ch he chose to employ at present, of constantly abusing and insulting
poor Clive, and awakening Ethel's sympathies by mere opposition. And
Ethel's sad little letter was extracted from the post-bag: and her
mother brought it to her, sealed, in her own room, where the young lady
burned it: being easily brought by Lady Anne's quiet remonstrances to
perceive that it was best no allusion should take place to the silly
dispute which had occurred that evening; and that Clive and his father
should come for the Christmas holidays, if they were so minded. But when
they came, there was no Ethel at Newcome. She was gone on a visit to her
sick aunt, Lady Julia. Colonel Newcome passed the holidays sadly
without his young favourite, and Clive consoled himself by knocking
down pheasants with Sir Brian's keepers: and increased his cousin's
attachment for him by breaking the knees of Barnes's favourite mare out
hunting. It was a dreary entertainment; father and son were glad enough
to get away from it, and to return to their own humbler quarters in
London.

Thomas Newcome had now been for three years in the possession of that
felicity which his soul longed after; and had any friend of his asked
him if he was happy, he would have answered in the affirmative no doubt,
and protested that he was in the enjoyment of everything a reasonable
man could desire. And yet, in spite of his happiness, his honest face
grew more melancholy: his loose clothes hung only the looser on his lean
limbs: he ate his meals without appetite: his nights were restless: and
he would sit for hours silent in the midst of his family, so that Mr.
Binnie first began jocularly to surmise that Tom was crossed in love;
then seriously to think that his health was suffering and that a doctor
should be called to see him; and at last to agree that idleness was
not good for the Colonel, and that he missed the military occupation to
which he had been for so many years accustomed.

The Colonel insisted that he was perfectly happy and contented. What
could he want more than he had--the society of his son, for the present;
and a prospect of quiet for his declining days? Binnie vowed that his
friend's days had no business to decline as yet; that a sober man of
fifty ought to be at his best; and that Newcome had grown older in three
years in Europe, than in a quarter of a century in the East--all which
statements were true, though the Colonel persisted in denying them.

He was very