When Hobson Newcome's boys came home for the holidays, their kind uncle
was for treating them to the sights of the town, but here Virtue again
interposed, and laid his interdict upon pleasure. "Thank you, very much,
my dear Colonel," says Virtue; "there never was surely such a kind,
affectionate, unselfish creature as you are, and so indulgent for
children, but my boys and yours are brought up on a _very different
plan_. Excuse me for saying that I do not think it is advisable that
they should even see too much of each other, Clive's company is not good
for them."
"Great heavens, Maria!" cries the Colonel, starting up, "do you mean that
my boy's society is not good enough for any boy alive?"
Maria turned very red; she had said not more than she meant, but more
than she meant to say. "My dear Colonel, how hot we are! how angry you
Indian gentlemen become with us poor women! Your boy is much older than
mine. He lives with artists, with all sorts of eccentric people. Our
children are bred on _quite a different plan_. Hobson will succeed his
father in the bank, and dear Samuel, I trust, will go into the church. I
told you before the views I had regarding the boys; but it was most kind
of you to think of them--most generous and kind."
"That nabob of ours is a queer fish," Hobson Newcome remarked to his
nephew Barnes.
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