"Here's little Newcome coming," says Mr. Horace Fogey. "He and the muffin-man generally make their appearance in public together."

"Dashed little prig," says Sir Thomas de Boots, "why the dash did they ever let him in here? If I hadn't been in India, by dash—he should have been blackballed twenty times over, by dash." Only Sir Thomas used words far more terrific than dash, for this distinguished cavalry officer swore very freely.

"He amuses me; he's such a mischievous little devil," says good-natured Charley Heavyside.

"It takes very little to amuse you," remarks Fogey.

"You don't, Fogey," answers Charley. "I know every one of your demd old stories, that are as old as my grandmother. How-dy-do, Barney?" (Enter Barnes Newcome.) "How are the Three per Cents, you little beggar? I wish you'd do me a bit of stiff; and just tell your father, if I may overdraw my account I'll vote with him—hanged if I don't."

Barnes orders absinthe-and-water, and drinks: Heavyside resuming his elegant raillery. "I say, Barney, your name's Barney, and you're a banker. You must be a little Jew, hey? Vell, how mosh vill you to my little pill for?"

"Do hee-haw in the House of Commons, Heavyside," says the young man with a languid air. "That's your place: you're returned for it." (Captain the Honourable Charles Heavyside is a member of the legislature, and eminent in the House for asinine imitations which delight his own, and confuse the other party.) "Don't bray here. I hate the shop out of shop hours."

"Dash the little puppy," growls Sir de Boots, swelling in his waistband.

"What do they say about the Russians in the City?" says Horace Fogey, who has been in the diplomatic service. "Has the fleet left Cronstadt, or has it not?"

"How should I know?" asks Barney. "Ain't it all in the evening paper?"

"That is very uncomfortable news from India, General," resumes Fogey—"there's Lady Doddington's carriage, how well she looks—that movement of Runjeet-Singh on Peshawur: that fleet on the Irrawaddy. It looks doocid queer, let me tell you, and Penguin is not the man to be Governor-General of India in a time of difficulty."

"And Hustler's not the man to be Commander-in-Chief: dashder old fool never lived: a dashed old psalm-singing, blundering old woman," says Sir Thomas, who wanted the command himself.

"You ain't in the psalm-singing line, Sir Thomas," says Mr. Barnes; "quite the contrary." In fact, Sir de Boots in his youth used to sing with the Duke of York, and even against Captain Costigan, but was beaten by that superior bacchanalian artist.

Sir Thomas looks as if to ask what the dash is that to you? but wanting still to go to India again, and knowing how strong the Newcomes are in Leadenhall Street, he thinks it necessary to be civil to the young cub, and swallows his wrath once more into his waistband.

"I've got an uncle come home from India—upon my word I have," says Barnes Newcome. "That is why I am so exhausted. I am going to buy him a pair of gloves, number fourteen—and I want a tailor for him—not a young man's tailor. Fogey's tailor rather. I'd take my father's; but he has all his things made in the country—all—in the borough, you know—he's a public man."

"Is Colonel Newcome, of the Bengal Cavalry, your uncle?" asks Sir Thomas de Boots.

"Yes; will you come and meet him at dinner next Wednesday week, Sir Thomas? and, Fogey, you come; you know you like a good dinner. You don't know anything against my uncle, do you, Sir Thomas? Have I any Brahminical cousins? Need we be ashamed of him?"

"I tell you what, young man, if you were more like him it wouldn't hurt you. He's an odd man; they call him Don Quixote in India; I suppose you've read Don Quixote?"

"Never heard of it, upon my word; and why do you wish I should be more like him? I don't wish to be like him at all, thank you."

"Why, because he is one of the bravest officers that ever lived," roared out the old soldier. "Because he's one of the kindest fellows; because he gives himself no dashed airs, although he has reason to be proud if he chose. That's why, Mr. Newcome."

"A topper for you, Barney, my boy," remarks Charles Heavyside, as the indignant General walks away gobbling and red. Barney calmly drinks the remains of his absinthe.

"I don't know what that old muff means," he says innocently, when he has finished his bitter draught. "He's always flying out at me, the old turkey-cock. He quarrels with my play at whist, the old idiot, and can no more play than an old baby. He pretends to teach me billiards, and I'll give him fifteen in twenty and beat his old head off. Why do they let such fellows into clubs? Let's have a game at piquet till dinner, Heavyside. Hallo! That's my uncle, that tall man with the mustachios and the short trousers, walking with that boy of his. I dare say they are going to dine in Covent Garden, and going to the play. How-dy-do, Nunky?"—and so the worthy pair went up to the card-room, where they sate at piquet until the hour of sunset and dinner arrived.



CHAPTER VII. In which Mr. Clive's School-days are over

Our good Colonel had luckily to look forward to a more pleasant meeting with his son, than that unfortunate interview with his other near relatives. He dismissed his cab at Ludgate Hill, and walked thence by the dismal precincts of Newgate, and across the muddy pavement of Smithfield, on his way back to the old school where his son was, a way which he had trodden many a time in his own early days. There was Cistercian Street, and the Red Cow of his youth: there was the quaint old Grey Friars Square, with its blackened trees and garden, surrounded by ancient houses of the build of the last century, now slumbering like pensioners in the sunshine.

Under the great archway of the hospital he could look at the old Gothic building: and a black-gowned pensioner or two crawling over the quiet square, or passing from one dark arch to another. The boarding-houses of the school were situated in the square, hard by the more ancient buildings of the hospital. A great noise of shouting, crying, clapping forms and cupboards, treble voices, bass voices, poured out of the schoolboys' windows: their life, bustle, and gaiety contrasted strangely with the quiet of those old men creeping along in their black gowns under the ancient arches yonder, whose struggle of life was over, whose hope and noise and bustle had sunk into that grey calm. There was Thomas Newcome arrived at the middle of life, standing between the shouting boys and the tottering seniors, and in a situation to moralise upon both, had not his son Clive, who has espied him from within Mr. Hopkinson's, or let us say at once Hopkey's house, come jumping down the steps to greet his sire. Clive was dressed in his very best; not one of those four hundred young gentlemen had a better figure, a better tailor, or a neater boot. Schoolfellows, grinning through the bars, envied him as he walked away; senior boys made remarks on Colonel Newcome's loose clothes and long mustachios, his brown hands and unbrushed hat. The Colonel was smoking a cheroot as he walked; and the gigantic Smith, the cock of the school, who happened to be looking majestically out of window, was pleased to say that he thought Newcome's governor was a fine manly-looking fellow.

"Tell me about your uncles, Clive," said the Colonel, as they walked on arm in arm.

"What about them, sir?" asks the boy. "I don't think I know much."

"You have been to stay with them. You wrote about them. Were they kind to you?"

"Oh, yes, I suppose they are very kind. They always tipped me: only you know when I go there I scarcely ever see them. Mr. Newcome asks me the oftenest—two or three times a quarter when he's in town, and gives me a sovereign regular."

"Well, he must see you to give you the sovereign," says Clive's father, laughing.

The boy blushed rather.

"Yes. When it's time to go back to Smithfield on a Sunday night, I go into the dining-room to shake hands, and he gives it me; but he don't speak to me much, you know, and I don't care about going to Bryanstone Square, except for the tip, of course that's important, because I am made to dine with the children, and they are quite little ones; and a great cross French governess, who is always crying and shrieking after them, and finding fault with them. My uncle generally has his dinner-parties on Saturday, or goes out; and aunt gives me ten shillings and sends me to the play; that's better fun than a dinner-party." Here the lad blushed again. "I used," says he, "when I was younger, to stand on the stairs and prig things out of the dishes when they came out from dinner, but I'm past that now. Maria (that's my cousin) used to take the sweet things and give 'em to the governess. Fancy! she used to put lumps of sugar into her pocket and eat them in the schoolroom! Uncle Hobson don't live in such good society as Uncle Newcome. You see, Aunt Hobson, she's very kind, you know, and all that, but I don't think she's what you call comme il faut."

"Why, how are you to judge?" asks the father, amused at the lad's candid prattle, "and where does the difference lie?"

"I can't tell you what it is, or how it is," the boy answered, "only one can't help seeing the difference. It isn't rank and that; only somehow there are some men gentlemen and some not, and some women ladies and some not. There's Jones now, the fifth form master, every man sees he's a gentleman, though he wears ever so old clothes; and there's Mr. Brown, who oils his hair, and wears rings, and white chokers—my eyes! such white chokers!—and yet we call him the handsome snob! And so about Aunt Maria, she's very handsome and she's very finely dressed, only somehow she's not—she's not the ticket, you see."

"Oh, she's not the ticket," says the Colonel, much amused.

"Well, what I mean is—but never mind," says the boy. "I can't tell you what I mean. I don't like to make fun of her, you know, for after all, she is very kind to me; but Aunt Anne is different, and it seems as if what she says is more natural; and though she has funny ways of her own too, yet somehow she looks grander,"—and here the lad laughed again. "And do you know, I often think that as good a lady as Aunt Anne herself, is old Aunt Honeyman at Brighton—that is, in all essentials, you know. For she is not proud, and she is not vain, and she never says an unkind word behind anybody's back, and she does a deal of kindness to the poor without appearing to crow over them, you know; and she is not a bit ashamed of letting lodgings, or being poor herself, as sometimes I think some of our family——"

"I thought we were going to speak no ill of them?" says the Colonel, smiling.

"Well, it only slipped out unawares," says Clive, laughing; "but at Newcome when they go on about the Newcomes, and that great ass, Barnes Newcome, gives himself his airs, it makes me die of laughing. That time I went down to Newcome, I went to see old Aunt Sarah, and she told me everything, and showed me the room where my grandfather—you know; and do you know I was a little hurt at first, for I thought we were swells till then. And when I came back to school, where perhaps I had been giving myself airs, and bragging about Newcome, why, you know, I thought it was right to tell the fellows."

"That's a man," said the Colonel, with delight; though had he said, "That's a boy," he had spoken more correctly. Indeed, how many men do we know in the world without caring to know who their fathers were? and how many more who wisely do not care to tell us? "That's a man," cries the Colonel; "never be ashamed of your father, Clive."

"Ashamed of my father!" says Clive, looking up to him, and walking on as proud as a peacock. "I say," the lad resumed, after a pause—

"Say what you say," said the father.

"Is that all true what's in the Peerage—in the Baronetage, about Uncle Newcome and Newcome; about the Newcome who was burned at Smithfield; about the one that was at the battle of Bosworth; and the old old Newcome who was bar—that is, who was surgeon to Edward the Confessor, and was killed at Hastings? I am afraid it isn't; and yet I should like it to be true."

"I think every man would like to come of an ancient and honourable race," said the Colonel, in his honest way. "As you like your father to be an honourable man, why not your grandfather, and his ancestors before him? But if we can't inherit a good name, at least we can do our best to leave one, my boy; and that is an ambition which, please God, you and I will both hold by."

With this simple talk the old and young gentleman beguiled their way, until they came into the western quarter of the town, where the junior member of the firm of Newcome Brothers had his house—a handsome and roomy mansion in Bryanstone Square. Colonel Newcome was bent on paying a visit to his sister-in-law, and as he knocked at the door, where the pair were kept waiting some little time, he could remark through the opened windows of the dining-room, that a great table was laid and every preparation made for a feast.

"My brother said he was engaged to dinner to-day," said the Colonel. "Does Mrs. Newcome give parties when he is away?"

"She invites all the company," answered Clive. "My uncle never asks any one without aunt's leave."

The Colonel's countenance fell. He has a great dinner, and does not ask his own brother! Newcome thought. Why, if he had come to me in India with all his family, he might have stayed for a year, and I should have been offended if he had gone elsewhere.

A hot menial, in a red waistcoat, came and opened the door; and without waiting for preparatory queries, said, "Not at home."

"It's my father, John," said Clive; "my aunt will see Colonel Newcome."

"Missis not at home," said the man. "Missis is gone in carriage—Not at this door!-Take them things down the area steps, young man!" bawls out the domestic. This latter speech was addressed to a pastrycook's boy, with a large sugar temple and many conical papers containing delicacies for dessert. "Mind the hice is here in time; or there'll be a blow-up with your governor,"—and John struggled back, closing the door on the astonished Colonel.

"Upon my life, they actually shut the door in our faces," said the poor gentleman.

"The man is very busy, sir. There's a great dinner. I'm sure my aunt would not refuse you," Clive interposed. "She is very kind. I suppose it's different here to what it is in India, here are the children in the square,—those are the girls in blue,—that's the French governess, the one with the mustachios and the yellow parasol. How d'ye do, Mary? How d'ye do, Fanny? This is my father,—this is your uncle."

"Mesdemoiselles! Je vous ddfends de parler a qui que ce soit hors du squar!" screams out the lady of the mustachios; and she strode forward to call back her young charges.

The Colonel addressed her in very good French. "I hope you will permit me to make acquaintance with my nieces," he said, "and with their instructress, of whom my son has given me such a favourable account."

"Hem!" said Mademoiselle Lebrun, remembering the last fight she and Clive had had together, and a portrait of herself (with enormous whiskers) which the young scapegrace had drawn. "Monsieur is very good. But one cannot too early inculcate retenue and decorum to young ladies in a country where demoiselles seem for ever to forget that they are young ladies of condition. I am forced to keep the eyes of lynx upon these young persons, otherwise heaven knows what would come to them. Only yesterday, my back is turned for a moment, I cast my eyes on a book, having but little time for literature, monsieur—for literature, which I adore—when a cry makes itself to hear. I turn myself, and what do I see? Mesdemoiselles, your nieces, playing at criquette, with the Messieurs Smees—sons of Doctor Smees—young galopins, monsieur!" All this was shrieked with immense volubility and many actions of the hand and parasol across the square-railings to the amused Colonel, at whom the little girls peered through the bars.

"Well, my dears, I should like to have a game at cricket with you, too," says the kind gentleman, reaching them each a brown hand.

"You, monsieur, c'est different—a man of your age! Salute monsieur, your uncle, mesdemoiselles. You conceive, monsieur, that I also must be cautious when I speak to a man so distinguished in a public squar." And she cast down her great eyes and hid those radiant orbs from the Colonel.

Meanwhile, Colonel Newcome, indifferent to the direction which Miss Lebrun's eyes took, whether towards his hat or his boots, was surveying his little nieces with that kind expression which his face always wore when it was turned towards children. "Have you heard of your uncle in India?" he asked them.

"No," says Maria.

"Yes," says Fanny. "You know mademoiselle said" (mademoiselle at this moment was twittering her fingers, and, as it were, kissing them in the direction of a grand barouche that was advancing along the Square)—"you know mademoiselle said that if we were mechantes we should be sent to our uncle in India. I think I should like to go with you."

"O you silly child!" cries Maria.

"Yes I should, if Clive went too," says little Fanny.

"Behold madam, who arrives from her promenade!" Miss Lebrun exclaimed; and, turning round, Colonel Newcome had the satisfaction of beholding, for the first time, his sister-in-law.

A stout lady, with fair hair and a fine bonnet and pelisse (who knows what were the fine bonnets and pelisses of the year 183-?), was reclining in the barouche, the scarlet-plush integuments of her domestics blazing before and behind her. A pretty little foot was on the cushion opposite to her; feathers waved in her bonnet; a book was in her lap; an oval portrait of a gentleman reposed on her voluminous bosom. She wore another picture of two darling heads, with pink cheeks and golden hair, on one of her wrists, with many more chains, bracelets, bangles, and knick-knacks. A pair of dirty gloves marred the splendour of this appearance; a heap of books from the library strewed the back seat of the carriage, and showed that her habits were literary. Springing down from his station behind his mistress, the youth clad in the nether garments of red sammit discharged thunderclaps on the door of Mrs. Newcome's house, announcing to the whole Square that his mistress had returned to her abode. Since the fort saluted the Governor-General at ———, Colonel Newcome had never heard such a cannonading.

Clive, with a queer twinkle of his eyes, ran towards his aunt.

She bent over the carriage languidly towards him. She liked him. "What, you, Clive?" she said. "How come you away from school of a Thursday, sir?"

"It is a holiday," says he. "My father is come; and he is come to see you."

She bowed her head with an expression of affable surprise and majestic satisfaction. "Indeed, Clive!" she was good enough to exclaim and with an air which seemed to say, "Let him come up and be presented to me." The honest gentleman stepped forward and took off his hat and bowed, and stood bareheaded. She surveyed him blandly, and with infinite grace put forward one of the pudgy little hands in one of the dirty gloves. Can you fancy a twopenny-halfpenny baroness of King Francis's time patronising Bayard? Can you imagine Queen Guinever's lady's-maid's lady's maid being affable to Sir Lancelot? I protest there is nothing like the virtue of English women.

"You have only arrived to-day, and you came to see me? That was very kind. N'est-ce pas que c'etoit bong de Mouseer le Collonel, mademoiselle? Madamaselle Lebrun, le Collonel Newcome, mong frere." (In a whisper, "My children's governess and my friend, a most superior woman.") "Was it not kind of Colonel Newcome to come to see me? Have you had a pleasant voyage? Did you come by St. Helena? Oh, how I envy you seeing the tomb of that great man! Nous parlong de Napolleong, mademoiselle, dong voter pere a ete le General favvory."

"O Dieu! que n'ai je pu le voir," interjaculates mademoiselle. "Lui dont parle l'univers, dont mon pere m'a si souvent parle!" but this remark passes quite unnoticed by mademoiselle's friend, who continues:

"Clive, donnez-moi voter bras. These are two of my girls. My boys are at school. I shall be so glad to introduce them to their uncle. This naughty boy might never have seen you, but that we took him home to Marblehead, after the scarlet fever, and made him well, didn't we, Clive? And we are all very fond of him, and you must not be jealous of his love for his aunt. We feel that we quite know you through him, and we know that you know us, and we hope you will like us. Do you think your pa will like us, Clive? Or perhaps you will like Lady Anne best? Yes; you have been to her first, of course? Not been? Oh! because she is not in town." Leaning fondly on the arm of Clive, mademoiselle standing grouped with the children hard by while John, with his hat off, stood at the opened door, Mr Newcome slowly uttered the above remarkable remarks to the Colonel, on the threshold of her house, which she never asked him to pass.

"If you will come in to us at about ten this evening," she then said, "you will find some men, not undistinguished, who honour me of an evening. Perhaps they will be interesting to you, Colonel Newcome, as you are newly arrived in Europe. Not men of worldly rank, necessarily, although some of them are amongst the noblest of Europe. But my maxim is, that genius is an illustration, and merit is better than any pedigree. You have heard of Professor Bodgers? Count Poski? Doctor McGuffog, who is called in his native country the Ezekiel of Clackmannan? Mr. Shaloony, the great Irish patriot? our papers have told you of him. These and some more I have been good enough to promise me a visit to-night. A stranger coming to London could scarcely have a better opportunity of seeing some of our great illustrations of science and literature. And you will meet our own family—not Sir Brian's, who—who have other society and amusements—but mine. I hope Mr. Newcome and myself will never forget them. We have a few friends at dinner, and now I must go in and consult with Mrs. Hubbard, my housekeeper. Good-bye for the present. Mind, not later than ten, as Mr. Newcome must be up betimes in the morning, and our parties break up early. When Clive is a little older, I dare say we shall see him, too. Good-bye!" And again the Colonel was favoured with a shake of the glove, and the lady and her suite sailed up the stair, and passed in at the door.

She had not the faintest idea but that the hospitality which she was offering to her kinsman was of the most cordial and pleasant kind. She fancied everything she did was perfectly right and graceful. She invited her husband's clerks to come through the rain at ten o'clock from Kentish Town; she asked artists to bring their sketch-books from Kensington, or luckless pianists to trudge with their music from Brompton. She rewarded them with a smile and a cup of tea, and thought they were made happy by her condescension. If, after two or three of these delightful evenings, they ceased to attend her receptions, she shook her little flaxen head, and sadly intimated that Mr. A. was getting into bad courses, or feared that Mr. B. found merely intellectual parties too quiet for him. Else, what young man in his senses could refuse such entertainment and instruction?



CHAPTER VIII. Mrs. Newcome at Home (a Small Early Party)

To push on in the crowd, every male or female struggler must use his shoulders. If a better place than yours presents itself just beyond your neighbour, elbow him and take it. Look how a steadily purposed man or woman at court, at a ball, or exhibition, wherever there is a competition and a squeeze, gets the best place; the nearest the sovereign, if bent on kissing the royal hand; the closest to the grand stand, if minded to go to Ascot; the best view and hearing of the Rev. Mr. Thumpington, when all the town is rushing to hear that exciting divine; the largest quantity of ice, champagne, and seltzer, cold pate, or other his or her favourite flesh-pot, if gluttonously minded, at a supper whence hundreds of people come empty away. A woman of the world will marry her daughter and have done with her; get her carriage and be at home and asleep in bed; whilst a timid mamma has still her girl in the nursery, or is beseeching the servants in the cloakroom to look for her shawls, with which some one else has whisked away an hour ago. What a man has to do in society is to assert himself. Is there a good place at table? Take it. At the Treasury or the Home Office? Ask for it. Do you want to go to a party to which you are not invited? Ask to be asked. Ask A., ask B., ask Mrs. C., ask everybody you know: you will be thought a bore; but you will have your way. What matters if you are considered obtrusive, provided that you obtrude? By pushing steadily, nine hundred and ninety-nine people in a thousand will yield to you. Only command persons, and you may be pretty sure that a good number will obey. How well your money will have been laid out, O gentle reader, who purchase this; and, taking the maxim to heart, follow it through life! You may be sure of success. If your neighbour's foot obstructs you, stamp on it; and do you suppose he won't take it away?

The proofs of the correctness of the above remarks I show in various members of the Newcome family. Here was a vulgar little woman, not clever nor pretty, especially; meeting Mr. Newcome casually, she ordered him to marry her, and he obeyed; as he obeyed her in everything else which she chose to order through life. Meeting Colonel Newcome on the steps of her house, she orders him to come to her evening party; and though he has not been to an evening party for five-and-thirty years—though he has not been to bed the night before—though he has no mufti-coat except one sent him out by Messrs. Stultz to India in the year 1821—he never once thinks of disobeying Mrs. Newcome's order, but is actually at her door at five minutes past ten, having arrayed himself to the wonderment of Clive, and left the boy to talk with his friend and fellow-passenger, Mr. Binnie, who has just arrived from Portsmouth, who has dined with him, and who, by previous arrangement, has taken up his quarters at the same hotel.

This Stultz coat, a blue swallow-tail, with yellow buttons, now wearing a tinge of their native copper, a very high velvet collar on a level with the tips of the Captain's ears, with a high waist, indicated by two lapelles, and a pair of buttons high up in the wearer's back, a white waistcoat and scarlet under-waistcoat, and a pair of the never-failing duck trousers, complete Thomas Newcome's costume, along with the white hat in which we have seen him in the morning, and which was one of two dozen purchased by him some years since at public outcry, Burrumtollah. We have called him Captain purposely, while speaking of his coat, for he held that rank when the garment came out to him; and having been in the habit of considering it a splendid coat for twelve years past, he has not the least idea of changing his opinion.

The Doctor McGuffog, Professor Bodgers, Count Poski, and all the lions present at Mrs. Newcome's reunion that evening, were completely eclipsed by Colonel Newcome. The worthy soul, who cared not the least about adorning himself, had a handsome diamond brooch of the year 1801—given him by poor Jack Cutler, who was knocked over by his side at Argaum—and wore this ornament in his desk for a thousand days and nights at a time; in his shirt-frill, on such parade evenings as he considered Mrs. Newcome's to be. The splendour of this jewel, and of his flashing buttons, caused all eyes to turn to him. There were many pairs of mustachios present, those of Professor Schnurr, a very corpulent martyr, just escaped from Spandau, and of Maximilien Tranchard, French exile and apostle of liberty, were the only whiskers in the room capable of vying in interest with Colonel Newcome's. Polish chieftains were at this time so common in London, that nobody (except one noble Member for Marylebone, once a year, the Lord Mayor) took any interest in them. The general opinion was, that the stranger was the Wallachian Boyar, whose arrival at Mivart's the Morning Post had just announced. Mrs. Miles, whose delicious every other Wednesdays in Montague Square are supposed by some to be rival entertainments to Mrs. Newcome's alternate Thursdays in Bryanstone Square, pinched her daughter Mira, engaged in a polyglot conversation with Herr Schnurr, nor Carabossi, the guitarist, and Monsieur Pivier, the celebrated French chess-player, to point out the Boyar. Mira Miles wished she knew a little Moldavian, not so much that she might speak it, but that she might be heard to speak it. Mrs. Miles, who had not had the educational advantages of her daughter, simpered up with "Madame Newcome pas ici—votre excellence nouvellement arrive—avez-vous fait ung bong voyage? Je recois chez moi Mercredi prochaing; lonnure de vous voir—Madamasel Miles ma fille;" and, Mira, now reinforcing her mamma, poured in a glib little oration in French, somewhat to the astonishment of the Colonel, who began to think, however, that perhaps French was the language of the polite world, into which he was now making his very first entree.

Mrs. Newcome had left her place at the door of her drawing-room, to walk through her rooms with Rummun Loll, the celebrated Indian merchant, otherwise His Excellency Rummun Loll, otherwise his Highness Rummun Loll, the chief proprietor of the diamond-mines in Golconda, with a claim of three millions and a-half upon the East India Company—who smoked his hookah after dinner when the ladies were gone, and in whose honour (for his servants always brought a couple or more of hookahs with them) many English gentlemen made themselves sick, while trying to emulate the same practice. Mr. Newcome had been obliged to go to bed himself in consequence of the uncontrollable nausea produced by the chillum; and Doctor McGuffog, in hopes of converting His Highness, had puffed his till he was as black in the face as the interesting Indian—and now, having hung on his arm—always in the dirty gloves—flirting a fan whilst His Excellency consumed betel out of a silver box; and having promenaded him and his turban, and his shawls, and his kincab pelisse, and his lacquered moustache, and keen brown face; and opal eyeballs, through her rooms, the hostess came back to her station at the drawing-room door.

As soon as His Excellency saw the Colonel, whom he perfectly well knew, His Highness's princely air was exchanged for one of the deepest humility. He bowed his head and put his two hands before his eyes, and came creeping towards him submissively, to the wonderment of Mrs. Miles; who was yet more astonished when the Moldavian magnate exclaimed in perfectly good English, "What, Rummun, you here?"

The Rummun, still bending and holding his hands before him, uttered a number of rapid sentences in the Hindustani language, which Colonel Newcome received twirling his mustachios with much hauteur. He turned on his heel rather abruptly and began to speak to Mrs. Newcome, who smiled and thanked him for coming on his first night after his return.

The Colonel said, "To whose house should he first come but to his brother's?" How Mrs. Newcome wished she could have had room for him at dinner! And there was room after all, for Mr. Shaloony was detained at the House. The most interesting conversation. The Indian Prince was so intelligent!

"The Indian what?" asks Colonel Newcome. The heathen gentleman had gone off, and was seated by one of the handsomest young women in the room, whose fair face was turned towards him, whose blond ringlets touched his shoulder, and who was listening to him as eagerly as Desdemona listened to Othello.

The Colonel's rage was excited as he saw the Indian's behaviour. He curled his mustachios up to his eyes in his wrath. "You don't mean that that man calls himself a Prince? That a fellow who wouldn't sit down in an officer's presence is——"

"How do you do, Mr. Honeyman?—Eh, bong soir, Monsieur—You are very late, Mr. Pressly.—What, Barnes! is it possible that you do me the honour to come all the way from Mayfair to Marylebone? I thought you young men of fashion never crossed Oxford Street. Colonel Newcome, this is your nephew."

"How do you do, sir?" says Barnes, surveying the Colonel's costume with inward wonder, but without the least outward manifestation of surprise. "I suppose you dined here to meet the black Prince. I came to ask him and my uncle to meet you at dinner on Wednesday. Where's my uncle, ma'am?"

"Your uncle is gone to bed ill. He smoked one of those hookahs which the Prince brings, and it has made him very unwell indeed, Barnes. How is Lady Anne? Is Lord Kew in London? Is your sister better for Brighton air? I see your cousin is appointed Secretary of Legation. Have you good accounts of your aunt Lady Fanny?"

"Lady Fanny is as well as can be expected, and the baby is going on perfectly well, thank you," Barnes said drily; and his aunt, obstinately gracious with him, turned away to some other new comet.

"It's interesting, isn't it, sir," says Barnes, turning to the Colonel, "to see such union in families? Whenever I come here, my aunt trots out all my relations; and I send a man round in the mornin to ask how they all are. So Uncle Hobson is gone to bed sick with a hookah? I know there was a deuce of a row made when I smoked at Marblehead. You are promised to us for Wednesday, please. Is there anybody you would like to meet? Not our friend the Rummun? How the girls crowd round him! By Gad, a fellow who's rich in London may have the pick of any gal—not here—not in this sort of thing; I mean in society, you know," says Barnes confidentially, "I've seen the old dowagers crowdin round that fellow, and the girls snugglin up to his india-rubber face. He's known to have two wives already in India; but, by Gad, for a settlement, I believe some of 'em here would marry—I mean of the girls in society."

"But isn't this society?" asked the Colonel.

"Oh, of course. It's very good society and that sort of thing—but it's not, you know—you understand. I give you my honour there are not three people in the room one meets anywhere, except the Rummun. What is he at home, sir? I know he ain't a Prince, you know, any more than I am."

"I believe he is a rich man now," said the Colonel. "He began from very low beginnings, and odd stories are told about the origin of his fortune."

"That may be," says the young man; "of course, as businessmen, that's not our affair. But has he got the fortune? He keeps a large account with us; and, I think, wants to have larger dealings with us still. As one of the family we may ask you to stand by us, and tell us anything you know. My father has asked him down to Newcome, and we've taken him up; wisely or not I can't say. I think otherwise; but I'm quite young in the house, and of course the elders have the chief superintendence." The young man of business had dropped his drawl or his languor, and was speaking quite unaffectedly; good-naturedly, and selfishly. Had you talked to him for a week, you could not have made him understand the scorn and loathing with which the Colonel regarded him. Here was a young fellow as keen as the oldest curmudgeon; a lad with scarce a beard to his chin, that would pursue his bond as rigidly as Shylock. "If he is like this at twenty, what will he be at fifty?" groaned the Colonel. "I'd rather Clive were dead than have him such a heartless woriding as this." And yet the young man was not ungenerous, not untruth-telling, not unserviceable. He thought his life was good enough. It was as good as that of other folks he lived with. You don't suppose he had any misgivings, provided he was in the City early enough in the morning; or slept badly, unless he indulged too freely over-night; or twinges of conscience that his life was misspent? He thought his life a most lucky and reputable one. He had a share in a good business, and felt that he could increase it. Some day he would marry a good match, with a good fortune; meanwhile he could take his pleasure decorously, and sow his wild oats as some of the young Londoners sow them, not broadcast after the fashion of careless scatter-brained youth, but trimly and neatly, in quiet places, where the crop can come up unobserved, and be taken in without bustle or scandal. Barnes Newcome never missed going to church, or dressing for dinner. He never kept a tradesman waiting for his money. He never drank too much, except when other fellows did, and in good company. He never was late for business, or huddled over his toilet, however brief had been his sleep, or severe his headache. In a word, he was as scrupulously whited as any sepulchre in the whole bills of mortality.

Whilst young Barnes and his uncle were thus holding parley, a slim gentleman of bland aspect, with a roomy forehead, or what his female admirers called "a noble brow," and a neat white neckcloth tied with clerical skill, was surveying Colonel Newcome through his shining spectacles, and waiting for an opportunity to address him. The Colonel remarked the eagerness with which the gentleman in black regarded him, and asked Mr. Barnes who was the padre? Mr. Barnes turned his eyeglass towards the spectacles, and said "he didn't know any more than the dead; he didn't know two people in the room." The spectacles nevertheless made the eyeglass a bow, of which the latter took no sort of cognisance. The spectacles advanced; Mr. Newcome fell back with a peevish exclamation of "Confound the fellow, what is he coming to speak to me for?" He did not choose to be addressed by all sorts of persons in all houses.

But he of the spectacles, with an expression of delight in his pale blue eyes, and smiles dimpling his countenance, pressed onwards with outstretched hands, and it was towards the Colonel he turned these smiles and friendly salutations. "Did I hear aright, sir, from Mrs. Miles," he said, "and have I the honour of speaking to Colonel Newcome?"

"The same, sir," says the Colonel; at which the other, tearing off a glove of lavender-coloured kid, uttered the words, "Charles Honeyman," and seized the hand of his brother-in-law. "My poor sister's husband," he continued; "my own benefactor; Clive's father. How strange are these meetings in the mighty world! How I rejoice to see you, and know you!"

"You are Charles, are you?" cries the other. "I am very glad, indeed, to shake you by the hand, Honeyman. Clive and I should have beat up your quarters to-day, but we were busy until dinnertime. You put me in mind of poor Emma, Charles," he added, sadly. Emma had not been a good wife to him; a flighty silly little woman, who had caused him when alive many a night of pain and day of anxiety.

"Poor, poor Emma!" exclaimed the ecclesiastic, casting his eyes towards the chandelier, and passing a white cambric pocket-handkerchief gracefully before them. No man in London understood the ring business or the pocket-handkerchief business better, or smothered his emotion more beautifully. "In the gayest moments, in the giddiest throng of fashion, the thoughts of the past will rise; the departed will be among us still. But this is not the strain wherewith to greet the friend newly arrived on our shores. How it rejoices me to behold you in old England! How you must have joyed to see Clive!"

"D—— the humbug," muttered Barnes, who knew him perfectly well. "The fellow is always in the pulpit."

The incumbent of Lady Whittlesea's chapel smiled and bowed to him. "You do not recognise me, sir; I have had the honour of seeing you in your public capacity in the City, when I have called at the bank, the bearer of my brother-in-law's generous——"

"Never mind that, Honeyman!" cried the Colonel.

"But I do mind, my dear Colonel," answers Mr. Honeyman. "I should be a very bad man, and a very ungrateful brother, if I ever forgot your kindness."

"For God's sake leave my kindness alone."

"He'll never leave it alone as long as he can use it," muttered Mr. Barnes in his teeth; and turning to his uncle, "May I take you home, sir? my cab is at the door, and I shall be glad to drive you." But the Colonel said he must talk to his brother-in-law for a while, and Mr. Barnes, bowing very respectfully to him, slipped under a dowager's arm in the doorway, and retreated silently downstairs.

Newcome was now thrown entirely upon the clergyman, and the latter described the personages present to the stranger, who was curious to know how the party was composed. Mrs. Newcome herself would have been pleased had she heard Honeyman's discourse regarding her guests and herself. Charles Honeyman so spoke of most persons that you might fancy they were listening over his shoulder. Such an assemblage of learning, genius, and virtue, might well delight and astonish a stranger. "That lady in the red turban, with the handsome daughters, is Lady Budge, wife of the eminent judge of that name—everybody was astonished that he was not made Chief Justice, and elevated to the Peerage—the only objection (as I have heard confidentially) was on the part of a late sovereign, who said he never could consent to have a peer of the name of Budge. Her ladyship was of humble, I have heard even menial, station originally, but becomes her present rank, dispenses the most elegant hospitality at her mansion in Connaught Terrace, and is a pattern as a wife and a mother. The young man talking to her daughter is a young barrister, already becoming celebrated as a contributor to some of our principal reviews."

"Who is that cavalry officer in a white waistcoat talking to the Jew with the beard?" asks the Colonel.

"He, he! That cavalry officer is another literary man of celebrity, and by profession an attorney. But he has quitted the law for the Muses, and it would appear that the Nine are never wooed except by gentlemen with mustachios."

"Never wrote a verse in my life," says the Colonel, laughing, and stroking his own.

"For I remark so many literary gentlemen with that decoration. The Jew with the beard, as you call him, is Herr von Lungen, the eminent hautboy-player. The three next gentlemen are Mr. Smee, of the Royal Academy (who is shaved as you perceive), and Mr. Moyes and Mr. Cropper, who are both very hairy about the chin. At the piano, singing, accompanied by Mademoiselle Lebrun, is Signor Mezzocaldo, the great barytone from Rome. Professor Quartz and Baron Hammerstein, celebrated geologists from Germany, are talking with their illustrious confrere, Sir Robert Craxton, in the door. Do you see yonder that stout gentleman with stuff on his shirt? the eloquent Dr. McGuffog, of Edinburgh, talking to Dr. Ettore, who lately escaped from the Inquisition at Rome in the disguise of a washerwoman, after undergoing the question several times, the rack and the thumbscrew. They say that he was to have been burned in the Grand Square the next morning; but between ourselves, my dear Colonel, I mistrust these stories of converts and martyrs. Did you ever see a more jolly-looking man than Professor Schnurr, who was locked up in Spielberg, and got out up a chimney, and through a window? Had he waited a few months there are very few windows he could have passed through. That splendid man in the red fez is Kurbash Pasha—another renegade, I deeply lament to say—a hairdresser from Marseilles, by name Monsieur Ferehaud, who passed into Egypt, and laid aside the tongs for a turban. He is talking with Mr. Palmer, one of our most delightful young poets, and with Desmond O'Tara, son of the late revered Bishop of Ballinafad, who has lately quitted ours for the errors of the Church of Rome. Let me whisper to you that your kinswoman is rather a searcher after what we call here notabilities. I heard talk of one I knew in better days—of one who was the comrade of my youth, and the delight of Oxford—poor Pidge of Brasenose, who got the Newdigate in my third year, and who, under his present name of Father Bartolo, was to have been here in his capuchin dress, with a beard and bare feet; but I presume he could not get permission from his Superior. That is Mr. Huff, the political economist, talking with Mr. Macduff, the Member for Glenlivat. That is the coroner for Middlesex conversing with the great surgeon Sir Cutler Sharp, and that pretty laughing girl talking with them is no other than the celebrated Miss Pinnnifer, whose novel of Ralph the Resurrectionist created such a sensation after it was abused in the Trimestrial Review. It was a little bold certainly—I just looked at it at my club—after hours devoted to parish duty a clergyman is sometimes allowed, you know, desipere in loco—there are descriptions in it certainly startling—ideas about marriage not exactly orthodox; but the poor child wrote the book actually in the nursery, and all England was ringing with it before Dr. Pinnifer, her father, knew who was the author. That is the Doctor asleep in the corner by Miss Rudge, the American authoress, who I dare say is explaining to him the difference between the two Governments. My dear Mrs. Newcome, I am giving my brother-in-law a little sketch of some of the celebrities who are crowding your salon to-night. What a delightful evening you have given us!"

"I try to do my best, Colonel Newcome," said the lady of the house. "I hope many a night we may see you here; and, as I said this morning, Clive, when he is of an age to appreciate this kind of entertainment. Fashion I do not worship. You may meet that amongst other branches of our family; but genius and talent I do reverence. And if I can be the means—the humble means—to bring men of genius together—mind to associate with mind—men of all nations to mingle in friendly unison—I shall not have lived altogether in vain. They call us women of the world frivolous, Colonel Newcome. So some may be; I do not say there are not in our own family persons who worship mere worldly rank, and think but of fashion and gaiety; but such, I trust, will never be the objects in life of me and my children. We are but merchants; we seek to be no more. If I can look around me and see as I do"-(she waves her fan round, and points to the illustrations scintillating round the room)—"and see as I do now—a Poski, whose name is ever connected with Polish history—an Ettore, who has exchanged a tonsure and a rack for our own free country—a Hammerstein, and a Quartz, a Miss Rudge, our Transatlantic sister (who I trust will not mention this modest salon in her forthcoming work on Europe), and Miss Pinnifer, whose genius I acknowledge, though I deplore her opinions; if I can gather together travellers, poets, and painters, princes and distinguished soldiers from the East, and clergymen remarkable for their eloquence, my humble aim is attained, and Maria Newcome is not altogether useless in her generation. Will you take a little refreshment? Allow your sister to go down to the dining-room supported by your gallant arm." She looked round to the admiring congregation, whereof Honeyman, as it were acted as clerk, and flirting her fan, and flinging up her little head. Consummate Virtue walked down on the arm of the Colonel.

The refreshment was rather meagre. The foreign artists generally dashed downstairs, and absorbed all the ices, creams, etc. To those coming late there were chicken-bones, table-cloths puddled with melted ice, glasses hazy with sherry, and broken bits of bread. The Colonel said he never supped; and he and Honeyman walked away together, the former to bed, the latter, I am sorry to say, to his club; for he was a dainty feeder, and loved lobster, and talk late at night, and a comfortable little glass of something wherewith to conclude the day.

He agreed to come to breakfast with the Colonel, who named eight or nine for the meal. Nine Mr. Honeyman agreed to with a sigh. The incumbent of Lady Whittlesea's chapel seldom rose before eleven. For, to tell the truth, no French abbot of Louis XV. was more lazy and luxurious, and effeminate, than our polite bachelor preacher.

One of Colonel Newcome's fellow-passengers from India was Mr. James Binnie of the Civil Service, a jolly young bachelor of two- or three-and-forty, who, having spent half of his past life in Bengal, was bent upon enjoying the remainder in Britain or in Europe, if a residence at home should prove agreeable to him. The Nabob of books and tradition is a personage no longer to be found among us. He is neither as wealthy nor as wicked as the jaundiced monster of romances and comedies, who purchases the estates of broken-down English gentlemen, with rupees tortured out of bleeding rajahs, who smokes a hookah in public, and in private carries about a guilty conscience, diamonds of untold value, and a diseased liver; who has a vulgar wife, with a retinue of black servants whom she maltreats, and a gentle son and daughter with good impulses and an imperfect education, desirous to amend their own and their parents' lives, and thoroughly ashamed of the follies of the old people. If you go to the house of an Indian gentleman now, he does not say, "Bring more curricles," like the famous Nabob of Stanstead Park. He goes to Leadenhall Street in an omnibus, and walks back from the City for exercise. I have known some who have had maid-servants to wait on them at dinner. I have met scores who look as florid and rosy as any British squire who has never left his paternal beef and acres. They do not wear nankeen jackets in summer. Their livers are not out of order any more; and as for hookahs, I dare swear there are not two now kept alight within the bills of mortality; and that retired Indians would as soon think of smoking them, as their wives would of burning themselves on their husbands' bodies at the cemetery, Kensal Green, near to the Tyburnian quarter of the city which the Indian world at present inhabits. It used to be Baker Street and Harley Street; it used to be Portland Place, and in more early days Bedford Square, where the Indian magnates flourished; districts which have fallen from their pristine state of splendour now, even as Agra, and Benares, and Lucknow, and Tippoo Sultan's city are fallen.

After two-and-twenty years' absence from London, Mr. Binnie returned to it on the top of the Gosport coach with a hatbox and a little portmanteau, a pink fresh-shaven face, a perfect appetite, a suit of clothes like everybody else's, and not the shadow of a black servant. He called a cab at the White Horse Cellar, and drove to Nerot's Hotel, Clifford Street; and he gave the cabman eightpence, making the fellow, who grumbled, understand that Clifford Street was not two hundred yards from Bond Street, and that he was paid at the rate of five shillings and fourpence per mile—calculating the mile at only sixteen hundred yards. He asked the waiter at what time Colonel Newcome had ordered dinner, and finding there was an hour on his hands before the meal, walked out to examine the neighbourhood for a lodging where he could live more quietly than in a hotel. He called it a hotel. Mr. Binnie was a North Briton, his father having been a Writer to the Signet, in Edinburgh, who had procured his son a writership in return for electioneering services done to an East Indian Director. Binnie had his retiring pension, and, besides, had saved half his allowances ever since he had been in India. He was a man of great reading, no small ability, considerable accomplishment, excellent good sense and good humour. The ostentatious said he was a screw; but he gave away more money than far more extravagant people: he was a disciple of David Hume (whom he admired more than any other mortal), and the serious denounced him as a man of dangerous principles, though there were, among the serious, men much more dangerous than James Binnie.

On returning to his hotel, Colonel Newcome found this worthy gentleman installed in his room in the best arm-chair sleeping cosily; the evening paper laid decently over his plump waistcoat, and his little legs placed on an opposite chair. Mr. Binnie woke up briskly when the Colonel entered. "It is you, you gad-about, is it?" cried the civilian. "How has the beau monde of London treated the Indian Adonis? Have you made a sensation, Newcome? Gad, Tom, I remember you a buck of bucks when that coat first came out to Calcutta—just a Barrackpore Brummell—in Lord Minto's reign, was it, or when Lord Hastings was satrap over us?"

"A man must have one good coat," says the Colonel; "I don't profess to be a dandy; but get a coat from a good tailor, and then have done with it." He still thought his garment was as handsome as need be.

"Done with it—ye're never done with it!" cries the civilian.

"An old coat is an old friend, old Binnie. I don't want to be rid of one or the other. How long did you and my boy sit up together—isn't he a fine lad, Binnie? I expect you are going to put him down for something handsome in your will."

"See what it is to have a real friend now, Colonel! I sate up for ye, or let us say more correctly, I waited for you—because I knew you would want to talk about that scapegrace of yours. And if I had gone to bed, I should have had you walking up to No. 28, and waking me out of my first rosy slumber. Well, now confess; avoid not. Haven't ye fallen in love with some young beauty on the very first night of your arrival in your sister's salong, and selected a mother-in-law for young Scapegrace?"

"Isn't he a fine fellow, James?" says the Colonel, lighting a cheroot as he sits on the table. Was it joy, or the bedroom candle with which he lighted his cigar, which illuminated his honest features so, and made them so to shine?

"I have been occupied, sir, in taking the lad's moral measurement: and have pumped him as successfully as ever I cross-examined a rogue in my court. I place his qualities thus:—Love of approbation sixteen. Benevolence fourteen. Combativeness fourteen. Adhesiveness two. Amativeness is not yet of course fully developed, but I expect will be prodeegiously strong. The imaginative and reflective organs are very large—those, of calculation weak. He may make a poet or a painter, or you may make a sojer of him, though worse men than him's good enough for that—but a bad merchant, a lazy lawyer, and a miserable mathematician. He has wit and conscientiousness, so ye mustn't think of making a clergyman of him."

"Binnie!" says the Colonel gravely, "you are always sneering at the cloth."

"When I think that, but for my appointment to India, I should have been a luminary of the faith and a pillar of the church! grappling with the ghostly enemy in the pulpit, and giving out the psawm. Eh, sir, what a loss Scottish Divinity has had in James Binnie!" cries the little civilian with his most comical face. "But that is not the question. My opinion, Colonel, is, that young Scapegrace will give you a deal of trouble; or would, only you are so absurdly proud of him that you think everything he does is perfaction. He'll spend your money for you: he'll do as little work as need be. He'll get into scrapes with the sax. He's almost as simple as his father, and that is to say that any rogue will cheat him; and he seems to me to have got your obstinate habit of telling the truth, Colonel, which may prevet his getting on in the world, but on the other hand will keep him from going very wrong. So that, though there is every fear for him, there's some hope and some consolation."

"What do you think of his Latin and Greek?" asks the Colonel. Before going out to his party, Newcome had laid a deep scheme with Binnie, and it had been agreed that the latter should examine the young fellow in his humanities.

"Wall," cries the Scot, "I find that the lad knows as much about Greek and Latin as I knew myself when I was eighteen years of age."

"My dear Binnie, is it possible? You, the best scholar in all India!"

"And which amounted to exactly nothing. He has acquired in five years, and by the admirable seestem purshood at your public schools, just about as much knowledge of the ancient languages as he could get by three months' application at home. Mind ye, I don't say he would apply; it is most probable he would do no such thing. But at the cost of—how much? two hundred pounds annually—for five years—he has acquired about five-and-twenty guineas' worth of classical leeterature—enough, I dare say, to enable him to quote Horace respectably through life, and what more do ye want from a young man of his expectations? I think I should send him into the army, that's the best place for him—there's the least to do, and the handsomest clothes to wear. Acce segnum!" says the little wag, daintily taking up the tail of his friend's coat.

"There's never any knowing whether you are in jest or in earnest, Binnie," the puzzled Colonel said.

"How should you know, when I don't know myself?" answered the Scotchman. "In earnest now, Tom Newcome, I think your boy is as fine a lad as I ever set eyes on. He seems to have intelligence and good temper. He carries his letter of recommendation in his countenance; and with the honesty—and the rupees, mind ye—which he inherits from his father, the deuce is in it if he can't make his way. What time's the breakfast? Eh, but it was a comfort this morning not to hear the holystoning on the deck. We ought to go into lodgings, and not fling our money out of the window of this hotel. We must make the young chap take us about and show us the town in the morning, Tom. I had but three days of it five-and-twenty years ago, and I propose to reshoome my observations to-morrow after breakfast. We'll just go on deck and see how's her head before we turn in, eh, Colonel?" and with this the jolly gentleman nodded over his candle to his friend, and trotted off to bed.

The Colonel and his friend were light sleepers and early risers, like most men that come from the country where they had both been so long sojourning, and were awake and dressed long before the London waiters had thought of quitting their beds. The housemaid was the only being stirring in the morning when little Mr. Binnie blundered over her pail as she was washing the deck. Early as he was, his fellow-traveller had preceded him. Binnie found the Colonel in his sitting-room arrayed in what are called in Scotland his stocking-feet, already puffing the cigar, which in truth was seldom out of his mouth at any hour of the day.

He had a couple of bedrooms adjacent to this sitting-room, and when Binnie, as brisk and rosy about the gills as chanticleer, broke out in a morning salutation, "Hush," says the Colonel, putting a long finger up to his mouth, and advancing towards him as noiselessly as a ghost.

"What's in the wind now?" asks the little Scot; "and what for have ye not got your shoes on?"

"Clive's asleep," says the Colonel, with a countenance full of extreme anxiety.

"The darling boy slumbers, does he?" said the wag; "mayn't I just step in and look at his beautiful countenance whilst he's asleep, Colonel?"

"You may if you take off those confounded creaking shoes," the other answered, quite gravely; and Binnie turned away to hide his jolly round face, which was screwed up with laughter.

"Have ye been breathing a prayer over your rosy infant's slumbers, Tom?" asks Mr. Binnie.

"And if I have, James Binnie," the Colonel said gravely, and his sallow face blushing somewhat, "if I have, I hope I've done no harm. The last time I saw him asleep was nine years ago, a sickly little pale-faced boy in his little cot, and now, sir, that I see him again, strong and handsome, and all that a fond father can wish to see a boy, I should be an ungrateful villain, James, if I didn't—if I didn't do what you said just now, and thank God Almighty for restoring him to me."

Binnie did not laugh any more. "By George, Tom Newcome," said he, "you're just one of the saints of the earth. If all men were like you there'd be an end of both our trades; there would be no fighting and no soldiering, no rogues and no magistrates to catch them." The Colonel wondered at his friend's enthusiasm, who was not used to be complimentary; indeed what so usual with him as that simple act of gratitude and devotion about which his comrade spoke to him? To ask a blessing for his boy was as natural to him as to wake with the sunrise, or to go to rest when the day was over. His first and his last thought was always the child.

The two gentlemen were home in time enough to find Clive dressed, and his uncle arrived for breakfast. The Colonel said a grace over that meal: the life was begun which he had longed and prayed for, and the son smiling before his eyes who had been in his thoughts for so many fond years.



CHAPTER IX. Miss Honeyman's

In Steyne Gardens, Brighton, the lodging-houses are among the most frequented in that city of lodging-houses. These mansions have bow-windows in front, bulging out with gentle prominences, and ornamented with neat verandahs, from which you can behold the tide of humankind as it flows up and down the Steyne, and that blue ocean over which Britannia is said to rule, stretching brightly away eastward and westward. The chain-pier, as every body knows, runs intrepidly into the sea, which sometimes, in fine weather, bathes its feet with laughing wavelets, and anon, on stormy days, dashes over its sides with roaring foam. Here, for the sum of twopence, you can go out to sea and pace this vast deck without need of a steward with a basin. You can watch the sun setting in splendour over Worthing, or illuminating with its rising glories the ups and downs of Rottingdean. You see the citizen with his family inveigled into the shallops of the mercenary native mariner, and fancy that the motion cannot be pleasant; and how the hirer of the boat, otium et oppidi laudat rura sui, haply sighs for ease, and prefers Richmond or Hampstead. You behold a hundred bathing-machines put to sea; and your naughty fancy depicts the beauties splashing under their white awnings. Along the rippled sands (stay, are they rippled sands or shingly beach?) the prawn-boy seeks the delicious material of your breakfast. Breakfast-meal in London almost unknown, greedily devoured in Brighton! In yon vessels now nearing the shore the sleepless mariner has ventured forth to seize the delicate whiting, the greedy and foolish mackerel, and the homely sole. Hark to the twanging horn! it is the early coach going out to London. Your eye follows it, and rests on the pinnacles built by the beloved GEORGE. See the worn-out London roue pacing the pier, inhaling the sea air, and casting furtive glances under the bonnets of the pretty girls who trot here before lessons! Mark the bilious lawyer, escaped for a day from Pump Court, and sniffing the fresh breezes before he goes back to breakfast and a bag full of briefs at the Albion! See that pretty string of prattling schoolgirls, from the chubby-cheeked, flaxen-headed little maiden just toddling by the side of the second teacher, to the arch damsel of fifteen, giggling and conscious of her beauty, whom Miss Griffin, the stern head-governess, awfully reproves! See Tomkins with a telescope and marine jacket; young Nathan and young Abrams, already bedizened in jewellery, and rivalling the sun in oriental splendour; yonder poor invalid crawling along in her chair; yonder jolly fat lady examining the Brighton pebbles (I actually once saw a lady buy one), and her children wondering at the sticking-plaister portraits with gold hair, and gold stocks, and prodigious high-heeled boots, miracles of art, and cheap at seven-and-sixpence! It is the fashion to run down George IV., but what myriads of Londoners ought to thank him for inventing Brighton! One of the best of physicians our city has ever known, is kind, cheerful, merry Doctor Brighton. Hail, thou purveyor of shrimps and honest prescriber of Southdown mutton! There is no mutton so good as Brighton mutton; no flys so pleasant as Brighton flys; nor any cliff so pleasant to ride on; no shops so beautiful to look at as the Brighton gimcrack shops, and the fruit shops, and the market. I fancy myself in Mrs. Honeyman's lodgings in Steyne Gardens, and in enjoyment of all these things.

If the gracious reader has had losses in life, losses not so bad as to cause absolute want, or inflict upon him or her the bodily injury of starvation, let him confess that the evils of this poverty are by no means so great as his timorous fancy depicted. Say your money has been invested in West Diddlesex bonds, or other luckless speculations—the news of the smash comes; you pay your outlying bills with the balance at the banker's; you assemble your family and make them a fine speech; the wife of your bosom goes round and embraces the sons and daughters seriatim; nestling in your own waistcoat finally, in possession of which, she says (with tender tears and fond quotations from Holy Writ, God bless her!), and of the darlings round about, lies all her worldly treasure: the weeping servants are dismissed, their wages paid in full, and with a present of prayer- and hymn-books from their mistress; your elegant house in Harley Street is to let, and you subside into lodgings in Pentonville, or Kensington, or Brompton. How unlike the mansion where you paid taxes and distributed elegant hospitality for so many years!

You subside into lodgings, I say, and you find yourself very tolerably comfortable. I am not sure that in her heart your wife is not happier than in what she calls her happy days. She will be somebody hereafter: she was nobody in Harley Street: that is, everybody else in her visiting-book, take the names all round, was as good as she. They had the very same entrees, plated ware, men to wait, etc., at all the houses where you visited in the street. Your candlesticks might be handsomer (and indeed they had a very fine effect upon the dinner-table), but then Mr. Jones's silver (or electro-plated) dishes were much finer. You had more carriages at your door on the evening of your delightful soirees than Mrs. Brown (there is no phrase more elegant, and to my taste, than that in which people are described as "seeing a great deal of carriage company"); but yet Mrs. Brown, from the circumstance of her being a baronet's niece, took precedence of your dear wife at most tables. Hence the latter charming woman's scorn at the British baronetcy, and her many jokes at the order. In a word, and in the height of your social prosperity, there was always a lurking dissatisfaction, and a something bitter, in the midst of the fountain of delights at which you were permitted to drink.

There is no good (unless your taste is that way) in living in a society where you are merely the equal of everybody else. Many people give themselves extreme pains to frequent company where all around them are their superiors, and where, do what you will, you must be subject to continual mortification—(as, for instance, when Marchioness X. forgets you, and you can't help thinking that she cuts you on purpose; when Duchess Z. passes by in her diamonds, etc.). The true pleasure of life is to live with your inferiors. Be the cock of your village; the queen of your coterie; and, besides very great persons, the people whom Fate has specially endowed with this kindly consolation are those who have seen what are called better days—those who have had losses. I am like Caesar, and of a noble mind: if I cannot be first in Piccadilly, let me try Hatton Garden, and see whether I cannot lead the ton there. If I cannot take the lead at White's or the Travellers', let me be president of the Jolly Bandboys at the Bag of Nails, and blackball everybody who does not pay me honour. If my darling Bessy cannot go out of a drawing-room until a baronet's niece (ha! ha! a baronet's niece, forsooth!) has walked before her, let us frequent company where we shall be the first; and how can we be the first unless we select our inferiors for our associates? This kind of pleasure is to be had by almost everybody, and at scarce any cost. With a shilling's-worth of tea and muffins you can get as much adulation and respect as many people cannot purchase with a thousand pounds' worth of plate and profusion, hired footmen, turning their houses topsy-turvy, and suppers from Gunter's. Adulation!—why, the people who come to you give as good parties as you do. Respect!—the very menials, who wait behind your supper-table, waited at a duke's yesterday, and actually patronise you! O you silly spendthrift! you can buy flattery for twopence, and you spend ever so much money in entertaining your equals and betters, and nobody admires you!

Now Aunt Honeyman was a woman of a thousand virtues; cheerful, frugal, honest, laborious, charitable, good-humoured, truth-telling, devoted to her family, capable of any sacrifice for those she loved; and when she came to have losses of money, Fortune straightway compensated her by many kindnesses which no income can supply. The good old lady admired the word gentlewoman of all others in the English vocabulary, and made all around her feel that such was her rank. Her mother's father was a naval captain; her father had taken pupils, got a living, sent his son to college, dined with the squire, published his volume of sermons, was liked in his parish, where Miss Honeyman kept house for him, was respected for his kindness and famous for his port wine; and so died, leaving about two hundred pounds a year to his two children, nothing to Clive Newcome's mother who had displeased him by her first marriage (an elopement with Ensign Casey) and subsequent light courses. Charles Honeyman spent his money elegantly in wine-parties at Oxford, and afterwards in foreign travel;—spent his money and as much of Miss Honeyman's as that worthy soul would give him. She was a woman of spirit and resolution. She brought her furniture to Brighton (believing that the whole place still fondly remembered her grandfather, Captain Nokes, who had resided there and his gallantry in Lord Rodney's action with the Count de Grasse), took a house, and let the upper floors to lodgers.

The little brisk old lady brought a maid-servant out of the country with her, who was daughter to her father's clerk, and had learned her letters and worked her first sampler under Miss Honeyman's own eye, whom she adored all through her life. No Indian begum rolling in wealth, no countess mistress of castles and townhouses, ever had such a faithful toady as Hannah Hicks was to her mistress. Under Hannah was a young lady from the workhouse, who called Hannah "Mrs. Hicks, mum," and who bowed in awe as much before that domestic as Hannah did before Miss Honeyman. At five o'clock in summer, at seven in winter (for Miss Honeyman, a good economist, was chary of candlelight), Hannah woke up little Sally, and these three women rose. I leave you to imagine what a row there was in the establishment if Sally appeared with flowers under her bonnet, gave signs of levity or insubordination, prolonged her absence when sent forth for the beer, or was discovered in flirtation with the baker's boy or the grocer's young man. Sally was frequently renewed. Miss Honeyman called all her young persons Sally; and a great number of Sallies were consumed in her house. The qualities of the Sally for the time-being formed a constant and delightful subject of conversation between Hannah and her mistress. The few friends who visited Miss Honeyman in her back-parlour had their Sallies, in discussing whose peculiarities of disposition these good ladies passed the hours agreeably over their tea.

Many persons who let lodgings in Brighton have been servants themselves—are retired housekeepers, tradesfolk, and the like. With these surrounding individuals Hannah treated on a footing of equality, bringing to her mistress accounts of their various goings on; "how No. 6 was let; how No. 9 had not paid his rent again; how the first floor at 27 had game almost every day, and made-dishes from Mutton's; how the family who had taken Mrs. Bugsby's had left as usual after the very first night, the poor little infant blistered all over with bites on its little dear face; how the Miss Learys was going on shameful with the two young men, actially in their setting-room, mum, where one of them offered Miss Laura Leary a cigar; how Mrs. Cribb still went cuttin' pounds and pounds of meat off the lodgers' jints, emptying their tea-caddies, actially reading their letters. Sally had been told so by Polly the Cribb's maid, who was kep, how that poor child was kep, hearing language perfectly hawful!" These tales and anecdotes, not altogether redounding to their neighbours' credit, Hannah copiously collected and brought to her mistress's tea-table, or served at her frugal little supper when Miss Honeyman, the labours of the day over, partook of that cheerful meal. I need not say that such horrors as occurred at Mrs. Bugsby's never befell in Mrs. Honeyman's establishment. Every room was fiercely swept and sprinkled, and watched by cunning eyes which nothing could escape; curtains were taken down, mattresses explored, every bone in bed dislocated and washed as soon as a lodger took his departure. And as for cribbing meat or sugar, Sally might occasionally abstract a lump or two, or pop a veal-cutlet into her mouth while bringing the dishes downstairs:—Sallies would—giddy creatures bred in workhouses; but Hannah might be entrusted with untold gold and uncorked brandy; and Miss Honeyman would as soon think of cutting a slice off Hannah's nose and devouring it, as of poaching on her lodgers' mutton. The best mutton-broth, the best veal-cutlets, the best necks of mutton and French beans, the best fried fish and plumpest partridges, in all Brighton, were to be had at Miss Honeyman's—and for her favourites the best Indian curry and rice, coming from a distinguished relative, at present an officer in Bengal. But very few were admitted to this mark of Miss Honeyman's confidence. If a family did not go to church they were not in favour: if they went to a Dissenting meeting she had no opinion of them at all. Once there came to her house a quiet Staffordshire family who ate no meat on Fridays, and whom Miss Honeyman pitied as belonging to the Romish superstition; but when they were visited by two corpulent gentlemen in black, one of whom wore a purple underwaistcoat, before whom the Staffordshire lady absolutely sank down on her knees as he went into the drawing-room,—Miss Honeyman sternly gave warning to these idolaters. She would have no Jesuits in her premises. She showed Hannah the picture in Howell's Medulla of the martyrs burning at Smithfield: who said, "Lord bless you, mum," and hoped it was a long time ago. She called on the curate: and many and many a time, for years after, pointed out to her friends, and sometimes to her lodgers, the spot on the carpet where the poor benighted creature had knelt down. So she went on, respected by all her friends, by all her tradesmen, by herself not a little, talking of her previous "misfortunes" with amusing equanimity; as if her father's parsonage-house had been a palace of splendour, and the one-horse chaise (with the lamps for evenings) from which she had descended, a noble equipage. "But I know it is for the best, Clive," she would say to her nephew in describing those grandeurs, "and, thank heaven, can be resigned in that station in life to which it has pleased God to call me."

The good lady was called the Duchess by her fellow-tradesfolk in the square in which she lived. (I don't know what would have come to her had she been told she was a tradeswoman!) Her butchers, bakers, and market-people paid her as much respect as though she had been a grandee's housekeeper out of Kemp Town. Knowing her station, she yet was kind to those inferior beings. She held affable conversations with them, she patronised Mr. Rogers, who was said to be worth a hundred thousand—two-hundred-thousand pounds (or lbs. was it?), and who said, "Law bless the old Duchess, she do make as much of a pound of veal cutlet as some would of a score of bullocks, but you see she's a lady born and a lady bred: she'd die before she'd owe a farden, and she's seen better days, you know." She went to see the grocer's wife on an interesting occasion, and won the heart of the family by tasting their candle. Her fishmonger (it was fine to hear her talk of "my fishmonger") would sell her a whiting as respectfully as if she had called for a dozen turbots and lobsters. It was believed by those good folks that her father had been a Bishop at the very least; and the better days which she had known were supposed to signify some almost unearthly prosperity. "I have always found, Hannah," the simple soul would say, "that people know their place, or can be very very easily made to find it if they lose it; and if a gentlewoman does not forget herself, her inferiors will not forget that she is a gentlewoman." "No indeed, mum, and I'm sure they would do no such thing, mum," says Hannah, who carries away the teapot for her own breakfast (to be transmitted to Sally for her subsequent refection), whilst her mistress washes her cup and saucer, as her mother had washed her own china many scores of years ago.

If some of the surrounding lodging-house keepers, as I have no doubt they did, disliked the little Duchess for the airs which she gave herself, as they averred; they must have envied her too her superior prosperity, for there was scarcely ever a card in her window, whilst those ensigns in her neighbours' houses would remain exposed to the flies and the weather, and disregarded by passers-by for months together. She had many regular customers, or what should be rather called constant friends. Deaf old Mr. Cricklade came every winter for fourteen years, and stopped until the hunting was over; an invaluable man, giving little trouble, passing all day on horseback, and all night over his rubber at the club. The Misses Barkham, Barkhambury, Tunbridge Wells, whose father had been at college with Mr. Honeyman, came regularly in June for sea air, letting Barkhambury for the summer season. Then, for many years, she had her nephew, as we have seen; and kind recommendations from the clergymen of Brighton, and a constant friend in the celebrated Dr. Goodenough of London, who had been her father's private pupil, and of his college afterwards, who sent his patients from time to time down to her, and his fellow-physician, Dr. H——, who on his part would never take any fee from Miss Honeyman, except a packet of India curry-powder, a ham cured as she only knew how to cure them, and once a year, or so, a dish of her tea.

"Was there ever such luck as that confounded old Duchess's?" says Mr. Gawler, coal-merchant and lodging-house keeper, next door but two, whose apartments were more odious in some respects than Mrs. Bugsby's own. "Was there ever such devil's own luck, Mrs. G.? It's only a fortnight ago as I read in the Sussex Advertiser the death of Miss Barkham, of Barkhambury, Tunbridge Wells, and thinks I, there's a spoke in your wheel, you stuck-up little old Duchess, with your cussed airs and impudence. And she ain't put her card up three days; and look yere, yere's two carriages, two maids, three children, one of them wrapped up in a Hinjar shawl—man hout a livery,—looks like a foring cove I think—lady in satin pelisse, and of course they go to the Duchess, be hanged to her! Of course it's our luck, nothing ever was like our luck. I'm blowed if I don't put a pistol to my 'ead, and end it, Mrs. G. There they go in—three, four, six, seven on 'em, and the man. That's the precious child's physic I suppose he's a-carryin' in the basket. Just look at the luggage. I say! There's a bloody hand on the first carriage. It's a baronet, is it? I 'ope your ladyship's very well; and I 'ope Sir John will soon be down yere to join his family." Mr. Gawler makes sarcastic bows over the card in his bow-window whilst making this speech. The little Gawlers rush on to the drawing-room verandah themselves to examine the new arrivals.

"This is Mrs. Honeyman's?" asks the gentleman designated by Mr. Gawler as "the foring cove," and hands in a card on which the words, "Miss Honeyman, 110, Steyne Gardens. J. Goodenough," are written in that celebrated physician's handwriting. "We want five bet-rooms, six bets, two or dree sitting-rooms. Have you got dese?"

"Will you speak to my mistress?" says Hannah. And if it is a fact that Miss Honeyman does happen to be in the front parlour looking at the carriages, what harm is there in the circumstance, pray? Is not Gawler looking, and the people next door? Are not half a dozen little boys already gathered in the street (as if they started up out of the trap-doors for the coals), and the nursery maids in the stunted little garden, are not they looking through the bars of the square? "Please to speak to mistress," says Hannah, opening the parlour-door, and with a curtsey, "A gentleman about the apartments, mum."

"Five bet-rooms," says the man, entering. "Six bets, two or dree sitting-rooms? We gome from Dr. Goodenough."

"Are the apartments for you, sir?" says the little Duchess, looking up at the large gentleman.

"For my lady," answers the man.

"Had you not better take off your hat?" asks the Duchess, pointing out of one of her little mittens to "the foring cove's" beaver, which he has neglected to remove.

The man grins, and takes off the hat. "I beck your bardon, ma'am," says he. "Have you fife bet-rooms?" etc. The doctor has cured the German of an illness, as well as his employers, and especially recommended Miss Honeyman to Mr. Kuhn.

"I have such a number of apartments. My servant will show them to you." And she walks back with great state to her chair by the window, and resumes her station and work there.

Mr. Kuhn reports to his mistress, who descends to inspect the apartments, accompanied through them by Hannah. The rooms are pronounced to be exceedingly neat and pleasant, and exactly what are wanted for the family. The baggage is forthwith ordered to be brought from the carriages. The little invalid wrapped in his shawl is brought upstairs by the affectionate Mr. Kuhn, who carries him as gently as if he had been bred all his life to nurse babies. The smiling Sally (the Sally for the time-being happens to be a very fresh pink-cheeked pretty little Sally) emerges from the kitchen and introduces the young ladies, the governess, the maids, to their apartments. The eldest, a slim black-haired young lass of thirteen, frisks about the rooms, looks at all the pictures, runs in and out of the verandah, tries the piano, and bursts out laughing at its wheezy jingle (it had been poor Emma's piano, bought for her on her seventeenth birthday, three weeks before she ran away with the ensign; her music is still in the stand by it: the Rev. Charles Honeyman has warbled sacred melodies over it, and Miss Honeyman considers it a delightful instrument), kisses her languid little brother laid on the sofa, and performs a hundred gay and agile motions suited to her age.

"Oh, what a piano! Why, it is as cracked as Miss Quigley's voice!"

"My dear!" says mamma. The little languid boy bursts out into a jolly laugh.

"What funny pictures, mamma! Action with Count de Grasse; the death of General Wolfe; a portrait of an officer, an old officer in blue, like grandpapa; Brazen Nose College, Oxford: what a funny name!"

At the idea of Brazen Nose College, another laugh comes from the invalid. "I suppose they've all got brass noses there," he says; and explodes at this joke. The poor little laugh ends in a cough, and mamma's travelling-basket, which contains everything, produces a bottle of syrup, labelled "Master A. Newcome. A teaspoonful to be taken when the cough is troublesome."

"'Oh, the delightful sea! the blue, the fresh, the ever free,'" sings the young lady, with a shake. (I suppose the maritime song from which she quoted was just written at this time.) "How much better this is than going home and seeing those horrid factories and chimneys! I love Doctor Goodenough for sending us here. What a sweet house it is! Everybody is happy in it, even Miss Quigley is happy, mamma. What nice rooms! What pretty chintz! What a—oh, what a—comfortable sofa!" and she falls down on the sofa, which, truth to say, was the Rev. Charles Honeyman's luxurious sofa from Oxford, presented to him by young Cibber Wright of Christchurch, when that gentleman-commoner was eliminated from the University.

"The person of the house," mamma says, "hardly comes up to Dr. Goodenough's description of her. He says he remembers her a pretty little woman when her father was his private tutor."

"She has grown very much since," says the girl. And an explosion takes place from the sofa, where the little man is always ready to laugh at any joke, or anything like a joke, uttered by himself or by any of his family or friends. As for Doctor Goodenough, he says laughing has saved that boy's life.

"She looks quite like a maid," continues the lady. "She has hard hands, and she called me mum always. I was quite disappointed in her." And she subsides into a novel, with many of which kind of works, and with other volumes, and with workboxes, and with wonderful inkstands, portfolios, portable days of the month, scent-bottles, scissor-cases, gilt miniature easels displaying portraits, and countless gimcracks of travel, the rapid Kuhn has covered the tables in the twinkling of an eye.

The person supposed to be the landlady enters the room at this juncture, and the lady rises to receive her. The little wag on the sofa puts his arm round his sister's neck, and whispers, "I say, Eth, isn't she a pretty girl? I shall write to Doctor Goodenough and tell him how much she's grown." Convulsions follow this sally, to the surprise of Hannah, who says, "Pooty little dear!—what time will he have his dinner, mum?"

"Thank you, Mrs. Honeyman, at two o'clock," says the lady with a bow of her head. "There is a clergyman of your name in London; is he a relation?" The lady in her turn is astonished, for the tall person breaks out into a grin, and says, "Law, mum, you're speakin' of Master Charles. He's in London."

"Indeed!—of Master Charles?"

"And you take me for missis, mum. I beg your pardon, mum," cries Hannah. The invalid hits his sister in the side with a weak little fist. If laughter can cure, salva est res. Doctor Goodenough's patient is safe. "Master Charles is missis's brother, mum. I've got no brother, mum—never had no brother. Only one son, who's in the police, mum, thank you. And law bless me, I was going to forget! If you please, mum, missis says, if you are quite rested, she will pay her duty to you, mum."

"Oh, indeed," says the lady, rather stiffly; and, taking this for an acceptance of her mistress's visit, Hannah retires.

"This Miss Honeyman seems to be a great personage," says the lady. "If people let lodgings, why do they give themselves such airs?"

"We never saw Monsieur de Boigne at Boulogne, mamma," interposes the girl.

"Monsieur de Boigne, my dear Ethel! Monsieur de Boigne is very well. But—" here the door opens, and in a large cap bristling with ribbons, with her best chestnut front, and her best black silk gown, on which her gold watch shines very splendidly, little Miss Honeyman makes her appearance, and a dignified curtsey to her lodger.

That lady vouchsafes a very slight inclination of the head indeed, which she repeats when Miss Honeyman says, "I am glad to hear your ladyship is pleased with the apartments."

"Yes, they will do very well, thank you," answers the latter person, gravely.

"And they have such a beautiful view of the sea!" cries Ethel.

"As if all the houses hadn't a view of the sea, Ethel! The price has been arranged, I think? My servants will require a comfortable room to dine in—by themselves, ma'am, if you please. My governess and the younger children will dine together. My daughter dines with me—and my little boy's dinner will be ready at two o'clock precisely, if you please. It is now near one."

"Am I to understand——" interposed Miss Honeyman.

"Oh! I have no doubt we shall understand each other, ma'am," cried Lady Anne Newcome (whose noble presence the acute reader has no doubt ere this divined and saluted). "Doctor Goodenough has given me a most satisfactory account of you—more satisfactory perhaps than—than you are aware of." Perhaps Lady Anne's sentence was not going to end in a very satisfactory way for Miss Honeyman; but, awed by a peculiar look of resolution in the little lady, her lodger of an hour paused in whatever offensive remark she might have been about to make. "It is as well that I at last have the pleasure of seeing you, that I may state what I want, and that we may, as you say, understand each other. Breakfast and tea, if you please, will be served in the same manner as dinner. And you will have the kindness to order fresh milk every morning for my little boy—ass's milk—Doctor Goodenough has ordered ass's milk. Anything further I want I will communicate through the person who spoke to you—Kuhn, Mr. Kuhn; and that will do."

A heavy shower of rain was descending at this moment, and little Mrs. Honeyman looking at her lodger, who had sate down and taken up her book, said, "Have your ladyship's servants unpacked your trunks?"

"What on earth, madam, have you—has that to do with the question?"

"They will be put to the trouble of packing again, I fear. I cannot provide—three times five are fifteen—fifteen separate meals for seven persons—besides those of my own family. If your servants cannot eat with mine, or in my kitchen, they and their mistress must go elsewhere. And the sooner the better, madam, the sooner the better!" says Mrs. Honeyman, trembling with indignation, and sitting down in a chair spreading her silks.

"Do you know who I am?" asks Lady Anne, rising.

"Perfectly well, madam," says the other. "And had I known, you should never have come into my house, that's more."

"Madam!" cries the lady, on which the poor little invalid, scared and nervous, and hungry for his dinner, began to cry from his sofa.

"It will be a pity that the dear little boy should be disturbed. Dear little child, I have often heard of him, and of you, miss," says the little householder, rising. "I will get you some dinner, my dear, for Clive's sake. And meanwhile your ladyship will have the kindness to seek for some other apartments—for not a bit shall my fire cook for any one else of your company." And with this the indignant little landlady sailed out of the room.

"Gracious goodness! Who is the woman?" cries Lady Anne. "I never was so insulted in my life."

"Oh, mamma, it was you began!" says downright Ethel. "That is—Hush, Alfred dear!—Hush, my darling!"

"Oh, it was mamma began! I'm so hungry! I'm so hungry!" howled the little man on the sofa—or off it rather—for he was now down on the ground, kicking away the shawls which enveloped him.

"What is it, my boy? What is it, my blessed darling? You shall have your dinner! Give her all, Ethel. There are the keys of my desk—there's my watch—there are my rings. Let her take my all. The monster! the child must live! It can't go away in such a storm as this. Give me a cloak, a parasol, anything—I'll go forth and get a lodging. I'll beg my bread from house to house—if this fiend refuses me. Eat the biscuits, dear! A little of the syrup, Alfred darling; it's very nice, love! and come to your old mother—your poor old mother."

Alfred roared out, "No—it's not n-ice: it's n-a-a-asty! I won't have syrup. I will have dinner." The mother, whose embraces the child repelled with infantine kicks, plunged madly at the bells, rang them all four vehemently, and ran downstairs towards the parlour, whence Miss Honeyman was issuing.

The good lady had not at first known the names of her lodgers, but had taken them in willingly enough on Dr. Goodenough's recommendation. And it was not until one of the nurses entrusted with the care of Master Alfred's dinner informed Miss Honeyman of the name of her guest, that she knew she was entertaining Lady Anne Newcome; and that the pretty girl was the fair Miss Ethel; the little sick boy, the little Alfred of whom his cousin spoke, and of whom Clive had made a hundred little drawings in his rude way, as he drew everybody. Then bidding Sally run off to St. James's Street for a chicken—she saw it put on the spit, and prepared a bread sauce, and composed a batter-pudding as she only knew how to make batter-puddings. Then she went to array herself in her best clothes, as we have seen,—as we have heard rather (Goodness forbid that we should see Miss Honeyman arraying herself, or penetrate that chaste mystery, her toilette!)—then she came to wait upon Lady Anne, not a little flurried as to the result of that queer interview; then she whisked out of the drawing-room as before has been shown; and, finding the chicken roasted to a turn, the napkin and tray ready spread by Hannah the neat-handed, she was bearing them up to the little patient when the frantic parent met her on the stair.