he sofa, as usual; the little boy on his
grandfather's knees.

I hardly made a bow to the ladies, so eager was I to communicate with
Colonel Newcome. "I have just been to your quarters at Grey Friars,
sir," said I. "That is----"

"You have been to the Hospital, sir! You need not be ashamed to mention
it, as Colonel Newcome is not ashamed to go there," cried out the
Campaigner. "Pray speak in your own language, Clive, unless there is
something not fit for ladies to hear." Clive was growling out to me in
German that there had just been a terrible scene, his father having, a
quarter of an hour previously, let slip the secret about Grey Friars.

"Say at once, Clive!" the Campaigner cried, rising in her might, and
extending a great strong arm over her helpless child, "that Colonel
Newcome owns that he has gone to live as a pauper in a hospital! He who
has squandered his own money. He who has squandered my money. He who has
squandered the money of that darling helpless child--compose yourself,
Rosey my love!--has completed the disgrace of the family, by his present
mean and unworthy--yes, I say, mean and unworthy and degraded conduct.
Oh, my child, my blessed child! to think that your husband's father
should have come to a workhouse!" Whilst this maternal agony bursts over
her, Rosa, on the sofa, bleats and whimpers amongst the faded chintz
cushions.

I took Clive's hand, which was cast up to his head striking his forehead
with mad impotent rage, whilst this fiend of a woman lashed his good
father. The veins of his great fist were swollen, his whole body was
throbbing and trembling with the helpless pain under which he writhed.
"Colonel Newcome's friends, ma'am,", I said, "think very differently
from you; and that he is a better judge than you, or any one else,
of his own honour. We all, who loved him in his prosperity, love
and respect him more than ever for the manner in which he bears his
misfortune. Do you suppose that his noble friend, the Earl of H----,
would have counselled him to a step unworthy of a gentleman; that the
Prince de Moncontour would applaud his conduct as he does, if he did
not think it admirable?" I can hardly say with what scorn I used this
argument, or what depth of contempt I felt for the woman whom I knew
it would influence. "And at this minute," I added, "I have come from
visiting the Gray Friars with one of the Colonel's relatives, whose love
and respect for him is boundless; who longs to be r