aw one; as I don't frequent operas and parties in
London like you young flunkeys of the aristocracy. I heard you talking
about this one; I couldn't help it, as my door was open and the young
one was shouting like a madman. What! does he choose to hang on on
sufferance and hope to be taken, provided Miss can get no better? Do
you mean to say that is the genteel custom, and that women in your
confounded society do such things every day? Rather than have such a
creature I would take a savage woman, who should nurse my dusky brood;
and rather than have a daughter brought up to the trade I would bring
her down from the woods and sell her in Virginia." With which burst of
indignation our friend's anger ended for that night.

Though Mr. Clive had the felicity to meet his cousin Ethel at a party
or two in the ensuing weeks of the season, every time he perused the
features of Lady Kew's brass knocker in Queen Street, no result came of
the visit. At one of their meetings in the world Ethel fairly told him
that her grandmother would not receive him. "You know, Clive, I can't
help myself: nor would it be proper to make you signs out of the
window. But you must call for all that: grandmamma may become more
good-humoured: or if you don't come she may suspect I told you not to
come: and to battle with her day after day is no pleasure, sir, I assure
you. Here is Lord Farintosh coming to take me to dance. You must not
speak to me all the evening, mind that, sir," and away goes the young
lady in a waltz with the Marquis.

On the same evening--as he was biting his nails, or cursing his fate,
or wishing to invite Lord Farintosh into the neighbouring garden of
Berkeley Square, whence the policeman might carry to the station-house
the corpse of the survivor,--Lady Kew would bow to him with perfect
graciousness; on other nights her ladyship would pass and no more
recognise him than the servant who opened the door.

If she was not to see him at her grandmother's house, and was not
particularly unhappy at his exclusion, why did Miss Newcome encourage
Mr. Clive so that he should try and see her? If Clive could not get
into the little house in Queen Street, why was Lord Farintosh's enormous
cab-horse looking daily into the first-floor windows of that street? Why
were little quiet dinners made for him, before the opera, before going
to the play, upon a half-dozen occasions, when some of the old old Kew
port was brought out of the cellar, where c