e of the ill success of the B. B. C.,
there were two old ladies who yet remained faithful to him--Miss Cann,
namely, and honest little Miss Honeyman of Brighton, who, when she heard
of the return to London of her nephew and brother-in-law, made a railway
journey to the metropolis (being the first time she ever engaged in that
kind of travelling), rustled into Clive's apartments in Howland Street
in her neatest silks, and looking not a day older than on that when we
last beheld her; and after briskly scolding the young man for permitting
his father to enter into money affairs--of which the poor dear Colonel
was as ignorant as a baby--she gave them both to understand that she had
a little sum at her banker's at their disposal--and besought the Colonel
to remember that her house was his, and that she should be proud and
happy to receive him as soon and as often and for as long a time as
he would honour her with his company. "Is not my house full of your
presents"--cried the stout little old lady--"have I not reason to be
grateful to all the Newcomes--yes, to all the Newcomes;--for Miss
Ethel and her family have come to me every year for months, and I
don't quarrel with them, and I won't, although you do, sir? Is not this
shawl--are not these jewels that I wear," she continued, pointing to
those well-known ornaments, "my dear Colonel's gift? Did you not relieve
my brother Charles in this country and procure for him his place in
India? Yes, my dear friend--and though you have been imprudent in money
matters, my obligations towards you, and my gratitude, and my affection
are always the same." Thus Miss Honeyman spoke, with somewhat of a
quivering voice at the end of her little oration, but with exceeding
state and dignity--for she believed that her investment of two hundred
pounds in that unlucky B. B. C., which failed for half a million, was
a sum of considerable importance, and gave her a right to express her
opinion to the Managers.

Clive came back from Boulogne in a week, as we have said--but he came
back without his wife, much to our alarm, and looked so exceedingly
fierce and glum when we demanded the reason of his return without his
family, that we saw wars and battles had taken place, and thought that
in this last continental campaign the Campaigner had been too much for
her friend.

The Colonel, to whom Clive communicated, though with us the poor lad
held his tongue, told my wife what had happened:--not all the bat