FullReads

So they travelled by the accustomed route to the prettiest town of all places where Pleasure has set up her tents, and there enjoyed themselves to the fullest extent.

Among Colonel Newcome’s papers to which the family biographer has had access, there are a couple of letters from Clive, dated Baden this time, and full of happiness, gaiety, and affection. Letter No. 1 says: “Ethel is the prettiest girl here. At the Assemblies all the princes, counts, dukes, etc., are dying to dance with her. She sends her dearest love to her uncle.” By the side of the words “Prettiest girl” are written in a frank female hand the monosyllable ” stuff “; and as a note to the expression “dearest love,” with a star to mark the text and the note, are squeezed in the same feminine characters at the bottom of Clive’s page the words ” that I do. E. N.”

In letter No. 2, Clive, after giving amusing details of life at Baden and the company whom he met there, concludes with this: “Ethel is looking over my shoulder. She thinks me such a delightful creature that she is never easy without me. She bids me to say that I am the best of sons and cousins, and am, in a word, a darling du–” The rest of this important word is not given, but ” goose ” is added in the female hand.

Ethel takes up the pen. “My dear uncle,” she says, “while Clive is sketching out of the window, let me write to you a line or two on his paper, though I know you like to hear no one speak but him. I wish I could draw him for you as he stands yonder looking the picture of good health, good spirits, and good-humour. Everybody likes him. He is quite unaffected; always gay, always pleased, and he draws more beautifully every day.”

When these letters were received by the good Colonel in India we can well imagine the joy that warmed his fond heart. He, himself, was comfortably settled in the only place which would ever be home to him,–his son, the idol of his heart, was with Ethel, his darling. The objects of his tenderest affection were gay, happy, together, and, best of all, thinking of him. That he was not with them gave him no regrets; his love was too great for that. That their youth was soon to give place to the soberer experiences of life, gave him no pang of fear for them. Reading their letters, the Colonel was filled with quiet contentment; their future he could trust to the care of that Guiding Hand to whom he had entrusted his boy in childhood’s earliest days.