nts, and though
his efforts to make himself agreeable were rather apparent, the effect
succeeded pretty well. We met Mr. and Mrs. Hobson Newcome, and Clive,
and Miss Ethel looking beautiful in her black robes. It was a family
party, Sir Barnes said, giving us to understand, with a decorous
solemnity in face and voice, that no large parties as yet could be
received in that house of mourning.

To this party was added, rather to my surprise, my Lord Highgate, who
under the sobriquet of Jack Belsize has been presented to the reader of
this history. Lord Highgate gave Lady Clara his arm to dinner, but
went and took a place next Miss Newcome, on the other side of her; that
immediately by Lady Clara being reserved for a guest who had not as yet
made his appearance.

Lord Highgate's attentions to his neighbour, his laughing and talking,
were incessant; so much so that Clive, from his end of the table,
scowled in wrath at Jack Belsize's assiduities: it was evident that the
youth, though hopeless, was still jealous and in love with his charming
cousin.

Barnes Newcome was most kind to all his guests: from Aunt Hobson to your
humble servant, there was not one but the of master the house had an
agreeable word for him. Even for his cousin Samuel Newcome, a gawky
youth with an eruptive countenance, Barnes had appropriate words of
conversation, and talked about King's College, of which the lad was an
ornament, with the utmost affability. He complimented that institution
and young Samuel, and by that shot knocked not only over Sam but his
mamma too. He talked to Uncle Hobson about his crops; to Clive about his
pictures; to me about the great effect which a certain article in the
Pall Mall Gazette had produced in the House, where the Chancellor of
the Exchequer was perfectly livid with fury, and Lord John bursting out
laughing at the attack: in fact, nothing could be more amiable than our
host on this day. Lady Clara was very pretty--grown a little stouter
since her marriage; the change only became her. She was a little silent,
but then she had Uncle Hobson on her left-hand side, between whom and
her ladyship there could not be much in common, and the place at the
right hand was still vacant. The person with whom she talked most freely
was Clive, who had made a beautiful drawing of her and her little girl,
for which the mother and the father too, as it appeared, were very
grateful.

What had caused this change in Barnes's behaviour