»And,« said Mr. Giles with great energy, »besides the empty carriages at that funeral, and the parson in black, and the mutes and feathers, and that, there were hundreds and hundreds of people who wore no black, and who weren't present, and who wept for their benefactress, I can tell you. She had her faults, and many of 'em; but the amount of that woman's charities are unheard of, sir – unheard of – and they are put to the credit side of her account up yonder.

»The old lady had a will of her own,« my companion continued. »She would try and know about everybody's business out of business hours; got to know from the young clerks what chapels they went to, and from the clergyman whether they attended regular; kept her sons, years after they were grown men, as if they were boys at school, – and what was the consequence? They had a quarrel with Thomas Newcome's own son, a harum-scarum lad, who ran away, and then was sent to India; and between ourselves, Mr. Hobson and Mr. Brian both, the present baronet, though at home they were as mum as Quakers at a meeting, used to go out on the sly, sir, and be off to the play, sir, and sowed their wild oats like any other young men, sir, like any other young men. Law bless me, once, as I was going away from the Haymarket, if I didn't see Mr. Hobson coming out of the Opera, in tights and an Opera hat, sir, like ›Froggy would a-wooing go,‹ of a Saturday night, too, when his ma thought him safe in bed in the City! I warrant he hadn't his Opera hat on when he went to chapel with her ladyship the next morning – that very morning, as sure as my name's John Giles.

When the old lady was gone, Mr. Hobson had no need of any more humbugging, but took his pleasure freely – fighting, tandems, four-in-hand, anything. He and his brother – his elder brother by a quarter of an hour – were always very good friends; but after Mr. Brian married, and there was only court cards at his table, Mr. Hobson couldn't stand it. They weren't of his suit, he said; and for some time he said he wasn't a marrying man – quite the contrary. But we all come to our fate, you know, and his time came as mine did. You know we married sisters? It was thought a fine match for Polly Smith, when she married the great Mr. Newcome; but I doubt whether my old woman at home hasn't had the best of it, after all; and if ever you come Bernard Street way on a Sunday, about six o'clock, and would like a slice of beef and a glass of port, I hope you'll come and see.«

Do not let us be too angry with Colonel Newcome's two most respectable brothers, if for some years they neglected their Indian relative, or held him in slight esteem. Their mother never pardoned him, or at least by any actual words admitted his restoration to favour. For many years, as far as they knew, poor Tom was an unrepentant prodigal, wallowing in bad company, and cut off from all respectable sympathy. Their father had never had the courage to acquaint them with his more true, and kind, and charitable version of Tom's story. So he passed at home for no better than a black sheep. His marriage with a penniless young lady did not tend to raise him in the esteem of his relatives at Clapham. It was not until he was a widower, until he had been mentioned several times in the Gazette for distinguished military service, until they began to speak very well of him in Leadenhall Street, where the representatives of Hobson Brothers were of course East India proprietors, and until he remitted considerable sums of money to England, that the bankers his brethren began to be reconciled to him.

I say, do not let us be hard upon them. No people are so ready to give a man a bad name as his own kinsfolk; and having made him that present, they are ever most unwilling to take it back again. If they give him nothing else in the days of his difficulty, he may be sure of their pity, and that he is held up as an example to his young cousins to avoid. If he loses his money, they call him poor fellow, and point morals out of him. If he falls among thieves, the respectable Pharisees of his race turn their heads aside and leave him penniless and bleeding. They clap him on the back kindly enough when he returns, after shipwreck, with money in his pocket. How naturally Joseph's brothers made salaams to him, and admired him, and did him honour, when they found the poor outcast a prime minister, and worth ever so much money! Surely human nature is not much altered since the days of those primeval Jews. We would not thrust brother Joseph down a well and sell him bodily; but – but if he has scrambled out of a well of his own digging, and got out of his early bondage into renown and credit, at least we applaud him and respect him, and are proud of Joseph as a member of the family.

Little Clive was the innocent and lucky object upon whom the increasing affection of the Newcomes for their Indian brother was exhibited. When he was first brought home, a sickly child, consigned to his maternal aunt, the kind old maiden lady at Brighton, Hobson Brothers scarce took any notice of the little man, but left him to the entire superintendence of his own family.