sarcastic on the
subject. Ethel lost her temper, and then her firmness, while bursting
into tears she taxed Barnes with cruelty for uttering stories to his
cousin's disadvantage and for pursuing with constant slander one of the
very best of men. But notwithstanding her defence of the Colonel and
Clive, when they came to Newcome for the Christmas holidays, there was no
Ethel there. She had gone on a visit to her sick aunt. Colonel Newcome
passed the holidays sadly without her, and Clive consoled himself by
knocking down pheasants with Sir Brian's keepers; and increased his
cousin's attachment for him by breaking the knees of Barnes's favourite
mare out hunting. It was a dreary holiday; father and son were glad
enough to get away from it, and to return to their own humbler quarters
in London.

Thomas Newcome had now been for three years in the possession of that joy
which his soul longed after, and yet in spite of his happiness, his
honest face grew more melancholy, his loose clothes hung only the looser
on his lean limbs; he ate his meals without appetite; his nights were
restless and he would sit for hours silent, and was constantly finding
business which took him to distant quarters of England. Notwithstanding
this change in him the Colonel insisted that he was perfectly happy and
contented, but the truth was, his heart was aching with the knowledge
that Clive had occupations, ideas, associates, in which the elder could
take no interest. Sitting in his blank, cheerless bedroom, Newcome could
hear the lad and his friends making merry and breaking out in roars of
laughter from time to time. The Colonel longed to share in the merriment,
but he knew that the party would be hushed if he joined it, that the
younger men were happier and freer without him, and without laying any
blame upon them for this natural state of affairs, it saddened the days
and nights of our genial Colonel.

Clive, meanwhile, passed through the course of study prescribed by Mr.
Gandish and drew every cast and statue in that gentleman's studio.
Grindley, his tutor, getting a curacy, Clive did not replace him, but
took a course of modern languages, which he learned with great rapidity.
And now, being strong enough to paint without a master, Mr. Clive must
needs have a studio, as there was no good light in the house in Fitzroy
Square. If his kind father felt any pang even at this temporary parting,
he was greatly soothed and pleased by a little mark of