; and from the Oriental he crossed Oxford Street, and from
Oxford Street he stalked over the roomy pavements of Gloucester Place,
and there he bethought him how he had neglected Mrs. Hobson Newcome of
late, and the interesting family of Bryanstone Square. So he went to
leave his card at Maria's door: her daughters, as we have said, are
quite grown girls. If they have been lectured, and learning, and
back-boarded, and practising, and using the globes, and laying in a
store of 'ologies, ever since, what a deal they must know! Colonel
Newcome was admitted to see his nieces, and Consummate Virtue, their
parent. Maria was charmed to see her brother-in-law; she greeted him
with reproachful tenderness: "Why, why," her fine eyes seemed to say,
"have you so long neglected us? Do you think because I am wise, and
gifted, and good, and you are, it must be confessed, a poor creature
with no education, I am not also affable? Come, let the prodigal be
welcomed by his virtuous relatives: come and lunch with us, Colonel!" He
sate down accordingly to the family tiffin.

When the meal was over, the mother, who had matter of importance to
impart to him, besought him to go to the drawing-room, and there poured
out such a eulogy upon her children's qualities as fond mothers know how
to utter. They knew this and they knew that. They were instructed by
the most eminent professors; "that wretched Frenchwoman, whom you may
remember here, Mademoiselle Lenoir," Maria remarked parenthetically,
"turned out, oh, frightfully! She taught the girls the worst accent, it
appears. Her father was not a colonel; he was--oh! never mind! It is a
mercy I got rid of that fiendish woman, and before my precious ones knew
what she was!" And then followed details of the perfections of the two
girls, with occasional side-shots at Lady Anne's family, just as in the
old time. "Why don't you bring your boy, whom I have always loved as a
son, and who avoids me? Why does not Clive know his cousins? They are
very different from others of his kinswomen, who think best of the
heartless world."

"I fear, Maria, there is too much truth in what you say," sighs the
Colonel, drumming on a book on the drawing-room table, and looking down
sees it is a great, large, square, gilt Peerage, open at FARINTOSH,
MARQUIS OF.--Fergus Angus Malcolm Mungo Roy, Marquis of Farintosh, Earl
of Glenlivat, in the peerage of Scotland; also Earl of Rossmont, in that
of the United Kingdom. Son of Ang