Mrs. Casey (his defunct wife)
had overcome it by sheer pity and helplessness. He had found her so
friendless, that he took her into the vacant place, and installed her
there as he would have received a traveller into his bungalow. He divided
his meal with her, and made her welcome to his best. "I believe Tom
Newcome married her," sly Mr. Binnie used to say, "in order that he might
have permission to pay her milliner's bills;" and in this way he was
amply gratified until the day of her death. A feeble miniature of the
lady, with yellow ringlets and a guitar, hung over the mantelpiece of the
Colonel's bedchamber, where I have often seen that work of art; and
subsequently, when he and Mr. Binnie took a house, there was hung up in
the spare bedroom a companion portrait to the miniature--that of the
Colonel's predecessor, Jack Casey, who in life used to fling plates at
his Emma's head, and who perished from a fatal attachment to the bottle.
I am inclined to think that Colonel Newcome was not much cast down by the
loss of his wife, and that they lived but indifferently together.
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