he spoke, and he bowed his honest head
reverently. I have heard his son tell the simple story years afterwards,
with tears in his eyes.

Piccadilly was hardly yet awake the next morning, and the sparkling dews
and the poor homeless vagabonds still had possession of the grass of
Hyde Park, as the pair walked up to Sir Brian Newcome's house, where
the shutters were just opening to let in the day. The housemaid, who was
scrubbing the steps of the house, and washing its trim feet in a manner
which became such a polite mansion's morning toilet, knew Master Clive,
and smiled at him from under her blousy curl-papers, admitting the two
gentlemen into Sir Brian's dining-room, where they proposed to wait
until Mr. Barnes should appear. There they sate for an hour looking at
Lawrence's picture of Lady Anne, leaning over a harp, attired in
white muslin; at Harlowe's portrait of Mrs. Newcome, with her two sons
simpering at her knees, painted at a time when the Newcome Brothers
were not the bald-headed, red-whiskered British merchants with whom the
reader has made acquaintance, but chubby children with hair flowing
down their backs, and quaint little swallow-tailed jackets and nankeen
trousers. A splendid portrait of the late Earl of Kew in his peer's
robes hangs opposite his daughter and her harp. We are writing of George
the Fourth's reign; I dare say there hung in the room a fine framed
print of that great sovereign. The chandelier is in a canvas bag; the
vast sideboard, whereon are erected open frames for the support of Sir
Brian Newcome's grand silver trays, which on dinner days gleam on that
festive board, now groans under the weight of Sir Brian's bluebooks.
An immense receptacle for wine, shaped like a Roman sarcophagus, lurks
under the sideboard. Two people sitting at that large dining-table must
talk very loud so as to make themselves heard across those great slabs
of mahogany covered with damask. The butler and servants who attend at
the table take a long time walking round it. I picture to myself two
persons of ordinary size sitting in that great room at that great table,
far apart, in neat evening costume, sipping a little sherry, silent,
genteel, and glum; and think the great and wealthy are not always to
be envied, and that there may be more comfort and happiness in a snug
parlour, where you are served by a brisk little maid, than in a great
dark, dreary dining-hall, where a funereal major-domo and a couple of
stealthy