tness, nay, a friend to Thomas Newcome in that family
quarrel, I grieved to think that a generous heart was led astray, and
to see a good man do wrong. So with no more thanks for his interference
than a man usually gets who meddles in domestic strifes, the present
luckless advocate ceased pleading.

To be sure, the Colonel and Clive had other advisers, who did not take
the peaceful side. George Warrington was one of these; he was for war
a l'outrance with Barnes Newcome; for keeping no terms with such a
villain. He found a pleasure in hunting him, and whipping him. "Barnes
ought to be punished," George said, "for his poor wife's misfortune; it
was Barnes's infernal cruelty, wickedness, selfishness, which had driven
her into misery and wrong." Mr. Warrington went down to Newcome, and
was present at that lecture whereof mention has been made in a previous
chapter. I am afraid his behaviour was very indecorous; he laughed at
the pathetic allusions of the respected Member for Newcome; he sneered
at the sublime passages; he wrote an awful critique in the Newcome
Independent two days after, whereof the irony was so subtle, that half
the readers of the paper mistook his grave scorn for respect, and his
gibes for praise.

Clive, his father, and Frederick Bayham, their faithful aide-de-camp,
were at Newcome likewise when Sir Barnes's oration was delivered. At
first it was given out at Newcome that the Colonel visited the place for
the purpose of seeing his dear old friend and pensioner, Mrs. Mason, who
was now not long to enjoy his bounty, and so old, as scarcely to know
her benefactor. Only after her sleep, or when the sun warmed her and
the old wine with which he supplied her, was the good old woman able to
recognise her Colonel. She mingled father and son together in her mind.
A lady who now often came in to her, thought she was wandering in her
talk, when the poor old woman spoke of a visit she had had from her boy;
and then the attendant told Miss Newcome that such a visit had actually
taken place, and that but yesterday Clive and his father had been in
that room, and occupied the chair where she sat. "The young lady was
taken quite ill, and seemed ready to faint almost," Mrs. Mason's servant
and spokeswoman told Colonel Newcome when that gentleman arrived shortly
after Ethel's departure, to see his old nurse. "Indeed! he was very
sorry." The maid told many stories about Miss Newcome's goodness and
charity; how she was con