Clive had a tutor, whom we recommended to him, and with whom the young
gentleman did not fatigue his brains very much; but his great _forte_
decidedly lay in drawing. He sketched the horses, he drew the dogs. He
drew his father in all postures--asleep, on foot, on horseback; and
jolly little Mr. Binnie, with his plump legs on a chair, or jumping
briskly on the back of a cob which he rode.

"Oh," says Clive, if you talk to him now about those early days, "it was
a jolly time! I do not believe there was any young fellow in London so
happy." And there hangs up in his painting-room now a head, with hair
touched with grey, with a large moustache, and melancholy eyes. And
Clive shows that portrait of their grandfather to his children, and
tells them that the whole world never saw a nobler gentleman.

Of course our young man commenced as an historical painter, deeming that
the highest branch of art. He painted a prodigious battle-piece of
Assaye, and will it be believed that the Royal Academicians rejected
this masterpiece? Clive himself, after a month's trip to Paris with his
father, declared the thing was rubbish.

It was during this time, when Clive and his father were in Paris, that
Mr. Binnie, laid up with a wrenched ankle, was consoled by a visit from
his sister, Mrs. Mackenzie, a brisk, plump little widow, and her
daughter, Miss Rosey, a blue-eyed, fair-haired lass, with a very sweet
voice.

Of course the most hospitable and polite of colonels would not hear of
Mrs. Mackenzie and her daughter quitting his house when he returned to
it, after the pleasant sojourn in Paris; nor indeed, did his fair guest
show the least anxiety or intention to go away. Certainly, the house was