ra to-morrow, and make her
take me to see your pretty friend, Mrs. Pendennis. How glad I should be
if you happened to pay Mrs. P. a visit about two! Good-night. I thank
you a thousand times, and am always your affectionate E."

"Queen Street. Tuesday night. Twelve o'clock."

This note came to Colonel Newcome's breakfast-table, and he smothered
the exclamation of wonder which was rising to his lips, not choosing to
provoke the questions of Clive, who sate opposite to him. Clive's father
was in a woeful perplexity all that forenoon. "Tuesday night, twelve
o'clock," thought he. "Why, Barnes must have gone to his grandmother
from my dinner-table; and he told me she was out of town, and said so
again just now when we met in the City." (The Colonel was riding towards
Richmond at this time.) "What cause had the young man to tell me these
lies? Lady Kew may not wish to be at home for me, but need Barnes
Newcome say what is untrue to mislead me? The fellow actually went away
simpering, and kissing his hand to me, with a falsehood on his
lips! What a pretty villain! A fellow would deserve, and has got, a
horse-whipping for less. And to think of a Newcome doing this to his own
flesh and blood; a young Judas!" Very sad and bewildered, the Colonel
rode towards Richmond, where he was to happen to call on Mrs. Pendennis.

It was not much of a fib that Barnes had told. Lady Kew announcing that
she was out of town, her grandson, no doubt, thought himself justified
in saying so, as any other of her servants would have done. But if he
had recollected how Ethel came down with the Colonel's shawl on her
shoulders, how it was possible she might have written to thank her
uncle, surely Barnes Newcome would not have pulled that unlucky
long-bow. The banker had other things to think of than Ethel and her
shawl.

When Thomas Newcome dismounted at the door of Honeymoon Cottage,
Richmond, the temporary residence of A. Pendennis, Esq., one of the
handsomest young women in England ran into the passage with outstretched
arms, called him her dear old uncle, and gave him two kisses, that I
dare say brought blushes on his lean sunburnt cheeks. Ethel clung always
to his affection. She wanted that man, rather than any other in the
whole world, to think well of her. When she was with him, she was the
amiable and simple, the loving impetuous creature of old times. She
chose to think of no other. Worldliness, heartlessness, eager scheming,
cold flirtation