By these remonstrances, playful though serious, Clive's adviser sought to teach him wisdom about his love affair; and the advice was received as advice upon those occasions usually is.

After calling thrice and writing to Miss Newcome, there came a little note from that young lady, saying, "Dear Clive,—We were so sorry we were out when you called. We shall be at home to-morrow at lunch, when Lady Kew hopes you will come, and see yours ever, E. N."

Clive went—poor Clive! He had the satisfaction of shaking Ethel's hand and a finger of Lady Kew; of eating a mutton-chop in Ethel's presence; of conversing about the state of art at Rome with Lady Kew, and describing the last works of Gibson and Macdonald. The visit lasted but for half an hour. Not for one minute was Clive allowed to see Ethel alone. At three o'clock Lady Kew's carriage was announced, and our young gentleman rose to take his leave, and had the pleasure of seeing the most noble Peer, Marquis of Farintosh and Earl of Rossmont, descend from his lordship's brougham and enter at Lady Kew's door, followed by a domestic bearing a small stack of flowers from Covent Garden.

It befell that the good-natured Lady Fareham had a ball in these days; and meeting Clive in the Park, her lord invited him to the entertainment. Mr. Pendennis had also the honour of a card. Accordingly Clive took me up at Bays's, and we proceeded to the ball together.

The lady of the house, smiling upon all her guests, welcomed with particular kindness her young friend from Rome. "Are you related to the Miss Newcome, Lady Anne Newcome's daughter? Her cousin? She will be here to-night." Very likely Lady Fareham did not see Clive wince and blush at this announcement, her ladyship having to occupy herself with a thousand other people. Clive found a dozen of his Roman friends in the room, ladies young and middle-aged, plain and handsome, all glad to see his kind face. The house was splendid; the ladies magnificently dressed; the ball beautiful, though it appeared a little dull until that event took place whereof we treated two pages back (in the allegory of Mr. Tomkins and Miss Hopkins), and Lady Kew and her granddaughter made their appearance.

That old woman, who began to look more and more like the wicked fairy of the stories, who is not invited to the Princess's Christening Feast, had this advantage over her likeness, that she was invited everywhere; though how she, at her age, could fly about to so many parties, unless she was a fairy, no one could say. Behind the fairy, up the marble stairs, came the most noble Farintosh, with that vacuous leer which distinguishes his lordship. Ethel seemed to be carrying the stack of flowers which the Marquis had sent to her. The noble Bustington (Viscount Bustington, I need scarcely tell the reader, is the heir of the house of Podbury), the Baronet of the North, the gallant Crackthorpe, the first men in town, in a word, gathered round the young beauty, forming her court; and little Dick Hitchin, who goes everywhere, you may be sure was near her with a compliment and a smile. Ere this arrival, the twins had been giving themselves great airs in the room—the poor twins! when Ethel appeared they sank into shuddering insignificance, and had to put up with the conversation and attentions of second-rate men, belonging to second-rate clubs in heavy dragoon regiments. One of them actually walked with a dancing barrister; but he was related to a duke, and it was expected the Lord Chancellor would give him something very good.

Before he saw Ethel, Clive vowed he was aware of her. Indeed, had not Lady Fareham told him Miss Newcome was coming? Ethel, on the contrary, not expecting him, or not having the prescience of love, exhibited signs of surprise when she beheld him, her eyebrows arching, her eyes darting looks of pleasure. When grandmamma happened to be in another room, she beckoned Clive to her, dismissing Crackthorpe and Fobsby, Farintosh and Bustington, the amorous youth who around her bowed, and summoning Mr. Clive to an audience with the air of a young princess.

And so she was a princess; and this the region of her special dominion. The wittiest and handsomest, she deserved to reign in such a place, by right of merit and by general election. Clive felt her superiority, and his own shortcomings: he came up to her as to a superior person. Perhaps she was not sorry to let him see how she ordered away grandees and splendid Bustingtons, informing them, with a superb manner, that she wished to speak to her cousin—that handsome young man with the light moustache yonder.

"Do you know many people? This is your first appearance in society? Shall I introduce you to some nice girls to dance with?" What very pretty buttons!"

"Is that what you wanted to say?" asked Clive, rather bewildered.

"What does one say at a ball? One talks conversation suited to the place. If I were to say to Captain Crackthorpe, 'What pretty buttons!' he would be delighted. But you—you have a soul above buttons, I suppose."

"Being, as you say, a stranger in this sort of society, you see I am not accustomed to—to the exceeding brilliancy of its conversation," said Clive.

"What! you want to go away, and we haven't seen each other for near a year!" cries Ethel, in quite a natural voice. "Sir John Fobsby, I'm very sorry—but do let me off this dance. I have just met my cousin, whom I have not seen for a whole year, and I want to talk to him."

"It was not my fault that you did not see me sooner. I wrote to you that I only got your letter a month ago. You never answered the second I wrote you from Rome. Your letter lay there at the post ever so long, and was forwarded to me at Naples."

"Where?" asked Ethel.

"I saw Lord Kew there." Ethel was smiling with all her might, and kissing her hand to the twins, who passed at that moment with their mamma. "Oh, indeed, you saw—how do you do?—Lord Kew."

"And, having seen him, I came over to England," said Clive.

Ethel looked at him, gravely. "What am I to understand by that, Clive?—You came over because it was very hot at Naples, and because you wanted to see your friends here, n'est-ce pas? How glad mamma was to see you! You know she loves you as if you were her own son."

"What, as much as that angel, Barnes!" cries Clive, bitterly; "impossible."

Ethel looked once more. Her present mood and desire was to treat Clive as a chit, as a young fellow without consequence—a thirteenth younger brother. But in his looks and behaviour there was that which seemed to say not too many liberties were to be taken with him.

"Why weren't you here a month sooner, and you might have seen the marriage? It was a very pretty thing. Everybody was there. Clara, and so did Barnes really, looked quite handsome."

"It must have been beautiful," continued Clive; "quite a touching sight, I am sure. Poor Charles Belsize could not be present because his brother was dead; and——"

"And what else, pray, Mr. Newcome!" cries Miss, in great wrath, her pink nostrils beginning to quiver. "I did not think, really, that when we met after so many months, I was to be insulted; yes, insulted, by the mention of that name."

"I most humbly ask pardon," said Clive, with a grave bow. "Heaven forbid that I should wound your sensibility, Ethel! It is, as you say, my first appearance in society. I talk about things or persons that I should not mention. I should talk about buttons, should I? which you were good enough to tell me was the proper subject of conversation. Mayn't I even speak of connexions of the family? Mr. Belsize, through this marriage, has the honour of being connected with you; and even I, in a remote degree, may boast of a sort of an ever—so—distant cousinship with him. What an honour for me!"

"Pray, what is the meaning of all this?" cries Miss Ethel, surprised, and perhaps alarmed. Indeed, Clive scarcely knew. He had been chafing all the while he talked with her; smothering anger as he saw the young men round about her; revolting against himself for the very humility of his obedience, and angry at the eagerness and delight with which he had come at her call.

"The meaning is, Ethel"—he broke out, seizing the opportunity—"that when a man comes a thousand miles to see you, and shake your hand, you should give it him a little more cordially than you choose to do to me; that when a kinsman knocks at your door, time after time, you should try and admit him; and that when you meet him you should treat him like an old friend not as you treated me when my Lady Kew vouchsafed to give me admittance; not as you treat these fools that are fribbling round about you," cries Mr. Clive, in a great rage, folding his arms, and glaring round on a number of the most innocent young swells; and he continued looking as if he would like to knock a dozen of their heads together. "Am I keeping Miss Newcome's admirers from her?"

"That is not for me to say," she said, quite gently. He was; but to see him angry did not displease Miss Newcome.

"That young man who came for you just now," Clive went on—"that Sir John——"

"Are you angry with me because I sent him away?" said Ethel, putting out a hand. "Hark! there is the music. Take me in and waltz with me. Don't you know it is not my door at which you knocked?" she said, looking up into his face as simply and kindly as of old. She whirled round the dancing-room with him in triumph, the other beauties dwindling before her: she looked more and more beautiful with each rapid move of the waltz, her colour heightening and her eyes seeming to brighten. Not till the music stopped did she sink down on a seat, panting, and smiling radiant—as many many hundred years ago I remember to have seen Taglioni after a conquering pas seul. She nodded a "thank you" to Clive. It seemed that there was a perfect reconciliation. Lady Kew came in just at the end of the dance, scowling when she beheld Ethel's partner; but in reply to her remonstrances, Ethel shrugged her fair shoulders, with a look which seemed to say je le veux, gave an arm to her grandmother, an walked off, saucily protecting her.

Clive's friend had been looking on observingly and curiously as the scene between them had taken place, and at the dance with which the reconciliation had been celebrated. I must tell you that this arch young creature had formed the object of my observation for some months past, and that I watched her as I have watched a beautiful panther at the Zoological Gardens, so bright of eye, so sleek of coat, so slim in form, so sweet and agile in her spring.

A more brilliant young coquette than Miss Newcome, in her second season, these eyes never looked upon, that is the truth. In her first year, being engaged to Lord Kew, she was perhaps a little more reserved and quiet. Besides, her mother went out with her that first season, to whom Miss Newcome except for a little occasional flightiness, was invariably obedient and ready to come to call. But when Lady Kew appeared as her duenna, the girl's delight seemed to be to plague the old lady, and she would dance with the very youngest sons merey to put grandmamma in a passion. In this way poor young Cubley (who has two hundred a year of allowance, besides eighty, and an annual rise of five in the Treasury) actually thought that Ethel was in love with him, and consulted with the young men in his room in Downing Street, whether two hundred and eighty a year, with five pound more next year, would be enough for them to keep house on? Young Tandy of the Temple, Lord Skibbereen's younger son, who sate in the House for some time on the Irish Catholic side, was also deeply smitten, and many a night in our walks home from the parties at the other end of the town, would entertain me with his admiration and passion for her.

"If you have such a passion for her, why not propose?" it was asked of Mr. Tandy.

"Propose! propose to a Russian Archduchess," cries young Tandy. "She's beautiful, she's delightful, she's witty. I have never seen anything like her eyes; they send me wild—wild," says Tandy—(slapping his waistcoat under Temple Bar)—"but a more audacious little flirt never existed since the days of Cleopatra."

With this opinion likewise in my mind, I had been looking on during Clive's proceedings with Miss Ethel—not, I say, without admiration of the young lady who was leading him such a dance. The waltz over, I congratulated him on his own performance. His Continental practice had greatly improved him. "And as for your partner, it is delightful to see her," I went on. "I always like to be by when Miss Newcome dances. I had sooner see her than anybody since Taglioni. Look at her now, with her neck up, and her little foot out, just as she is preparing to start! Happy Lord Bustington!"

"You are angry with her because she cut you," growls Clive. "You know you said she cut you, or forgot you; and your vanity's wounded, that is why you are so satirical."

"How can Miss Newcome remember all the men who are presented to her?" says the other. "Last year she talked to me because she wanted to know about you. This year she doesn't talk: because I suppose she doesn't want to know about you any more."

"Hang it. Do—on't, Pen," cries Clive, as a schoolboy cries out to another not to hit him.

"She does not pretend to observe: and is in full conversation with the amiable Bustington. Delicious interchange of noble thoughts! But she is observing us talking, and knows that we are talking about her. If ever you marry her, Clive, which is absurd, I shall lose you for a friend. You will infallibly tell her what I think of her: and she will order you to give me up." Clive had gone off in a brown study, as his interlocutor continued. "Yes, she is a flirt. She can't help her nature. She tries to vanquish every one who comes near her. She is a little out of breath from waltzing, and so she pretends to be listening to poor Bustington, who is out of breath too, but puffs out his best in order to make himself agreeable, with what a pretty air she appears to listen! Her eyes actually seem to brighten."

"What?" says Clive, with a start.

I could not comprehend the meaning of the start: nor did I care much to know: supposing that the young man was waking up from some lover's reverie: and the evening sped away, Clive not quitting the ball until Miss Newcome and the Countess of Kew had departed. No further communication appeared to take place between the cousins that evening. I think it was Captain Crackthorpe who gave the young lady an arm into her carriage; Sir John Fobsby having the happiness to conduct the old Countess, and carrying the pink bag for the shawls, wrappers, etc., on which her ladyship's coronet and initials are emblazoned. Clive may have made a movement as if to step forward, but a single finger from Miss Newcome warned him back.

Clive and his two friends in Lamb Court had made an engagement for the next Saturday to dine at Greenwich; but on the morning of that day there came a note from him to say that he thought of going down to see his aunt, Miss Honeyman, and begged to recall his promise to us. Saturday is a holiday with gentlemen of our profession. We had invited F. Bayham, Esquire, and promised ourselves a merry evening, and were unwilling to baulk ourselves of the pleasure on account of the absence of our young Roman. So we three went to London Bridge Station at an early hour, proposing to breathe the fresh air of Greenwich Park before dinner. And, at London Bridge, by the most singular coincidence, Lady Kew's carriage drove up to the Brighton entrance, and Miss Ethel and her maid stepped out of the brougham.

When Miss Newcome and her maid entered the Brighton station, did Mr. Clive, by another singular coincidence, happen also to be there? What more natural and dutiful than that he should go and see his aunt, Miss Honeyman? What more proper than that Miss Ethel should pass the Saturday and Sunday with her sick father; and take a couple of wholesome nights' rest after those five weary past evenings, for each of which we may reckon a couple of soirees and a ball? And that relations should travel together, the young lady being protected by her femme-de-chambre; that surely, as every one must allow, was perfectly right and proper.

That a biographer should profess to know everything which passes, even in a confidential talk in a first-class carriage between two lovers, seems perfectly absurd; not that grave historians do not pretend to the same wonderful degree of knowledge—reporting meetings of the most occult of conspirators; private interviews between monarchs and their ministers, even the secret thoughts and motives of those personages, which possibly the persons themselves did not know;—all for which the present writer will pledge his known character for veracity is, that on a certain day certain parties had a conversation, of which the upshot was so-and-so. He guesses, of course, at a great deal of what took place; knowing the characters, and being informed at some time of their meeting. You do not suppose that I bribed the femme-de-chambre, or that those two City gents, who sate in the same carriage with our young friends, and could not hear a word they said, reported their talk to me? If Clive and Ethel had had a coupe to themselves, I would yet boldly tell what took place, but the coupe was taken by other three young City gents who smoked the whole way.

"Well, then," the bonnet begins close up to the hat, "tell me, sir, is it true that you were so very much epris of the Miss Freemans at Rome; and that afterwards you were so wonderfully attentive to the third Miss Baliol? Did you draw her portrait? You know you drew her portrait. You painters always pretend to admire girls with auburn hair, because Titian and Raphael painted it. Has the Fornarina red hair? Why, we are at Croydon, I declare!"

"The Fornarina"—the hat replies to the bonnet, "if that picture at the Borghese Palace be an original, or a likeness of her—is not a handsome woman, with vulgar eyes and mouth, and altogether a most mahogany-coloured person. She is so plain, in fact, I think that very likely it is the real woman; for it is with their own fancies that men fall in love,—or rather every woman is handsome to the lover. You know how old Helen must have been."

"I don't know any such thing, or anything about her. Who was Helen?" asks the bonnet; and indeed she did not know.

"It's a long story, and such an old scandal now, that there is no use in repeating it," says Clive.

"You only talk about Helen because you wish to turn away the conversation from Miss Freeman," cries the young lady—"from Miss Baliol, I mean."

"We will talk about whichever you please. Which shall we begin to pull to pieces?" says Clive. You see, to be in this carriage—to be actually with her—to be looking into those wonderful lucid eyes—to see her sweet mouth dimpling, and hear her sweet voice ringing with its delicious laughter—to have that hour and a half his own, in spite of all the world-dragons, grandmothers, convenances, the future—made the young fellow so happy, filled his whole frame and spirit with a delight so keen, that no wonder he was gay, and brisk, and lively.

"And so you knew of my goings-on?" he asked. O me! they were at Reigate by this time; there was Gatton Park flying before them on the wings of the wind.

"I know of a number of things," says the bonnet, nodding with ambrosial curls.

"And you would not answer the second letter I wrote to you?

"We were in great perplexity. One cannot be always answering young gentlemen's letters. I had considerable doubt about answering a note I got from Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square," says the lady's chapeau. "No, Clive, we must not write to one another," she continued more gravely, "or only very, very seldom. Nay, my meeting you here to-day is by the merest chance, I am sure; for when I mentioned at Lady Fareham's the other evening that I was going to see papa at Brighton to-day, I never for one moment thought of seeing you in the train. But as you are here, it can't be helped; and I may as well tell you that there are obstacles."

"What, other obstacles?" Clive gasped out.

"Nonsense—you silly boy! No other obstacles but those which always have existed, and must. When we parted—that is, when you left us at Baden, you knew it was for the best. You had your profession to follow, and could not go on idling about—about a family of sick people and children. Every man has his profession, and you yours, as you would have it. We are so nearly allied that we may—we may like each other like brother and sister almost. I don't know what Barnes would say if he heard me! Wherever you and your father are, how can I ever think of you but—but you know how? I always shall, always. There are certain feelings we have which I hope never can change; though, if you please, about them I intend never to speak any more. Neither you nor I can alter our conditions, but must make the best of them. You shall be a fine clever painter; and I,—who knows what will happen to me? I know what is going to happen to-day; I am going to see papa and mamma, and be as happy as I can till Monday morning."

"I know what I wish would happen now," said Clive,—they were going screaming through a tunnel.

"What?" said the bonnet in the darkness: and the engine was roaring so loudly, that he was obliged to put his head quite close to say—

"I wish the tunnel would fall in and close upon us, or that we might travel on for ever and ever."

Here there was a great jar of the carriage, and the lady's-maid, and I think Miss Ethel, gave a shriek. The lamp above was so dim that the carriage was almost totally dark. No wonder the lady's-maid was frightened! but the daylight came streaming in, and all poor Clive's wishes of rolling and rolling on for ever were put an end to by the implacable sun in a minute.

Ah, why was it the quick train? Suppose it had been the parliamentary train?—even that too would have come to an end. They came and said, "Tickets, please," and Clive held out the three of their party—his, and Ethel's, and her maid's. I think for such a ride as that he was right to give up Greenwich. Mr. Kuhn was in waiting with a carriage for Miss Ethel. She shook hands with Clive, returning his pressure.

"I may come and see you?" he said.

"You may come and see mamma—yes."

"And where are you staying?"

"Bless my soul—they were staying at Miss Honeyman's!" Clive burst into a laugh. Why, he was going there too! Of course Aunt Honeyman had no room for him, her house being quite full with the other Newcomes.

It was a most curious coincidence their meeting; but altogether Lady Anne thought it was best to say nothing about the circumstance to grandmamma. I myself am puzzled to say which would have been the better course to pursue under the circumstances; there were so many courses open. As they had gone so far, should they go on farther together? Suppose they were going to the same house at Brighton, oughtn't they to have gone in the same carriage, with Kuhn and the maid of course? Suppose they met by chance at the station, ought they to have travelled in separate carriages? I ask any gentleman and father of a family, when he was immensely smitten with his present wife, Mrs. Brown, if he had met her travelling with her maid, in the mail, when there was a vacant place, what would he himself have done?



CHAPTER XLII. Injured Innocence

From Clive Newcome, Esq., to Lieut.-Col. Newcome, C.B.

"Brighton, June 12, 18—.

"My Dearest Father,—As the weather was growing very hot at Naples, and you wished I should come to England to see Mr. Binnie, I came accordingly, and have been here three weeks, and write to you from Aunt Honeyman's parlour at Brighton, where you ate your last dinner before embarking for India. I found your splendid remittance calling in Fog Court, and have invested a part of the sum in a good horse to ride, upon which I take my diversion with other young dandies in the Park. Florac is in England, but he has no need of your kindness. Only think! he is Prince de Moncontour now, the second title of the Duc d'Ivry's family; and M. le Comte de Florac is Duc d'Ivry in consequence of the demise of t'other old gentleman. I believe the late duke's wife shortened his life. Oh, what a woman! She caused a duel between Lord Kew and a Frenchman, which has in its turn occasioned all sorts of evil and division in families, as you shall hear.

"In the first place, in consequence of the duel and of incompatibility of temper, the match between Kew and E. N. has been broken off. I met Lord Kew at Naples with his mother and brother, nice quiet people as you would like them. Kew's wound and subsequent illness have altered him a good deal. He has become much more serious than he used to be; not ludicrously so at all, but he says he thinks his past life has been useless and even criminal, and he wishes to change it. He has sold his horses, and sown his wild oats. He has turned quite a sober quiet gentleman.

"At our meeting he told me of what had happened between him and Ethel, of whom he spoke most kindly and generously, but avowing his opinion that they never could have been happy in married life. And now I think my dear old father will see that there may be another reason besides my desire to see Mr. Binnie, which has brought me tumbling back to England again. If need be to speak, I never shall have, I hope, any secrets from you. I have not said much about one which has given me the deuce's disquiet for ten months past, because there was no good in talking about it, or vexing you needlessly with reports of my griefs and woes.

"Well, when we were at Baden in September last, and E. and I wrote those letters in common to you, I dare say you can fancy what my feelings might have been towards such a beautiful young creature, who has a hundred faults, for which I love her just as much as for the good that is in her. I became dreadfully smitten indeed, and knowing that she was engaged to Lord Kew, I did as you told me you did once when the enemy was too strong for you—I ran away. I had a bad time of it for two or three months. At Rome, however, I began to take matters more easily, my naturally fine appetite returned, and at the end of the season I found myself uncommonly happy in the society of the Miss Baliols and the Miss Freemans; but when Kew told me at Naples of what had happened, there was straightway a fresh eruption in my heart, and I was fool enough to come almost without sleep to London in order to catch a glimpse of the bright eyes of E. N.

"She is now in this very house upstairs with one aunt, whilst the other lets lodgings to her. I have seen her but very seldom indeed since I came to London, where Sir Brian and Lady Anne do not pass the season, and Ethel goes about to a dozen parties every week with old Lady Kew, who neither loves you nor me. Hearing E. say she was coming down to her parents at Brighton, I made so bold as to waylay her at the train (though I didn't tell her that I passed three hours in the waiting-room); and we made the journey together, and she was very kind and beautiful; and though I suppose I might just as well ask the Royal Princess to have me, I can't help hoping and longing and hankering after her. And Aunt Honeyman must have found out that I am fond of her, for the old lady has received me with a scolding. Uncle Charles seems to be in very good condition again. I saw him in full clerical feather—at Madame de Moncontour's, a good-natured body who drops her h's, though Florac is not aware of their absence. Pendennis and Warrington, I know, would send you their regards. Pen is conceited, but much kinder in reality than he has the air of being. Fred Bayham is doing well, and prospering in his mysterious way.

"Mr. Binnie is not looking at all well: and Mrs. Mack—well, as I know you never attack a lady behind her lovely back, I won't say a word of Mrs. Mack—but she has taken possession of Uncle James, and seems to me to weigh upon him somehow. Rosey is as pretty and good-natured as ever, and has learned two new songs; but you see, with my sentiments in another quarter, I feel as it were guilty and awkward in company of Rosey and her mamma. They have become the very greatest friends with Bryanstone Square, and Mrs. Mack is always citing Aunt Hobson as the most superior of women, in which opinion, I daresay, Aunt Hobson concurs.

"Good-bye, my dearest father; my sheet is full; I wish I could put my arm in yours and pace up and down the pier with you, and tell you more and more. But you know enough now, and that I am your affectionate son always, C. N."

In fact, when Mr. Clive appeared at Steyne Gardens stepping out of the fly, and handing Miss Ethel thence, Miss Honeyman of course was very glad to see her nephew, and saluted him with a little embrace to show her sense of pleasure at his visit. But the next day, being Sunday, when Clive, with a most engaging smile on his countenance, walked over to breakfast from his hotel, Miss Honeyman would scarcely speak to him during the meal, looked out at him very haughtily from under her Sunday cap, and received his stories about Italy with "Oh! ah! indeed!" in a very unkind manner. And when breakfast was over, and she had done washing her age chins, she fluttered up to Clive with such an agitation of plumage, redness of craw, and anger of manner, as a maternal hen shows if she has reason to think you menace her chickens. She fluttered up to Clive, I say, and cried out, "Not in this house, Clive,—not in this house, I beg you to understand that!"

Clive, looking amazed, said, "Certainly not, ma'am; I never did do it in the house, as I know you don't like it. I was going into the Square." The young man meaning that he was about to smoke, and conjecturing that his aunt's anger applied to that practice.

"You know very well what I mean, sir! Don't try to turn me off in that highty-tighty way. My dinner to-day is at half-past one. You can dine or not as you like," and the old lady flounced out of the room.

Poor Clive stood rolling his cigar in sad perplexity of spirit, until Mrs. Honeyman's servant Hannah entered, who, for her part, grinned and looked particularly sly. "In the name of goodness, Hannah, what is the row about?" cries Mr. Clive. "What is my aunt scolding at? What are you grinning at, you old Cheshire cat?"

"Git long, Master Clive," says Hannah, patting the cloth.

"Get along! why get along, and where am I to get along to?"

"Did 'ee do ut really now, Master Clive?" cries Mrs. Honeyman's attendant, grinning with the utmost good-humour. "Well, she be as pretty a young lady as ever I saw; and as I told my missis, 'Miss Martha,' says I, 'there's a pair on 'em.' Though missis was mortal angry to be sure. She never could bear it."

"Bear what? you old goose!" cries Clive, who by these playful names had been wont to designate Hannah these twenty years past.

"A young gentleman and a young lady a kissing of each other in the railway coach," says Hannah, jerking up with her finger to the ceiling, as much as to say, "There she is! Lar, she be a pretty young creature, that she be! and so I told Miss Martha." Thus differently had the news which had come to them on the previous night affected the old lady and her maid.

The news was, that Miss Newcome's maid (a giddy thing from the county, who had not even learned as yet to hold her tongue) had announced with giggling delight to Lady Anne's maid, who was taking tea with Mrs. Hicks, that Mr. Clive had given Miss Ethel a kiss in the tunnel, and she supposed it was a match. This intelligence Hannah Hicks took to her mistress, of whose angry behaviour to Clive the next morning you may now understand the cause.

Clive did not know whether to laugh or to be in a rage. He swore that he was as innocent of all intention of kissing Miss Ethel as of embracing Queen Elizabeth. He was shocked to think of his cousin, walking above, fancy-free in maiden meditation, whilst this conversation regarding her was carried on below. How could he face her, or her mother, or even her maid, now he had cognisance of this naughty calumny? "Of course Hannah had contradicted it?" "Of course I have a done no such indeed," replied Master Clive's old friend; "of course I have set 'em down a bit; for when little Trimmer said it, and she supposed it was all settled between you, seeing how it had been a going on in foreign parts last year, Mrs. Pincott says, 'Hold your silly tongue, Trimmer,' she says; 'Miss Ethel marry a painter, indeed, Trimmer!' says she, 'while she has refused to be a Countess,' she says; 'and can be a Marchioness any day, and will be a Marchioness. Marry a painter, indeed!' Mrs. Pincott says; 'Trimmer, I'm surprised at your impidence.' So, my dear, I got angry at that," Clive's champion continued, "and says I, if my young master ain't good enough for any young lady in this world, says I, I'd like you to show her to me: and if his dear father, the Colonel, says I, ain't as good as your old gentleman upstairs, says I, who has gruel and dines upon doctor's stuff, the Mrs. Pincott, says I, my name isn't what it is, says I. Those were my very words, Master Clive, my dear; and then Mrs. Pincott says, Mrs. Hicks, she says, you don't understand society, she says; you don't understand society, he! he!" and the country lady, with considerable humour, gave an imitation of the town lady's manner.

At this juncture Miss Honeyman re-entered the parlour, arrayed in her Sunday bonnet, her stiff and spotless collar, her Cashmere shawl, and Agra brooch, and carrying her Bible and Prayer-Book each stitched in its neat cover of brown silk. "Don't stay chattering here, you idle woman," she cried to her attendant with extreme asperity. "And you, sir, if you wish to smoke your cigar, you had best walk down to the cliff where the Cockneys are!" she added, glowering at Clive.

"Now I understand it all," Clive said, trying to deprecate her anger. "My dear good aunt, it's a most absurd mistake; upon my honour, Miss Ethel is as innocent as you are."

"Innocent or not, this house is not intended for assignations, Clive! As long as Sir Brian Newcome lodges here, you will be pleased to keep away from it, sir; and though I don't approve of Sunday travelling, I think the very best thing you can do is to put yourself in the train and go back to London."

And now, young people, who read my moral pages, you will see how highly imprudent it is to sit with your cousins in railway carriages; and how, though you may not mean the slightest harm in the world, a great deal may be attributed to you; and how, when you think you are managing your little absurd love-affairs ever so quietly, Jeames and Betsy in the servants'-hall are very likely talking about them, and you are putting yourself in the power of those menials. If the perusal of these lines has rendered one single young couple uncomfortable, surely my amiable end is answered, and I have written not altogether in vain.

Clive was going away, innocent though he was, yet quivering under his aunt's reproof, and so put out of countenance that he had not even thought of lighting the great cigar which he stuck into his foolish mouth; when a shout of "Clive! Clive!" from half a dozen little voices roused him, and presently as many little Newcomes came toddling down the stairs, and this one clung round his knees, and that at the skirts of his coat, and another took his hand and said, he must come and walk with them on the beach.

So away went Clive to walk with his cousins, and then to see his old friend Miss Cann, with whom and the elder children he walked to church, and issuing thence greeted Lady Anne and Ethel (who had also attended the service) in the most natural way in the world.

While engaged in talking with these, Miss Honeyman came out of the sacred edifice, crisp and stately in the famous Agra brooch and Cashmere shawls. The good-natured Lady Anne had a smile and a kind word for her as for everybody. Clive went up to his maternal aunt to offer his arm. "You must give him up to us for dinner, Miss Honeyman, if you please to be so very kind. He was so good-natured in escorting Ethel down," Lady Anne said.

"Hm! my lady," says Miss Honeyman, perking her head up in her collar. Clive did not know whether to laugh or not, but a fine blush illuminated his countenance. As for Ethel, she was and looked perfectly unconscious. So, rustling in her stiff black silk, Martha Honeyman walked with her nephew silent by the shore of the much-sounding sea. The idea of courtship, of osculatory processes, of marrying and giving in marriage, made this elderly virgin chafe and fume, she never having, at any period of her life, indulged in any such ideas or practices, and being angry against them, as childless wives will sometimes be angry and testy against matrons with their prattle about their nurseries. Now, Miss Cann was a different sort of spinster, and loved a bit of sentiment with all her heart from which I am led to conclude—but, pray, is this the history of Miss Cann or of the Newcomes?

All these Newcomes then entered into Miss Honeyman's house, where a number of little knives and forks were laid for them. Ethel was cold and thoughtful; Lady Anne was perfectly good-natured as her wont was. Sir Brian came in on the arm of his valet presently, wearing that look of extra neatness which invalids have, who have just been shaved and combed, and made ready by their attendants to receive company. He was voluble: though there was a perceptible change in his voice: he talked chiefly of matters which had occurred forty years ago, and especially of Clive's own father, when he was a boy, in a manner which interested the young man and Ethel. "He threw me down in a chaise—sad chap—always reading Orme's History of India—wanted marry Frenchwoman. He wondered Mrs. Newcome didn't leave Tom anything—'pon my word, quite s'prise." The events of to-day, the House of Commons, the City, had little interest for him. All the children went up and shook him by the hand, with awe in their looks, and he patted their yellow heads vacantly and kindly. He asked Clive (several times) where he had been? and said he himself had had a slight 'tack—vay slight—was getting well ev'y day—strong as a horse—go back to Parliament d'rectly. And then he became a little peevish with Parker, his man, about his broth. The man retired, and came back presently, with profound bows and gravity, to tell Sir Brian dinner was ready, and he went away quite briskly at this news, giving a couple of fingers to Clive before he disappeared into the upper apartments. Good-natured Lady Anne was as easy about this as about the other events of this world. In later days, with what a strange feeling we remember that last sight we have of the old friend; that nod of farewell, and shake of the hand, that last look of the face and figure as the door closes on him, or the coach drives away! So the roast mutton was ready, and all the children dined very heartily.

The infantile meal had not been long concluded, when servants announced "the Marquis of Farintosh;" and that nobleman made his appearance to pay his respects to Miss Newcome and Lady Anne. He brought the very last news of the very last party in London, where "Really, upon my honour, now, it was quite a stupid party, because Miss Newcome wasn't there. It was now, really."

Miss Newcome remarked, "If he said so upon his honour, of course she was satisfied."

"As you weren't there," the young nobleman continued, "the Miss Rackstraws came out quite strong; really they did now, upon my honour. It was quite a quiet thing. Lady Merriborough hadn't even got a new gown on. Lady Anne, you shirk London society this year, and we miss you: we expected you to give us two or three things this season; we did now, really. I said to Tufthunt, only yesterday, Why has not Lady Anne Newcome given anything? You know Tufthunt? They say he's a clever fellow, and that—but he's a low little beast, and I hate him."

Lady Anne said, "Sir Brian's bad state of health prevented her from going out this season, or receiving at home."

"It don't prevent your mother from going out, though," continued my lord. "Upon my honour, I think unless she got two or three things every night, I think she'd die. Lady Kew's like one of those horses, you know, that unless they go they drop."

"Thank you for my mother," said Lady Anne.

"She is, upon my honour. Last night I know she was at ever so many places. She dined at the Bloxams', for I was there. Then she said she was going to sit with old Mrs. Crackthorpe, who has broke her collar-bone (that Crackthorpe in the Life Guards, her grandson, is a brute, and I hope she won't leave him a shillin'); and then she came on to Lady Hawkstone's, where I heard her say she had been at the—at the Flowerdales', too. People begin to go to those Flowerdales'. Hanged—if I know where they won't go next. Cotton-spinner, wasn't he?"

"So were we, my lord," says Miss Newcome.

"Oh, yes, I forgot! But you're of an old family—very old family."

"We can't help it," said Miss Ethel, archly. Indeed, she thought she was.

"Do you believe in the barber-surgeon?" asked Clive. And my lord looked at him with a noble curiosity, as much as to say, "Who the deuce was the barber-surgeon? and who the devil are you?"

"Why should we disown our family?" Miss Ethel said, simply. "In those early days I suppose people did—did all sorts of things, and it was not considered at all out of the way to be surgeon to William the Conqueror."

"Edward the Confessor," interposed Clive. "And it must be true, because I have seen a picture of the barber-surgeon, a friend of mine, M'Collop, did the picture, and I dare say it is for sale still"

Lady Anne said "she should be delighted to see it." Lord Farintosh remembered that the M'Collop had the moor next to his in Argyleshire, but did not choose to commit himself with the stranger, and preferred looking at his own handsome face and admiring it in the glass until the last speaker had concluded his remarks.

As Clive did not offer any further conversation, but went back to a table, where he began to draw the barber-surgeon, Lord Farintosh resumed the delightful talk. "What infernal bad glasses these are in these Brighton lodging-houses! They make a man look quite green, really they do—and there's nothing green in me, is there, Lady Anne?"

"But you look very unwell, Lord Farintosh; indeed you do," Miss Newcome said, gravely. "I think late hours, and smoking, and going to that horrid Platt's, where I dare say you go——"

"Go? Don't I? But don't call it horrid; really, now, don't call it horrid!" cried the noble Marquis.

"Well—something has made you look far from well. You know how very well Lord Farintosh used to look, mamma—and to see him now, in only his second season—oh, it is melancholy!"

"God bless my soul, Miss Newcome! what do you mean? I think I look pretty well," and the noble youth passed his hand through his hair. "It is a hard life, I know; that tearin' about night after night, and sittin' up till ever so much o'clock; and then all these races, you know, comin' one after another—it's enough to knock up any fellow. I'll tell you what I'll do, Miss Newcome. I'll go down to Codlington, to my mother; I will, upon my honour, and lie quiet all July, and then I'll go to Scotland—and you shall see whether I don't look better next season."

"Do, Lord Farintosh!" said Ethel, greatly amused, as much, perhaps, at the young Marquis as at her cousin Clive, who sat whilst the other was speaking, fuming with rage, at his table.

"What are you doing, Clive?" she asks.

"I was trying to draw; Lord knows who—Lord Newcome, who was killed at the battle of Bosworth," said the artist, and the girl ran to look at the picture.

"Why, you have made him like Punch!" cries the young lady.

"It's a shame caricaturing one's own flesh and blood, isn't it?" asked Clive, gravely.

"What a droll, funny picture!" exclaims Lady Anne. "Isn't it capital, Lord Farintosh?"

"I dare say—I confess I don't understand that sort of thing," says his lordship. "Don't, upon my honour. There's Odo Carton, always making those caricatures—I don't understand 'em. You'll come up to town to-morrow, won't you? And you're goin' to Lady Hm's, and to Hm and Hm's, ain't you?" (The names of these aristocratic places of resort were quite inaudible.) "You mustn't let Miss Blackcap have it all her own way, you know, that you mustn't."

"She won't have it all her own way," says Miss Ethel. "Lord Farintosh, will you do me a favour? Lady Innishowan is your aunt?"

"Of course she is my aunt."

"Will you be so very good as to get a card for her party on Tuesday, for my cousin, Mr. Clive Newcome? Clive, please be introduced to the Marquis of Farintosh."

The young Marquis perfectly well recollected those mustachios and their wearer on a former night, though he had not thought fit to make any sign of recognition. "Anything you wish, Miss Newcome," he said; "delighted, I'm sure;" and turning to Clive—In the army, I suppose?"

"I am an artist," says Clive, turning very red.

"Oh, really, I didn't know!" cries the nobleman; and my lord bursting out laughing presently as he was engaged in conversation with Miss Ethel on the balcony, Clive thought, very likely with justice, "He is making fun of my mustachios. Confound him! I should like to pitch him over into the street." But this was only a kind wish on Mr. Newcome's part; not followed out by any immediate fulfilment.

As the Marquis of Farintosh seemed inclined to prolong his visit, and his company was exceedingly disagreeable to Clive, the latter took his departure for an afternoon walk, consoled to think that he should have Ethel to himself at the evening's dinner, when Lady Anne would be occupied about Sir Brian, and would be sure to be putting the children to bed, and, in a word, would give him a quarter of an hour of delightful tete-a-tete with the beautiful Ethel.

Clive's disgust was considerable when he came to dinner at length, and found Lord Farintosh, likewise invited, and sprawling in the drawing-room. His hopes of a tete-a-tete were over. Ethel and Lady Anne and my lord talked, as all people will, about their mutual acquaintance: what parties were coming off, who was going to marry whom, and so forth. And as the persons about whom they conversed were in their own station of life, and belonged to the fashionable world, of which Clive had but a slight knowledge, he chose to fancy that his cousin was giving herself airs, and to feel sulky and uneasy during their dialogue.

Miss Newcome had faults of her own, and was worldly enough as perhaps the reader has begun to perceive; but in this instance no harm, sure, was to be attributed to her. If two gossips in Aunt Honeyman's parlour had talked over the affairs of Mr. Jones and Mr. Brown, Clive would not have been angry; but a young man of spirit not unfrequently mistakes his vanity for independence: and it is certain that nothing is more offensive to us of the middle class than to hear the names of great folks constantly introduced into conversation.

So Clive was silent and ate no dinner, to the alarm of Martha, who had put him to bed many a time, and always had a maternal eye over him. When he actually refused currant and raspberry tart, and custard, the chef d'oeuvre of Miss Honeyman, for which she had seen him absolutely cry in his childhood, the good Martha was alarmed.

"Law, Master Clive!" she said, "do 'ee eat some. Missis made it, you know she did;" and she insisted on bringing back the tart to him.

Lady Anne and Ethel laughed at this eagerness on the worthy old woman's part. "Do 'ee eat some, Clive," says Ethel, imitating honest Mrs. Hicks, who had left the room.

"It's doosid good," remarked Lord Farintosh.

"Then do 'ee eat some more," said Miss Newcome: on which the young nobleman, holding out his plate, observed with much affability, that the cook of the lodgings was really a stunner for tarts.

"The cook! dear me, it's not the cook!" cries Miss Ethel. "Don't you remember the princess in the Arabian Nights, who was such a stunner for tarts, Lord Farintosh?"

Lord Farintosh couldn't say that he did.

"Well, I thought not; but there was a princess in Arabia or China, or somewhere, who made such delicious tarts and custards that nobody's could compare with them; and there is an old lady in Brighton who has the same wonderful talent. She is the mistress of this house."

"And she is my aunt, at your lordship's service," said Mr. Clive, with great dignity.

"Upon my honour! did you make 'em, Lady Anne?" asked my lord.

"The Queen of Hearts made tarts!" cried out Miss Newcome, rather eagerly, and blushing somewhat.

"My good old aunt, Miss Honeyman, made this one," Clive would go on to say.

"Mr. Honeyman's sister, the preacher, you know, where we go on Sunday," Miss Ethel interposed.

"The Honeyman pedigree is not a matter of very great importance," Lady Anne remarked gently. "Kuhn, will you have the goodness to take away these things? When did you hear of Colonel Newcome, Clive?"

An air of deep bewilderment and perplexity had spread over Lord Farintosh's fine countenance whilst this talk about pastry had been going on. The Arabian Princess, the Queen of Hearts making tarts, Miss Honeyman? Who the deuce were all these? Such may have been his lordship's doubts and queries. Whatever his cogitations were he did not give utterance to them, but remained in silence for some time, as did the rest of the little party. Clive tried to think he had asserted his independence by showing that he was not ashamed of his old aunt; but the doubt may be whether there was any necessity for presenting her in this company, and whether Mr. Clive had not much better have left the tart question alone.

Ethel evidently thought so: for she talked and rattled in the most lively manner with Lord Farintosh for the rest of the evening, and scarcely chose to say a word to her cousin. Lady Anne was absent with Sir Brian and her children for the most part of the time: and thus Clive had the pleasure of listening to Miss Newcome uttering all sorts of odd little paradoxes, firing the while sly shots at Mr. Clive, and, indeed, making fun of his friends, exhibiting herself in not the most agreeable light. Her talk only served the more to bewilder Lord Farintosh, who did not understand a tithe of her allusions: for Heaven, which had endowed the young Marquis with personal charms, a large estate, an ancient title and the pride belonging to it, had not supplied his lordship with a great quantity of brains, or a very feeling heart.

Lady Anne came back from the upper regions presently, with rather a grave face, and saying that Sir Brian was not so well this evening, upon which the young men rose to depart. My lord said he had "a most delightful dinner and a most delightful tart, 'pon his honour," and was the only one of the little company who laughed at his own remark. Miss Ethel's eyes flashed scorn at Mr. Clive when that unfortunate subject was introduced again.

My lord was going back to London to-morrow. Was Miss Newcome going back? Wouldn't he like to go back in the train with her!—another unlucky observation. Lady Anne said, "it would depend on the state of Sir Brian's health the next morning whether Ethel would return; and both of you gentlemen are too young to be her escort," added the kind lady. Then she shook hands with Clive, as thinking she had said something too for him.

Farintosh in the meantime was taking leave of Miss Newcome. "Pray, pray," said his lordship, "don't throw me over at Lady Innishowan's. You know I hate balls and never go to 'em, except when you go. I hate dancing, I do, 'pon my honour."

"Thank you," said Miss Newcome, with a curtsey.

"Except with one person—only one person, upon my honour. I'll remember and get the invitation for your friend. And if you would but try that mare, I give you my honour I bred her at Codlington. She's a beauty to look at, and as quiet as a lamb."

"I don't want a horse like a lamb," replied the young lady.

"Well—she'll go like blazes now: and over timber she's splendid now. She is, upon my honour."

"When I come to London perhaps you may trot her out," said Miss Ethel, giving him her hand and a fine smile.

Clive came up biting his lips. "I suppose you don't condescend to ride Bhurtpore any more now?" he said.

"Poor old Bhurtpore! The children ride him now," said Miss Ethel—giving Clive at the same time a dangerous look of her eyes, as though to see if her shot had hit. Then she added, "No—he has not been brought up to town this year: he is at Newcome, and I like him very much." Perhaps she thought the shot had struck too deep.

But if Clive was hurt he did not show his wound. "You have had him these four years—yes, it's four years since my father broke him for you. And you still continue to like him? What a miracle of constancy! You use him sometimes in the country—when you have no better horse—what a compliment to Bhurtpore!"

"Nonsense!" Miss Ethel here made Clive a sign in her most imperious manner to stay a moment when Lord Farintosh had departed.

But he did not choose to obey this order. "Good night," he said. "Before I go I must shake hands with my aunt downstairs." And he was gone, following close upon Lord Farintosh, who I dare say thought, "Why the deuce can't he shake hands with his aunt up here?" and when Clive entered Miss Honeyman's back-parlour, making a bow to the young nobleman, my lord went away more perplexed than ever: and the next day told friends at White's what uncommonly queer people those Newcomes were. "I give you my honour there was a fellow at Lady Anne's whom they call Clive, who is a painter by trade—his uncle is a preacher—his father is a horse-dealer, and his aunt lets lodgings and cooks the dinner."



CHAPTER XLIII. Returns to some Old Friends

The haggard youth burst into my chambers, in the Temple, on the very next morning, and confided to me the story which has been just here narrated. When he had concluded it, with many ejaculations regarding the heroine of the tale, "I saw her, sir," he added, "walking with the children and Miss Cann as I drove round in the fly to the station—and didn't even bow to her."

"Why did you go round by the cliff?" asked Clive's friend.

"That is not the way from the Steyne Arms to the railroad."

"Hang it," says Clive, turning very red, "I wanted to pass just under her windows, and if I saw her, not to see her: and that's what I did."

"Why did she walk on the cliff?" mused Clive's friend, "at that early hour? Not to meet Lord Farintosh, I should think, he never gets up before twelve. It must have been to see you. Didn't you tell her you were going away in the morning?"

"I tell you what she does with me," continues Mr. Clive. "Sometimes she seems to like me, and then she leaves me. Sometimes she is quite kind—kind she always is—I mean, you know, Pen—you know what I mean; and then up comes the old Countess, or a young Marquis, or some fellow with a handle to his name, and she whistles me off till the next convenient opportunity."

"Women are like that, my ingenuous youth," says Clive's counsellor.

"I won't stand it. I won't be made a fool of!" he continues. "She seems to expect everybody to bow to her, and moves through the world with her imperious airs. Oh, how confoundedly handsome she is with them! I tell you what. I feel inclined to tumble down and feel one of her pretty little feet on my neck and say, There! Trample my life out. Make a slave of me. Let me get a silver collar and mark 'Ethel' on it, and go through the world with my badge."

"And a blue ribbon for a footman to hold you by; and a muzzle to wear in the dog-days. Bow! wow!" says Mr. Pendennis.

(At this noise Mr. Warrington puts his head in from the neighbouring bedchamber, and shows a beard just lathered for shaving. "We are talking sentiment! Go back till you are wanted!" says Mr. Pendennis. Exit he of the soap-suds.)

"Don't make fun of a fellow," Clive continues, laughing ruefully. "You see I must talk about it to somebody. I shall die if I don't. Sometimes, sir, I rise up in my might and I defy her lightning. The sarcastic dodge is the best: I have borrowed that from you Pen, old boy. That puzzles her: that would beat her if I could but go on with it. But there comes a tone of her sweet voice, a look out of those killing grey eyes, and all my frame is in a thrill and a tremble. When she was engaged to Lord Kew I did battle with the confounded passion—and I ran away from it like an honest man, and the gods rewarded me with ease of mind after a while. But now the thing rages worse than ever. Last night, I give you my honour, I heard every one of the confounded hurs toll, except the last, when I was dreaming of my father, and the chambermaid woke me with a hot water jug."

"Did she scald you? What a cruel chambermaid! I see you have shaven the mustachios off."

"Farintosh asked me whether I was going in the army," said Clive, "and she laughed. I thought I had best dock them. Oh, I would like to cut my head off as well as my hair!"

"Have you ever asked her to marry you?" asked Clive's friend.

"I have seen her but five times since my return from abroad," the lad went on; "there has been always somebody by. Who am I? a painter with five hundred a year for an allowance. Isn't she used to walk up on velvet and dine upon silver; and hasn't she got marquises and barons, and all sorts of swells, in her train? I daren't ask her——"

Here his friend hummed Montrose's lines—"He either fears his fate too much, or his desert is small, who dares not put it to the touch, and win or lose it all."

"I own I dare not ask her. If she were to refuse me, I know I should never ask again. This isn't the moment, when all Swelldom is at her feet, for me to come forward and say, 'Maiden, I have watched thee daily, and I think thou lovest me well.' I read that ballad to her at Baden, sir. I drew a picture of the Lord of Burleigh wooing the maiden, and asked what she would have done?"

"Oh, you did? I thought, when we were at Baden, we were so modest that we did not even whisper our condition?"

"A fellow can't help letting it be seen and hinting it," says Clive, with another blush. "They can read it in our looks fast enough; and what is going on in our minds, hang them! I recollect she said, in her grave, cool way, that after all the Lord and Lady of Burleigh did not seem to have made a very good marriage, and that the lady would have been much happier in marrying one of her own degree."

"That was a very prudent saying for a young lady of eighteen," remarks Clive's friend.

"Yes; but it was not an unkind one. Say Ethel thought—thought what was the case; and being engaged herself, and knowing how friends of mine had provided a very pretty little partner for me—she is a dear, good little girl, little Rosey; and twice as good, Pen, when her mother is away—knowing this and that, I say, suppose Ethel wanted to give me a hint to keep quiet, was she not right in the counsel she gave me? She is not fit to be a poor man's wife. Fancy Ethel Newcome going into the kitchen and making pies like Aunt Honeyman!"

"The Circassian beauties don't sell under so many thousand purses," remarked Mr. Pendennis. "If there's a beauty in a well-regulated Georgian family, they fatten her; they feed her with the best Racahout des Arabes. They give her silk robes, and perfumed baths; have her taught to play on the dulcimer and dance and sing; and when she is quite perfect, send her down to Constantinople for the Sultan's inspection. The rest of the family think never of grumbling, but eat coarse meat, bathe in the river, wear old clothes, and praise Allah for their sister's elevation. Bah! Do you suppose the Turkish system doesn't obtain all over the world? My poor Clive, this article in the Mayfair Market is beyond your worship's price. Some things in this world are made for our betters, young man. Let Dives say grace for his dinner, and the dogs and Lazarus be thankful for the crumbs. Here comes Warrington, shaven and smart as if he was going out a-courting."

Thus it will be seen, that in his communication with certain friends who approached nearer to his own time of life, Clive was much more eloquent and rhapsodical than in the letter which he wrote to his father, regarding his passion for Miss Ethel. He celebrated her with pencil and pen. He was for ever drawing the outline of her head, the solemn eyebrow, the nose (that wondrous little nose), descending from the straight forehead, the short upper lip, and chin sweeping in a full curve to the neck, etc. etc. A frequenter of his studio might see a whole gallery of Ethels there represented: when Mrs. Mackenzie visited that place, and remarked one face and figure repeated on a hundred canvases and papers, grey, white, and brown, I believe she was told that the original was a famous Roman model, from whom Clive had studied a great deal during his residence in Italy; on which Mrs. Mack gave it as her opinion that Clive was a sad wicked young fellow. The widow thought rather the better of him for being a sad wicked young fellow; and as for Miss Rosey, she, was of course of mamma's way of thinking. Rosey went through the world constantly smiling at whatever occurred. She was good-humoured through the dreariest long evenings at the most stupid parties; sate good-humouredly for hours at Shoolbred's whilst mamma was making purchases; heard good-humouredly those old old stories of her mother's day after day; bore an hour's joking or an hour's scolding with equal good-humour; and whatever had been the occurrences of her simple day, whether there was sunshine or cloudy weather, or flashes of lightning and bursts of rain, I fancy Miss Mackenzie slept after them quite undisturbedly, and was sure to greet the morrow's dawn with a smile.

Had Clive become more knowing in his travels, had Love or Experience opened his eyes, that they looked so differently now upon objects which before used well enough to please them? It is a fact that, until he went abroad, he thought widow Mackenzie a dashing, lively, agreeable woman: he used to receive her stories about Cheltenham, the colonies, the balls at Government House, the observations which the bishop made, and the peculiar attention of the Chief Justice to Mrs. Major M'Shane, with the Major's uneasy behaviour—all these to hear at one time did Clive not ungraciously incline. "Our friend, Mrs. Mack," the good old Colonel used to say, "is a clever woman of the world, and has seen a great deal of company." That story of Sir Thomas Sadman dropping a pocket-handkerchief in his court at Colombo, which the Queen's Advocate O'Goggarty picked up, and on which Laura MacS. was embroidered, whilst the Major was absolutely in the witness-box giving evidence against a native servant who had stolen one of his cocked-hats—that story always made good Thomas Newcome laugh, and Clive used to enjoy it too, and the widow's mischievous fun in narrating it; and now, behold, one day when Mrs. Mackenzie recounted the anecdote in her best manner to Messrs. Pendennis and Warrington, and Frederick Bayham, who had been invited to meet Mr. Clive in Fitzroy Square—when Mr. Binnie chuckled, when Rosey, as in duty bound, looked discomposed and said, "Law, mamma!"—not one sign of good-humour, not one ghost of a smile, made its apparition on Clive's dreary face. He painted imaginary portraits with a strawberry stalk; he looked into his water-glass as though he would plunge and drown there; and Bayham had to remind him that the claret jug was anxious to have another embrace from its constant friend, F. B. When Mrs. Mack went away distributing smiles, Clive groaned out, "Good heavens! how that story does bore me!" and lapsed into his former moodiness, not giving so much as a glance to Rosey, whose sweet face looked at him kindly for a moment, as she followed in the wake of her mamma.

"The mother's the woman for my money," I heard F. B. whisper to Warrington. "Splendid figure-head, sir—magnificent build, sir, from bows to stern—I like 'em of that sort. Thank you, Mr. Binnie, I will take a back-hander, as Clive don't seem to drink. The youth, sir, has grown melancholy with his travels; I'm inclined to think some noble Roman has stolen the young man's heart. Why did you not send us over a picture of the charmer, Clive? Young Ridley, Mr. Binnie, you will be happy to hear, is bidding fair to take a distinguished place in the world of arts. His picture has been greatly admired; and my good friend Mrs. Ridley tells me that Lord Todmorden has sent him over an order to paint him a couple of pictures at a hundred guineas apiece."

"I should think so. J. J.'s pictures will be worth five times a hundred guineas ere five years are over," says Clive.

"In that case it wouldn't be a bad speculation for our friend Sherrick," remarked F. B., "to purchase a few of the young man's works. I would, only I haven't the capital to spare. Mine has been vested in an Odessa venture, sir, in a large amount of wild oats, which up to the present moment make me no return. But it will always be a consolation to me to think that I have been the means—the humble means—of furthering that deserving young man's prospects in life."

"You, F. B.! and how?" we asked.

"By certain humble contributions of mine to the press," answered Bayham, majestically. "Mr. Warrington, the claret happens to stand with you; and exercise does it good, sir. Yes, the articles, trifling as they may appear, have attracted notice," continued F. B., sipping his wine with great gusto. "They are noticed, Pendennis, give me leave to say, by parties who don't value so much the literary or even the political part of the Pall Mall Gazette, though both, I am told by those who read them, are conducted with considerable—consummate ability. John Ridley sent a hundred pounds over to his father, the other day, who funded it in his son's name. And Ridley told the story to Lord Todmorden, when the venerable nobleman congratulated him on having such a child. I wish F. B. had one of the same sort, sir." In which sweet prayer we all of us joined with a laugh.

One of us had told Mrs. Mackenzie (let the criminal blush to own that quizzing his fellow-creatures used at one time to form part of his youthful amusement) that F. B. was the son of a gentleman of most ancient family and vast landed possessions, and as Bayham was particularly attentive to the widow, and grandiloquent in his remarks, she was greatly pleased by his politeness, and pronounced him a most distinque man—reminding her, indeed, of General Hopkirk, who commanded in Canada. And she bade Rosey sing for Mr. Bayham, who was in a rapture at the young lady's performances, and said no wonder such an accomplished daughter came from such a mother, though how such a mother could have a daughter of such an age he, F. B., was at a loss to understand. Oh, sir! Mrs. Mackenzie was charmed and overcome at this novel compliment. Meanwhile the little artless Rosey warbled on her pretty ditties.

"It is a wonder," growled out Mr. Warrington, "that that sweet girl can belong to such a woman. I don't understand much about women, but that one appears to me to be—hum!"

"What, George?" asked Warrington's friend.

"Well, an ogling, leering, scheming, artful old campaigner," grumbled the misogynist. "As for the little girl, I should like to have her to sing to me all night long. Depend upon it she would make a much better wife for Clive than that fashionable cousin of his he is hankering after. I heard him bellowing about her the other day in chambers, as I was dressing. What the deuce does the boy want with a wife at all?" And Rosey's song being by this time finished, Warrington went up with a blushing face and absolutely paid a compliment to Miss Mackenzie—an almost unheard-of effort on George's part.

"I wonder whether it is every young fellow's lot," quoth George, as we trudged home together, "to pawn his heart away to some girl that's not worth the winning? Psha! it's all mad rubbish this sentiment. The women ought not to be allowed to interfere with us: married if a man must be, a suitable wife should be portioned out to him, and there an end of it. Why doesn't the young man marry this girl, and get back to his business and paint his pictures? Because his father wishes it—and the old Nabob yonder, who seems a kindly-disposed, easy-going, old heathen philosopher. Here's a pretty little girl: money I suppose in sufficiency—everything satisfactory, except, I grant you, the campaigner. The lad might daub his canvases, christen a child a year, and be as happy as any young donkey that browses on this common of ours—but he must go and heehaw after a zebra forsooth! a lusus naturae is she! I never spoke to a woman of fashion, thank my stars—I don't know the nature of the beast; and since I went to our race-balls, as a boy, scarcely ever saw one; as I don't frequent operas and parties in London like you young flunkeys of the aristocracy. I heard you talking about this one; I couldn't help it, as my door was open and the young one was shouting like a madman. What! does he choose to hang on on sufferance and hope to be taken, provided Miss can get no better? Do you mean to say that is the genteel custom, and that women in your confounded society do such things every day? Rather than have such a creature I would take a savage woman, who should nurse my dusky brood; and rather than have a daughter brought up to the trade I would bring her down from the woods and sell her in Virginia." With which burst of indignation our friend's anger ended for that night.

Though Mr. Clive had the felicity to meet his cousin Ethel at a party or two in the ensuing weeks of the season, every time he perused the features of Lady Kew's brass knocker in Queen Street, no result came of the visit. At one of their meetings in the world Ethel fairly told him that her grandmother would not receive him. "You know, Clive, I can't help myself: nor would it be proper to make you signs out of the window. But you must call for all that: grandmamma may become more good-humoured: or if you don't come she may suspect I told you not to come: and to battle with her day after day is no pleasure, sir, I assure you. Here is Lord Farintosh coming to take me to dance. You must not speak to me all the evening, mind that, sir," and away goes the young lady in a waltz with the Marquis.

On the same evening—as he was biting his nails, or cursing his fate, or wishing to invite Lord Farintosh into the neighbouring garden of Berkeley Square, whence the policeman might carry to the station-house the corpse of the survivor,—Lady Kew would bow to him with perfect graciousness; on other nights her ladyship would pass and no more recognise him than the servant who opened the door.

If she was not to see him at her grandmother's house, and was not particularly unhappy at his exclusion, why did Miss Newcome encourage Mr. Clive so that he should try and see her? If Clive could not get into the little house in Queen Street, why was Lord Farintosh's enormous cab-horse looking daily into the first-floor windows of that street? Why were little quiet dinners made for him, before the opera, before going to the play, upon a half-dozen occasions, when some of the old old Kew port was brought out of the cellar, where cobwebs had gathered round it ere Farintosh was born? The dining-room was so tiny that not more than five people could sit at the little round table: that is, not more than Lady Kew and her granddaughter, Miss Crochet, the late vicar's daughter, at Kewbury, one of the Miss Toadins, and Captain Walleye, or Tommy Henchman, Farintosh's kinsman, and admirer, who were of no consequence, or old Fred Tiddler, whose wife was an invalid, and who was always ready at a moment's notice? Crackthorpe once went to one of these dinners, but that young soldier being a frank and high-spirited youth, abused the entertainment and declined more of them. "I tell you what I was wanted for," the Captain told his mess and Clive at the Regent's Park barracks afterwards, "I was expected to go as Farintosh's Groom of the Stole, don't you know, to stand, or if I could sit, in the back seat of the box, whilst his Royal Highness made talk with the Beauty; to go out and fetch the carriage, and walk downstairs with that d—— crooked old dowager, that looks as if she usually rode on a broomstick, by Jove, or else with that bony old painted sheep-faced companion, who's raddled like an old bell-wether. I think, Newcome, you seem rather hit by the Belle Cousine—so was I last season; so were ever so many of the fellows. By Jove, sir! there's nothing I know more comfortable or inspiritin' than a younger son's position, when a marquis cuts in with fifteen thousand a year! We fancy we've been making running, and suddenly we find ourselves nowhere. Miss Mary, or Miss Lucy, or Miss Ethel, saving your presence, will no more look at us, than my dog will look at a bit of bread, when I offer her this cutlet. Will you—old woman! no, you old slut, that you won't!" (to Mag, an Isle of Skye terrier, who, in fact, prefers the cutlet, having snuffed disdainfully at the bread)—"that you won't, no more than any of your sex. Why, do you suppose, if Jack's eldest brother had been dead—Barebones Belsize they used to call him (I don't believe he was a bad fellow, though he was fond of psalm-singing)—do you suppose that Lady Clara would have looked at that cock-tail Barney Newcome? Beg your pardon, if he's your cousin—but a more odious little snob I never saw."

"I give you up Barnes," said Clive, laughing; "anybody may shy at him and I shan't interfere."

"I understand, but at nobody else of the family. Well, what I mean is, that that old woman is enough to spoil any young girl she takes in hand. She dries 'em up, and poisons 'em, sir; and I was never more glad than when I heard that Kew had got out of her old clutches. Frank is a fellow that will always be led by some woman or another; and I'm only glad it should be a good one. They say his mother's serious, and that; but why shouldn't she bet?" continues honest Crackthorpe, puffing his cigar with great energy. "They say the old dowager doesn't believe in God nor devil: but that she's in such a funk to be left in the dark that she howls, and raises the doose's own delight if her candle goes out. Toppleton slept next room to her at Groningham, and heard her; didn't you, Top?"

"Heard her howling like an old cat on the tiles," says Toppleton,—"thought she was at first. My man told me that she used to fling all sorts of things—boot-jacks and things, give you my honour—at her maid, and that the woman was all over black and blue."

"Capital head that is Newcome has done of Jack Belsize!" says Crackthorpe, from out of his cigar.

"And Kew's too—famous likeness! I say, Newcome, if you have 'em printed the whole brigade'll subscribe. Make your fortune, see if you won't," cries Toppleton.

"He's such a heavy swell, he don't want to make his fortune," ejaculates Butts.

"Butts, old boy, he'll paint you for nothing, and send you to the Exhibition, where some widow will fall in love with you, and you shall be put as frontispiece for the 'Book of Beauty,' by Jove," cries another military satirist—to whom Butts:

"You hold your tongue, you old Saracen's Head; they're going to have you done on the bear's-grease pots. I say, I suppose Jack's all right now. When did he write to you last, Cracky?"

"He wrote from Palermo—a most jolly letter from him and Kew. He hasn't touched a card for nine months; is going to give up play. So is Frank, too, grown quite a good boy. So will you, too, Butts, you old miscreant, repent of your sins, pay your debts, and do something handsome for that poor deluded milliner in Albany Street. Jack says Kew's mother has written over to Lord Highgate a beautiful letter—and the old boy's relenting, and they'll come together again—Jack's eldest son now, you know. Bore for Lady Susan only having girls."

"Not a bore for Jack, though," cries another. And what a good fellow Jack was; and what a trump Kew is; how famously he stuck by him: went to see him in prison and paid him out! and what good fellows we all are, in general, became the subject of the conversation, the latter part of which took place in the smoking-room of the Regent's Park Barracks, then occupied by that regiment of Life Guards of which Lord Kew and Mr. Belsize had been members. Both were still fondly remembered by their companions; and it was because Belsize had spoken very warmly of Clive's friendliness to him that Jack's friend the gallant Crackthorpe had been interested in our hero, and found an opportunity of making his acquaintance.

With these frank and pleasant young men Clive soon formed a considerable intimacy: and if any of his older and peaceful friends chanced to take their afternoon airing in the Park, and survey the horsemen there, we might have the pleasure of beholding Mr. Newcome in Rotten Row, riding side by side with other dandies who had mustachios blonde or jet, who wore flowers in their buttons (themselves being flowers of spring), who rode magnificent thoroughbred horses, scarcely touching their stirrups with the tips of their varnished boots, and who kissed the most beautiful primrose-coloured kid gloves to lovely ladies passing them in the Ride. Clive drew portraits of half the officers of the Life Guards Green; and was appointed painter in ordinary to that distinguished corps. His likeness of the Colonel would make you die with laughing: his picture of the Surgeon was voted a masterpiece. He drew the men in the saddle, in the stable, in their flannel dresses, sweeping their flashing swords about, receiving lancers, repelling infantry,—nay, cutting—a sheep in two, as some of the warriors are known to be able to do at one stroke. Detachments of Life Guardsmen made their appearance in Charlotte Street, which was not very distant from their barracks; the most splendid cabs were seen prancing before his door; and curly-whiskered youths, of aristocratic appearance, smoking cigars out of his painting-room window. How many times did Clive's next-door neighbour, little Mr Finch, the miniature-painter, run to peep through his parlour blinds, hoping that a sitter was coming, and "a carriage-party" driving up! What wrath Mr. Scowler, A.R.A., was in, because a young hop-o'-my-thumb dandy, who wore gold chains and his collars turned down, should spoil the trade and draw portraits for nothing! Why did none of the young men come to Scowler? Scowler was obliged to own that Mr. Newcome had considerable talent, and a good knack at catching a likeness. He could not paint a bit, to be sure, but his heads in black-and-white were really tolerable; his sketches of horses very vigorous and lifelike. Mr. Gandish said if Clive would come for three or four years into his academy he could make something of him. Mr. Smee shook his head, and said he was afraid, that kind of loose, desultory study, that keeping of aristocratic company, was anything but favourable to a young artist—Smee, who would walk five miles to attend an evening party of ever so little a great man!



CHAPTER XLIV. In which Mr. Charles Honeyman appears in an Amiable Light

Mr. Frederick Bayham waited at Fitzroy Square while Clive was yet talking with his friends there, and favoured that gentleman with his company home to the usual smoky refreshment. Clive always rejoiced in F. B.'s society, whether he was in a sportive mood, or, as now, in a solemn and didactic vein. F. B. had been more than ordinarily majestic all the evening. "I dare say you find me a good deal altered, Clive," he remarked; "I am a good deal altered. Since that good Samaritan, your kind father, had compassion on a poor fellow fallen among thieves (though I don't say, mind you, he was much better than his company), F. B. has mended some of his ways. I am trying a course of industry, sir. Powers, perhaps naturally great, have been neglected over the wine-cup and the die. I am beginning to feel my way; and my chiefs yonder, who have just walked home with their cigars in their mouths, and without as much as saying, F. B., my boy, shall we go to the Haunt and have a cool lobster and a glass of table-beer,—which they certainly do not consider themselves to be,—I say, sir, the Politician and the Literary Critic" (there was a most sarcastic emphasis laid on these phrases, characterising Messrs. Warrington and Pendennis) "may find that there is a humble contributor to the Pall Mall Gazette, whose name, may be, the amateur shall one day reckon even higher than their own. Mr. Warrington I do not say so much—he is an able man, sir, an able man;—but there is that about your exceedin self-satisfied friend, Mr. Arthur Pendennis, which—well, well—let time show. You did not—get the—hem—paper at Rome and Naples, I suppose?"

"Forbidden by the Inquisition," says Clive, delighted; "and at Naples the king furious against it."

"I don't wonder they don't like it at Rome, sir. There's serious matter in it which may set the prelates of a certain Church rather in a tremor. You haven't read—the—ahem—the Pulpit Pencillings in the P. M. G.? Slight sketches, mental and corporeal, of our chief divines now in London—and signed Latimer?"

"I don't do much in that way," said Clive.

"So much the worse for you, my young friend. Not that I mean to judge any other fellow harshly—I mean any other fellow sinner harshly—or that I mean that those Pulpit Pencillings would be likely to do you any great good. But, such as they are, they have been productive of benefit.—Thank you, Mary, and my dear, the tap is uncommonly good, and I drink to your future husband's good health.—A glass of good sound beer refreshes after all that claret. Well, sir, to return to the Pencillings, pardon my vanity in saying, that though Mr. Pendennis laughs at them, they have been of essential service to the paper. They give it a character, they rally round it the respectable classes. They create correspondence. I have received many interesting letters, chiefly from females, about the Pencillings. Some complain that their favourite preachers are slighted; others applaud because the clergymen they sit under are supported by F. B. I am Laud Latimer, sir,—though I have heard the letters attributed to the Rev. Mr. Bunker, and to a Member of Parliament eminent in the religious world."

"So you are the famous Laud Latimer?" cries Clive, who had, in fact, seen letters signed by those right reverend names in our paper.

"Famous is hardly the word. One who scoffs at everything—I need not say I allude to Mr. Arthur Pendennis—would have had the letters signed—the Beadle, of the Parish. He calls me the Venerable Beadle sometimes—it being, I grieve to say, his way to deride grave subjects. You wouldn't suppose now, my young Clive, that the same hand which pens the Art criticisms, occasionally, when His Highness Pendennis is lazy, takes a minor theatre, or turns the sportive epigram, or the ephemeral paragraph, should adopt a grave theme on a Sunday, and chronicle the sermons of British divines? For eighteen consecutive Sunday evenings, Clive, in Mrs. Ridley's front parlour, which I now occupy, vice Miss Cann promoted, I have written the Pencillings—scarcely allowing a drop of refreshment, except under extreme exhaustion, to pass my lips. Pendennis laughs at the Pencillings. He wants to stop them; and says they bore the public.—I don't want to think a man is jealous, who was himself the cause of my engagement at the P. M. G.,—perhaps my powers were not developed then."

"Pen thinks he writes better now than when he began," remarked Clive; "I have heard him say so."

"His opinion of his own writings is high, whatever their date. Mine, sir, are only just coming into notice. They begin to know F. B., sir, in the sacred edifices of his metropolitan city. I saw the Bishop of London looking at me last Sunday week, and am sure his chaplain whispered him, 'It's Mr. Bayham, my lord, nephew of your lordship's right reverend brother, the Lord Bishop of Bullocksmithy.' And last Sunday being at church—at Saint Mungo the Martyr's, Rev. Sawders—by Wednesday I got in a female hand—Mrs. Sawders's, no doubt—the biography of the Incumbent of St. Mungo; an account of his early virtues; a copy of his poems; and a hint that he was the gentleman destined for the vacant Deanery.

"Ridley is not the only man I have helped in this world," F. B. continued. "Perhaps I should blush to own it—I do blush: but I feel the ties of early acquaintance, and I own that I have puffed your uncle, Charles Honeyman, most tremendously. It was partly for the sake of the Ridleys and the tick he owes 'em: partly for old times' sake. Sir, are you aware that things are greatly changed with Charles Honeyman, and that the poor F. B. has very likely made his fortune?"

"I am delighted to hear it," cried Clive; "and how, F. B., have you wrought this miracle?"

"By common sense and enterprise, lad—by a knowledge of the world and a benevolent disposition. You'll see Lady Whittlesea's Chapel bears a very different aspect now. That miscreant Sherrick owns that he owes me a turn, and has sent me a few dozen of wine—without any stamped paper on my part in return—as an acknowledgment of my service. It chanced, sir, soon after your departure for Italy, that going to his private residence respecting a little bill to which a heedless friend had put his hand, Sherrick invited me to partake of tea in the bosom of his family. I was thirsty—having walked in from Jack Straw's Castle at Hampstead, where poor Kitely and I had been taking a chop—and accepted the proffered entertainment. The ladies of the family gave us music after the domestic muffin—and then, sir, a great idea occurred to me. You know how magnificently Miss Sherrick and the mother sing? Thy sang Mozart, sir. Why, I asked of Sherrick, should those ladies who sing Mozart to a piano, not sing Handel to an organ?

"'Dash it, you don't mean a hurdy-gurdy?'"

"'Sherrick,' says I, 'you are no better than a heathen ignoramus. I mean why shouldn't they sing Handes Church Music, and Church Music in general in Lady Whittlesea's Chapel? Behind the screen up in the organ-loft what's to prevent 'em? By Jingo! Your singing-boys have gone to the Cave of Harmody; you and your choir have split—why should not these ladies lead it?' He caught at the idea. You never heard the chants more finely given—and they would be better still if the congregation would but hold their confounded tongues. It was an excellent though a harmless dodge, sir: and drew immensely, to speak profanely. They dress the part, sir, to admiration—a sort of nunlike costume they come in: Mrs. Sherrick has the soul of an artist still—by Jove, sir, when they have once smelt the lamps, the love of the trade never leaves 'em. The ladies actually practised by moonlight in the Chapel, and came over to Honeyman's to an oyster afterwards. The thing took, sir. People began to take box-seats, I mean, again:—and Charles Honeyman, easy in his mind through your noble father's generosity, perhaps inspirited by returning good fortune, has been preaching more eloquently than ever. He took some lessons of Husler, of the Haymarket, sir. His sermons are old, I believe; but so to speak, he has got them up with new scenery, dresses, and effects, sir. They have flowers, sir, about the buildin'—pious ladies are supposed to provide 'em, but, entre nous, Sherrick contracts for them with Nathan, or some one in Covent Garden. And—don't tell this now, upon your honour!"

"Tell what, F. B.?" asks Clive.

"I got up a persecution against your uncle for Popish practices summoned a meetin' at the Running Footman, in Bolingbroke Street. Billings the butterman; Sharwood, the turner and blacking-maker; and the Honourable Phelin O'Curragh, Lord Scullabogue's son, made speeches. Two or three respectable families (your aunt, Mrs. What-d'-you-call-'em Newcome, amongst the number) quitted the Chapel in disgust—I wrote an article of controversial biography in the P. M. G.; set the business going in the daily press; and the thing was done, sir. That property is a paying one to the Incumbent, and to Sherrick over him. Charles's affairs are getting all right, sir. He never had the pluck to owe much, and if it be a sin to have wiped his slate clean, satisfied his creditors, and made Charles easy—upon my conscience, I must confess that F. B. has done it. I hope I may never do anything worse in this life, Clive. It ain't bad to see him doing the martyr, sir: Sebastian riddled with paper pellets; Bartholomew on a cold gridiron. Here comes the lobster. Upon my word, Mary, a finer fish I've seldom seen."

Now surely this account of his uncle's affairs and prosperity was enough to send Clive to Lady Whittlesea's Chapel, and it was not because Miss Ethel had said that she and Lady Kew went there that Clive was induced to go there too? He attended punctually on the next Sunday, and in the incumbent's pew, whither the pew-woman conducted him, sate Mr. Sherrick in great gravity, with large gold pins, who handed him, at the anthem, a large, new, gilt hymn-book.

An odour of millefleurs rustled by them as Charles Honeyman accompanied by his ecclesiastical valet, passed the pew from the vestry, and took his place at the desk. Formerly he used to wear a flaunting scarf over his surplice, which was very wide and full; and Clive remembered when as a boy he entered the sacred robing-room, how his uncle used to pat and puff out the scarf and the sleeves of his vestment, and to arrange the natty curl on his forehead and take his place, a fine example of florid church decoration. Now the scarf was trimmed down to be as narrow as your neckcloth, and hung loose and straight over the back; the ephod was cut straight and as close and short as might be,—I believe there was a little trimming of lace to the narrow sleeves, and a slight arabesque of tape, or other substance, round the edge of the surplice. As for the curl on the forehead, it was no more visible than the Maypole in the Strand, or the Cross at Charing. Honeyman's hair was parted down the middle, short in front, and curling delicately round his ears and the back of his head. He read the service in a swift manner, and with a gentle twang. When the music began, he stood with head on one side, and two slim fingers on the book, as composed as a statue in a mediaeval niche. It was fine to hear Sherrick, who had an uncommonly good voice, join in the musical parts of the service. The produce of the market-gardener decorated the church here and there; and the impresario of the establishment, having picked up a Flemish painted window from old Moss in Wardour Street, had placed it in his chapel. Labels of faint green and gold, with long Gothic letters painted thereon, meandered over the organ-loft and galleries, and strove to give as mediaeval a look to Lady Whittlesea's as the place was capable of assuming.

In the sermon Charles dropped the twang with the surplice, and the priest gave way to the preacher. He preached short stirring discourses on the subjects of the day. It happened that a noble young prince, the hope of a nation, and heir of a royal house, had just then died by a sudden accident. Absalom, the son of David, furnished Honeyman with a parallel. He drew a picture of the two deaths, of the grief of kings, of the fate that is superior to them. It was, indeed, a stirring discourse, and caused thrills through the crowd to whom Charles imparted it. "Famous, ain't it?" says Sherrick, giving Clive a hand when the rite was over. "How he's come out, hasn't he? Didn't think he had it in him." Sherrick seemed to have become of late impressed with the splendour of Charles's talents, and spoke of him—was it not disrespectful?—as a manager would of a successful tragedian. Let us pardon Sherrick: he had been in the theatrical way. "That Irishman was no go at all," he whispered to Mr. Newcome, "got rid of him,—let's see, at Michaelmas."

On account of Clive's tender years, and natural levity, a little inattention may be allowed to the youth, who certainly looked about him very eagerly during the service. The house was filled by the ornamental classes, the bonnets of the newest Parisian fashion. Away in a darkling corner, under the organ, sate a squad of footmen. Surely that powdered one in livery wore Lady Kew's colours? So Clive looked under all the bonnets, and presently spied old Lady Kew's face, as grim and yellow as her brass knocker, and by it Ethel's beauteous countenance. He dashed out of church when the congregation rose to depart. "Stop and see Honeyman, won't you?" asked Sherrick, surprised.

"Yes, yes; come back again," said Clive, and was gone.

He kept his word, and returned presently. The young Marquis and an elderly lady were in Lady Kew's company. Clive had passed close under Lady Kew's venerable Roman nose without causing that organ to bow in ever so slight a degree towards the ground. Ethel had recognised him with a smile and a nod. My lord was whispering one of his noble pleasantries in her ear. She laughed at the speech or the speaker. The steps of a fine belozenged carriage were let down with a bang. The Yellow One had jumped up behind it, by the side of his brother Giant Canary. Lady Kew's equipage had disappeared, and Mrs. Canterton's was stopping the way.

Clive returned to the chapel by the little door near to the Vestiarium. All the congregation had poured out by this time. Only two ladies were standing near the pulpit; and Sherrick, with his hands rattling his money in his pockets, was pacing up and down the aisle.

"Capital house, Mr. Newcome, wasn't it? I counted no less than fourteen nobs. The Princess of Moncontour and her husband, I suppose, that chap with the beard, who yawns so during the sermon. I'm blessed, if I didn't think he'd have yawned his head off. Countess of Kew, and her daughter; Countess of Canterton, and the Honourable Miss Fetlock—no, Lady Fetlock. A Countess's daughter is a lady, I'm dashed if she ain't. Lady Glenlivat and her sons; the most noble the Marquis of Farintosh, and Lord Enry Roy; that makes seven—no, nine—with the Prince and Princess.—Julia, my dear, you came out like a good un to-day. Never heard you in finer voice. Remember Mr. Clive Newcome?"

Mr. Clive made bows to the ladies, who acknowledged him by graceful curtsies. Miss Sherrick was always looking to the vestry-door.

"How's the old Colonel? The best feller—excuse my calling him a feller—but he is, and a good one too. I went to see Mr. Binnie, my other tenant. He looks a little yellow about the gills, Mr. Binnie. Very proud woman that is who lives with him—uncommon haughty. When will you come down and take your mutton in the Regent's Park, Mr. Clive? There's some tolerable good wine down there. Our reverend gent drops in and takes a glass, don't he, missis?"

"We shall be most 'appy to see Mr. Newcome, I'm sure," says the handsome and good-natured Mrs. Sherrick. "Won't we, Julia?"

"Oh, certainly," says Julia, who seems rather absent. And behold, at this moment the reverend gent enters from the vestry. Both the ladies run towards him, holding forth their hands.

"Oh, Mr. Honeyman! What a sermon! Me and Julia cried so up in the organ-loft; we thought you would have heard us. Didn't we, Julia?"

"Oh, yes," says Julia, whose hand the pastor is now pressing.

"When you described the young man, I thought of my poor boy, didn't I, Julia?" cries the mother, with tears streaming down her face.

"We had a loss more than ten years ago," whispers Sherrick to Clive gravely. "And she's always thinking of it. Women are so."

Clive was touched and pleased by this exhibition of kind feeling.

"You know his mother was an Absalom," the good wife continues, pointing to her husband. "Most respectable diamond merchants in——"

"Hold your tongue, Betsy, and leave my poor old mother alone; do now," says Mr. Sherrick darkly. Clive is in his uncle's fond embrace by this time, who rebukes him for not having called in Walpole Street.

"Now, when will you two gents come up to my shop to 'ave a family dinner?" asks Sherrick.

"Ah, Mr. Newcome, do come," says Julia in her deep rich voice, looking up to him with her great black eyes. And if Clive had been a vain fellow like some folks, who knows but he might have thought he had made an impression on the handsome Julia?

"Thursday, now make it Thursday, if Mr. H. is disengaged. Come along, girls, for the flies bites the ponies when they're a-standing still and makes 'em mad this weather. Anything you like for dinner? Cut of salmon and cucumber? No, pickled salmon's best this weather."