day of anxiety.

"Poor, poor Emma!" exclaimed the ecclesiastic, casting his eyes
towards the chandelier, and passing a white cambric pocket-handkerchief
gracefully before them. No man in London understood the ring business or
the pocket-handkerchief business better, or smothered his emotion more
beautifully. "In the gayest moments, in the giddiest throng of fashion,
the thoughts of the past will rise; the departed will be among us still.
But this is not the strain wherewith to greet the friend newly arrived
on our shores. How it rejoices me to behold you in old England! How you
must have joyed to see Clive!"

"D---- the humbug," muttered Barnes, who knew him perfectly well. "The
fellow is always in the pulpit."

The incumbent of Lady Whittlesea's chapel smiled and bowed to him. "You
do not recognise me, sir; I have had the honour of seeing you in your
public capacity in the City, when I have called at the bank, the bearer
of my brother-in-law's generous----"

"Never mind that, Honeyman!" cried the Colonel.

"But I do mind, my dear Colonel," answers Mr. Honeyman. "I should be
a very bad man, and a very ungrateful brother, if I ever forgot your
kindness."

"For God's sake leave my kindness alone."

"He'll never leave it alone as long as he can use it," muttered Mr.
Barnes in his teeth; and turning to his uncle, "May I take you home,
sir? my cab is at the door, and I shall be glad to drive you." But the
Colonel said he must talk to his brother-in-law for a while, and Mr.
Barnes, bowing very respectfully to him, slipped under a dowager's arm
in the doorway, and retreated silently downstairs.

Newcome was now thrown entirely upon the clergyman, and the latter
described the personages present to the stranger, who was curious to
know how the party was composed. Mrs. Newcome herself would have been
pleased had she heard Honeyman's discourse regarding her guests and
herself. Charles Honeyman so spoke of most persons that you might fancy
they were listening over his shoulder. Such an assemblage of learning,
genius, and virtue, might well delight and astonish a stranger. "That
lady in the red turban, with the handsome daughters, is Lady Budge, wife
of the eminent judge of that name--everybody was astonished that he was
not made Chief Justice, and elevated to the Peerage--the only objection
(as I have heard confidentially) was on the part of a late sovereign,
who said he never could consent to have a peer of the name of Bu