e Colonel; "I had rather pass
Saturday and Sunday with him, if you please, and some day we will go to
Marblehead together."

"Well, an offer's an offer. I don't know any pleasanter thing than
getting out of this confounded city and smelling the hedges, and looking
at the crops coming up, and passing the Sunday in quiet." And his own
tastes being thus agricultural, the worthy gentleman thought that
everybody else must delight in the same recreation.

"In the winter, I hope, we shall see you at Newcome," says the elder
brother, blandly smiling. "I can't give you any tiger-shooting, but I'll
promise you that you shall find plenty of pheasants in our jungle," and
he laughed very gently at this mild sally.

At this moment a fair-haired young gentleman, languid and pale, and
dressed in the height of fashion, made his appearance and was introduced
as the Baronet's oldest son, Barnes Newcome. He returned Colonel
Newcome's greeting with a smile, saying, "Very happy to see you, I am
sure. You find London very much changed since you were here? Very good
time to come, the very full of the season."

Poor Thomas Newcome was quite abashed by his strange reception. Here was
a man, hungry for affection, and one relation asked him to dinner next
Monday, and another invited him to shoot pheasants at Christmas. Here was
a beardless young sprig, who patronised him and asked him whether he
found London was changed. As soon as possible he ended the interview with
his step-brothers, and drove back to Ludgate Hill, where he dismissed his
cab and walked across the muddy pavements 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
wit