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The Newcomes: Newcome

At last the happy time came for which the colonel had been longing, and he took leave of his regiment. In England, he had in his family circle two half-brothers, Sir Brian, who had married Lady Ann, daughter of the Earl of Kew, and Hobson Newcome.

One morning at breakfast while Sir Brian chumped his dry toast, Barnes, the son, said to his sister Ethel: "My uncle, the colonel of sepoys, and his amiable son have been paying a visit to Newcome." "You are always sneering about our uncle," broke in Ethel, "and saying unkind things about Clive. Our uncle is a dear, good, kind man, and I love him." At Hobson Newcome's and elsewhere the family party often assembled--the colonel; his friend Mr. Binnie and Binnie's sister Mrs. Mackenzie, with her daughter Rosey; Sir Brian and Lady Ann; and Clive, who had become a painter. From one of these parties Clive and I, his friend Arthur Pendennis, walked with the usual Havana to light us home. "I can't help thinking," said the astute Clive, "that they fancied I was in love with Ethel. Now, I suppose, they think I am engaged to Rosey. She is as good a little creature as can be, and never out of temper, though I fancy Mrs. Mackenzie tries her." Time passed and our Mr. Clive went to Baden, where he found old Lady Kew with her granddaughter Ethel. "You have no taste for pictures, only for painters, I suppose," said Lady Kew one day to Ethel. "I was not looking at the picture," said Ethel, "but at the little green ticket in the corner. I think, grandmamma," she said, "we young ladies in the world ought to have little green tickets pinned on our backs, with 'sold' written on them."