»I can't give you any tiger-shooting, but I'll promise you that you shall find plenty of pheasants in our jungle,« and he laughed very gently at this mild sally.

The Colonel gave him a queer look. »I shall be at Newcome before the winter. I shall be there, please God, before many days are over.«

»Indeed!« says the Baronet, with an air of great surprise. »You are going down to look at the cradle of our race. I believe the Newcomes were there before the Conqueror. It was but a village in our grandfather's time, and it is an immense flourishing town now, for which I hope to get – I expect to get – a charter.«

»Do you?« says the Colonel. »I am going down there to see a relation.«

»A relation! What relatives have we there?« cries the Baronet. »My children, with the exception of Barnes. Barnes, this is your uncle, Colonel Thomas Newcome. I have great pleasure, brother, in introducing you to my eldest son.«

A fair-haired young gentleman, languid and pale, and arrayed in the very height of fashion, made his appearance at this juncture in the parlour, and returned Colonel Newcome's greeting with a smiling acknowledgment of his own. »Very happy to see you, I'm sure,« said the young man. »You find London very much changed since you were here? Very good time to come – the very full of the season.«

Poor Thomas Newcome was quite abashed by this strange reception. Here was a man, hungry for affection, and one relation asked him to dinner next Monday, and another invited him to shoot pheasants at Christmas. Here was a beardless young sprig, who patronized him, and vouchsafed to ask him whether he found London was changed.

»I don't know whether it's changed,« says the Colonel, biting his nails; »I know it's not what I expected to find it.«

»To-day, it's really as hot as I should think it must be in India,« says young Mr. Barnes Newcome.

»Hot!« says the Colonel, with a grin. »It seems to me you are all cool enough here.«

»Just what Sir Thomas de Boots said, sir,« says Barnes, turning round to his father. »Don't you remember when he came home from Bombay? I recollect his saying, at Lady Featherstone's, one doosid hot night, as it seemed to us – I recklect his saying that he felt quite cold. Did you know him in India, Colonel Newcome? He's liked at the Horse Guards, but he's hated in his regiment.«

Colonel Newcome here growled a wish regarding the ultimate fate of Sir Thomas de Boots, which we trust may never be realized by that distinguished cavalry officer.

»My brother says he's going to Newcome, Barnes, next week,« said the Baronet, wishing to make the conversation more interesting to the newly-arrived Colonel. »He was saying so just when you came in, and I was asking him what took him there.«

»Did you ever hear of Sarah Mason?« says the Colonel.

»Really, I never did,« the Baronet answered.

»Sarah Mason? No, upon my word, I don't think I ever did,« said the young man.

»Well, that's a pity too,« the Colonel said with a sneer. »Mrs. Mason is a relation of yours – at least by marriage. She is my aunt, or cousin – I used to call her aunt – and she and my father and mother all worked in the same mill at Newcome together.«

»I remember – God bless my soul – I remember now!« cries the Baronet. »We pay her forty pound a year on your account – don't you know, brother? Look to Colonel Newcome's account – I recollect the name quite well. But I thought she had been your nurse, and – and an old servant of my father's.«

»So she was my nurse, and an old servant of my father's,« answered the Colonel. »But she was my mother's cousin too; and very lucky was my mother to have such a servant, or to have a servant at all. There is not in the whole world a more faithful creature or a better woman.«

Mr. Hobson rather enjoyed his brother's perplexity, and to see, when the Baronet rode the high horse, how he came down sometimes. »I am sure it does you very great credit,« gasped the courtly head of the firm, »to remember a – a humble friend and connection of our father's so well.«

»I think, brother, you might have recollected her too,« the Colonel growled out. His face was blushing; he was quite angry and hurt at what seemed to him Sir Brian's hardness of heart.

»Pardon me if I don't see the necessity,« said Sir Brian. »I have no relationship with Mrs.