patronised him, and vouchsafed to
ask him whether he found London was changed.

"I don't know whether it's changed," says the Colonel, biting his nails;
"I know it's not what I expected to find it."

"To-day it's really as hot as I should thing it must be in India," says
young Mr. Barnes Newcome.

"Hot!" says the Colonel, with a grin. "It seems to me you are all cool
enough here."

"Just what Sir Thomas de Boots said, sir," says Barnes, turning round
to his father. "Don't you remember when he came home from Bombay? I
recollect his saying, at Lady Featherstone's, one dooced hot night, as
it seemed to us; I recklect his saying that he felt quite cold. Did you
know him in India, Colonel Newcome? He's liked at the Horse Guards, but
he's hated in his regiment."

Colonel Newcome here growled a wish regarding the ultimate fate of
Sir Thomas de Boots, which we trust may never be realised by that
distinguished cavalry officer.

"My brother says he's going to Newcome, Barnes, next week," said the
Baronet, wishing to make the conversation more interesting to the newly
arrived Colonel. "He was saying so just when you came in, and I was
asking him what took him there?"

"Did you ever hear of Sarah Mason?" says the Colonel.

"Really, I never did," the Baronet answered.

"Sarah Mason? No, upon my word, I don't think I ever did, said the young
man.

"Well, that's a pity too," the Colonel said, with a sneer. "Mrs.
Mason is a relation of yours--at least by marriage. She is my aunt or
cousin--I used to call her aunt, and she and my father and mother all
worked in the same mill at Newcome together."

"I remember--God bless my soul--I remember now!" cried the Baronet. "We
pay her forty pound a year on your account--don't you know, brother?
Look to Colonel Newcome's account--I recollect the name quite well.
But I thought she had been your nurse, and--and an old servant of my
father's."

"So she was my nurse, and an old servant of my father's," answered
the Colonel. "But she was my mother's cousin too and very lucky was my
mother to have such a servant, or to have a servant at all. There is not
in the whole world a more faithful creature or a better woman."

Mr. Hobson rather enjoyed his brother's perplexity, and to see when the
Baronet rode the high horse, how he came down sometimes, "I am sure it
does you very great credit," gasped the courtly head of the firm, "to
remember a--a humble friend and connexion of our father's