ropensity
to darkness and evil--as a bug crawls, and stings, and stinks. I don't
suppose the fellow feels any more remorse than a cat that runs away
with a mutton-chop. I recognise the Evil Spirit, sir, and do honour to
Ahrimanes, in taking off my hat to this young man. He seduced a poor
girl in his father's country town--is it not natural? Deserted her and
her children--don't you recognise the beast? married for rank--could
you expect otherwise from him? invites my Lord Highgate to his house in
consideration of his balance at the bank;--sir, unless somebody's heel
shall crunch him on the way, there is no height to which this aspiring
vermin mayn't crawl. I look to see Sir Barnes Newcome prosper more and
more. I make no doubt he will die an immense capitalist, and an exalted
Peer of this realm. He will have a marble monument, and a pathetic
funeral sermon. There is a divine in your family, Clive, that shall
preach it. I will weep respectful tears over the grave of Baron Newcome,
Viscount Newcome, Earl Newcome; and the children whom he has deserted,
and who, in the course of time, will be sent by a grateful nation to New
South Wales, will proudly say to their brother convicts,--'Yes, the Earl
was our honoured father.'"

"I fear he is no better than he should be, Mr. Warrington," says the
Colonel, shaking his head. "I never heard the story about the deserted
children."

"How should you, O you guileless man!" cries Warrington.

"I am not in the ways of scandal-hearing myself much: but this tale I
had from Sir Barnes Newcome's own country. Mr. Batters of the Newcome
Independent is my esteemed client. I write leading articles for his
newspaper, and when he was in town last spring he favoured me with the
anecdote; and proposed to amuse the Member for Newcome by publishing it
in his journal. This kind of writing is not much in my line: and, out of
respect to you and your young one, I believe--I strove with Mr. Batters,
and--entreated him and prevailed with him, not to publish the story.
That is how I came to know it."

I sate with the Colonel in the evening, when he commented on
Warrington's story and Sir Barnes's adventures in his simple way. He
said his brother Hobson had been with him the morning after the dispute,
reiterating Barnes's defence of his conduct: and professing on his own
part nothing but goodwill towards his brother. "Between ourselves the
young Baronet carries matters with rather a high hand sometimes, an