The Newcomes

nd her

site. Were there ever such delicious veal-cutlets, such verdant French beans? “Why do we have those odious French cooks, my dear, with their shocking principles — the principles of all Frenchmen are shocking — and the dreadful b

d mutton five times a week at one o’clock. “I am so g

eir horses and ponies, and the visitor within their gates. She would ask strangers to Newcome, hug and embrace them on Sunday; not speak to them on Monday; and on Tuesday behave so rudely to them, that they were gone before Wednesday. Her daughter had had so many governesses — all darlings during the first week, and monsters afterwards — that the poor child possessed none of the accomplishments of her age. She could not play on the piano; she could not speak French well; she could not tell you when gunpowder was invented: she had not the faintest idea of the date of the Norman Conquest, or whether the earth went round the sun, or vice versa. She did not know the number of counties in England, Scotland, and Wales, let alone Ireland; she did not know the difference between latitude and longitude. She had had so many governesses: their accounts differed: poor Ethel was bewildered by a multiplicity of teachers, and thought herself a monster of ignorance. They gave her a book at a Sunday School, and little girls of eight years old answered questions of which she knew nothing. The place swam before her. She could not see the sun shining on their fair flaxen heads and pretty faces. The rosy little children holding up their eager hands, and crying the answer to this ques

orning, taking his family, and of course Ethel, with him. She was inconsolable

Ethel —“he’ll read it in the newspaper.” My Lord Hercules, it is to be hoped, strangled this infant passion in the cradle; having

r up in the class. She was bewildered by the multitude of things they bade her learn. At the youthful little assemblies of her sex, when, under the guide of their respected governesses, the girls came to tea at six o’clock, dancing, charades, and so forth, Ethel herded not with the children of her own age, nor yet with the teachers who sit apart at these assemblies, imparting to each other their little wrongs; but Ethel romped with the little children — the rosy little trots — and took them on her knees, and told them a thousand stories. By these she was adored, a

history we chronicle, and it behoves us to say a word regarding the Earl o

ish, they kick the major-domo downstairs, they turn the duenna out of doors — the toothless old dragon! There is no resisting fate. The Princess will slip out of window by the rope-ladder; the Prince will be off to pursue his pleasures, and sow his wild oats at the appointed season. How many of our English princes have been coddled at home by their fond papas and mammas, walled up in inaccessible castles, with a tutor and a library, guarded by cordons of sentinels, sermoners, old aunts, old women from the world without, and have nevertheless escaped from all these guardians, and astonished the world by their extravagance and their frolics? What a wild rogue was that Prince Harry, son of the austere sovereign who robbed Richard the Second of his crown — the youth who took purses on Gadshill, frequented Eastcheap taverns with Colonel Falstaff and worse company, and boxed Chief Justice Gascoigne’s ears! What must have been the venerable Queen Charlotte’s state of mind when she heard of the courses of her beautiful young Prince; of his punting at gambling-tables; of his dealings with horse-jockeys; of his awful doings with Perdita? Besides instances taken from our Royal Family, could we not draw examples from our res

o the heroic times of Dutch Sam and the Game Chicken. Young gentlemen went eagerly to Moulsey to see the Slasher punch the Pet’s head, or the Negro beat the Jew’s nose to a jelly. The island rang as yet with the tooting horns and rattling teams of mail-coaches; a gay sight was the road in merry England in those days, before steam-engines arose and flung its hostelry and chivalry over. To travel in coaches, to drive coaches, to know coachmen and guards, to be familiar with inns along the road, to laugh with the jolly hostess in the bar, to chuck the pretty chambermaid under the chin, were the delight of men who were young not very long ago. Who ever thought of writing to the Times then? “Biffin,” I warrant, did not grudge his money, and “A Thirsty Soul” paid cheerfully for his drink. The road was an institution, the rin

tigable visitor of schools; that writer of letters to the farmers of his shire, so full of sense and benevolence; who wins prizes at agricultural shows, and even lectures at county town institutes in his modest, plea

r daughter-inlaw would make milksops of her sons, to whom the old lady was never reconciled until after my lord’s entry at Christchurch, where he began to distinguish himself very soon after his first term. He drove tandems, kept hunters, gave dinners, scandalised the Dean, screwed up the tutor’s door, and agonised his mother at home by his lawless proceedings. He qui

espectable 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, ke

easts 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.

ildren are sometimes brought before magistrates, and their poor little backs and shoulders laid bare, covered with bruises and lashes which brutal parents have inflicted, so, I dare say, if there had been any tribunal or judge, before whom this poor patient lady’s heart could have been exposed, it would have been found scarred all over with n

ondon again, or blown over the water to Dieppe. She had never had the measles. “Why did not Anne carry the child to some other place? Julia, you will on no account go and see that littl

ild every day,” cries poor Pincushion

I forbid you to go to Anne’s house. You will send one of the men every day to inquire. Let the groom go — yes, Charles — he will not go into the house. He will ring the bell and wait outside. He had better ring the bell at the area — I suppose there is an area — and speak to the servants through the bars, and bring

f his visit, confirms. The child is getting well rapidly; eating like a little ogre. His cousin Lord Kew has been to see him. He

e come? Write him a note, and send for him

the Brighton papers the arrival of the Earl of

n Belsize are together, I know there is some wickedness planning. What do you know, Doctor? I see by

r. Belsize, and afterwards”— here he glances towards Lady Julia, as if to say, “Before an unmarried lady, I do not like to tell your ladyshi

hy, bless my soul, she is forty years old, and has heard everyth

Madame Pozzoprofondo, the famous contralto of the Italian Ope

Signor Pozzoprofondo was in the carriage too — a-a-

der her bushy black eyebrows. Her ladyship, a sister of the late lamented Marquis of Steyne, possessed no small

h to take the sea air in private, or to avoid their relations, had best go to other places than

terposes th

wo old women, at half-past seven. You may bring Mr. Belsize

er with Jack Belsize. Jack Belsize liked to dine with Lady Kew. He said, “she was an old dear, and the wickedest old woman in all England;” and he li

r visit to Lady Kew, and this time Lord Kew was lou

Barnes, surely, my d

und him! n

a,” broke in Jack Belsize. “I can get on with most men

what — Mr.

gh he is your grandson. I never heard him say a g

r. Belsize,”

tle chap who has just had the measles — he’s a

,” says Lord Kew, slappi

ou say,” remarks Lady Kew, nodding approval; “and B

enthusiastic Kew, “as I was driving Jack in

I beg your pardon, Lady Julia,” cries the inopport

foot into what

y word she is as pretty a girl as you can see on a summer’s day. And the governess said ‘No,’ of course. Governesses always do. But I said I was her u

ur Pozzoprofo

ef. My horses are young, and when they get on the grass the

s Jack. “He had nearly

ever, began to cry; but that young girl, though she was as white as a sheet, never gave up for a moment, and sate in her place like a man. We met nothing, luckily; and I pulled the horses in after a mile or two, and I drove ’em into Brighton as qu

r. I beg your pardon, Lady Kew,” h

aying with them,” Lord Kew proceeds; “an East

bout it in the hotel.

ighter back to my aunt, to say all was well. And he took little Alfred out of the carriage, and then helped out Ethel, and said, ‘My dear, y

e to be whipped, both

my aunt, and were presented in form

upon my life the best drawings I ever saw. And he was making a picture for little What-d’you-call-’em. And Miss Newcome was looking

ructed to write that night to her sister, and desire that Ethel should be sent to see her grandmother:— Ethel, who rebelled against her