in order to win her; the best task to which his boy could set himself.
If two young people so loving each other were to marry on rather narrow
means, what then? A happy home was better than the finest house
in Mayfair; a generous young fellow, such as, please God, his son
was--loyal, upright, and a gentleman--might pretend surely to his
kinswoman's hand without derogation; and the affection he bore Ethel
himself was so great, and the sweet regard with which she returned
it, that the simple father thought his kindly project was favoured by
Heaven, and prayed for its fulfilment, and pleased himself to think,
when his campaigns were over, and his sword hung on the wall, what a
beloved daughter he might have to soothe and cheer his old age. With
such a wife for his son, and child for himself, he thought the happiness
of his last years might repay him for friendless boyhood, lonely
manhood, and cheerless exile; and he imparted his simple scheme to
Ethel's mother, who no doubt was touched as he told his story; for she
always professed regard and respect for him, and in the differences
which afterwards occurred in the family, and the quarrels which divided
the brothers, still remained faithful to the good Colonel.

But Barnes Newcome, Esquire, was the bead of the house, and the governor
of his father and all Sir Brian's affairs; and Barnes Newcome, Esquire,
hated his cousin Clive, and spoke of him as a beggarly painter, an
impudent snob, an infernal young puppy, and so forth; and Barnes with
his usual freedom of language imparted his opinions to his Uncle Hobson
at the bank, and Uncle Hobson carried them home to Mrs. Newcome in
Bryanstone Square; and Mrs. Newcome took an early opportunity of telling
the Colonel her opinion on the subject, and of bewailing that love
for aristocracy which she saw actuated some folks; and the Colonel was
brought to see that Barnes was his boy's enemy, and words very likely
passed between them, for Thomas Newcome took a new banker at this time,
and, as Clive informed me, was in very great dudgeon because Hobson
Brothers wrote to him to say that he had overdrawn his account. "I am
sure there is some screw loose," the sagacious youth remarked to me;
"and the Colonel and the people in Park Lane are at variance, because
he goes there very little now; and he promised to go to Court when Ethel
was presented, and he didn't go."

Some months after the arrival of Mr. Binnie's niece and sister in
Fitzroy S