place in the
centre of Mrs. Clive's table, surrounded by satellites of plate. The
delectable parties were constantly gathered together, the grand barouche
rolling in the Park, or stopping at the principal shops. Little Rosey
bloomed in millinery, and was still the smiling little pet of her
father-in-law, and poor Clive, in the midst of all these splendours, was
gaunt, and sad, and silent; listless at most times, bitter and savage at
others, pleased only when he was out of the society which bored him, and
in the company of George and J. J., the simple friends of his youth.

His careworn look and altered appearance mollified my wife towards
him--who had almost taken him again into favour. But she did not care
for Mrs. Clive, and the Colonel, somehow, grew cool towards us, and to
look askance upon the little band of Clive's friends. It seemed as if
there were two parties in the house. There was Clive's set--J. J., the
shrewd, silent little painter; Warrington, the cynic; and the author
of the present biography, who was, I believe, supposed to give himself
contemptuous airs; and to have become very high and mighty since his
marriage. Then there was the great, numerous, and eminently respectable
set, whose names were all registered in little Rosey's little
visiting-book, and to whose houses she drove round, duly delivering the
cards of Mr. and Mrs. Clive Newcome, and Colonel Newcome;--the generals
and colonels, the judges and the fogies. The only man who kept well
with both sides of the house was F. Bayham, Esq., who, having got into
clover, remained in the enjoyment of that welcome pasture; who really
loved Clive and the Colonel too, and had a hundred pleasant things and
funny stories (the droll old creature!) to tell to the little lady
for whom we others could scarcely find a word. The old friends of the
student-days were not forgotten, but they did not seem to get on in the
new house. The Miss Gandishes came to one of Mrs. Clive's balls, still
in blue crape, still with ringlets on their wizened old foreheads,
accompanying papa, with his shirt-collars turned down--who gazed in mute
wonder on the splendid scene. Warrington actually asked Miss Gandish to
dance, making woeful blunders, however, in the quadrille, while Clive,
with something like one of his old smiles on his face, took out Miss Zoe
Gandish, her sister. We made Gandish overeat and overdrink himself in
the supper-room, and Clive cheered him by ordering a full len