"I am
sure there is some screw loose," the sagacious youth remarked to me; "and
the Colonel and the people in Park Lane are at variance, because he goes
there very little now; and he promised to go to Court when Ethel was
presented, and he didn't go."
Some months after the arrival of Mr. Binnie's niece and sister in Fitzroy
Square, the fraternal quarrel between the Newcomes must have come to an
end--for that time at least--and was followed by a rather ostentatious
reconciliation. And pretty little Rosey Mackenzie was the innocent and
unconscious cause of this amiable change in the minds of the three
brethren, as I gathered from a little conversation with Mrs. Newcome, who
did me the honour to invite me to her table. As she had not vouchsafed
this hospitality to me for a couple of years previously, and perfectly
stifled me with affability when we met,--as her invitation came quite at
the end of the season, when almost everybody was out of town, and a
dinner to a man is no compliment,--I was at first for declining this
invitation, and spoke of it with great scorn when Mr.
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