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From the foregoing facts we gather that Thomas Newcome had not been many weeks in England before he favoured good little Miss Honeyman with a visit, to her great delight. You may be sure that the visit was an event in her life. And she was especially pleased that it should occur at the time when the Colonel’s kinsfolk were staying under her roof. On the day of the Colonel’s arrival all the presents which Newcome had ever sent his sister-in-law from India had been taken out of the cotton and lavender in which the faithful creature kept them. It was a fine hot day in June, but I promise you Miss Honeyman wore her blazing scarlet Cashmere shawl; her great brooch, representing the Taj of Agra, was in her collar; and her bracelets decorated the sleeves round her lean old hands, which trembled with pleasure as they received the kind grasp of the Colonel of colonels. How busy those hands had been that morning! What custards they had whipped! What a triumph of pie-crusts they had achieved! Before Colonel Newcome had been ten minutes in the house the celebrated veal-cutlets made their appearance. Was not the whole house adorned in expectation of his coming? The good woman’s eyes twinkled, the kind old hand and voice shook, as, holding up a bright glass of Madeira, Miss Honeyman drank the Colonel’s health. “I promise you, my dear Colonel,” says she, nodding her head, adorned with a bristling superstructure of lace and ribbons, “I promise you, that I can drink your health in good wine!” The wine was of his own sending, and so were the China firescreens, and the sandal-wood work-box, and the ivory card case, and those magnificent pink and white chessmen, carved like little sepoys and mandarins, with the castles on elephants’ backs, George the Third and his queen in pink ivory against the Emperor of China and lady in white–the delight of Clive’s childhood, the chief ornament of the old spinster’s sitting-room.

Miss Honeyman’s little feast was pronounced to be the perfection of cookery; and when the meal was over, came a noise of little feet at the parlour door, which being opened, there appeared: first, a tall nurse with a dancing baby; second and third, two little girls with little frocks, little trowsers, long ringlets, blue eyes, and blue ribbons to match; fourth, Master Alfred, now quite recovered from his illness and holding by the hand, fifth, Miss Ethel Newcome, blushing like a rose.

Hannah, grinning, acted as mistress of the ceremonies, calling out the names of “Miss Newcome, Master Newcome, to see the Colonel, if you please, ma’am,” bobbing a curtsey, and giving a knowing nod to Master Clive, as she smoothed her new silk apron. Miss Ethel did not cease blushing as she advanced towards her uncle; and the honest campaigner started up, blushing too. Mr. Clive rose also, as little Alfred, of whom he was a great friend, ran towards him. Clive rose, laughed, nodded at Ethel, and ate ginger-bread nuts all at the same time. As for Colonel Thomas Newcome and his niece, they fell in love with each other instantaneously, like Prince Camaralzaman and the Princess of China.

“Mamma has sent us to bid you welcome to England, uncle,” says Miss Ethel, advancing, and never thinking for a moment of laying aside that fine blush which she brought into the room, and which was her pretty symbol of youth and modesty and beauty.

He took a little slim white hand and laid it down on his brown palm, where it looked all the whiter; he cleared the grizzled moustache from his mouth, and stooping down he kissed the little white hand with a great deal of grace and dignity, after which he was forever the humble and devoted admirer of that bright young girl.

Raising himself from his salute, he heard a pretty little infantile chorus. “How do you do, uncle?” said girls number two and three, while the dancing baby in the arms of the bobbing nurse babbled a welcome. Alfred looked up for a while at his uncle in the white trousers, and then instantly proposed that Clive should make some drawings; and was on his knees at the next moment. He was always climbing on somebody or something, or winding over chairs, curling through bannisters, standing on somebody’s head, or his own head; as his convalescence advanced, his breakages were fearful. Miss Honeyman and Hannah talked about his dilapidations for years after. When he was a jolly young officer in the Guards, and came to see them at Brighton, they showed him the blue dragon Chayny jar on which he would sit, and over which he cried so fearfully upon breaking it.