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words, at least let us have a practical man. If not a man of eloquence, one at any rate whose word we can trust, and we can't trust Sir Barnes Newcome's; we have tried him, and we can't really. Last night, when the ladies were crying, we could not for the souls of us help laughing. We hope we know how to conduct ourselves as gentleWe trust we did not interrupt the harmony of the evening; but Sir Barnes Newcome, prating about children and virtue, and affection and poetry, this is really too strong.

men.

"The Independent, faithful to its name, and ever actuated by principles of honour, has been, as our thousands of readers know, disposed to give Sir Barnes Newcome Newcome, Bart., a fair trial. When he came forward after his father's death, we believed in his pledges and promises, as a retrencher and reformer, and we stuck by him. Is there any man in Newcome, except, perhaps, our twaddling old contemporary the Sentinel, who believes in Sir B. N. any more? We say no, and we now give the readers of the Independent, and the electors of this borough, fair notice, that when the dissolution of Parliament takes place, a good man, a true man, a man of experience, no dangerous radical, or brawling tap orator-Mr. Hicks's friends well understand whom we mean-but a gentleman of Liberal principles, well-won wealth, and deserved station and honour, will ask the electors of Newcome whether they are or are not discontented with their present unworthy Member. The Independent, for one, says we know good men of your family, we know in it men who would do honour to any name; but you, Sir Barnes Newcome Newcome, Bart., we trust no more."

In the electioneering matter, which had occasioned my unlucky interference, and that subsequent little coolness upon the good Colonel's part, Clive Newcome had himself shown that the scheme was not to his liking; had then submitted as his custom was: and doing so with a bad grace, as also was to be expected, had got little thanks for his obedience. Thomas Newcome was hurt at his son's faint-heartedness, and of course little Rosey was displeased at his hanging back. He set off in his father's train, a silent, unwilling partisan. Thomas Newcome had the leisure to survey Clive's glum face opposite to him during the whole of their journey, and to chew his mustachios, and brood upon his wrath and wrongs. His life had been a sacrifice for that boy! What darling schemes had he not formed in his behalf, and how superciliously did Clive meet his projects! The Colonel could not see the harm of which he had himself been the author. Had he not done everything in mortal's power for his son's happiness, and how many young men in England were there with such advantages as this moody, discontented, spoiled boy? As Clive backed out of the

contest, of course his father urged it only the more vehemently. Clive slunk away from committees and canvassing, and lounged about the Newcome manufactories, whilst his father, with anger and bitterness in his heart, remained at the post of honour, as he called it, bent upon overcoming his enemy and carrying his point against Barnes Newcome. "If Paris will not fight, sir," the Colonel said, with a sad look following his son, "Priam must.” "Priam must." Good old Priam believed his cause to be a perfectly just one, and that duty and his honour called upon him to draw the sword. So there was difference between Thomas Newcome and Clive his son. I protest it is with pain and reluctance I have to write that the good old man was in error-that there was a wrongdoer, and that Atticus was he.

Atticus, be it remembered, thought himself compelled by the very best motives. Thomas Newcome, the Indian banker, was at war with Barnes, the English banker. The latter had commenced the hostilities by a sudden and cowardly act of treason. There were private wrongs to envenom the contest, but it was the mercantile quarrel on which the Colonel chose to set his declaration of war. Barnes's first

dastardly blow had occasioned it, and his uncle was determined to carry it through. This I have said was also George Warrington's judgment, who, in the ensuing struggle between Sir Barnes and his uncle, acted as a very warm and efficient partisan of the latter. "Kinsmanship!" says George. "What has old Tom Newcome ever had from his kinsman but cowardice and treachery? If Barnes had held up his finger, the young one might have been happy; if he could have effected it, the Colonel and his bank would have been ruined. Į am for war, and for seeing the old boy in Parliament. He knows no more about politics than I do about dancing the polka; but there are five hundred wiseacres in that assembly who know no more than he does, and an honest man taking his seat there, in place of a confounded little rogue, at least makes a change for the better."

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I daresay Thomas Newcome, Esq., would by no means have concurred in the above estimate of his political knowledge, and thought himself as well informed as another. He used to speak with the greatest gravity about our constitution as the pride and envy of the world, though he surprised you as much by the latitudinarian reforms, which he was eager to press forward, as by the most singular old Tory opinions which he advocated on other occasions. He was for having every man to vote; every poor man to labour short time and get high wages; every poor curate to be paid double or treble; every bishop to be docked of his salary, and dismissed from the House of Lords. But he was a staunch admirer of that assembly, and a supporter of the rights of the Crown. He was for sweeping off taxes from the poor, and as money must be raised to carry on government, he opined that

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the rich should pay. He uttered all these opinions with the greatest gravity and emphasis, before a large assembly of electors and others convened in the Newcome Town Hall, amid the roars of applause of the non-electors, and the bewilderment and consternation of Mr. Potts, of the Independent, who had represented the Colonel in his paper as a safe and steady reformer. Of course the Sentinel showed him up as a most dangerous radical, a sepoy republican, and so forth, to the wrath and indignation of Colonel Newcome. He a republican, he scorned the name! He would die as he had bled many a time for his sovereign. He an enemy of our beloved Church! He esteemed and honoured it, as he hated and abhorred the superstitions of Rome. (Yells from the Irish in the crowd.) He an enemy of the House of Lords! He held it to be the safeguard of the constitution and the legitimate prize of our most illustrious, naval, military, and—and— legal heroes (ironical cheers). He repelled with scorn the dastard attacks of the journal which had assailed him; he asked, laying his hand on his heart, if as a gentleman, an officer bearing her Majesty's commission, he could be guilty of a desire to subvert her empire and to insult the dignity of her crown?

After this second speech at the Town Hall, it was asserted by a considerable party in Newcome, that Old Tom (as the mob familiarly called him) was a Tory, while an equal number averred that he was a Radical. Mr. Potts tried to reconcile his statements, a work in which I should think the talented editor of the Independent had no little difficulty. "He knows nothing about it," poor Clive said with a sigh; "his politics are all sentiment and kindness, he will have the poor man paid double wages, and does not remember that the employer would be ruined: you have heard him, Pen, talking in this way at his own table, but when he comes out armed cap-à-pied, and careers against windmills in public, don't you see that as Don Quixote's son I had rather the dear brave old gentleman was at home?"

So this fainéant took but little part in the electioneering doings, holding moodily aloof from the meetings, and councils, and publichouses, where his father's partisans were assembled.

"DE

CHAPTER LXVIII.

A LETTER AND A RECONCILIATION.

Miss Ethel Newcome to Mrs. Pendennis.

EAREST LAURA,-I have not written to you for many weeks past. There have been some things too trivial, and some too sad, to write about; some things I know I shall write of if I begin, and yet that I know I had best leave; for of what good is looking to the past now? Why vex you or myself by reverting to it? Does not every day bring its own duty and task, and are these not enough to occupy one? What a fright you must have had with my little god-daughter! Thank heaven she is well now, and restored to you. You and your husband I know do not think it essential, but I do, most essential, and am very grateful that she was taken to church before her illness.

"Is Mr. Pendennis proceeding with his canvass? I try and avoid a certain subject, but it will come. You know who is canvassing against us here. My poor uncle has met with very considerable success amongst the lower classes. He makes them rambling speeches at which my brother and his friends laugh, but which the people applaud. I saw him only yesterday, on the balcony of the 'King's Arms,' speaking to a great mob, who were cheering vociferously below. I had met him before. He would not even stop and give his Ethel of old days his hand. I would have given him I don't know what, for one kiss, for one kind word; but he passed on and would not answer me. He thinks me-what the world thinks me, worldly and heartless; what I was. But at least, dear Laura, you know that I always truly loved him, and do now, although he is our enemy, though he believes and utters the most cruel things against Barnes, though he says that Barnes Newcome, my father's son, my brother, Laura, is not an honest man. Hard, selfish, worldly, I own my poor brother to be, and pray heaven to amend him; but dishonest! and to be so maligned by the person one loves best in the world! This is a hard trial. pray a proud heart may be bettered by it.

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"And I have seen my cousin: once at a lecture which poor Barnes gave, and who seemed very much disturbed on perceiving Clive; once afterwards at good old Mrs. Mason's, whom I have always continued to visit for uncle's sake. The poor old woman, whose wits are very nearly gone, held both our hands, and asked when we were going to be married? and laughed, poor old thing! I cried out to her that Mr. Clive had a wife at home, a dear young wife, I said. He gave a dreadful sort of laugh, and turned away into the window. He looks terribly ill, pale, and oldened.

"I asked him a great deal about his wife, whom I remember a very pretty, sweet-looking girl indeed, at my Aunt Hobson's, but with a not agreeable mother as I thought then. He answered me by monosyllables, appeared asthough he would speak, and then became silent. I am pained, and yet glad that I saw him. I said, not very distinctly, I daresay, that I hoped the: difference between Barnes and uncle would not extinguish his regard for mamma and me, who have always loved him; when I said loved him, he gave one of his bitter laughs again; and so he did when I said I hoped his wife was well. You never would tell me much about Mrs. Newcome; and I fear she does not make my cousin happy. And yet this marriage was of my uncle's making: another of the unfortunate marriages in our family. I am glad that I paused in time, before the commission of that sin; I strive my best, and to amend my temper, my inexperience, my shortcomings, and try to be the mother of my poor brother's children. But Barnes has never forgiven me my refusal of Lord Farintosh. He is of the world still, Laura. Nor must we deal too harshly with people of his nature, who cannot perhaps comprehend a world beyond. I remember in old days, when we were travelling on the Rhine, in the happiest days of my whole life, I used to hear Clive, and his friend Mr. Ridley, talk of art and of nature in a way that I could not understand at first, but came to comprehend better as my cousin taught me; and since then, I see pictures, and landscapes, and flowers, with quite different eyes, and beautiful secrets as it were, of which I had no idea before. The secret of all secrets, the secret of the other life, and the better world beyond curs, may not this be unrevealed to some? I pray for them all, dearest Laura, for those nearest and dearest to me, that the truth may lighten their darkness, and heaven's great mercy defend them in the perils and dangers of their night.

"My boy at Sandhurst has done very well indeed; and Egbert, I am happy to say, thinks of taking orders; he has been very moderate at College. Not so Alfred; but the Guards are a sadly dangerous school for a young man ; I have promised to pay his debts, and he is to exchange into the line. Mamma is coming to us at Christmas with Alice; my sister is very pretty indeed, I think, and I am rejoiced she is to marry young Mr. Mumford, who has a tolerable living, and who has been attached to her ever since he was a boy at Rugby school.

"Little Barnes comes on bravely with his Latin; and Mr. Whitestock, a most excellent and valuable person in this place, where there is so much Romanism and Dissent, speaks highly of him. Little Clara is so like her unhappy mother in a thousand ways and actions, that I am shocked often; and see my brother starting back and turning his head away, as if suddenly wounded. I have heard the most deplorable accounts of Lord and Lady Highgate. Oh, dearest friend and sister!-save you, I think I scarce know any one that is happy in the world: I trust you may continue so-you who impart your goodness and kindness to all who come near you-you in whose sweet serene happiness I am thankful to be allowed to repose sometimes. You are the island in the desert, Laura! and the birds sing there, and the fountain flows; and we come and repose by you for a little while, and

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