father presented to him, were only made over formally when the young man came to London after his marriage, and at the paternal request and order appeared as a most inefficient director of the B. B. C. Now Mrs. Newcome, of her own inheritance, possessed not only B. B. C. shares, but moneys in bank and shares in East India Stock, so that Clive in the right of his wife had a seat in the assembly of East India shareholders, and a voice in the election of directors of that famous company. I promise you Mrs. Clive was a personage of no little importance. She carried her little head with an aplomb and gravity which amused some of us. F. B. bent his most respectfully down before her; she sent him on messages, and deigned to ask him to dinner. He once more wore a cheerful countenance; the clouds which gathered o'er the sun of Newcome were in the bosom of the ocean buried, Bayham said, by James Binnie's brilliant behaviour to his niece.

Clive was a proprietor of East India Stock, and had a vote in electing the directors of that Company; and who so fit to be a director of its affairs as Thomas Newcome, Esq., Companion of the Bath, and so long a distinguished officer in its army? To hold this position of director, used, up to very late days, to be the natural ambition of many East Indian gentlemen. Colonel Newcome had often thought of offering himself as a candidate, and now openly placed himself on the lists, and publicly announced his intention. His interest was

rather powerful through the Indian bank, of which he was a director, and many of the shareholders of which were proprietors of the East India Company. To have a director of the B. B. C. also a member of the parliament in Leadenhall Street, would naturally be beneficial to the former institution. Thomas Newcome's prospectuses were issued accordingly, and his canvass received with tolerable favour.

Within a very short time another candidate appeared in the fielda retired Bombay lawyer, of considerable repute and, large meansand at the head of this gentleman's committee appeared the names of Hobson Brothers & Newcome, very formidable personages at the East India House, with which the bank of Hobson Brothers have had dealings for half a century past, and where the old lady, who founded or consolidated that family, had had three stars before her own venerable name, which had descended upon her son Sir Brian, and her grandson, Sir Barnes.

War was thus openly declared between Thomas Newcome and his nephew. The canvass on both sides was very hot and eager. The number of promises was pretty equal. The election was not to come off yet for a while; for aspirants to the honourable office of director used to announce their wishes years before they could be fulfilled, and returned again and again to the contest before they finally won it.

Howbeit, the Colonel's prospects were very fair, and a prodigious indigo crop came in to favour the B. B. C. with the most brilliant report from the board at Calcutta. The shares, still somewhat sluggish, rose again, the Colonel's hopes with them, and the courage of gentlemen at home who had invested their money in the transaction.

We were sitting one day round the Colonel's dinner-table; it was not one of the cocoa-nut tree days, that emblem was locked up in the butler's pantry, and only beheld the lamps on occasions of state. It was a snug family party in the early part of the year, when scarcely anybody was in town; only George Warrington, and F. B., and Mr. and Mrs. Pendennis; and, the ladies having retired, we were having such a talk as we used to enjoy in quite old days, before marriages and cares and divisions had separated us.

F. B. led the conversation. The Colonel received his remarks with great gravity, and thought him an instructive personage. Others considered him rather as amusing than instructive, and so his eloquence was generally welcome. The canvass for the directorship was talked over. The improved affairs of a certain great Banking Company, which shall be nameless, but one which F. B. would take the liberty to state, would, in his opinion, unite for ever the mother country to our great Indian possessions; the prosperity of this great Company was enthusiastically drunk by Mr. Bayham in some of the very best claret. The conduct of the enemies of that Company was characterized in terms of bitter, but not undeserved, satire. F. B. rather liked to air his oratory, and neglected few opportunities for making speeches after dinner.

The Colonel admired his voice and sentiments not the less, perhaps, because the latter were highly laudatory of the good man. And not from interest, at least, as far as he himself knew-not from any mean or selfish motives, did F. B. speak. He called Colonel Newcome his friend, his benefactor; kissed the hem of his garment; he wished fervently that he could have been the Colonel's son; he expressed, repeatedly, a desire that some one would speak ill of the Colonel, so that he, F. B., might have the opportunity of polishing that individual off in about two seconds. He revered the Colonel with all his heart; nor is any gentleman proof altogether against this constant regard and devotion from another.

The Colonel used to wag his head wisely, and say Mr. Bayham's suggestions were often exceedingly valuable, as indeed the fact was, though his conduct was no more of a piece with his opinions than those of some other folks occasionally are.

"What the Colonel ought to do, sir, to help him in the direction," says F. B., "is to get into Parliament. The House of Commons would aid him into the Court of Directors, and the Court of Directors would help him in the House of Commons."

"Most wisely said," says Warrington.

The Colonel declined. "I have long had the House of Commons in my eye,” he said; "but not for me. I wanted my boy to go there. It would be a proud day for me if I could see him there."

"I can't speak," says Clive, from his end of the table. I don't understand about parties, like F. B. here.”

"I believe I do know a thing or two," Mr. Bayham here politely interposes.

“And politics do not interest me in the least," Clive sighs out, drawing pictures with his fork on his napkin, and not heeding the other's interruption.

"I wish I knew what would interest him," his father whispers to me, who happened to be at his side. "He never cares to be out of his painting-room; and he doesn't seem to be very happy even in there. I wish to God, Pen, I knew what had come over the boy." I thought I knew; but what was the use of telling, now there was no remedy? "The

"A dissolution is expected every day," continued F. B. papers are full of it. Ministers cannot go on with this majoritycannot possibly go on, sir. I have it on the best authority; and men who are anxious about their seats are writing to their constituents, or are subscribing at missionary meetings, or are gone down to lecturing at Athenæums, and that sort of thing."

Here Warrington burst out into a laughter much louder than the occasion of the speech of F. B. seemed to warrant; and the Colonel, turning round with some dignity, asked the cause of George's amuse

ment.

"What do you think your darling, Sir Barnes Newcome Newcome, has been doing during the recess?" cries Warrington. "I had a letter this morning from my liberal and punctual employer, Thomas Potts, Esquire, of the Newcome Independent, who states, in language scarcely respectful, that Sir Barnes Newcome Newcome is trying to come the religious dodge, as Mr. Potts calls it. He professes to be stricken down by grief on account of late family circumstances; wears black, and puts on the most piteous aspect, and asks ministers of various denominations to tea with him; and the last announcement is the most stupendous of all. Stop, I have it in my great-coat." And, ringing the bell, George orders a servant to bring him a newspaper from his great-coat pocket. "Here it is, actually in print," Warrington continues, and reads to us:- "Newcome Athenæum. I. for the benefit of the Newcome Orphan Children's Home, and 2. for the benefit of the Newcome Soup Association, without distinction of denomination. Sir Barnes Newcome Newcome, Bart., proposes to give two lectures, on Friday the 23rd, and Friday the 30th, instant.

No. 1, The Poetry of Childhood: Doctor Watts, Mrs. Barbauld, Jane Taylor. No. 2, The Poetry of Womanhood, and the Affections: Mrs. Hemans, L. E. L. Threepence will be charged at the doors, which will go to the use of the above two admirable societies.' Potts wants me to go down and hear him. He has an eye to business. He has had a quarrel with Sir Barnes, and wants me to go down and hear him, and smash him, he kindly says. Let us go down, Clive. You shall draw your cousin as you have drawn his villanous little mug a hundred times before; and I will do the smashing part, and we will have some fun out of the transaction."

Besides, Florac will be in the country; going to Rosebury is a journey worth the taking, I can tell you; and we have old Mrs. Mason to go and see, who sighs after you, Colonel. My wife went to see her,” remarks Mr. Pendennis, "and

"And Miss Newcome, I know," says the Colonel.

"She is away at Brighton, with her little charges, for sea air. My wife heard from her to-day."

"Oh, indeed. Mrs. Pendennis corresponds with her?" says our host, darkling under his eyebrows; and, at this moment, my neighbour, F. B., is kind enough to scrunch my foot under the table with the weight of his heel, as much as to warn me, by an appeal to my own corns, to avoid treading on so delicate a subject in that house.

Yes," said I, in spite, perhaps in consequence, of this interruption. My wife does correspond with Miss Ethel, who is a noble creature, and whom those who know her know how to love and admire. She is very much changed since you knew her, Colonel Newcome; since the misfortunes in Sir Barnes's family, and the differences between you and him. Very much changed and very much improved. Ask my wife about her, who knows her most intimately, and hears from her constantly."

"Very likely, very likely," cried the Colonel, hurriedly. "I hope she is improved, with all my heart. I am sure there was room for it. Gentlemen, shall we go up to the ladies and have some coffee?" And herewith the colloquy ended, and the party ascended to the drawing

room.

The party ascended to the drawing-room, where no doubt both the ladies were pleased by the invasion which ended their talk. My wife and the Colonel talked apart, and I saw the latter looking gloomy, and the former pleading very eagerly, and using a great deal of action, as the little hands are wont to do, when the mistress's heart is very much moved. I was sure she was pleading Ethel's cause with her uncle.

So indeed she was. And Mr. George, too, knew what her thoughts. "Look at her!" he said to me. "Don't you see what she is.

were.

doing? She believes in that girl whom you all said Clive took a fancy to before he married his present little placid wife; a nice little simple creature, who is worth a dozen Ethels."

"Simple certainly," says Mr. P., with a shrug of the shoulder.

"A simpleton of twenty is better than a roué of twenty. It is better not to have thought at all, than to have thought such things as must go through a girl's mind whose life is passed in jilting and being jilted ; whose eyes, as soon as they are opened, are turned to the main chance, and are taught to leer at an earl, to languish at a marquis, and to grow blind before a commoner. I don't know much about fashionable life. Heaven help us! (you young Brummel! I see the reproach in your face!) Why, sir, it absolutely appears to me as if this little hop-o'-mythumb of a creature has begun to give herself airs since her marriage and her carriage. Do you know, I rather thought she patronized me? Are all women spoiled by their contact with the world, and their bloom rubbed off in the market? I know one who seems to me to remain pure! To be sure, I only know her, and this little person, and Mrs. Flanagan our laundress, and my sisters at home, who don't count. But that Miss Newcome to whom once you introduced me? Oh, the cockatrice! only that poison don't affect your wife, the other would kill her. I hope the Colonel will not believe a word which Laura says." And my wife's tête-à-tête with our host coming to an end about this time, Mr. Warrington in high spirits goes up to the ladies, recapitulates the news of Barnes's lecture, recites "How doth the little busy bee," and gives a quasi-satirical comment upon that well-known poem, which bewilders Mrs. Clive, until, set on by the laughter of the rest of the audience, she laughs very freely at that odd man, and calls him "you droll satirical creature you!" and says "she never was so much amused in her life. Were you, Mrs. Pendennis?"

Meanwhile Clive, who has been sitting apart moodily biting his nails, not listening to F. B.'s remarks, has broken into a laugh once ›or twice, and gone to a writing-book, on which, whilst George is still disserting, Clive is drawing.

At the end of the other's speech, F. B. goes up to the draughtsman, looks over his shoulder, makes one or two violent efforts as of inward convulsion, and finally explodes in an enormous guffaw. “It's capital! By Jove, it's capital! Sir Barnes would never dare to face his constituents with that picture of him hung up in Newcome!"

And F. B. holds up the drawing, at which we all laugh except Laura. As for the Colonel, he paces up and down the room, holding the sketch close to his eyes, holding it away from him, patting it, clapping his son delightedly on the shoulder. "Capital! capital! We'll have the picture printed by Jove, sir; show vice its own image; and shame the viper in his own nest, sir. That's what we will.”