atest assiduity. Let us not be too particular in narrating his
father's unedifying frolics of a quarter of a century ago.

Old Lady Kew, who, in conjunction with Mrs. Newcome, had made the
marriage between Mr. Brian Newcome and her daughter, always despised her
son-in-law; and being a frank, open person, uttering her mind always,
took little pains to conceal her opinion regarding him or any other
individual. "Sir Brian Newcome," she would say, "is one of the most
stupid and respectable of men; Anne is clever, but has not a grain of
common sense. They make a very well assorted couple. Her flightiness
would have driven any man crazy who had an opinion of his own. She would
have ruined any poor man of her own rank; as it is, I have given her
a husband exactly suited for her. He pays the bills, does not see how
absurd she is, keeps order in the establishment, and checks her follies.
She wanted to marry her cousin, Tom Poyntz, when they were both very
young, and proposed to die of a broken heart when I arranged her match
with Mr. Newcome. A broken fiddlestick! she would have ruined Tom Poyntz
in a year; and has no more idea of the cost of a leg of mutton, than I
have of algebra."

The Countess of Kew loved Brighton, and preferred living there even at
the season when Londoners find such especial charms in their own city.
"London after Easter," the old lady said, "was intolerable. Pleasure
becomes a business, then so oppressive, that all good company is
destroyed by it. Half the men are sick with the feasts which they eat
day after day. The women are thinking of the half-dozen parties they
have to go to in the course of the night. The young girls are thinking
of their partners and their toilettes. Intimacy becomes impossible, and
quiet enjoyment of life. On the other hand, the crowd of bourgeois
has not invaded Brighton. The drive is not blocked up by flys full of
stockbrokers' wives and children; and you can take the air in your chair
upon the chain-pier, without being stifled by the cigars of the odious
shop-boys from London." So Lady Kew's name was usually amongst the
earliest which the Brighton newspapers recorded amongst the arrivals.

Her only unmarried daughter, Lady Julia, lived with her ladyship. Poor
Lady Julia had suffered early from a spine disease, which had kept
her for many years to her couch. Being always at home, and under her
mother's eyes, she was the old lady's victim, her pincushion, into which
Lady Kew