The things we do!

On the next morning, when Barnes came to visit his grandmother, Miss
Newcome was gone away to see her sister-in-law, Lady Kew said, with whom
she was going to pass the morning; so Barnes and Lady Kew had an
uninterrupted tete-a-tete, in which the former acquainted the old lady
with the proposal which Colonel Newcome had made to him on the previous
night.
Lady Kew wondered what the impudence of the world's would come to. An
artist propose for Ethel! One of her footmen might propose next, and she
supposed Barnes would bring the message. "The father came and proposed
for this young painter, and you didn't order him out of the room!"
Barnes laughed. "The Colonel is one of my constituents. I can't afford to
order the Bundelcund Banking Company out of its own room."
"You did not tell Ethel this pretty news, I suppose?"
"Of course I didn't tell Ethel. Nor did I tell the Colonel that Ethel was
in London. He fancies her in Scotland with your ladyship at this moment."
"I wish the Colonel were at Calcutta, and his son with him.


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