Binnie used to say, »in order that he might have permission to pay her milliner's bills;« and in this way he was amply gratified until the day of her death. A feeble miniature of the lady, with yellow ringlets and a guitar, hung over the mantelpiece of the Colonel's bed-chamber, where I have often seen that work of art; and subsequently, when he and Mr. Binnie took a house, there was hung up in the spare bedroom a companion portrait to the miniature – that of the Colonel's predecessor, Jack Casey, who in life used to fling plates at his Emma's head, and who perished from a fatal attachment to the bottle. I am inclined to think that Colonel Newcome was not much cast down by the loss of his wife, and that they lived but indifferently together. Clive used to say in his artless way that his father scarcely ever mentioned his mother's name; and no doubt the union was not happy, although Newcome continued piously to acknowledge it, long after death had brought it to a termination, by constant benefactions and remembrances to the departed lady's kindred.

Those widows or virgins who endeavoured to fill Emma's place found the door of Newcome's heart fast and barred, and assailed it in vain. Miss Billing sat down before it with her piano, and, as the Colonel was a practitioner on the flute, hoped to make all life one harmonious duet with him; but she played her most brilliant sonatas and variations in vain, and, as everybody knows, subsequently carried her grand piano to Lieutenant and Adjutant Hodgkin's house, whose name she now bears. The lovely widow Wilkins, with two darling little children, stopped at Newcome's hospitable house, on her way to Calcutta, and it was thought she might never leave it; but her kind host, as was his wont, crammed her children with presents and good things, consoled and entertained the fair widow, and one morning, after she had remained three months at the station, the Colonel's palanquins and bearers made their appearance, and Elvira Wilkins went away weeping as a widow should. Why did she abuse Newcome ever after at Calcutta, Bath, Cheltenham, and wherever she went, calling him selfish, pompous, Quixotic, and a Bahawder? I could mention half a dozen other names of ladies of most respectable families connected with Leadenhall Street, who, according to Colonel Newcome's chum – that wicked Mr. Binnie – had all conspired more or less to give Clive Newcome a step-mother.

But he had had an unlucky experience in his own case, and thought within himself, »No, I won't give Clive a step-mother. As Heaven has taken his own mother from him, why, I must try to be father and mother too to the lad.« He kept the child as long as ever the climate would allow of his remaining, and then sent him home. Then his aim was to save money for the youngster. He was of a nature so uncontrollably generous, that to be sure he spent five rupees where another would save them, and make a fine show besides; but it is not a man's gifts or hospitalities that generally injure his fortune. It is on themselves that prodigals spend most. And as Newcome had no personal extravagances, and the smallest selfish wants; could live almost as frugally as a Hindoo; kept his horses not to race but to ride; wore his old clothes and uniforms until they were the laughter of his regiment; did not care for show, and had no longer an extravagant wife, he managed to lay by considerably out of his liberal allowances, and to find himself and Clive growing richer every year.

»When Clive has had five or six years at school« – that was his scheme – »he will be a fine scholar, and have at least as much classical learning as a gentleman in the world need possess. Then I will go to England, and we will pass three or four years together, in which he will learn to be intimate with me, and, I hope, to like me. I shall be his pupil for Latin and Greek, and try and make up for lost time. I know there is nothing like a knowledge of the classics to give a man good breeding – Ingenuas didicisse fideliter artes emollunt mores, nec sinuisse feros. I shall be able to help him with my knowledge of the world, and to keep him out of the way of sharpers and a pack of rogues who commonly infest young men. I will make myself his companion, and pretend to no superiority; for, indeed, isn't he my superior? Of course he is, with his advantages. He hasn't been an idle young scamp as I was. And we will travel together, first through England, Scotland, and Ireland, for every man should know his own country, and then we will make the grand tour. Then, by the time he is eighteen, he will be able to choose his profession. He can go into the army, and emulate the glorious man after whom I named him; or if he prefers the church, or the law, they are open to him; and when he goes to the university, by which time I shall be in all probability a major-general, I can come back to India for a few years, and return by the time he has a wife and a home for his old father; or, if I die, I shall have done the best for him, and my boy will be left with the best education, a tolerable small fortune, and the blessing of his old father.«

Such were the plans of our kind schemer. How fondly he dwelt on them, how affectionately he wrote of them to his boy! How he read books of travels and looked over the maps of Europe! and said, »Rome, sir, glorious Rome; it won't be very long, major, before my boy and I see the Colosseum, and kiss the Pope's toe. We shall go up the Rhine to Switzerland, and over the Simplon, the work of the great Napoleon. By Jove, sir, think of the Turks before Vienna, and Sobieski clearing eighty thousand of 'em off the face of the earth! How my boy will rejoice in the picture galleries there, and in Prince Eugene's prints! You know, I suppose, that Prince Eugene, one of the greatest generals in the world, was also one of the greatest lovers of the fine arts. Ingenuas didicisse, hey, Doctor? you know the rest, – emollunt mores nec.«

»Emollunt mores! Colonel,« says Dr. M'Taggart, who perhaps was too canny to correct the commanding officer's Latin. »Don't ye noo that Prence Eugene was about as savage a Turrk as iver was? Have ye niver rad the mimores of the Prants de Leen?«

»Well, he was a great cavalry officer,« answers the Colonel, »and he left a great collection of prints – that you know. How Clive will delight in them! The boy's talent for drawing is wonderful, sir, wonderful.