ys; there's no good in boys; they stop the
talk downstairs, and the ladies don't want 'em in the drawing-room. Send
him to dine with the children on Sunday, if you like, and come along
down with me to Marblehead, and I'll show you such a crop of hay as will
make your eyes open. Are you fond of farming?"

"I have not seen my boy for years," says the Colonel; "I had rather pass
Saturday and Sunday with him, if you please, and some day we will go to
Marblehead together."

"Well, an offer's an offer. I don't know any pleasanter thing than
getting out of this confounded City and smelling the hedges, and looking
at the crops coming up, and passing the Sunday in quiet." And his
own tastes being thus agricultural, the honest gentleman thought that
everybody else must delight in the same recreation.

"In the winter, I hope we shall see you at Newcome," says the elder
brother, blandly smiling. "I can't give you any tiger-shooting, but I'll
promise you that you shall find plenty of pheasants in our jungle," and
he laughed very gently at this mild sally.

The Colonel gave him a queer look. "I shall be at Newcome before the
winter. I shall be there, please God, before many days are over."

"Indeed!" says the Baronet, with an air of great surprise. "You are
going down to look at the cradle of our race. I believe the Newcomes
were there before the Conqueror. It was but a village in our
grandfather's time, and it is an immense flourishing town now, for which
I hope to get--I expect to get--a charter."

"Do you?" says the Colonel. "I am going down there to see a relation."

"A relation! What relatives have we there?" cries the Baronet. "My
children, with the exception of Barnes. Barnes, this is your uncle
Colonel Thomas Newcome. I have great pleasure, brother, in introducing
you to my eldest son."

A fair-haired young gentleman, languid and pale, and arrayed in the very
height of fashion, made his appearance at this juncture in the parlour,
and returned Colonel Newcome's greeting with a smiling acknowledgment
of his own. "Very happy to see you, I'm sure," said the young man. "You
find London very much changed since you were here? Very good time to
come--the very full of the season."

Poor Thomas Newcome was quite abashed by this strange reception. Here
was a man, hungry for affection, and one relation asked him to dinner
next Monday, and another invited him to shoot pheasants at Christmas.
Here was a beardless young sprig, who