capuchins and the equally hairy frequenters of the Cafe Greco; painters of all nations who resort there; Cardinals and their queer equipages and attendants; the Holy Father himself (it was Gregory sixteenth of the name); the dandified English on the Pincio and the wonderful Roman members of the hunt—were not all these designed by the young man and admired by his friends in after-days? J. J.'s sketches were few, but he had painted two beautiful little pictures, and sold them for so good a price that Prince Polonia's people were quite civil to him. He had orders for yet more pictures, and having worked very hard, thought himself authorised to accompany Mr. Clive upon a pleasure-trip to Naples, which the latter deemed necessary after his own tremendous labours. He for his part had painted no pictures, though he had commenced a dozen and turned them to the wall; but he had sketched, and dined, and smoked, and danced, as we have seen. So the little britzska was put behind horses again, and our two friends set out on their tour, having quite a crowd of brother-artists to cheer them, who had assembled and had a breakfast for the purpose at that comfortable osteria near the Lateran Gate. How the fellows flung their hats up, and shouted, "Lebe wohl," and "Adieu," and "God bless you, old boy," in many languages! Clive was the young swell of the artists of that year, and adored by the whole of the jolly company. His sketches were pronounced on all hands to be admirable: it was agreed that if he chose he might do anything.

So with promises of a speedy return they left behind them the noble city, which all love who once have seen it, and of which we think afterwards ever with the kindness and the regard of home. They dashed across the Campagna and over the beautiful hills of Albano, and sped through the solemn Pontine Marshes, and stopped to roost at Terracing (which was not at all like Fra Diavolo's Terracing at Covent Garden, as J. J. was distressed to remark), and so, galloping onwards through a hundred ancient cities that crumble on the shores of the beautiful Mediterranean, behold, on the second day as they ascended a hill about noon. Vesuvius came in view, its great shape shimmering blue in the distant haze, its banner of smoke in the cloudless sky. And about five o'clock in the evening (as everybody will who starts from Terracing early and pays the postboy well), the travellers came to an ancient city walled and fortified, with drawbridges over the shining moats.

"Here is CAPUA," says J. J., and Clive burst out laughing: thinking of his Capua which he had left—how many months—years it seemed ago! From Capua to Naples is a fine straight road, and our travellers were landed at the latter place at suppertime; where, if they had quarters at the Vittoria Hotel, they were as comfortable as any gentlemen painters need wish to be in this world.

The aspect of the place was so charming and delightful to Clive:—the beautiful sea stretched before his eyes when waking, Capri a fairy island in the distance, in the amethyst rocks of which Sirens might be playing—that fair line of cities skirting the shore glittering white along the purple water—over the whole brilliant scene Vesuvius rising with cloudlets playing round its summit, and the country bursting out into that glorious vegetation with which sumptuous nature decorates every spring—this city and scene of Naples were so much to Clive's liking that I have a letter from him dated a couple of days after the young man's arrival, in which he announces his intention of staying there for ever, and gives me an invitation to some fine lodgings in a certain palazzo, on which he has cast his eye. He is so enraptured with the place, that he says to die and be buried there even would be quite a treat, so charming is the cemetery where the Neapolitan dead repose.

The Fates did not, however, ordain that Clive Newcome should pass all his life at Naples. His Roman banker presently forwarded a few letters to his address; some which had arrived after his departure, others which had been lying at the Poste Restante, with his name written in perfectly legible characters, but which the authorities of the post, according to their custom, would not see when Clive sent for them.

It was one of these letters which Clive clutched the most eagerly. It had been lying since October, actually, at the Roman post, though Clive had asked for letters there a hundred times. It was that little letter from Ethel, in reply to his own, whereof we have made mention in a previous chapter. There was not much in the little letter. Nothing, of course, that Virtue or Grandmamma might not read over the young writer's shoulder. It was affectionate, simple, rather melancholy; described in a few words Sir Brian's seizure and present condition; spoke of Lord Kew, who was mending rapidly, as if Clive, of course, was aware of his accident; of the children, of Clive's father, and ended with a hearty "God bless you," to Clive, from his sincere Ethel.

"You boast of its being over. You see it is not over," says Clive's monitor and companion. "Else, why should you have dashed at that letter before all the others, Clive?" J. J. had been watching, not without interest, Clive's blank face as he read the young lady's note.

"How do you know who wrote the letter?" asks Clive.

"I can read the signature in your face," says the other; "and I could almost tell the contents of the note. Why have you such a tell-tale face, Clive?"

"It is over; but when a man has once, you know, gone through an affair like that," says Clive, looking very grave, "he—he's anxious to hear of Alice Grey, and how she's getting on, you see, my good friend." And he began to shout out as of old—

"Her heart it is another's, she—never—can—be—mine;"

and to laugh at the end of the song. "Well, well," says he; "it is a very kind note, a very proper little note; the expression elegant, J. J., the sentiment is most correct. All the little t's most properly crossed, and all the little i's have dots over their little heads. It's a sort of a prize note, don't you see; and one such, as in the old spelling-book story, the good boy received a plum-cake for writing. Perhaps you weren't educated on the old spelling-book, J. J.? My good old father taught me to read out of his—I say, I think it was a shame to keep the old boy waiting whilst I have been giving an audience to this young lady. Dear old father!" and he apostrophised the letter. "I beg your pardon, sir; Miss Newcome requested five minutes' conversation, and I was obliged, from politeness, you know, to receive. There's nothing between us; nothing but what's most correct, upon my honour and conscience." And he kissed his father's letter, and calling out again, "Dear old father!" proceeded to read as follows:—

"'Your letters, my dearest Clive, have been the greatest comfort to me. I seem to hear you as I read them. I can't but think that this, the modern and natural style, is a great progress upon the old-fashioned manner of my day, when we used to begin to our fathers, 'Honoured Father,' or even 'Honoured Sir' some precisians used to write still from Mr. Lord's Academy, at Tooting, where I went before Grey Friars—though I suspect parents were no more honoured in those days than nowadays. I know one who had rather be trusted than honoured; and you may call me what you please, so as you do that.

"'It is not only to me your letters give pleasure. Last week I took yours from Baden Baden, No. 3, September 15, into Calcutta, and could not help showing it at Government House, where I dined. Your sketch of the old Russian Princess and her little boy, gambling, was capital. Colonel Buckmaster, Lord Bagwig's private secretary, knew her, and says it is to a T. And I read out to some of my young fellows what you said about play, and how you had given it over. I very much fear some of the young rogues are at dice and brandy-pawnee before tiffin. What you say of young Ridley, I take cum grano. His sketches I thought very agreeable; but to compare them to a certain gentleman's——Never mind, I shall not try to make him think too well of himself. I kissed dear Ethel's hand in your letter. I write her a long letter by this mail.

"'If Paul de Florac in any way resembles his mother, between you and him there ought to be a very warm regard. I knew her when I was a boy, long before you were born or thought of; and in wandering forty years through the world since, I have seen no woman in my eyes so good or so beautiful. Your cousin Ethel reminded me of her; as handsome, but not so lovely. Yes, it was that pale lady you saw at Paris, with eyes full of care, and hair streaked with grey. So it will be the turn of you young folks, come eight more lustres, and your heads will be bald like mine, or grey like Madame de Florac's, and bending over the ground where we are lying in quiet. I understand from you that young Paul is not in very flourishing circumstances. If he still is in need, mind and be his banker, and I will be yours. Any child of hers must never want when I have a spare guinea. I do not mind telling you, sir, that I cared for her more than millions of guineas once; and half broke my heart about her when I went to India, as a young chap. So, if any such misfortunes happen to you, consider, my boy, you are not the only one.

"'Binnie writes me word that he has been ailing. I hope you are a good correspondent with him. What made me turn to him just after speaking of unlucky love affairs? Could I be thinking about little Rosie Mackenzie? She is a sweet little lass, and James will leave her a pretty piece of money. Verbum sap. I should like you to marry; but God forbid you should marry for a million of gold mohurs.

"'And gold mohurs bring me to another subject. Do you know I narrowly missed losing half a lakh of rupees which I had at an agent's here? And who do you think warned me about him? Our friend Rummun Loll, who has lately been in England, and with whom I made the voyage from Southampton. He is a man of wonderful tact and observation. I used to think meanly of the honesty of natives and treat them haughtily, as I recollect doing this very gentleman at your Uncle Newcome's in Bryanstone Square. He heaped coals of fire on my head by saving my money for me; and I have placed it with interest in his house. If I would but listen to him, my capital might be trebled in a year, he says, and the interest immensely increased. He enjoys the greatest esteem among the moneyed men here; keeps a splendid establishment and house here in Barrackpore; is princely in his benefactions. He talks to me about the establishment of a bank, of which the profits are so enormous and the scheme so (seemingly) clear, that I don't know whether I mayn't be tempted to take a few shares. Nous verrons. Several of my friends are longing to have a finger in it; but be sure this, I shall do nothing rashly and without the very best advice.

"'I have not been frightened yet by your draughts upon me. Draw as many of these as you please. You know I don't half like the other kind of drawing, except as a delassement: but if you chose to be a weaver, like my grandfather, I should not say you nay. Don't stint yourself of money or of honest pleasure. Of what good is money, unless we can make those we love happy with it? There would be no need for me to save, if you were to save too. So, and as you know as well as I what our means are, in every honest way use them. I should like you not to pass the whole of next year in Italy, but to come home and pay a visit to honest James Binnie. I wonder how the old barrack in Fitzroy Square looks without me? Try and go round by Paris on your way home, and pay your visit, and carry your father's fond remembrances to Madame la Comtesse de Florac. I don't say remember me to my brother, as I write Brian by this mail. Adieu, mon fils! je t'embrasse!—and am always my Clive's affectionate father, T. N.'"

"Isn't he a noble old trump?" That point had been settled by the young men any time these three years. And now Mr. J. J. remarked that when Clive had read his father's letter once, then he read Ethel's over again, and put it in his breast-pocket, and was very disturbed in mind that day, pishing and pshawing at the statue-gallery which they went to see at the Museo.

"After all," says Clive, "what rubbish these second-rate statues are! what a great hulking abortion is this brute of a Farnese Hercules! There's only one bit in the whole gallery that is worth a twopenny-piece."

It was the beautiful fragment called Psyche. J. J. smiled as his comrade spoke in admiration of this statue—in the slim shape, in the delicate formation of the neck, in the haughty virginal expression, the Psyche is not unlike the Diana of the Louvre—and the Diana of the Louvre we have said was like a certain young lady.

"After all," continues Clive, looking up at the great knotted legs of that clumsy caricatured porter which Glykon the Athenian sculptured in bad times of art surely,—"she could not write otherwise than she did—don't you see? Her letter is quite kind and affectionate. You see she says she shall always hear of me with pleasure: hopes I'll come back soon, and bring some good pictures with me, since pictures I will do. She thinks small beer of painters, J. J.—well, we don't think small beer of ourselves, my noble friend. I—I suppose it must be over by this time, and I may write to her as the Countess of Kew." The custode of the apartment had seen admiration and wonder expressed by hundreds of visitors to his marble Giant: but he had never known Hercules occasion emotion before, as in the case of the young stranger; who, after staring a while at the statue, dashed his hand across his forehead with a groan, and walked away from before the graven image of the huge Strongman, who had himself been made such a fool by women.

"My father wants me to go and see James and Madame de Florac," says Clive, as they stride down the street to the Toledo.

J. J. puts his arm through his companion's, which is deep the pocket of his velvet paletot. "You must not go home till you hear it is over, Clive," whispers J. J.

"Of course not, old boy," says the other, blowing tobacco out of his shaking head.

Not very long after their arrival, we may be sure they went to Pompeii, of which place, as this is not an Italian tour, but a history of Clive Newcome, Esquire, and his most respectable family, we shall offer to give no description. The young man had read Sir Bulwer Lytton's delightful story, which has become the history of Pompeii, before they came thither, and Pliny's description, apud the Guide-Book. Admiring the wonderful ingenuity with which the English writer had illustrated the place by his text, as if the houses were so many pictures to which he had appended a story, Clive, the wag, who was always indulging his vein for caricature, was proposing that that they should take the same place, names, people, and make a burlesque story: "What would be a better figure," says he, "than Pliny's mother, whom the historian describes as exceedingly corpulent, and walking away from the catastrophe with slaves holding cushions behind her, to shield her plump person from the cinders! Yes, old Mrs Pliny shall be my heroine!" says Clive. A picture of her on a dark grey paper and touched up with red at the extremities, exists in Clive's album to the present day.

As they were laughing, rattling, wondering, mimicking, the cicerone attending them with his nasal twaddle, anon pausing and silent, yielding to the melancholy pity and wonder which the aspect of that strange and smiling place inspires,—behold they come upon another party of English, two young men accompanying a lady.

"What, Clive!" cries one.

"My dear, dear Lord Kew!" shouts the other; and as the young man rushes up and grasps the two hands of the other, they begin to blush——

Lord Kew and his family resided in a neighbouring hotel on the Chiafa at Naples; and that very evening on returning from the Pompeian excursion, the two painters were invited to take tea by those friendly persons. J. J. excused himself, and sate at home drawing all night. Clive went, and passed a pleasant evening; in which all sorts of future tours and pleasure-parties were projected by the young men. They were to visit Paestum, Capri, Sicily; why not Malta and the East? asked Lord Kew.

Lady Walham was alarmed. Had not Kew been in the East already? Clive was surprised and agitated too. Could Kew think of going to the East, and making long journeys when he had—he had other engagements that would necessitate his return home? No, he must not go to the East, Lord Kew's mother avowed; Kew had promised to stay with her during the summer at Castellammare, and Mr. Newcome must come and paint their portraits there—all their portraits. She would like to have an entire picture-gallery of Kews, if her son would remain at home during the sittings.

At an early hour Lady Walham retired to rest, exacting Clive's promise to come to Castellammare; and George Barnes disappeared to array himself in an evening costume, and to pay his round of visits as became a young diplomatist. This part of diplomatic duty does not commence until after the opera at Naples; and society begins when the rest of the world has gone to bed.

Kew and Clive sate till one o'clock in the morning, when the latter returned to his hotel. Not one of those fine parties at Paestum, Sicily, etc. was carried out. Clive did not go to the East at all, and it was J. J, who painted Lord Kew's portrait that summer at Castellammare. The next day Clive went for his passport to the embassy; and a steamer departing direct for Marseilles on that very afternoon, behold Mr. Newcome was on board of her; Lord Kew and his brother and J. J. waving their hats to him as the vessel left the shore.

Away went the ship cleaving swiftly through the azure waters; but not swiftly enough for Clive. J. J. went back with a sigh to his sketchbook and easels. I suppose the other young disciple of Art had heard something which caused him to forsake his sublime mistress for one who was much more capricious and earthly.



CHAPTER XL. Returns from Rome to Pall Mall

One morning in the month of July, when there was actually sunshine in Lamb Court, and the two gentlemen who occupied the third-floor chambers there in partnership, were engaged, as their custom was, over their pipes, and their manuscripts, and their Times newspaper, behold a fresh sunshine burst into their room in the person of a young Clive, with a bronzed face, and a yellow beard and mustachios, and those bright cheerful eyes, the sight of which was always so welcome to both of us. "What, Clive! What, the young one! What, Benjamin!" shout Pendennis and Warrington. Clive had obtained a very high place indeed in the latter's affections, so much so, that if I could have found it in my heart to be jealous of such a generous brave fellow, I might have grudged him his share of Warrington's regard. He blushed up with pleasure to see us again. Pidgeon, our boy, introduced him with a jubilant countenance; and Flanagan, the laundress, came smirking out of the bedroom, eager to get a nod of recognition from him, and bestow a smile of welcome upon everybody's favourite, Clive.

In two minutes an arm-chair full of magazines, slips of copy, and books for review, was emptied over the neighbouring coal-scuttle, and Clive was in the seat, a cigar in his mouth, as comfortable as if he had never been away. When did he come? Last night. He was back in Charlotte Street, at his old lodgings: he had been to breakfast in Fitzroy Square that morning; James Binnie chirped for joy at seeing him. His father had written to him desiring him to come back and see James Binnie; pretty Miss Rosey was very well, thank you: and Mrs. Mack? Wasn't Mrs. Mackenzie delighted to behold him? "Come, sir, on your honour and conscience, didn't the widow give you a kiss on your return?" Clive sends an uncut number of the Pall Mall Gazette flying across the room at the head of the inquirer; but blushes as sweetly, that I have very little doubt some such pretty meeting had taken place.

What a pity it is he had not been here a short while since for a marriage in high life, to give away his dear Barnes, and sign the book, along with the other dignitaries! We described that ceremony to him, and announced the promotion of his friend, Florac, now our friend also, Director of the Great Anglo-Gallic Railway, the Prince de Moncontour. Then Clive told us of his deeds during the winter; of the good fun he had had at Rome, and the jolly fellows he had met there. Was he going to astonish the world by some grand pictures? He was not. The more he worked, the more discontented he was with his performances somehow: but J. J. was coming out very strong, J. J. was going to be a stunner. We turned with pride and satisfaction to that very number of the Pall Mall Gazette which the youth had flung at us, and showed him a fine article by F. Bayham, Esq., in which the picture sent home by J. J. was enthusiastically lauded by the great critic.

So he was back amongst us, and it seemed but yesterday he had quitted us. To Londoners everything seems to have happened but yesterday; nobody has time to miss his neighbour who goes away. People go to the Cape, or on a campaign, or on a tour round the world, or to India, and return with a wife and two or three children, and we fancy it was only the other day they left us, so engaged is every man in his individual speculations, studies, struggles; so selfish does our life make us:—selfish but not ill-natured. We are glad to see an old friend, though we do not weep when he leaves us. We humbly acknowledge, if fate calls us away likewise, that we are no more missed than any other atom.

After talking for a while, Mr. Clive must needs go into the City, whither I accompanied him. His interview with Messrs. Jolly and Baines, at the house in Fog Court, must have been very satisfactory; Clive came out of the parlour with a radiant countenance. "Do you want any money, old boy?" says he; "the dear old governor has placed a jolly sum to my account, and Mr. Baines has told me how delighted Mrs. Baines and the girls will be to see me at dinner. He says my father has made a lucky escape out of one house in India, and a famous investment in another. Nothing could be more civil; how uncommonly kind and friendly everybody is in London! Everybody!" Then bestowing ourselves in a hansom cab, which had probably just deposited some other capitalist in the City, we made for the West End of the town, where Mr. Clive had some important business to transact with his tailors. He discharged his outstanding little account with easy liberality, blushing as he pulled out of his pocket a new chequebook, page 1 of which he bestowed on the delighted artist. From Mr. B.'s shop to Mr. Truefitt's, is but a step. Our young friend was induced to enter the hairdresser's, and leave behind him a great portion of the flowing locks and the yellow beard, which he had brought with him from Rome. With his mustachios he could not be induced to part; painters and cavalry officers having a right to those decorations. And why should not this young fellow wear smart clothes, and a smart moustache, and look handsome, and take his pleasure, and bask in his sun when it shone? Time enough for flannel and a fire when the winter comes; and for grey hair and cork-soled boots in the natural decline of years.

Then we went to pay a visit at a hotel in Jermyn Street to our friend Florac who was now magnificently lodged there. A powdered giant lolling in the hall, his buttons emblazoned with prodigious coronets, took our cards up to the Prince. As the door of an apartment on the first floor opened, we heard a cry as of joy; and that nobleman in a magnificent Persian dressing-gown, rushing from the room, plunged down the stairs, and began kissing Clive, to the respectful astonishment of the Titan in livery.

"Come that I present you, my friends," our good little Frenchman exclaimed "to Madame la—to my wife!" We entered the drawing-room; a demure little little lady, of near sixty years of age, was seated there, and we were presented in form to Madame Princesse de Moncontour, nee Higg, of Manchester. She made us a stiff little curtsey, but looked not ill-natured; indeed, few women could look at Clive Newcome's gallant figure and brave smiling countenance and keep a frown on their own very long.

"I have 'eard of you from somebodys else besides the Prince," said the lady, with rather a blush "Your uncle has spoke to me hoften about you, Mr. Clive, and about your good father."

"C'est son Directeur," whispers Florac to me. I wondered which of the firm of Newcome had taken that office upon him.

"Now you are come to England," the lady continued (whose Lancashire pronunciation being once indicated, we shall henceforth, out of respect to the Princess's rank generally pretermit),—"now you are come to England we hope to see you often. Not here in this noisy hotel, which I can't bear, but in the country. Our house is only three miles from Newcome—not such a grand place as your uncle's; but I hope we shall see you there a great deal, and your friend Mr Pendennis, if he is passing that way." The invitation to Mr. Pendennis, I am bound to say, was given in terms by no means so warm as those in which the Princess's hospitality to Clive were professed.

"Shall we meet you at your Huncle 'Obson's?" the lady continued to Clive; "his wife is a most charming, well-informed woman, has been most kind and civil and we dine there to-day. Barnes and his wife is gone to spend the honeymoon at Newcome. Lady Clara is a sweet dear thing, and her pa and ma most affable, I am sure. What a pity Sir Brian couldn't attend the marriage! There was everybody there in London, a'most. Sir Harvey Diggs says he is mending very slowly. In life we are in death, Mr. Newcome! Isn't it sad to think of him, in the midst of all his splendour and prosperity, and he so infirm and unable to enjoy them! But let us hope for the best, and that his health will soon come round!"

With these and similar remarks, in which poor Florac took but a very small share (for he seemed dumb and melancholy in the company of the Princess, his elderly spouse), the visit sped on. Mr. Pendennis, to whom very little was said, having leisure to make his silent observations upon the person to whom he had been just presented.

As there lay on the table two neat little packages, addressed "The Princess de Moncontour"—an envelope to the same address, with "The Prescription, No. 9396," further inscribed on the paper, and a sheet of notepaper, bearing cabalistic characters, and the signature of that most fashionable physician, Sir Harvey Diggs, I was led to believe that the lady of Moncontour was, or fancied herself, in a delicate state of health. By the side of the physic for the body was medicine for the soul—a number of pretty little books in middle-age bindings, in antique type many of theist, adorned with pictures of the German school, representing demure ecclesiastics, with their heads on one side, children in long starched nightgowns, virgins bearing lilies, and so forth, from which it was to be concluded that the owner of the volumes was not so hostile to Rome as she had been at an earlier period of her religious life; and that she had migrated (in spirit) from Clapham to Knightsbridge—so many wealthy mercantile families have likewise done in the body. A long strip of embroidery, of the Gothic pattern, furthermore betrayed her present inclinations; and the person observing these things, whilst nobody was taking any notice of him, was amused when the accuracy of his conjectures was confirmed by the reappearance of the gigantic footman, calling out "'Oneyman," in a loud voice, and preceding that divine into the room.

"C'est le Directeur. Venez fumer dans ma chambre, Pen," growled Florac as Honeyman came sliding over the carpet, his elegant smile changing to a blush when he beheld Clive, his nephew, seated by the Princess's side. This, then, was the uncle who had spoken about Clive and his father to Madame de Florac. Charles seemed in the best condition. He held out two bran-new lavender-coloured kid gloves to shake hands with his dear Clive; Florac and Mr. Pendennis vanished out of the room as he appeared, so that no precise account can be given of this affecting interview.

When I quitted the hotel, a brown brougham, with a pair of beautiful horses, the harness and panels emblazoned with the neatest little ducal coronets you ever saw, and a cypher under each crown as easy to read as the arrow-headed inscriptions on one of Mr. Layard's Assyrian chariots, was in waiting, and I presumed that Madame la Princesse was about to take an airing.

Clive had passed the avuncular banking-house in the City, without caring to face his relatives there. Mr. Newcome was now in sole command, Mr. Barnes being absent at Newcome, the Baronet little likely ever to enter bank-parlour again. But his bounden duty was to wait on the ladies; and of course, only from duty's sake, he went the very first day and called in Park Lane.

"The family was habsent ever since the marriage simminery last week," the footman, who had accompanied the party to Baden, informed Clive when he opened the door, and recognised that gentleman. "Sir Brian pretty well, thank you, sir. The family was at Brighting. That is Miss Newcome is in London staying with her grandmamma in Queen Street, Mayfear, sir." The varnished doors closed upon Jeames within; the brazen knockers grinned their familiar grin at Clive, and he went down the blank steps discomfited. Must it be owned that he went to a Club, and looked in the Directory for the number of Lady Kew's house in Queen Street? Her ladyship had a furnished house for the season. No such noble name to be found among the inhabitants of Queen Street.

Mr. Hobson was from home; that is, Thomas had orders not to admit strangers on certain days, or before certain hours; so that Aunt Hobson saw Clive without being seen by the young man. I cannot say how much he regretted that mischance. His visits of propriety were thus all paid; and he went off to dine dutifully with James Binnie, after which meal he came to a certain rendezvous given to him by some bachelors friends for the evening.

James Binnie's eyes lightened up with pleasure on beholding his young Clive; the youth, obedient to his father's injunction, had hastened to Fitzroy Square immediately after taking possession of his old lodgings—his, during the time of his absence. The old properties and carved cabinets, the picture of his father looking melancholy out of the canvas, greeted Clive strangely on the afternoon of his arrival. No wonder he was glad to get away from a solitude peopled with a number of dismal recollections, to the near hospitality of Fitzroy Square and his guardian and friend there.

James had not improved in health during Clive's ten months' absence. He had never been able to walk well, or take his accustomed exercise, after his fall. He was no more used to riding than the late Mr. Gibbon, whose person James's somewhat resembled, and of whose philosophy our Scottish friend was an admiring scholar. The Colonel gone, James would have arguments with Mr. Honeyman over their claret, bring down the famous XVth and XVIth chapters of the Decline and Fall upon him, and quite get the better of the clergyman. James, like many other sceptics, was very obstinate, and for his part believed that almost all parsons had as much belief as the Roman augurs in their ceremonies. Certainly, poor Honeyman, in their controversies, gave up one article after another, flying from James's assault; but the battle over, Charles Honeyman would pick up these accoutrements which he had flung away in his retreat, wipe them dry, and put them on again.

Lamed by his fall, and obliged to remain much within doors, where certain society did not always amuse him, James Binnie sought excitement in the pleasures of the table, partaking of them the more freely now that his health could afford them the less. Clive, the sly rogue, observed a great improvement in the commissariat since his good father's time, ate his dinner with thankfulness, and made no remarks. Nor did he confide to us for a while his opinion that Mrs. Mack bored the good gentleman most severely; that he pined away under her kindnesses; sneaked off to bis study-chair and his nap; was only too glad when some of the widow's friends came, or she went out; seeming to breathe more freely when she was gone, and drink his wine more cheerily when rid of the intolerable weight of her presence.

I protest the great ills of life are nothing—the loss of your fortune is a mere flea-bite; the loss of your wife—how many men have supported it and married comfortably afterwards? It is not what you lose, but what you have daily to bear that is hard. I can fancy nothing more cruel, after a long easy life of bachelorhood, than to have to sit day after day with a dull, handsome woman opposite; to have to answer her speeches about the weather, housekeeping and what not; to smile appropriately when she is disposed to be lively (that laughing at the jokes is the hardest part), and to model your conversation so as to suit her intelligence, knowing that a word used out of its downright signification will not be understood by your fair breakfast-maker. Women go through this simpering and smiling life, and bear it quite easily. Theirs is a life of hypocrisy. What good woman does not laugh at her husband's or father's jokes and stories time after time, and would not laugh at breakfast, lunch, and dinner, if he told them? Flattery is their nature—to coax, flatter and sweetly befool some one is every woman's business. She is none if she declines this office. But men are not provided with such powers of humbug or endurance—they perish and pine away miserably when bored—or they shrink off to the club or public-house for comfort. I want to say as delicately as I can, and never liking to use rough terms regarding a handsome woman, that Mrs. Mackenzie, herself being in the highest spirits and the best humour, extinguished her half-brother, James Binnie, Esq.; that she was as a malaria to him, poisoning his atmosphere, numbing his limbs, destroying his sleep—that day after day as he sate down at breakfast, and she levelled commonplaces at her dearest James, her dearest James became more wretched under her. And no one could see what his complaint was. He called in the old physicians at the Club. He dosed himself with poppy, and mandragora and blue pill—lower and lower went poor James's mercury. If he wanted to move to Brighton or Cheltenham, well and good. Whatever were her engagements, or whatever pleasures darling Rosey might have in store, dear thing!—at her age, my dear Mrs. Newcome, would not one do all to make a young creature happy?—under no circumstances could I think of leaving my poor brother.

Mrs. Mackenzie thought herself a most highly principled woman, Mrs. Newcome had also a great opinion of her. These two ladies had formed a considerable friendship in the past months, the captain's widow having an unaffected reverence for the banker's lady and thinking her one of the best informed and most superior women in the world. When she had a high opinion of a person Mrs. Mack always wisely told it. Mrs. Newcome in her turn thought Mrs. Mackenzie a very clever, agreeable, ladylike woman,—not accomplished, but one could not have everything. "No, no, my dear," says simple Hobson, "never would do to have every woman as clever as you are, Maria. Women would have it all their own way then."

Maria, as her custom was, thanked God for being so virtuous and clever, and graciously admitted Mrs. and Miss Mackenzie into the circle of adorers of that supreme virtue and talent. Mr. Newcome took little Rosey and her mother to some parties. When any took place in Bryanstone Square, they were generally allowed to come to tea.

When on the second day of his arrival the dutiful Clive went to dine with Mr. James, the ladies, in spite of their raptures at his return and delight at seeing him, were going in the evening to his aunt. Their talk was about the Princess all dinner-time. The Prince and Princess were to dine in Bryanstone Square. The Princess had ordered such and such things at the jeweller's—the Princess would take rank over an English Earl's daughter—over Lady Anne Newcome, for instance. "Oh, dear! I wish the Prince and Princess were smothered in the Tower," growled James Binnie; "since you have got acquainted with 'em I have never heard of anything else."

Clive, like a wise man, kept his counsel about the Prince and Princess, with whom we have seen that he had had the honour of an interview that very day. But after dinner Rosey came round and whispered to her mamma, and after Rosey's whisper mamma flung her arms round Rosey's neck and kissed her, and called her a thoughtful darling. "What do you think this creature says, Clive?" says Mrs. Mack, still holding her darling's little hand. "I wonder I had not thought of it myself."

"What is it, Mrs. Mackenzie?" asks Clive, laughing.

"She says why should not you come to your aunt's with us? We are sure Mrs. Newcome would be most happy to see you."

Rosey, with a little hand put to mamma's mouth, said, "Why did you tell?—you naughty mamma! Isn't she a naughty mamma, Uncle James?" More kisses follow after this sally, of which Uncle James receives one with perfect complacency: mamma crying out as Rosey retires to dress, "That darling child is always thinking of others—always!"

Clive says, "he will sit and smoke a cheroot with Mr. Binnie, if they please." James's countenance falls. "We have left off that sort of thing here, my dear Clive, a long time," cries Mrs. Mackenzie, departing from the dining-room.

"But we have improved the claret, Clive, my boy!" whispers Uncle James. "Let us have another bottle, and we will drink to the dear Colonel's good health and speedy return—God bless him! I say, Clive, Tom seems to have had a most fortunate escape out of Winter's house—thanks to our friend Rummun Loll, and to have got into a capital good thing with this Bundelcund bank. They speak famously of it at Hanover Square, and I see the Hurkara quotes the shares at a premium already."

Clive did not know anything about the Bundelcund bank, except a few words found in a letter from his father, which he had in the City this morning, "and an uncommonly liberal remittance the governor has sent me home, sir." Upon which they fill another bumper to the Colonel's health.

Mamma and Rosey come and show their pretty pink dresses before going to Mrs. Newcome's, and Clive lights a cigar in the hall—and isn't there a jubilation at the Haunt when the young fellow's face appears above the smoke-clouds there?



CHAPTER XLI. An Old Story

Many of Clive's Roman friends were by this time come to London, and the young man renewed his acquaintance with them, and had speedily a considerable circle of his own. He thought fit to allow himself a good horse or two, and appeared in the Park among other young dandies. He and Monsieur de Moncontour were sworn allies. Lord Fareham, who had purchased J. J.'s picture, was Clive's very good friend: Major Pendennis himself pronounced him to be a young fellow of agreeable manners, and very favourably vu (as the Major happened to know) in some very good quarters.

Ere many days Clive had been to Brighton to see Lady Anne and Sir Brian, and good Aunt Honeyman, in whose house the Baronet was lodged: and I suppose he found out, by some means or other, where Lady Kew lived in Mayfair.

But her ladyship was not at home, nor was she at home on the second day, nor did there come any note from Ethel to her cousin. She did not ride in the Park as of old. Clive, bien vu as he was, did not belong to that great world as yet, in which he would be pretty sure to meet her every night at one of those parties where everybody goes. He read her name in the paper morning after morning, as having been present at Lady This's entertainment and Lady That's ministerial reunion. At first he was too shy to tell what the state of the case was, and took nobody into his confidence regarding his little tendre.

There he was riding through Queen Street, Mayfair, attired in splendid raiment: never missing the Park; actually going to places of worship in the neighbourhood; and frequenting the opera—a waste of time which one would never have expected in a youth of his nurture. At length a certain observer of human nature remarking his state, rightly conjectured that he must be in love, and taxed him with the soft impeachment—on which the young man, no doubt anxious to open his heart to some one, poured out all that story which has before been narrated; and told how he thought his passion cured, and how it was cured; but when he heard from Kew at Naples that the engagement was over between him and Miss Newcome, Clive found his own flame kindle again with new ardour. He was wild to see her. He dashed off from Naples instantly on receiving the news that she was free. He had been ten days in London without getting a glimpse of her. "That Mrs. Mackenzie bothers me so I hardly know where to turn," said poor Clive, "and poor little Rosey is made to write me a note about something twice a day. She's a good dear little thing—little Rosey—and I really had thought once of—of—oh, never mind that! Oh, Pen! I'm up another tree now! and a poor miserable young beggar I am!" In fact, Mr. Pendennis was installed as confidant, vice J. J.—absent on leave.

This is a part, which, especially for a few days, the present biographer has always liked well enough. For a while, at least, I think almost every man or woman is interesting when in love. If you know of two or three such affairs going on in any soiree to which you may be invited—is not the party straightway amusing? Yonder goes Augustus Tomkins, working his way through the rooms to that far corner where demure Miss Hopkins is seated, to whom the stupid grinning Bumpkins thinks he is making himself agreeable. Yonder sits Miss Fanny distraite, and yet trying to smile as the captain is talking his folly the parson his glib compliments. And see, her face lights up all of a sudden: her eyes beam with delight at the captain's stories, and at that delightful young clergyman likewise. It is because Augustus has appeared; their eyes only meet for one semi-second, but that is enough for Miss Fanny. Go on, captain, with your twaddle!—Proceed, my reverend friend, with your smirking commonplaces! In the last two minutes the world has changed for Miss Fanny. That moment has come for which she has been fidgeting and longing and scheming all day! How different an interest, I say, has a meeting of people for a philosopher who knows of a few such little secrets, to that which your vulgar looker-on feels who comes but to eat the ices, and stare at the ladies' dresses and beauty! There are two frames of mind under which London society is bearable to a man—to be an actor in one of those sentimental performances above hinted at; or to be a spectator and watch it. But as for the mere dessus de cartes—would not an arm-chair and the dullest of books be better than that dull game?

So I not only became Clive's confidant in this affair, but took a pleasure in extracting the young fellow's secrets from him, or rather in encouraging him to pour them forth. Thus was the great part of the previous tale revealed to me: thus Jack Belsize's misadventures, of the first part of which we had only heard in London (and whither he returned presently to be reconciled to his father, after his elder brother's death). Thus my Lord Kew's secret history came into my possession; let us hope for the public's future delectation, and the chronicler's private advantage. And many a night until daylight did appear has poor Clive stamped his chamber or my own, pouring his story out to me, his griefs and raptures; recalling, in his wild young way, recollections of Ethel's sayings and doings; uttering descriptions of her beauty, and raging against the cruelty which she exhibited towards him.

As soon as the new confidant heard the name of the young lover's charmer, to do Mr. Pendennis justice, he endeavoured to fling as much cold water upon Clive's flame as a small private engine could be brought to pour on such a conflagration. "Miss Newcome! my dear Clive," says the confidant, "do you know what you are aspiring to? For the last three months Miss Newcome has been the greatest lioness in London: the reigning beauty winning the horse: the first favourite out of the whole Belgravian harem. No young woman of this year has come near her: those of past seasons she has distanced and utterly put to shame. Miss Blackcap, Lady Blanch Blackcap's daughter, was (as perhaps you are not aware) considered by her mamma the great beauty of last season; and it was considered rather shabby of the young Marquis of Farintosh to leave town without offering to change Miss Blackcap's name. Heaven bless you! this year Farintosh will not look at Miss Blackcap! He finds people at home when (ha! I see you wince, my suffering innocent!)—when he calls in Queen Street; yes, and Lady Kew, who is one of the cleverest women in England, will listen for hours to Lord Farintosh's conversation; than whom the Rotten Row of Hyde Park cannot show a greater booby. Miss Blackcap may retire, like Jephthah's daughter, for all Farintosh will relieve her. Then, my dear fellow, there were, as possibly you do not know, Lady Hermengilde and Lady Yseult, Lady Rackstraw's lovely twins, whose appearance created such a sensation at Lady Hautbois' first—was it her first or was it her second?—yes, it was her second—breakfast. Whom weren't they going to marry? Crackthorpe as mad, they said, about both.—Bustington, Sir John Fobsby, the young Baronet with the immense Northern property—the Bishop of Windsor was actually said to be smitten with one of them, but did not like to offer, as her present M—y, like Qu—n El-z-b-th of gracious memory, is said to object to bishops, as bishops, marrying. Where is Bustington? Where is Crackthorpe? Where is Fobsby, the young Baronet of the North? My dear fellow, when those two girls come into a room now, they make no more sensation than you or I. Miss Newcome has carried their admirers away from them: Fobsby has actually, it is said, proposed for her: and the real reason of that affair between Lord Bustington and Captain Crackthorpe of the Royal Horse Guards Green, was a speech of Bustington's, hinting that Miss Newcome had not behaved well in throwing Lord Kew over. Don't you know what old Lady Kew will do with this girl, Clive? She will marry Miss Newcome to the best man. If a richer and better parti than Lord Farintosh presents himself—then it will be Farintosh's turn to find that Lady Kew is not at home. Is there any young man in the Peerage unmarried and richer than Farintosh? I forget. Why does not some one publish a list of the young male nobility and baronetage, their names, weights, and probable fortunes? I don't mean for the matrons of Mayfair—they have the list by heart and study it in secret—but for young men in the world; so that they may know what their chances are, and who naturally has the pull over them. Let me see—there is young Lord Gaunt, who will have a great fortune, and is desirable because you know his father is locked up—but he is only ten years old—no—they can scarcely bring him forward as Farintosh's rival.

"You look astonished, my poor boy? You think it is wicked in me to talk in this brutal way about bargain and sale; and say that your heart's darling is, at this minute, being paced up and down the Mayfair market to be taken away by the best bidder. Can you count purses with Sultan Farintosh? Can you compete even with Sir John Fobsby of the North? What I say is wicked and worldly, is it? So it is; but it is true, as true as Tattersall's—as true as Circassia or Virginia. Don't you know that the Circassian girls are proud of their bringing up, and take rank according to the prices which they fetch? And you go and buy yourself some new clothes, and a fifty-pound horse, and put a penny rose in your button-hole, and ride past her window, and think to win this prize? Oh, you idiot! A penny rosebud! Put money in your purse. A fifty-pound hack when a butcher rides as good a one!—Put money in your purse. A brave young heart, all courage and love and honour! Put money in thy purse—t'other coin don't pass in the market—at least, where old Lady Kew has the stall."