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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of Vanity Fair, by William Thackary
+#1 in our series by William Makepeace Thackary
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+Vanity Fair
+
+by William Makepeace Thackary
+
+July, 1996  [Etext #577]
+
+
+The Project Gutenberg Etext of Vanity Fair, by William Thackary
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+etext of Vanity Fair
+Contact: Juli Rew, juliana@ncar.ucar.edu
+
+
+
+
+Vanity Fair
+by William Makepeace Thackeray
+
+
+
+BEFORE THE CURTAIN
+
+As the manager of the Performance sits before the curtain
+on the boards and looks into the Fair, a feeling of profound
+melancholy comes over him in his survey of the bustling place.
+There is a great quantity of eating and drinking, making love
+and jilting, laughing and the contrary, smoking, cheating,
+fighting, dancing and fiddling; there are bullies pushing about,
+bucks ogling the women, knaves picking pockets, policemen
+on the look-out, quacks (OTHER quacks, plague take them!)
+bawling in front of their booths, and yokels looking up at
+the tinselled dancers and poor old rouged tumblers, while the
+light-fingered folk are operating upon their pockets behind.
+Yes, this is VANITY FAIR; not a moral place certainly; nor a
+merry one, though very noisy.  Look at the faces of the actors
+and buffoons when they come off from their business; and
+Tom Fool washing the paint off his cheeks before he sits down
+to dinner with his wife and the little Jack Puddings behind
+the canvas.   The curtain will be up presently, and he will be
+turning over head and heels, and crying, "How are you?"
+
+A man with a reflective turn of mind, walking through an
+exhibition of this sort, will not be oppressed, I take it, by his
+own or other people's hilarity.   An episode of humour or kindness
+touches and amuses him here and there--a pretty child
+looking at a gingerbread stall; a pretty girl blushing whilst her
+lover talks to her and chooses her fairing; poor Tom Fool,
+yonder behind the waggon, mumbling his bone with the honest
+family which lives by his tumbling; but the general impression
+is one more melancholy than mirthful.  When you come home
+you sit down in a sober, contemplative, not uncharitable frame
+of mind, and apply yourself to your books or your business.
+
+I have no other moral than this to tag to the present story
+of "Vanity Fair." Some people consider Fairs immoral altogether,
+and eschew such, with their servants and families: very
+likely they are right.  But persons who think otherwise, and are
+of a lazy, or a benevolent, or a sarcastic mood, may perhaps
+like to step in for half an hour, and look at the performances.
+There are scenes of all sorts; some dreadful combats, some
+grand and lofty horse-riding, some scenes of high life, and
+some of very middling indeed; some love-making for the
+sentimental, and some light comic business; the whole
+accompanied by appropriate scenery and brilliantly illuminated
+with the Author's own candles.
+
+What more has the Manager of the Performance to say?--
+To acknowledge the kindness with which it has been received
+in all the principal towns of England through which the Show
+has passed, and where it has been most favourably noticed by
+the respected conductors of the public Press, and by the Nobility
+and Gentry.  He is proud to think that his Puppets have given
+satisfaction to the very best company in this empire.  The
+famous little Becky Puppet has been pronounced to be uncommonly
+flexible in the joints, and lively on the wire; the Amelia
+Doll, though it has had a smaller circle of admirers, has yet
+been carved and dressed with the greatest care by the artist; the
+Dobbin Figure, though apparently clumsy, yet dances in a very
+amusing and natural manner; the Little Boys' Dance has been
+liked by some; and please to remark the richly dressed figure
+of the Wicked Nobleman, on which no expense has been
+spared, and which Old Nick will fetch away at the end of this
+singular performance.
+
+And with this, and a profound bow to his patrons, the
+Manager retires, and the curtain rises.
+
+LONDON, June 28, 1848
+
+
+
+
+Chapter 1
+
+
+Chiswick Mall
+
+While the present century was in its teens, and on one
+sunshiny morning in June, there drove up to the great
+iron gate of Miss Pinkerton's academy for young ladies,
+on Chiswick Mall, a large family coach, with two fat
+horses in blazing harness, driven by a fat coachman in
+a three-cornered hat and wig, at the rate of four miles
+an hour.  A black servant, who reposed on the box beside
+the fat coachman, uncurled his bandy legs as soon as
+the equipage drew up opposite Miss Pinkerton's shining
+brass plate, and as he pulled the bell at least a score of
+young heads were seen peering out of the narrow windows
+of the stately old brick house.  Nay, the acute observer might
+have recognized the little red nose of good-natured Miss
+Jemima Pinkerton herself, rising over some geranium pots
+in the window of that lady's own drawing-room.
+
+"It is Mrs. Sedley's coach, sister," said Miss Jemima.
+"Sambo, the black servant, has just rung the bell; and
+the coachman has a new red waistcoat."
+
+"Have you completed all the necessary preparations
+incident to Miss Sedley's departure, Miss Jemima?" asked
+Miss Pinkerton herself, that majestic lady; the Semiramis
+of Hammersmith, the friend of Doctor Johnson, the
+correspondent of Mrs. Chapone herself.
+
+"The girls were up at four this morning, packing her
+trunks, sister," replied Miss Jemima; "we have made her
+a bow-pot."
+
+"Say a bouquet, sister Jemima, 'tis more genteel."
+
+"Well, a booky as big almost as a haystack; I have put
+up two bottles of the gillyflower water for Mrs. Sedley,
+and the receipt for making it, in Amelia's box."
+
+"And I trust, Miss Jemima, you have made a copy of
+Miss Sedley's account.  This is it, is it? Very good--ninety-
+three pounds, four shillings.  Be kind enough to address it
+to John Sedley, Esquire, and to seal this billet which I
+have written to his lady."
+
+In Miss Jemima's eyes an autograph letter of her sister,
+Miss Pinkerton, was an object of as deep veneration as
+would have been a letter from a sovereign.  Only when
+her pupils quitted the establishment, or when they were
+about to be married, and once, when poor Miss Birch
+died of the scarlet fever, was Miss Pinkerton known to
+write personally to the parents of her pupils; and it was
+Jemima's opinion that if anything could console Mrs.
+Birch for her daughter's loss, it would be that pious and
+eloquent composition in which Miss Pinkerton announced
+the event.
+
+In the present instance Miss Pinkerton's "billet" was
+to the following effect:--
+
+The Mall, Chiswick, June 15, 18
+
+MADAM,--After her six years' residence at the Mall, I
+have the honour and happiness of presenting Miss Amelia
+Sedley to her parents, as a young lady not unworthy
+to occupy a fitting position in their polished and refined
+circle.  Those virtues which characterize the young English gentlewoman, those accomplishments which become
+her birth and station, will not be found wanting in the
+amiable Miss Sedley, whose INDUSTRY and OBEDIENCE
+have endeared her to her instructors, and whose delightful sweetness of temper has charmed her AGED and her
+YOUTHFUL companions.
+
+In music, in dancing, in orthography, in every variety
+of embroidery and needlework, she will be found to
+have realized her friends' fondest wishes.  In geography
+there is still much to be desired; and a careful and
+undeviating use of the backboard, for four hours daily
+during the next three years, is recommended as necessary
+to the acquirement of that dignified DEPORTMENT AND
+CARRIAGE, so requisite for every young lady of fashion.
+
+In the principles of religion and morality, Miss Sedley
+will be found worthy of an establishment which has
+been honoured by the presence of THE GREAT LEXICOGRAPHER,
+and the patronage of the admirable Mrs. Chapone.  In leaving
+the Mall, Miss Amelia carries with her the hearts of her
+companions, and the affectionate regards of her mistress,
+who has the honour to subscribe herself,
+
+Madam,
+Your most obliged humble servant,
+BARBARA PINKERTON
+
+P.S.--Miss Sharp accompanies Miss Sedley.  It is particularly requested that Miss Sharp's stay in Russell Square may not
+exceed ten days.  The family of distinction with whom she is
+engaged, desire to avail themselves of her services as soon as possible.
+
+This letter completed, Miss Pinkerton proceeded to
+write her own name, and Miss Sedley's, in the fly-leaf of
+a Johnson's Dictionary--the interesting work which she
+invariably presented to her scholars, on their departure
+from the Mall.  On the cover was inserted a copy of "Lines
+addressed to a young lady on quitting Miss Pinkerton's
+school, at the Mall; by the late revered Doctor Samuel
+Johnson." In fact, the Lexicographer's name was always
+on the lips of this majestic woman, and a visit he had
+paid to her was the cause of her reputation and her fortune.
+
+Being commanded by her elder sister to get "the Dictionary"
+from the cupboard, Miss Jemima had extracted two copies
+of the book from the receptacle in question.  When Miss
+Pinkerton had finished the inscription in the first, Jemima,
+with rather a dubious and timid air, handed her the second.
+
+"For whom is this, Miss Jemima?" said Miss Pinkerton,
+with awful coldness.
+
+"For Becky Sharp," answered Jemima, trembling very
+much, and blushing over her withered face and neck, as
+she turned her back on her sister.  "For Becky Sharp:
+she's going too."
+
+  "MISS JEMIMA!" exclaimed Miss Pinkerton, in the
+largest capitals.  "Are you in your senses? Replace the
+Dixonary in the closet, and never venture to take such
+a liberty in future."
+
+"Well, sister, it's only two-and-ninepence, and poor
+Becky will be miserable if she don't get one."
+
+"Send Miss Sedley instantly to me," said Miss Pinkerton.
+And so venturing not to say another word, poor
+Jemima trotted off, exceedingly flurried and nervous.
+
+Miss Sedley's papa was a merchant in London, and a
+man of some wealth; whereas Miss Sharp was an articled
+pupil, for whom Miss Pinkerton had done, as she thought,
+quite enough, without conferring upon her at parting the
+high honour of the Dixonary.
+
+Although schoolmistresses' letters are to be trusted no
+more nor less than churchyard epitaphs; yet, as it sometimes happens that a person departs this life who is really
+deserving of all the praises the stone cutter carves over
+his bones; who IS a good Christian, a good parent, child,
+wife, or husband; who actually DOES leave a disconsolate
+family to mourn his loss; so in academies of the male
+and female sex it occurs every now and then that the
+pupil is fully worthy of the praises bestowed by the
+disinterested instructor.  Now, Miss Amelia Sedley was a
+young lady of this singular species; and deserved not only
+all that Miss Pinkerton said in her praise, but had many
+charming qualities which that pompous old Minerva of a
+woman could not see, from the differences of rank and
+age between her pupil and herself.
+
+For she could not only sing like a lark, or a Mrs.
+Billington, and dance like Hillisberg or Parisot; and
+embroider beautifully; and spell as well as a Dixonary
+itself; but she had such a kindly, smiling, tender, gentle,
+generous heart of her own, as won the love of everybody
+who came near her, from Minerva herself down to the poor
+girl in the scullery, and the one-eyed tart-woman's
+daughter, who was permitted to vend her wares once a
+week to the young ladies in the Mall.  She had twelve intimate
+and bosom friends out of the twenty-four young ladies.
+Even envious Miss Briggs never spoke ill of her; high
+and mighty Miss Saltire (Lord Dexter's granddaughter)
+allowed that her figure was genteel; and as for Miss
+Swartz, the rich woolly-haired mulatto from St. Kitt's, on
+the day Amelia went away, she was in such a passion of
+tears that they were obliged to send for Dr. Floss, and half
+tipsify her with salvolatile.  Miss Pinkerton's attachment
+was, as may be supposed from the high position and
+eminent virtues of that lady, calm and dignified; but Miss
+Jemima had already whimpered several times at the idea
+of Amelia's departure; and, but for fear of her sister,
+would have gone off in downright hysterics, like the
+heiress (who paid double) of St. Kitt's.  Such luxury of
+grief, however, is only allowed to parlour-boarders.
+Honest Jemima had all the bills, and the washing, and the
+mending, and the puddings, and the plate and crockery,
+and the servants to superintend.  But why speak about
+her?  It is probable that we shall not hear of her again
+from this moment to the end of time, and that when the
+great filigree iron gates are once closed on her, she and
+her awful sister will never issue therefrom into this little
+world of history.
+
+But as we are to see a great deal of Amelia, there is
+no harm in saying, at the outset of our acquaintance, that
+she was a dear little creature; and a great mercy it is,
+both in life and in novels, which (and the latter especially)
+abound in villains of the most sombre sort, that
+we are to have for a constant companion so guileless
+and good-natured a person.  As she is not a heroine, there
+is no need to describe her person; indeed I am afraid
+that her nose was rather short than otherwise, and her
+cheeks a great deal too round and red for a heroine; but
+her face blushed with rosy health, and her lips with the
+freshest of smiles, and she had a pair of eyes which
+sparkled with the brightest and honestest good-humour,
+except indeed when they filled with tears, and that was
+a great deal too often; for the silly thing would cry over
+a dead canary-bird; or over a mouse, that the cat haply
+had seized upon; or over the end of a novel, were it ever
+so stupid; and as for saying an unkind word to her, were
+any persons hard-hearted enough to do so--why, so much
+the worse for them.  Even Miss Pinkerton, that austere
+and godlike woman, ceased scolding her after the first
+time, and though she no more comprehended sensibility
+than she did Algebra, gave all masters and teachers
+particular orders to treat Miss Sedley with the utmost
+gentleness, as harsh treatment was injurious to her.
+
+So that when the day of departure came, between her
+two customs of laughing and crying, Miss Sedley was
+greatly puzzled how to act.  She was glad to go home,
+and yet most woefully sad at leaving school.  For three
+days before, little Laura Martin, the orphan, followed her
+about like a little dog.  She had to make and receive at
+least fourteen presents--to make fourteen solemn promises
+of writing every week:  "Send my letters under cover
+to my grandpapa, the Earl of Dexter," said Miss Saltire
+(who, by the way, was rather shabby).  "Never mind the
+postage, but write every day, you dear darling," said the
+impetuous and woolly-headed, but generous and
+affectionate Miss Swartz; and the orphan little Laura Martin
+(who was just in round-hand), took her friend's hand
+and said, looking up in her face wistfully, "Amelia, when
+I write to you I shall call you Mamma." All which details,
+I have no doubt, JONES, who reads this book at his
+Club, will pronounce to be excessively foolish, trivial,
+twaddling, and ultra-sentimental.  Yes; I can see Jones
+at this minute (rather flushed with his joint of mutton
+and half pint of wine), taking out his pencil and scoring
+under the words "foolish, twaddling," &c., and adding to
+them his own remark of "QUITE TRUE." Well, he is a lofty
+man of genius, and admires the great and heroic in life
+and novels; and so had better take warning and go elsewhere.
+
+Well, then.  The flowers, and the presents, and the
+trunks, and bonnet-boxes of Miss Sedley having been
+arranged by Mr. Sambo in the carriage, together with a
+very small and weather-beaten old cow's-skin trunk with
+Miss Sharp's card neatly nailed upon it, which was
+delivered by Sambo with a grin, and packed by the
+coachman with a corresponding sneer--the hour for parting
+came; and the grief of that moment was considerably
+lessened by the admirable discourse which Miss Pinkerton
+addressed to her pupil.  Not that the parting speech caused
+Amelia to philosophise, or that it armed her in any
+way with a calmness, the result of argument; but it was
+intolerably dull, pompous, and tedious; and having the
+fear of her schoolmistress greatly before her eyes, Miss
+Sedley did not venture, in her presence, to give way to
+any ebullitions of private grief.  A seed-cake and a bottle
+of wine were produced in the drawing-room, as on the
+solemn occasions of the visits of parents, and these
+refreshments being partaken of, Miss Sedley was at
+liberty to depart.
+
+"You'll go in and say good-by to Miss Pinkerton,
+Becky!" said Miss Jemima to a young lady of whom
+nobody took any notice, and who was coming downstairs
+with her own bandbox.
+
+"I suppose I must," said Miss Sharp calmly, and much
+to the wonder of Miss Jemima; and the latter having
+knocked at the door, and receiving permission to come
+in, Miss Sharp advanced in a very unconcerned manner,
+and said in French, and with a perfect accent, "Mademoiselle,
+je viens vous faire mes adieux."
+
+Miss Pinkerton did not understand French; she only
+directed those who did: but biting her lips and throwing
+up her venerable and Roman-nosed head (on the top of
+which figured a large and solemn turban), she said, "Miss
+Sharp, I wish you a good morning." As the Hammersmith
+Semiramis spoke, she waved one hand, both by way of
+adieu, and to give Miss Sharp an opportunity of shaking
+one of the fingers of the hand which was left out for
+that purpose.
+
+Miss Sharp only folded her own hands with a very
+frigid smile and bow, and quite declined to accept the
+proffered honour; on which Semiramis tossed up her
+turban more indignantly than ever.  In fact, it was a little
+battle between the young lady and the old one, and the
+latter was worsted.  "Heaven bless you, my child," said
+she, embracing Amelia, and scowling the while over the
+girl's shoulder at Miss Sharp.  "Come away, Becky," said
+Miss Jemima, pulling the young woman away in great
+alarm, and the drawing-room door closed upon them for
+ever.
+
+Then came the struggle and parting below.  Words
+refuse to tell it.  All the servants were there in the hall--
+all the dear friend--all the young ladies--the dancing-
+master who had just arrived; and there was such a
+scuffling, and hugging, and kissing, and crying, with the
+hysterical YOOPS of Miss Swartz, the parlour-boarder,
+from her room, as no pen can depict, and as the tender
+heart would fain pass over.  The embracing was over; they
+parted--that is, Miss Sedley parted from her friends.  Miss
+Sharp had demurely entered the carriage some minutes
+before.  Nobody cried for leaving HER.
+
+Sambo of the bandy legs slammed the carriage door
+on his young weeping mistress.  He sprang up behind the
+carriage.  "Stop!" cried Miss Jemima, rushing to the gate
+with a parcel.
+
+"It's some sandwiches, my dear," said she to Amelia.
+"You may be hungry, you know; and Becky, Becky
+Sharp, here's a book for you that my sister--that is, I
+--Johnson's Dixonary, you know; you mustn't leave us
+without that.  Good-by.  Drive on, coachman.  God bless
+you!"
+
+And the kind creature retreated into the garden,
+overcome with emotion.
+
+But, lo! and just as the coach drove off, Miss Sharp put
+her pale face out of the window and actually flung the
+book back into the garden.
+
+This almost caused Jemima to faint with terror.  "Well,
+I never"--said she--"what an audacious"--Emotion
+prevented her from completing either sentence.  The
+carriage rolled away; the great gates were closed; the bell
+rang for the dancing lesson.  The world is before the two
+young ladies; and so, farewell to Chiswick Mall.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+In Which Miss Sharp and Miss Sedley
+Prepare to Open the Campaign
+
+When Miss Sharp had performed the heroical act
+mentioned in the last chapter, and had seen the Dixonary,
+flying over the pavement of the little garden, fall at length
+at the feet of the astonished Miss Jemima, the young
+lady's countenance, which had before worn an almost
+livid look of hatred, assumed a smile that perhaps was
+scarcely more agreeable, and she sank back in the
+carriage in an easy frame of mind, saying--"So much for
+the Dixonary; and, thank God, I'm out of Chiswick."
+
+Miss Sedley was almost as flurried at the act of defiance
+as Miss Jemima had been; for, consider, it was but one
+minute that she had left school, and the impressions of
+six years are not got over in that space of time.  Nay,
+with some persons those awes and terrors of youth last
+for ever and ever.  I know, for instance, an old gentleman
+of sixty-eight, who said to me one morning at breakfast,
+with a very agitated countenance, "I dreamed last
+night that I was flogged by Dr. Raine." Fancy had carried
+him back five-and-fifty years in the course of that
+evening.  Dr. Raine and his rod were just as awful to him
+in his heart, then, at sixty-eight, as they had been at
+thirteen.  If the Doctor, with a large birch, had appeared
+bodily to him, even at the age of threescore and eight,
+and had said in awful voice, "Boy, take down your
+pant--"? Well, well, Miss Sedley was exceedingly
+alarmed at this act of insubordination.
+
+"How could you do so, Rebecca?" at last she said,
+after a pause.
+
+"Why, do you think Miss Pinkerton will come out and
+order me back to the black-hole?" said Rebecca, laughing.
+
+"No: but--"
+
+"I hate the whole house," continued Miss Sharp in a
+fury.  "I hope I may never set eyes on it again.  I wish it
+were in the bottom of the Thames, I do; and if Miss
+Pinkerton were there, I wouldn't pick her out, that I
+wouldn't.  O how I should like to see her floating in the
+water yonder, turban and all, with her train streaming
+after her, and her nose like the beak of a wherry."
+
+"Hush!" cried Miss Sedley.
+
+"Why, will the black footman tell tales?" cried Miss
+Rebecca, laughing.  "He may go back and tell Miss
+Pinkerton that I hate her with all my soul; and I wish he
+would; and I wish I had a means of proving it, too.  For
+two years I have only had insults and outrage from her.
+I have been treated worse than any servant in the kitchen.
+I have never had a friend or a kind word, except from
+you.  I have been made to tend the little girls in the lower
+schoolroom, and to talk French to the Misses, until I
+grew sick of my mother tongue.  But that talking French
+to Miss Pinkerton was capital fun, wasn't it? She doesn't
+know a word of French, and was too proud to confess
+it.  I believe it was that which made her part with me;
+and so thank Heaven for French.  Vive la France! Vive
+l'Empereur! Vive Bonaparte!"
+
+"O Rebecca, Rebecca, for shame!" cried Miss Sedley;
+for this was the greatest blasphemy Rebecca had as yet
+uttered; and in those days, in England, to say, "Long live
+Bonaparte!" was as much as to say, "Long live Lucifer!"
+"How can you--how dare you have such wicked,
+revengeful thoughts?"
+
+"Revenge may be wicked, but it's natural," answered
+Miss Rebecca.  "I'm no angel." And, to say the truth, she
+certainly was not.
+
+For it may be remarked in the course of this little
+conversation (which took place as the coach rolled along
+lazily by the river side) that though Miss Rebecca Sharp
+has twice had occasion to thank Heaven, it has been, in
+the first place, for ridding her of some person whom she
+hated, and secondly, for enabling her to bring her
+enemies to some sort of perplexity or confusion; neither
+of which are very amiable motives for religious gratitude,
+or such as would be put forward by persons of a kind
+and placable disposition.  Miss Rebecca was not, then, in
+the least kind or placable.  All the world used her ill, said
+this young misanthropist, and we may be pretty certain
+that persons whom all the world treats ill, deserve
+entirely the treatment they get.  The world is a looking-
+glass, and gives back to every man the reflection of his
+own face.  Frown at it, and it will in turn look sourly
+upon you; laugh at it and with it, and it is a jolly kind
+companion; and so let all young persons take their choice.
+This is certain, that if the world neglected Miss Sharp,
+she never was known to have done a good action in
+behalf of anybody; nor can it be expected that twenty-
+four young ladies should all be as amiable as the heroine
+of this work, Miss Sedley (whom we have selected for
+the very reason that she was the best-natured of all,
+otherwise what on earth was to have prevented us from
+putting up Miss Swartz, or Miss Crump, or Miss Hopkins,
+as heroine in her place!)it could not be expected that
+every one should be of the humble and gentle temper
+of Miss Amelia Sedley; should take every opportunity to
+vanquish Rebecca's hard-heartedness and ill-humour; and,
+by a thousand kind words and offices, overcome, for once
+at least, her hostility to her kind.
+
+Miss Sharp's father was an artist, and in that quality
+had given lessons of drawing at Miss Pinkerton's school.
+He was a clever man; a pleasant companion; a careless
+student; with a great propensity for running into debt,
+and a partiality for the tavern.  When he was drunk, he
+used to beat his wife and daughter; and the next morning,
+with a headache, he would rail at the world for its neglect
+of his genius, and abuse, with a good deal of cleverness,
+and sometimes with perfect reason, the fools, his brother
+painters.  As it was with the utmost difficulty that he
+could keep himself, and as he owed money for a mile
+round Soho, where he lived, he thought to better his
+circumstances by marrying a young woman of the French
+nation, who was by profession an opera-girl.  The humble
+calling of her female parent Miss Sharp never alluded to,
+but used to state subsequently that the Entrechats were
+a noble family of Gascony, and took great pride in her
+descent from them.  And curious it is that as she advanced
+in life this young lady's ancestors increased in rank and
+splendour.
+
+Rebecca's mother had had some education somewhere,
+and her daughter spoke French with purity and a Parisian
+accent.  It was in those days rather a rare accomplishment,
+and led to her engagement with the orthodox Miss
+Pinkerton.  For her mother being dead, her father, finding
+himself not likely to recover, after his third attack of
+delirium tremens, wrote a manly and pathetic letter to
+Miss Pinkerton, recommending the orphan child to her
+protection, and so descended to the grave, after two
+bailiffs had quarrelled over his corpse.  Rebecca was
+seventeen when she came to Chiswick, and was bound
+over as an articled pupil; her duties being to talk French,
+as we have seen; and her privileges to live cost free, and,
+with a few guineas a year, to gather scraps of knowledge
+from the professors who attended the school.
+
+She was small and slight in person; pale, sandy-haired,
+and with eyes habitually cast down: when they looked up
+they were very large, odd, and attractive; so attractive
+that the Reverend Mr. Crisp, fresh from Oxford, and
+curate to the Vicar of Chiswick, the Reverend Mr.
+Flowerdew, fell in love with Miss Sharp; being shot dead
+by a glance of her eyes which was fired all the way across
+Chiswick Church from the school-pew to the reading-
+desk.  This infatuated young man used sometimes to take
+tea with Miss Pinkerton, to whom he had been presented
+by his mamma, and actually proposed something like
+marriage in an intercepted note, which the one-eyed
+apple-woman was charged to deliver.  Mrs. Crisp was
+summoned from Buxton, and abruptly carried off her darling
+boy; but the idea, even, of such an eagle in the Chiswick
+dovecot caused a great flutter in the breast of Miss
+Pinkerton, who would have sent away Miss Sharp but that
+she was bound to her under a forfeit, and who never
+could thoroughly believe the young lady's protestations
+that she had never exchanged a single word with Mr.
+Crisp, except under her own eyes on the two occasions
+when she had met him at tea.
+
+By the side of many tall and bouncing young ladies in
+the establishment, Rebecca Sharp looked like a child.  But
+she had the dismal precocity of poverty.  Many a dun had
+she talked to, and turned away from her father's door;
+many a tradesman had she coaxed and wheedled into
+good-humour, and into the granting of one meal more.
+She sate commonly with her father, who was very proud
+of her wit, and heard the talk of many of his wild 
+companions--often but ill-suited for a girl to hear.  But she
+never had been a girl, she said; she had been a woman
+since she was eight years old.  Oh, why did Miss Pinkerton
+let such a dangerous bird into her cage?
+
+The fact is, the old lady believed Rebecca to be the
+meekest creature in the world, so admirably, on the
+occasions when her father brought her to Chiswick, used
+Rebecca to perform the part of the ingenue; and only a
+year before the arrangement by which Rebecca had been
+admitted into her house, and when Rebecca was sixteen
+years old, Miss Pinkerton majestically, and with a little
+speech, made her a present of a doll--which was, by
+the way, the confiscated property of Miss Swindle,
+discovered surreptitiously nursing it in school-hours.  How
+the father and daughter laughed as they trudged home
+together after the evening party (it was on the occasion of
+the speeches, when all the professors were invited) and
+how Miss Pinkerton would have raged had she seen the
+caricature of herself which the little mimic, Rebecca,
+managed to make out of her doll.  Becky used to go
+through dialogues with it; it formed the delight of
+Newman Street, Gerrard Street, and the Artists' quarter:
+and the young painters, when they came to take their gin-
+and-water with their lazy, dissolute, clever, jovial senior,
+used regularly to ask Rebecca if Miss Pinkerton was at
+home: she was as well known to them, poor soul! as
+Mr. Lawrence or President West.  Once Rebecca had the
+honour to pass a few days at Chiswick; after which she
+brought back Jemima, and erected another doll as Miss
+Jemmy: for though that honest creature had made and
+given her jelly and cake enough for three children, and
+a seven-shilling piece at parting, the girl's sense of
+ridicule was far stronger than her gratitude, and she
+sacrificed Miss Jemmy quite as pitilessly as her sister.
+
+The catastrophe came, and she was brought to the
+Mall as to her home.  The rigid formality of the place
+suffocated her: the prayers and the meals, the lessons
+and the walks, which were arranged with a conventual
+regularity, oppressed her almost beyond endurance; and
+she looked back to the freedom and the beggary of the
+old studio in Soho with so much regret, that everybody,
+herself included, fancied she was consumed with grief
+for her father.  She had a little room in the garret, where
+the maids heard her walking and sobbing at night; but it
+was with rage, and not with grief.  She had not been much
+of a dissembler, until now her loneliness taught her to
+feign.  She had never mingled in the society of women:
+her father, reprobate as he was, was a man of talent; his
+conversation was a thousand times more agreeable to her
+than the talk of such of her own sex as she now encountered.
+The pompous vanity of the old schoolmistress, the foolish
+good-humour of her sister, the silly chat and scandal of the
+elder girls, and the frigid correctness of the governesses
+equally annoyed her; and she had no soft
+maternal heart, this unlucky girl, otherwise the prattle
+and talk of the younger children, with whose care she
+was chiefly intrusted, might have soothed and interested
+her; but she lived among them two years, and not one
+was sorry that she went away.  The gentle tender-
+hearted Amelia Sedley was the only person to whom she
+could attach herself in the least; and who could help
+attaching herself to Amelia?
+
+The happinessthe superior advantages of the young
+women round about her, gave Rebecca inexpressible
+pangs of envy.  "What airs that girl gives herself, because
+she is an Earl's grand-daughter," she said of one.  "How
+they cringe and bow to that Creole, because of her
+hundred thousand pounds!  I am a thousand times cleverer
+and more charming than that creature, for all her wealth.
+I am as well bred as the Earl's grand-daughter, for all her
+fine pedigree; and yet every one passes me by here.  And
+yet, when I was at my father's, did not the men give up
+their gayest balls and parties in order to pass the evening
+with me?" She determined at any rate to get free from
+the prison in which she found herself, and now began to
+act for herself, and for the first time to make connected
+plans for the future.
+
+She took advantage, therefore, of the means of study
+the place offered her; and as she was already a musician
+and a good linguist, she speedily went through the little
+course of study which was considered necessary for ladies
+in those days.  Her music she practised incessantly, and
+one day, when the girls were out, and she had remained
+at home, she was overheard to play a piece so well that
+Minerva thought, wisely, she could spare herself the
+expense of a master for the juniors, and intimated to Miss
+Sharp that she was to instruct them in music for the
+future.
+
+The girl refused; and for the first time, and to the
+astonishment of the majestic mistress of the school.  "I
+am here to speak French with the children," Rebecca
+said abruptly, "not to teach them music, and save money
+for you.  Give me money, and I will teach them."
+
+Minerva was obliged to yield, and, of course, disliked
+her from that day.  "For five-and-thirty years," she said,
+and with great justice, "I never have seen the individual
+who has dared in my own house to question my
+authority.  I have nourished a viper in my bosom."
+
+"A viper--a fiddlestick," said Miss Sharp to the old
+lady, almost fainting with astonishment.  "You took me
+because I was useful.  There is no question of gratitude
+between us.  I hate this place, and want to leave it.  I
+will do nothing here but what I am obliged to do."
+
+It was in vain that the old lady asked her if she was
+aware she was speaking to Miss Pinkerton?  Rebecca
+laughed in her face, with a horrid sarcastic demoniacal
+laughter, that almost sent the schoolmistress into fits.
+"Give me a sum of money," said the girl, "and get rid
+of me--or, if you like better, get me a good place as
+governess in a nobleman's family--you can do so if you
+please."  And in their further disputes she always returned
+to this point, "Get me a situation--we hate each other,
+and I am ready to go."
+
+Worthy Miss Pinkerton, although she had a Roman
+nose and a turban, and was as tall as a grenadier, and
+had been up to this time an irresistible princess, had no
+will or strength like that of her little apprentice, and in
+vain did battle against her, and tried to overawe her.
+Attempting once to scold her in public, Rebecca hit upon
+the before-mentioned plan of answering her in French,
+which quite routed the old woman.  In order to maintain
+authority in her school, it became necessary to remove
+this rebel, this monster, this serpent, this firebrand; and
+hearing about this time that Sir Pitt Crawley's family
+was in want of a governess, she actually recommended
+Miss Sharp for the situation, firebrand and serpent as
+she was.  "I cannot, certainly," she said, "find fault with
+Miss Sharp's conduct, except to myself; and must allow
+that her talents and accomplishments are of a high order.
+As far as the head goes, at least, she does credit to the
+educational system pursued at my establishment.''
+
+And so the schoolmistress reconciled the recommendation
+to her conscience, and the indentures were cancelled,
+and the apprentice was free.  The battle here described
+in a few lines, of course, lasted for some months.  And
+as Miss Sedley, being now in her seventeenth year, was
+about to leave school, and had a friendship for Miss
+Sharp ("'tis the only point in Amelia's behaviour," said
+Minerva, "which has not been satisfactory to her
+mistress"), Miss Sharp was invited by her friend to
+pass a week with her at home, before she entered
+upon her duties as governess in a private family.
+
+Thus the world began for these two young ladies.  For
+Amelia it was quite a new, fresh, brilliant world, with
+all the bloom upon it.  It was not quite a new one for
+Rebecca--(indeed, if the truth must be told with respect
+to the Crisp affair, the tart-woman hinted to somebody,
+who took an affidavit of the fact to somebody else, that
+there was a great deal more than was made public
+regarding Mr. Crisp and Miss Sharp, and that his letter
+was in answer to another letter).  But who can tell you
+the real truth of the matter? At all events, if Rebecca
+was not beginning the world, she was beginning it over
+again.
+
+By the time the young ladies reached Kensington turnpike,
+Amelia had not forgotten her companions, but had
+dried her tears, and had blushed very much and been
+delighted at a young officer of the Life Guards, who spied
+her as he was riding by, and said, "A dem fine gal,
+egad!" and before the carriage arrived in Russell Square,
+a great deal of conversation had taken place about the
+Drawing-room, and whether or not young ladies wore
+powder as well as hoops when presented, and whether
+she was to have that honour: to the Lord Mayor's ball
+she knew she was to go.  And when at length home was
+reached, Miss Amelia Sedley skipped out on Sambo's
+arm, as happy and as handsome a girl as any in the whole
+big city of London.  Both he and coachman agreed on
+this point, and so did her father and mother, and so did
+every one of the servants in the house, as they stood
+bobbing, and curtseying, and smiling, in the hall to
+welcome their young mistress.
+
+You may be sure that she showed Rebecca over every
+room of the house, and everything in every one of her
+drawers; and her books, and her piano, and her dresses,
+and all her necklaces, brooches, laces, and gimcracks.
+She insisted upon Rebecca accepting the white cornelian
+and the turquoise rings, and a sweet sprigged muslin,
+which was too small for her now, though it would fit
+her friend to a nicety; and she determined in her heart
+to ask her mother's permission to present her white
+Cashmere shawl to her friend.  Could she not spare it? and
+had not her brother Joseph just brought her two from
+India?
+
+When Rebecca saw the two magnificent Cashmere
+shawls which Joseph Sedley had brought home to his
+sister, she said, with perfect truth, "that it must be
+delightful to have a brother," and easily got the pity of the
+tender-hearted Amelia for being alone in the world, an
+orphan without friends or kindred.
+
+"Not alone," said Amelia; "you know, Rebecca, I shall
+always be your friend, and love you as a sister--indeed
+I will."
+
+"Ah, but to have parents, as you have--kind, rich,
+affectionate parents, who give you everything you-ask
+for; and their love, which is more precious than all!
+My poor papa could give me nothing, and I had but two
+frocks in all the world! And then, to have a brother, a
+dear brother! Oh, how you must love him!"
+
+Amelia laughed.
+
+"What! don't you love him? you, who say you love
+everybody?"                           ~;
+
+"Yes, of course, I do--only--"
+
+"Only what?"
+
+"Only Joseph doesn't seem to care much whether I
+love him or not.  He gave me two fingers to shake when
+he arrived after ten years' absence!  He is very kind and
+good, but he scarcely ever speaks to me; I think he
+loves his pipe a great deal better than his"--but here
+Amelia checked herself, for why should she speak ill of
+her brother? "He was very kind to me as a child," she
+added; "I was but five years old when he went away."
+
+"Isn't he very rich?" said Rebecca.  "They say all Indian
+nabobs are enormously rich."
+
+"I believe he has a very large income."
+
+"And is your sister-in-law a nice pretty woman?"
+ 
+"La! Joseph is not married," said Amelia, laughing
+again.
+ 
+Perhaps she had mentioned the fact already to Rebecca,
+but that young lady did not appear to have remembered
+it; indeed, vowed and protested that she expected to see
+a number of Amelia's nephews and nieces.  She was quite
+disappointed that Mr. Sedley was not married; she was
+sure Amelia had said he was, and she doted so on little
+children.
+
+"I think you must have had enough of them at
+Chiswick," said Amelia, rather wondering at the sudden
+tenderness on her friend's part; and indeed in later days
+Miss Sharp would never have committed herself so far
+as to advance opinions, the untruth of which would have
+been so easily detected.  But we must remember that she
+is but nineteen as yet, unused to the art of deceiving,
+poor innocent creature! and making her own experience
+in her own person.  The meaning of the above series of
+queries, as translated in the heart of this ingenious young
+woman, was simply this: "If Mr. Joseph Sedley is rich
+and unmarried, why should I not marry him? I have
+only a fortnight, to be sure, but there is no harm in
+trying." And she determined within herself to make this
+laudable attempt.  She redoubled her caresses to Amelia;
+she kissed the white cornelian necklace as she put it
+on; and vowed she would never, never part with it.  When
+the dinner-bell rang she went downstairs with her arm
+round her friend's waist, as is the habit of young ladies.
+She was so agitated at the drawing-room door, that she
+could hardly find courage to enter.  "Feel my heart, how
+it beats, dear!" said she to her friend.
+
+"No, it doesn't," said Amelia.  "Come in, don't be
+frightened.  Papa won't do you any harm."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+Rebecca Is in Presence of the Enemy
+
+ A VERY stout, puffy man, in buckskins and Hessian
+boots, with several immense neckcloths that rose almost
+to his nose, with a red striped waistcoat and an apple
+green coat with steel buttons almost as large as crown
+pieces (it was the morning costume of a dandy or blood
+of those days) was reading the paper by the fire when
+the two girls entered, and bounced off his arm-chair,
+and blushed excessively, and hid his entire face almost
+in his neckcloths at this apparition.
+
+"It's only your sister, Joseph," said Amelia, laughing
+and shaking the two fingers which he held out.  "I've
+come home FOR GOOD, you know; and this is my friend,
+Miss Sharp, whom you have heard me mention."
+
+"No, never, upon my word," said the head under the
+neckcloth, shaking very much--"that is, yes--what
+abominably cold weather, Miss"--and herewith he fell
+to poking the fire with all his might, although it was in the
+middle of June.
+
+"He's very handsome," whispered Rebecca to Amelia,
+rather loud.
+
+"Do you think so?" said the latter.  "I'll tell him."
+
+"Darling! not for worlds," said Miss Sharp, starting
+back as timid as a fawn.  She had previously made a
+respectful virgin-like curtsey to the gentleman, and her
+modest eyes gazed so perseveringly on the carpet that it
+was a wonder how she should have found an opportunity
+to see him.
+
+"Thank you for the beautiful shawls, brother," said
+Amelia to the fire poker.  "Are they not beautiful, Rebecca?"
+
+"O heavenly!" said Miss Sharp, and her eyes went
+from the carpet straight to the chandelier.
+
+Joseph still continued a huge clattering at the poker
+and tongs, puffing and blowing the while, and turning
+as red as his yellow face would allow him.  "I can't
+make you such handsome presents, Joseph," continued
+his sister, "but while I was at school, I have embroidered
+for you a very beautiful pair of braces."
+
+"Good Gad! Amelia," cried the brother, in serious
+alarm, "what do you mean?" and plunging with all his
+might at the bell-rope, that article of furniture came
+away in his hand, and increased the honest fellow's
+confusion.  "For heaven's sake see if my buggy's at the
+door.  I CAN'T wait.  I must go.  D-- that groom of mine.
+I must go."
+
+At this minute the father of the family walked in,
+rattling his seals like a true British merchant.  "What's
+the matter, Emmy?" says he.
+
+"Joseph wants me to see if his--his buggy is at the
+door.  What is a buggy, Papa?"
+
+"It is a one-horse palanquin," said the old gentleman,
+who was a wag in his way.
+
+Joseph at this burst out into a wild fit of laughter;
+in which, encountering the eye of Miss Sharp, he stopped
+all of a sudden, as if he had been shot.
+
+"This young lady is your friend? Miss Sharp, I am
+very happy to see you.  Have you and Emmy been
+quarrelling already with Joseph, that he wants to be off?"
+
+"I promised Bonamy of our service, sir," said Joseph,
+"to dine with him."
+
+"O fie! didn't you tell your mother you would dine
+here?"
+
+"But in this dress it's impossible."
+
+"Look at him, isn't he handsome enough to dine
+anywhere, Miss Sharp?"
+
+On which, of course, Miss Sharp looked at her friend,
+and they both set off in a fit of laughter, highly
+agreeable to the old gentleman.
+
+"Did you ever see a pair of buckskins like those at
+Miss Pinkerton's?" continued he, following up his
+advantage.
+
+"Gracious heavens! Father," cried Joseph.
+
+"There now, I have hurt his feelings.  Mrs. Sedley,
+my dear, I have hurt your son's feelings.  I have alluded
+to his buckskins.  Ask Miss Sharp if I haven't? Come,
+Joseph, be friends with Miss Sharp, and let us all go to
+dinner."
+
+"There's a pillau, Joseph, just as you like it, and Papa
+has brought home the best turbot in Billingsgate."
+
+"Come, come, sir, walk downstairs with Miss Sharp,
+and I will follow with these two young women," said
+the father, and he took an arm of wife and daughter
+and walked merrily off.
+
+If Miss Rebecca Sharp had determined in her heart
+upon making the conquest of this big beau, I don't
+think, ladies, we have any right to blame her; for though
+the task of husband-hunting is generally, and with
+becoming modesty, entrusted by young persons to their
+mammas, recollect that Miss Sharp had no kind parent
+to arrange these delicate matters for her, and that if
+she did not get a husband for herself, there was no one
+else in the wide world who would take the trouble off
+her hands.  What causes young people to "come out,"
+but the noble ambition of matrimony? What sends them
+trooping to watering-places? What keeps them dancing
+till five o'clock in the morning through a whole mortal
+season? What causes them to labour at pianoforte sonatas,
+and to learn four songs from a fashionable master at a
+guinea a lesson, and to play the harp if they have
+handsome arms and neat elbows, and to wear Lincoln
+Green toxophilite hats and feathers, but that they may bring
+down some "desirable" young man with those killing bows
+and arrows of theirs? What causes respectable parents
+to take up their carpets, set their houses topsy-turvy, and
+spend a fifth of their year's income in ball suppers and
+iced champagne? Is it sheer love of their species, and
+an unadulterated wish to see young people happy and
+dancing? Psha! they want to marry their daughters; and,
+as honest Mrs. Sedley has, in the depths of her kind
+heart, already arranged a score of little schemes for the
+settlement of her Amelia, so also had our beloved but
+unprotected Rebecca determined to do her very best to
+secure the husband, who was even more necessary for
+her than for her friend.  She had a vivid imagination; she
+had, besides, read the Arabian Nights and Guthrie's
+Geography; and it is a fact that while she was dressing for
+dinner, and after she had asked Amelia whether her
+brother was very rich, she had built for herself a most
+magnificent castle in the air, of which she was mistress,
+with a husband somewhere in the background (she had
+not seen him as yet, and his figure would not therefore
+be very distinct); she had arrayed herself in an infinity
+of shawls, turbans, and diamond necklaces, and had
+mounted upon an elephant to the sound of the march in
+Bluebeard, in order to pay a visit of ceremony to the
+Grand Mogul.  Charming Alnaschar visions! it is the
+happy privilege of youth to construct you, and many
+a fanciful young creature besides Rebecca Sharp has
+indulged in these delightful day-dreams ere now!
+
+Joseph Sedley was twelve years older than his sister
+Amelia.  He was in the East India Company's Civil
+Service, and his name appeared, at the period of which
+we write, in the Bengal division of the East India Register,
+as collector of Boggley Wollah, an honourable and
+lucrative post, as everybody knows: in order to know
+to what higher posts Joseph rose in the service, the
+reader is referred to the same periodical.
+
+Boggley Wollah is situated in a fine, lonely, marshy,
+jungly district, famous for snipe-shooting, and where
+not unfrequently you may flush a tiger.  Ramgunge, where
+there is a magistrate, is only forty miles off, and there
+is a cavalry station about thirty miles farther; so Joseph
+wrote home to his parents, when he took possession of
+his collectorship.  He had lived for about eight years of
+his life, quite alone, at this charming place, scarcely
+seeing a Christian face except twice a year, when the
+detachment arrived to carry off the revenues which he
+had collected, to Calcutta.
+
+Luckily, at this time he caught a liver complaint, for
+the cure of which he returned to Europe, and which
+was the source of great comfort and amusement to him
+in his native country.  He did not live with his family
+while in London, but had lodgings of his own, like
+a gay young bachelor.  Before he went to India he was
+too young to partake of the delightful pleasures of a
+man about town, and plunged into them on his return
+with considerable assiduity.  He drove his horses in the
+Park; he dined at the fashionable taverns (for the
+Oriental Club was not as yet invented); he frequented
+the theatres, as the mode was in those days, or made
+his appearance at the opera, laboriously attired in tights
+and a cocked hat.
+
+On returning to India, and ever after, he used to talk
+of the pleasure of this period of his existence with great
+enthusiasm, and give you to understand that he and
+Brummel were the leading bucks of the day.  But he was
+as lonely here as in his jungle at Boggley Wollah.  He
+scarcely knew a single soul in the metropolis: and were
+it not for his doctor, and the society of his blue-pill,
+and his liver complaint, he must have died of loneliness.
+He was lazy, peevish, and a bon-vivan; the appearance
+of a lady frightened him beyond measure; hence it was
+but seldom that he joined the paternal circle in Russell
+Square, where there was plenty of gaiety, and where the
+jokes of his good-natured old father frightened his
+amour-propre.  His bulk caused Joseph much anxious
+thought and alarm; now and then he would make a
+desperate attempt to get rid of his superabundant fat;
+but his indolence and love of good living speedily got
+the better of these endeavours at reform, and he found
+himself again at his three meals a day.  He never was
+well dressed; but he took the hugest pains to adorn his
+big person, and passed many hours daily in that occupation.
+His valet made a fortune out of his wardrobe: his
+toilet-table was covered with as many pomatums and
+essences as ever were employed by an old beauty: he had
+tried, in order to give himself a waist, every girth, stay,
+and waistband then invented.  Like most fat men, he
+would have his clothes made too tight, and took care
+they should be of the most brilliant colours and youthful
+cut.  When dressed at length, in the afternoon, he would
+issue forth to take a drive with nobody in the Park;
+and then would come back in order to dress again and
+go and dine with nobody at the Piazza Coffee-House.
+He was as vain as a girl; and perhaps his extreme
+shyness was one of the results of his extreme vanity.  If
+Miss Rebecca can get the better of him, and at her first
+entrance into life, she is a young person of no ordinary
+cleverness.
+
+The first move showed considerable skill.  When she
+called Sedley a very handsome man, she knew that
+Amelia would tell her mother, who would probably tell
+Joseph, or who, at any rate, would be pleased by the
+compliment paid to her son.  All mothers are.  If you
+had told Sycorax that her son Caliban was as handsome
+as Apollo, she would have been pleased, witch as she
+was.  Perhaps, too, Joseph Sedley would overhear the
+compliment--Rebecca spoke loud enough--and he did
+hear, and (thinking in his heart that he was a very fine
+man) the praise thrilled through every fibre of his big
+body, and made it tingle with pleasure.  Then, however,
+came a recoil.  "Is the girl making fun of me?" he thought,
+and straightway he bounced towards the bell, and was
+for retreating, as we have seen, when his father's jokes
+and his mother's entreaties caused him to pause and
+stay where he was.  He conducted the young lady down
+to dinner in a dubious and agitated frame of mind.
+"Does she really think I am handsome?" thought he,
+"or is she only making game of me?" We have talked
+of Joseph Sedley being as vain as a girl.  Heaven help
+us! the girls have only to turn the tables, and say
+of one of their own sex, "She is as vain as a man,"
+and they will have perfect reason.  The bearded creatures
+are quite as eager for praise, quite as finikin over their
+toilettes, quite as proud of their personal advantages,
+quite as conscious of their powers of fascination, as
+any coquette in the world.
+
+Downstairs, then, they went, Joseph very red and
+blushing, Rebecca very modest, and holding her green
+eyes downwards.  She was dressed in white, with bare
+shoulders as white as snow--the picture of youth,
+unprotected innocence, and humble virgin simplicity.
+"I must be very quiet," thought Rebecca, "and very much
+interested about India."
+
+Now we have heard how Mrs. Sedley had prepared a
+fine curry for her son, just as he liked it, and in the
+course of dinner a portion of this dish was offered to
+Rebecca.  "What is it?" said she, turning an appealing
+look to Mr. Joseph.
+
+"Capital," said he.  His mouth was full of it: his face
+quite red with the delightful exercise of gobbling. 
+"Mother, it's as good as my own curries in India."
+
+"Oh, I must try some, if it is an Indian dish," said
+Miss Rebecca.  "I am sure everything must be good that
+comes from there."
+
+"Give Miss Sharp some curry, my dear," said Mr.
+Sedley, laughing.
+
+Rebecca had never tasted the dish before.
+
+"Do you find it as good as everything else from India?"
+said Mr. Sedley.
+
+"Oh, excellent!" said Rebecca, who was suffering
+tortures with the cayenne pepper.
+
+"Try a chili with it, Miss Sharp," said Joseph, really
+interested.
+
+"A chili," said Rebecca, gasping.  "Oh yes!"  She thought
+a chili was something cool, as its name imported,
+and was served with some.  "How fresh and green they
+look," she said, and put one into her mouth.  It was
+hotter than the curry; flesh and blood could bear it no
+longer.  She laid down her fork.  "Water, for Heaven's
+sake, water!" she cried.  Mr. Sedley burst out laughing
+(he was a coarse man, from the Stock Exchange, where
+they love all sorts of practical jokes).  "They are real
+Indian, I assure you," said he.  "Sambo, give Miss Sharp
+some water."
+
+The paternal laugh was echoed by Joseph, who thought
+the joke capital.  The ladies only smiled a little.  They
+thought poor Rebecca suffered too much.  She would have
+liked to choke old Sedley, but she swallowed her
+mortification as well as she had the abominable curry
+before it, and as soon as she could speak, said, with a comical,
+good-humoured air, "I ought to have remembered the
+pepper which the Princess of Persia puts in the cream-
+tarts in the Arabian Nights.  Do you put cayenne into
+your cream-tarts in India, sir?"
+
+Old Sedley began to laugh, and thought Rebecca
+was a good-humoured girl.  Joseph simply said, "Cream-
+tarts, Miss? Our cream is very bad in Bengal.  We
+generally use goats' milk; and, 'gad, do you know, I've got
+to prefer it!"
+
+"You won't like EVERYTHING from India now, Miss
+Sharp," said the old gentleman; but when the ladies had
+retired after dinner, the wily old fellow said to his son,
+"Have a care, Joe; that girl is setting her cap at you."
+
+"Pooh! nonsense!" said Joe, highly flattered.  "I recollect,
+sir, there was a girl at Dumdum, a daughter of
+Cutler of the Artillery, and afterwards married to Lance,
+the surgeon, who made a dead set at me in the year
+'4--at me and Mulligatawney, whom I mentioned to you
+before dinner--a devilish good fellow Mulligatawney--
+he's a magistrate at Budgebudge, and sure to be in
+council in five years.  Well, sir, the Artillery gave a ball,
+and Quintin, of the King's 14th, said to me, 'Sedley,' said
+he, 'I bet you thirteen to ten that Sophy Cutler hooks
+either you or Mulligatawney before the rains.' 'Done,'
+says I; and egad, sir--this claret's very good.  Adamson's
+or Carbonell's?"
+
+A slight snore was the only reply: the honest stockbroker
+was asleep, and so the rest of Joseph's story was lost
+for that day.  But he was always exceedingly
+communicative in a man's party, and has told this
+delightful tale many scores of times to his apothecary,
+Dr. Gollop, when he came to inquire about the liver and
+the blue-pill.
+
+Being an invalid, Joseph Sedley contented himself with
+a bottle of claret besides his Madeira at dinner, and
+he managed a couple of plates full of strawberries and
+cream, and twenty-four little rout cakes that were lying
+neglected in a plate near him, and certainly (for
+novelists have the privilege of knowing everything)
+he thought a great deal about the girl upstairs.  "A nice,
+gay, merry young creature," thought he to himself.  "How
+she looked at me when I picked up her handkerchief at
+dinner!  She dropped it twice.  Who's that singing in the
+drawing-room? 'Gad! shall I go up and see?"
+
+But his modesty came rushing upon him with
+uncontrollable force.  His father was asleep: his hat
+was in the hall: there was a hackney-coach standing
+hard by in Southampton Row.  "I'll go and see the Forty
+Thieves," said he, "and Miss Decamp's dance"; and he
+slipped away gently on the pointed toes of his boots, and disappeared, without waking his worthy parent.
+
+"There goes Joseph," said Amelia, who was looking
+from the open windows of the drawing-room, while
+Rebecca was singing at the piano.
+
+"Miss Sharp has frightened him away," said Mrs.
+Sedley.  "Poor Joe, why WILL he be so shy?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+The Green Silk Purse
+
+Poor Joe's panic lasted for two or three days; during
+which he did not visit the house, nor during that period
+did Miss Rebecca ever mention his name.  She was all
+respectful gratitude to Mrs. Sedley; delighted beyond
+measure at the Bazaars; and in a whirl of wonder at the
+theatre, whither the good-natured lady took her.  One
+day, Amelia had a headache, and could not go upon some
+party of pleasure to which the two young people were
+invited: nothing could induce her friend to go without her.
+"What! you who have shown the poor orphan what
+happiness and love are for the first time in her life--quit
+YOU?  Never!"  and the green eyes looked up to Heaven
+and filled with tears; and Mrs. Sedley could not but own
+that her daughter's friend had a charming kind heart
+of her own.
+
+As for Mr. Sedley's jokes, Rebecca laughed at them
+with a cordiality and perseverance which not a little
+pleased and softened that good-natured gentleman.  Nor
+was it with the chiefs of the family alone that Miss
+Sharp found favour.  She interested Mrs. Blenkinsop by
+evincing the deepest sympathy in the raspberry-jam
+preserving, which operation was then going on in the
+Housekeeper's room; she persisted in calling Sambo "Sir,"
+and "Mr. Sambo," to the delight of that attendant; and she
+apologised to the lady's maid for giving her trouble in
+venturing to ring the bell, with such sweetness and
+humility, that the Servants' Hall was almost as charmed
+with her as the Drawing Room.
+
+Once, in looking over some drawings which Amelia
+had sent from school, Rebecca suddenly came upon one
+which caused her to burst into tears and leave the room.
+It was on the day when Joe Sedley made his second
+appearance.
+
+Amelia hastened after her friend to know the cause
+of this display of feeling, and the good-natured girl came
+back without her companion, rather affected too.  "You
+know, her father was our drawing-master, Mamma, at
+Chiswick, and used to do all the best parts of our drawings."
+    
+"My love! I'm sure I always heard Miss Pinkerton say
+that he did not touch them--he only mounted them."
+"It was called mounting, Mamma.  Rebecca remembers
+the drawing, and her father working at it, and the
+thought of it came upon her rather suddenly--and so,
+you know, she--"
+    
+"The poor child is all heart," said Mrs. Sedley.
+
+"I wish she could stay with us another week," said
+Amelia.
+
+"She's devilish like Miss Cutler that I used to meet
+at Dumdum, only fairer.  She's married now to Lance,
+the Artillery Surgeon.  Do you know, Ma'am, that once
+Quintin, of the 14th, bet me--"
+
+"0 Joseph, we know that story," said Amelia, laughing.
+Never mind about telling that; but persuade Mamma
+to write to Sir Something Crawley for leave of absence
+for poor dear Rebecca: here she comes, her eyes red
+with weeping."
+     
+"I'm better, now," said the girl, with the sweetest smile
+possible, taking good-natured Mrs. Sedley's extended hand
+and kissing it respectfully.  "How kind you all are to me!
+All," she added, with a laugh, "except you, Mr. Joseph."
+     
+"Me!" said Joseph, meditating an instant departure
+"Gracious Heavens! Good Gad! Miss Sharp!'
+     
+"Yes; how could you be so cruel as to make me eat
+that horrid pepper-dish at dinner, the first day I ever
+saw you? You are not so good to me as dear Amelia."
+     
+"He doesn't know you so well," cried Amelia.
+     
+"I defy anybody not to be good to you, my dear,"
+said her mother.
+     
+"The curry was capital; indeed it was," said Joe, quite
+gravely.  "Perhaps there was NOT enough citron juice in
+it--no, there was NOT."
+
+"And the chilis?"
+
+"By Jove, how they made you cry out!" said Joe,
+caught by the ridicule of the circumstance, and
+exploding in a fit of laughter which ended quite
+suddenly, as usual.
+
+"I shall take care how I let YOU choose for me
+another time," said Rebecca, as they went down
+again to dinner.  "I didn't think men were fond of
+putting poor harmless girls to pain."
+
+"By Gad, Miss Rebecca, I wouldn't hurt you for the
+world."
+
+"No," said she, "I KNOW you wouldn't"; and then she
+gave him ever so gentle a pressure with her little hand,
+and drew it back quite frightened, and looked first for
+one instant in his face, and then down at the carpet-
+rods; and I am not prepared to say that Joe's heart did
+not thump at this little involuntary, timid, gentle motion
+of regard on the part of the simple girl.
+
+It was an advance, and as such, perhaps, some ladies
+of indisputable correctness and gentility will condemn the
+action as immodest; but, you see, poor dear Rebecca
+had all this work to do for herself.  If a person is too
+poor to keep a servant, though ever so elegant, he must
+sweep his own rooms: if a dear girl has no dear Mamma
+to settle matters with the young man, she must do it
+for herself.  And oh, what a mercy it is that these women
+do not exercise their powers oftener! We can't resist
+them, if they do.  Let them show ever so little inclination,
+and men go down on their knees at once: old or ugly,
+it is all the same.  And this I set down as a positive
+truth.  A woman with fair opportunities, and without an
+absolute hump, may marry WHOM SHE LIKES.  Only let us
+be thankful that the darlings are like the beasts of the
+field, and don't know their own power.  They would
+overcome us entirely if they did.
+
+"Egad!" thought Joseph, entering the dining-room, "I
+exactly begin to feel as I did at Dumdum with Miss
+Cutler." Many sweet little appeals, half tender, half
+jocular, did Miss Sharp make to him about the dishes
+at dinner; for by this time she was on a footing of
+considerable familiarity with the family, and as for the
+girls, they loved each other like sisters.  Young unmarried
+girls always do, if they are in a house together for ten
+days.
+
+As if bent upon advancing Rebecca's plans in every
+way--what must Amelia do, but remind her brother of
+a promise made last Easter holidays--"When I was a
+girl at school," said she, laughing--a promise that he,
+Joseph, would take her to Vauxhall.  "Now," she said,
+"that Rebecca is with us, will be the very time."
+
+"O, delightful!" said Rebecca, going to clap her hands;
+but she recollected herself, and paused, like a modest
+creature, as she was.
+
+"To-night is not the night," said Joe.
+ 
+"Well, to-morrow."
+ 
+"To-morrow your Papa and I dine out," said Mrs.
+Sedley.
+
+"You don't suppose that I'm going, Mrs. Sed?" said
+her husband, "and that a woman of your years and size
+is to catch cold, in such an abominable damp place?"
+
+'The children must have someone with them," cried
+Mrs. Sedley.
+
+"Let Joe go," said-his father, laughing.  "He's big
+enough." At which speech even Mr. Sambo at the
+sideboard burst out laughing, and poor fat Joe felt
+inclined to become a parricide almost.
+
+"Undo his stays!" continued the pitiless old gentleman.
+"Fling some water in his face, Miss Sharp, or carry him
+upstairs: the dear creature's fainting.  Poor victim! carry
+him up; he's as light as a feather!"
+
+"If I stand this, sir, I'm d--!" roared Joseph.
+
+"Order Mr. Jos's elephant, Sambo!" cried the father.
+"Send to Exeter 'Change, Sambo"; but seeing Jos ready
+almost to cry with vexation, the old joker stopped his
+laughter, and said, holding out his hand to his son, "It's
+all fair on the Stock Exchange, Jos--and, Sambo, never
+mind the elephant, but give me and Mr. Jos a glass of
+Champagne.  Boney himself hasn't got such in his cellar,
+my boy!"
+
+A goblet of Champagne restored Joseph's equanimity,
+and before the bottle was emptied, of which as an invalid
+he took two-thirds, he had agreed to take the young
+ladies to Vauxhall.
+
+"The girls must have a gentleman apiece," said the old
+gentleman.  "Jos will be sure to leave Emmy in the crowd,
+he will be so taken up with Miss Sharp here.  Send to 96,
+and ask George Osborne if he'll come."
+
+At this, I don't know in the least for what reason,
+Mrs. Sedley looked at her husband and laughed.  Mr.
+Sedley's eyes twinkled in a manner indescribably
+roguish, and he looked at Amelia; and Amelia, hanging
+down her head, blushed as only young ladies of seventeen
+know how to blush, and as Miss Rebecca Sharp never
+blushed in her life--at least not since she was eight
+years old, and when she was caught stealing jam out of
+a cupboard by her godmother.  "Amelia had better write
+a note," said her father; "and let George Osborne see
+what a beautiful handwriting we have brought back from
+Miss Pinkerton's.  Do you remember when you wrote to
+him to come on Twelfth-night, Emmy, and spelt twelfth
+without the f?"
+
+"That was years ago," said Amelia.
+
+"It seems like yesterday, don't it, John?" said Mrs.
+Sedley to her husband; and that night in a conversation
+which took place in a front room in the second floor,
+in a sort of tent, hung round with chintz of a rich and
+fantastic India pattern, and double with calico of a
+tender rose-colour; in the interior of which species of
+marquee was a featherbed, on which were two pillows,
+on which were two round red faces, one in a laced
+nightcap, and one in a simple cotton one, ending in a tassel
+--in A CURTAIN LECTURE, I say, Mrs. Sedley took her
+husband to task for his cruel conduct to poor Joe.
+
+"It was quite wicked of you, Mr. Sedley," said she,
+"to torment the poor boy so."
+
+"My dear," said the cotton-tassel in defence of his
+conduct, "Jos is a great deal vainer than you ever were
+in your life, and that's saying a good deal.  Though, some
+thirty years ago, in the year seventeen hundred and
+eighty--what was it?--perhaps you had a right to be
+vain--I don't say no.  But I've no patience with Jos and
+his dandified modesty.  It is out-Josephing Joseph, my dear,
+and all the while the boy is only thinking of himself,
+and what a fine fellow he is.  I doubt, Ma'am, we shall
+have some trouble with him yet.  Here is Emmy's little
+friend making love to him as hard as she can; that's
+quite clear; and if she does not catch him some other
+will.  That man is destined to be a prey to woman, as
+I am to go on 'Change every day.  It's a mercy he did
+not bring us over a black daughter-in-law, my dear.  But,
+mark my words, the first woman who fishes for him,
+hooks him."
+
+"She shall go off to-morrow, the little artful creature,"
+said Mrs. Sedley, with great energy.
+
+"Why not she as well as another, Mrs. Sedley? The
+girl's a white face at any rate.  I don't care who marries
+him.  Let Joe please himself."
+
+And presently the voices of the two speakers were
+hushed, or were replaced by the gentle but unromantic
+music of the nose; and save when the church bells
+tolled the hour and the watchman called it, all was
+silent at the house of John Sedley, Esquire, of Russell
+Square, and the Stock Exchange.
+
+When morning came, the good-natured Mrs. Sedley no
+longer thought of executing her threats with regard to
+Miss Sharp; for though nothing is more keen, nor more
+common, nor more justifiable, than maternal jealousy,
+yet she could not bring herself to suppose that the little,
+humble, grateful, gentle governess would dare to look
+up to such a magnificent personage as the Collector of
+Boggley Wollah.  The petition, too, for an extension of
+the young lady's leave of absence had already been
+despatched, and it would be difficult to find a pretext for
+abruptly dismissing her.
+
+And as if all things conspired in favour of the gentle
+Rebecca, the very elements (although she was not
+inclined at first to acknowledge their action in her behalf)
+interposed to aid her.  For on the evening appointed for
+the Vauxhall party, George Osborne having come to
+dinner, and the elders of the house having departed,
+according to invitation, to dine with Alderman Balls at
+Highbury Barn, there came on such a thunder-storm as only
+happens on Vauxhall nights, and as obliged the young
+people, perforce, to remain at home.  Mr. Osborne did
+not seem in the least disappointed at this occurrence.
+He and Joseph Sedley drank a fitting quantity of
+port-wine, tete-a-tete, in the dining-room, during the
+drinking of which Sedley told a number of his best Indian
+stories; for he was extremely talkative in man's society;
+and afterwards Miss Amelia Sedley did the honours of
+the drawing-room; and these four young persons passed
+such a comfortable evening together, that they declared
+they were rather glad of the thunder-storm than
+otherwise, which had caused them to put off their
+visit to Vauxhall.
+
+Osborne was Sedley's godson, and had been one of the
+family any time these three-and-twenty years.  At six
+weeks old, he had received from John Sedley a present
+of a silver cup; at six months old, a coral with gold
+whistle and bells; from his youth upwards he was
+"tipped" regularly by the old gentleman at Christmas:
+and on going back to school, he remembered perfectly
+well being thrashed by Joseph Sedley, when the latter
+was a big, swaggering hobbadyhoy, and George an
+impudent urchin of ten years old.  In a word, George was
+as familiar with the family as such daily acts of
+kindness and intercourse could make him.
+
+"Do you remember, Sedley, what a fury you were in,
+when I cut off the tassels of your Hessian boots, and
+how Miss--hem!--how Amelia rescued me from a
+beating, by falling down on her knees and crying out to
+her brother Jos, not to beat little George?"
+
+Jos remembered this remarkable circumstance
+perfectly well, but vowed that he had totally
+forgotten it.
+
+"Well, do you remember coming down in a gig to Dr.
+Swishtail's to see me, before you went to India, and
+giving me half a guinea and a pat on the head? I always
+had an idea that you were at least seven feet high, and
+was quite astonished at your return from India to find
+you no taller than myself."
+
+"How good of Mr. Sedley to go to your school and
+give you the money!" exclaimed Rebecca, in accents of
+extreme delight.
+
+"Yes, and after I had cut the tassels of his boots too.
+Boys never forget those tips at school, nor the givers."
+
+"I delight in Hessian boots," said Rebecca.  Jos Sedley,
+who admired his own legs prodigiously, and always
+wore this ornamental chaussure, was extremely pleased
+at this remark, though he drew his legs under his chair
+as it was made.
+
+"Miss Sharp!" said George Osborne, "you who are
+so clever an artist, you must make a grand historical
+picture of the scene of the boots.  Sedley shall be
+represented in buckskins, and holding one of the
+injured boots in one hand; by the other he shall have
+hold of my shirt-frill.  Amelia shall be kneeling near him,
+with her little hands up; and the picture shall have a
+grand allegorical title, as the frontispieces have in the
+Medulla and the spelling-book."
+
+"I shan't have time to do it here," said Rebecca.  'I'll
+do it when--when I'm gone." And she dropped her voice,
+and looked so sad and piteous, that everybody felt how
+cruel her lot was, and how sorry they would be to
+part with her.
+
+"O that you could stay longer, dear Rebecca," said
+Amelia.
+
+"Why?" answered the other, still more sadly.  "That
+I may be only the more unhap--unwilling to lose you?"
+And she turned away her head.  Amelia began to give
+way to that natural infirmity of tears which, we have
+said, was one of the defects of this silly little thing.  George
+Osborne looked at the two young women with a touched
+curiosity; and Joseph Sedley heaved something very like
+a sigh out of his big chest, as he cast his eyes down
+towards his favourite Hessian boots.
+
+"Let us have some music, Miss Sedley--Amelia," said
+George, who felt at that moment an extraordinary,
+almost irresistible impulse to seize the above-mentioned
+young woman in his arms, and to kiss her in the face of
+the company; and she looked at him for a moment, and
+if I should say that they fell in love with each other at
+that single instant of time, I should perhaps be telling
+an untruth, for the fact is that these two young people
+had been bred up by their parents for this very purpose,
+and their banns had, as it were, been read in their
+respective families any time these ten years.  They went
+off to the piano, which was situated, as pianos usually
+are, in the back drawing-room; and as it was rather dark,
+Miss Amelia, in the most unaffected way in the world,
+put her hand into Mr. Osborne's, who, of course, could
+see the way among the chairs and ottomans a great deal
+better than she could.  But this arrangement left Mr.
+Joseph Sedley tete-a-tete with Rebecca, at the
+drawing-room table, where the latter was occupied
+in knitting a green silk purse.
+
+"There is no need to ask family secrets," said Miss
+Sharp.  "Those two have told theirs."
+
+"As soon as he gets his company," said Joseph, "I
+believe the affair is settled.  George Osborne is a capital
+fellow."
+
+"And your sister the dearest creature in the world,"
+said Rebecca.  "Happy the man who wins her!" With
+this, Miss Sharp gave a great sigh.
+
+When two unmarried persons get together, and talk
+upon such delicate subjects as the present, a great deal
+of confidence and intimacy is presently established
+between them.  There is no need of giving a special report
+of the conversation which now took place between Mr.
+Sedley and the young lady; for the conversation, as may
+be judged from the foregoing specimen, was not especially
+witty or eloquent; it seldom is in private societies, or
+anywhere except in very high-flown and ingenious novels.
+As there was music in the next room, the talk was
+carried on, of course, in a low and becoming tone, though,
+for the matter of that, the couple in the next apartment
+would not have been disturbed had the talking been ever
+so loud, so occupied were they with their own pursuits.
+
+Almost for the first time in his life, Mr. Sedley found
+himself talking, without the least timidity or hesitation,
+to a person of the other sex.  Miss Rebecca asked him a
+great number of questions about India, which gave him
+an opportunity of narrating many interesting anecdotes
+about that country and himself.  He described the balls
+at Government House, and the manner in which they
+kept themselves cool in the hot weather, with punkahs,
+tatties, and other contrivances; and he was very witty
+regarding the number of Scotchmen whom Lord Minto,
+the Governor-General, patronised; and then he described
+a tiger-hunt; and the manner in which the mahout of his
+elephant had been pulled off his seat by one of the
+infuriated animals.  How delighted Miss Rebecca was at
+the Government balls, and how she laughed at the stories
+of the Scotch aides-de-camp, and called Mr. Sedley a
+sad wicked satirical creature; and how frightened she was
+Joseph Sedley tete-a-tete with Rebecca, at the
+drawing-room table, where the latter was occupied
+in knitting a green silk purse.
+
+"There is no need to ask family secrets," said Miss
+Sharp.  "Those two have told theirs."
+
+"As soon as he gets his company," said Joseph, "I
+believe the affair is settled.  George Osborne is a capital
+fellow."
+
+"And your sister the dearest creature in the world,"
+said Rebecca.  "Happy the man who wins her!" With
+this, Miss Sharp gave a great sigh.
+
+When two unmarried persons get together, and talk
+upon such delicate subjects as the present, a great deal
+of confidence and intimacy is presently established
+between them.  There is no need of giving a special report
+of the conversation which now took place between Mr.
+Sedley and the young lady; for the conversation, as may
+be judged from the foregoing specimen, was not especially
+witty or eloquent; it seldom is in private societies, or
+anywhere except in very high-flown and ingenious novels.
+As there was music in the next room, the talk was
+carried on, of course, in a low and becoming tone, though,
+for the matter of that, the couple in the next apartment
+would not have been disturbed had the talking been ever
+so loud, so occupied were they with their own pursuits.
+
+Almost for the first time in his life, Mr. Sedley found
+himself talking, without the least timidity or hesitation,
+to a person of the other sex.  Miss Rebecca asked him a
+great number of questions about India, which gave him
+an opportunity of narrating many interesting anecdotes
+about that country and himself.  He described the balls
+at Government House, and the manner in which they
+kept themselves cool in the hot weather, with punkahs,
+tatties, and other contrivances; and he was very witty
+regarding the number of Scotchmen whom Lord Minto,
+the Governor-General, patronised; and then he described
+a tiger-hunt; and the manner in which the mahout of his
+elephant had been pulled off his seat by one of the
+infuriated animals.  How delighted Miss Rebecca was at
+the Government balls, and how she laughed at the stories
+of the Scotch aides-de-camp, and called Mr. Sedley a
+sad wicked satirical creature; and how frightened she was
+at the story of the elephant! "For your mother's sake,
+dear Mr. Sedley," she said, "for the sake of all your
+friends, promise NEVER to go on one of those horrid
+expeditions."
+
+"Pooh, pooh, Miss Sharp," said he, pulling up his shirt-
+collars; "the danger makes the sport only the pleasanter."
+He had never been but once at a tiger-hunt, when the
+accident in question occurred, and when he was half
+killed--not by the tiger, but by the fright.  And as he
+talked on, he grew quite bold, and actually had the
+audacity to ask Miss Rebecca for whom she was
+knitting the green silk purse? He was quite surprised
+and delighted at his own graceful familiar manner.
+
+"For any one who wants a purse," replied Miss
+Rebecca, looking at him in the most gentle winning way.
+Sedley was going to make one of the most eloquent
+speeches possible, and had begun--"O Miss Sharp,
+how--" when some song which was performed in the
+other room came to an end, and caused him to hear
+his own voice so distinctly that he stopped, blushed, and
+blew his nose in great agitation.
+
+"Did you ever hear anything like your brother's
+eloquence?" whispered Mr. Osborne to Amelia.  "Why,
+your friend has worked miracles."
+
+"The more the better," said Miss Amelia; who, like
+almost all women who are worth a pin, was a match-
+maker in her heart, and would have been delighted that
+Joseph should carry back a wife to India.  She had, too,
+in the course of this few days' constant intercourse,
+warmed into a most tender friendship for Rebecca, and
+discovered a million of virtues and amiable qualities in
+her which she had not perceived when they were at
+Chiswick together.  For the affection of young ladies is
+of as rapid growth as Jack's bean-stalk, and reaches up
+to the sky in a night.  It is no blame to them that after
+marriage this Sehnsucht nach der Liebe subsides.  It is
+what sentimentalists, who deal in very big words, call a
+yearning after the Ideal, and simply means that women
+are commonly not satisfied until they have husbands
+and children on whom they may centre affections, which
+are spent elsewhere, as it were, in small change.
+
+Having expended her little store of songs, or having
+stayed long enough in the back drawing-room, it now
+appeared proper to Miss Amelia to ask her friend to
+sing.  "You would not have listened to me," she said to
+Mr. Osborne (though she knew she was telling a fib),
+"had you heard Rebecca first."
+
+"I give Miss Sharp warning, though," said Osborne,
+"that, right or wrong, I consider Miss Amelia Sedley
+the first singer in the world."
+
+"You shall hear," said Amelia; and Joseph Sedley was
+actually polite enough to carry the candles to the piano.
+Osborne hinted that he should like quite as well to sit
+in the dark; but Miss Sedley, laughing, declined to bear
+him company any farther, and the two accordingly
+followed Mr. Joseph.  Rebecca sang far better than her
+friend (though of course Osborne was free to keep his
+opinion), and exerted herself to the utmost, and,
+indeed, to the wonder of Amelia, who had never known
+her perform so well.  She sang a French song, which
+Joseph did not understand in the least, and which George
+confessed he did not understand, and then a number of
+those simple ballads which were the fashion forty years
+ago, and in which British tars, our King, poor Susan,
+blue-eyed Mary, and the like, were the principal themes.
+They are not, it is said, very brilliant, in a musical point
+of view, but contain numberless good-natured, simple
+appeals to the affections, which people understood better
+than the milk-and-water lagrime, sospiri, and felicita
+of the eternal Donizettian music with which we are
+favoured now-a-days.
+
+Conversation of a sentimental sort, befitting the
+subject, was carried on between the songs, to which
+Sambo, after he had brought the tea, the delighted cook,
+and even Mrs. Blenkinsop, the housekeeper, condescended
+to listen on the landing-place.
+
+Among these ditties was one, the last of the concert,
+and to the following effect:
+
+Ah! bleak and barren was the moor,
+Ah! loud and piercing was the storm,
+The cottage roof was shelter'd sure,
+The cottage hearth was bright and warm--
+An orphan boy the lattice pass'd,
+And, as he mark'd its cheerful glow,
+Felt doubly keen the midnight blast,
+And doubly cold the fallen snow.
+
+They mark'd him as he onward prest,
+With fainting heart and weary limb;
+Kind voices bade him turn and rest,
+And gentle faces welcomed him.
+The dawn is up--the guest is gone,
+The cottage hearth is blazing still;
+Heaven pity all poor wanderers lone!
+Hark to the wind upon the hill!
+
+It was the sentiment of the before-mentioned words,
+"When I'm gone," over again.  As she came to the last
+words, Miss Sharp's "deep-toned voice faltered."
+Everybody felt the allusion to her departure, and to her
+hapless orphan state.  Joseph Sedley, who was fond of music,
+and soft-hearted, was in a state of ravishment during the
+performance of the song, and profoundly touched at its
+conclusion.  If he had had the courage; if George and Miss
+Sedley had remained, according to the former's proposal,
+in the farther room, Joseph Sedley's bachelorhood would
+have been at an end, and this work would never have
+been written.  But at the close of the ditty, Rebecca quitted
+the piano, and giving her hand to Amelia, walked away
+into the front drawing-room twilight; and, at this
+moment, Mr. Sambo made his appearance with a tray,
+containing sandwiches, jellies, and some glittering glasses
+and decanters, on which Joseph Sedley's attention was
+immediately fixed.  When the parents of the house of Sedley
+returned from their dinner-party, they found the young
+people so busy in talking, that they had not heard the
+arrival of the carriage, and Mr. Joseph was in the act of
+saying, "My dear Miss Sharp, one little teaspoonful of
+jelly to recruit you after your immense--your--your
+delightful exertions."
+
+"Bravo, Jos!" said Mr. Sedley; on hearing the bantering
+of which well-known voice, Jos instantly relapsed
+into an alarmed silence, and quickly took his departure.
+He did not lie awake all night thinking whether or not he
+was in love with Miss Sharp; the passion of love never
+interfered with the appetite or the slumber of Mr. Joseph
+Sedley; but he thought to himself how delightful it would
+be to hear such songs as those after Cutcherry--what a
+distinguee girl she was--how she could speak French
+better than the Governor-General's lady herself--and
+what a sensation she would make at the Calcutta balls.
+"It's evident the poor devil's in love with me," thought
+he.  "She is just as rich as most of the girls who come
+out to India.  I might go farther, and fare worse, egad!"
+And in these meditations he fell asleep.
+
+How Miss Sharp lay awake, thinking, will he come or
+not to-morrow? need not be told here.  To-morrow came,
+and, as sure as fate, Mr. Joseph Sedley made his
+appearance before luncheon.  He had never been known
+before to confer such an honour on Russell Square.  George
+Osborne was somehow there already (sadly "putting out"
+Amelia, who was writing to her twelve dearest friends at
+Chiswick Mall), and Rebecca was employed upon her
+yesterday's work.  As Joe's buggy drove up, and while, after
+his usual thundering knock and pompous bustle at the
+door, the ex-Collector of Boggley Wollah laboured up
+stairs to the drawing-room, knowing glances were
+telegraphed between Osborne and Miss Sedley, and the pair,
+smiling archly, looked at Rebecca, who actually blushed
+as she bent her fair ringlets over her knitting.  How her
+heart beat as Joseph appeared--Joseph, puffing from the
+staircase in shining creaking boots--Joseph, in a new
+waistcoat, red with heat and nervousness, and blushing
+behind his wadded neckcloth.  It was a nervous moment
+for all; and as for Amelia, I think she was more frightened
+than even the people most concerned.
+
+Sambo, who flung open the door and announced Mr.
+Joseph, followed grinning, in the Collector's rear, and
+bearing two handsome nosegays of flowers, which the
+monster had actually had the gallantry to purchase in
+Covent Garden Market that morning--they were not as
+big as the haystacks which ladies carry about with them
+now-a-days, in cones of filigree paper; but the young
+women were delighted with the gift, as Joseph presented
+one to each, with an exceedingly solemn bow.
+
+"Bravo, Jos!" cried Osborne.
+
+"Thank you, dear Joseph," said Amelia, quite ready to
+kiss her brother, if he were so minded.  (And I think for
+a kiss from such a dear creature as Amelia, I would
+purchase all Mr. Lee's conservatories out of hand.)
+
+"O heavenly, heavenly flowers!" exclaimed Miss Sharp,
+and smelt them delicately, and held them to her bosom,
+and cast up her eyes to the ceiling, in an ecstasy of
+admiration.  Perhaps she just looked first into the bouquet,
+to see whether there was a billet-doux hidden among the
+flowers; but there was no letter.
+
+"Do they talk the language of flowers at Boggley
+Wollah, Sedley?" asked Osborne, laughing.
+
+"Pooh, nonsense!" replied the sentimental youth.
+"Bought 'em at Nathan's; very glad you like 'em; and eh,
+Amelia, my dear, I bought a pine-apple at the same
+time, which I gave to Sambo.  Let's have it for tiffin;
+very cool and nice this hot weather." Rebecca said she
+had never tasted a pine, and longed beyond everything
+to taste one.
+
+So the conversation went on.  I don't know on what
+pretext Osborne left the room, or why, presently, Amelia
+went away, perhaps to superintend the slicing of the
+pine-apple; but Jos was left alone with Rebecca, who had
+resumed her work, and the green silk and the shining
+needles were quivering rapidly under her white slender
+fingers.
+
+"What a beautiful, BYOO-OOTIFUL song that was you sang
+last night, dear Miss Sharp," said the Collector.  "It made
+me cry almost; 'pon my honour it did."
+
+"Because you have a kind heart, Mr. Joseph; all the
+Sedleys have, I think."
+
+"It kept me awake last night, and I was trying to hum
+it this morning, in bed; I was, upon my honour.  Gollop,
+my doctor, came in at eleven (for I'm a sad invalid, you
+know, and see Gollop every day), and, 'gad! there I
+was, singing away like--a robin."
+
+"O you droll creature! Do let me hear you sing it."
+
+"Me? No, you, Miss Sharp; my dear Miss Sharp, do
+sing it.
+
+"Not now, Mr. Sedley," said Rebecca, with a sigh.  "My
+spirits are not equal to it; besides, I must finish the
+purse.  Will you help me, Mr. Sedley?" And before he had
+time to ask how, Mr. Joseph Sedley, of the East India
+Company's service, was actually seated tete-a-tete with
+a young lady, looking at her with a most killing expression;
+his arms stretched out before her in an imploring attitude,
+and his hands bound in a web of green silk, which she
+was unwinding.
+
+In this romantic position Osborne and Amelia found
+the interesting pair, when they entered to announce that
+tiffin was ready.  The skein of silk was just wound round
+the card; but Mr. Jos had never spoken.
+
+"I am sure he will to-night, dear," Amelia said, as she
+pressed Rebecca's hand; and Sedley, too, had communed
+with his soul, and said to himself, " 'Gad, I'll pop the
+question at Vauxhall."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+Dobbin of Ours
+
+Cuff's fight with Dobbin, and the unexpected issue of
+that contest, will long be remembered by every man who
+was educated at Dr. Swishtail's famous school.  The latter
+Youth (who used to be called Heigh-ho Dobbin, Gee-ho
+Dobbin, and by many other names indicative of puerile
+contempt) was the quietest, the clumsiest, and, as it
+seemed, the dullest of all Dr. Swishtail's young gentlemen.
+His parent was a grocer in the city: and it was bruited
+abroad that he was admitted into Dr. Swishtail's academy
+upon what are called "mutual principles"--that is to
+say, the expenses of his board and schooling were
+defrayed by his father in goods, not money; and he
+stood there--most at the bottom of the school--in his
+scraggy corduroys and jacket, through the seams of
+which his great big bones were bursting--as the
+representative of so many pounds of tea, candles,
+sugar, mottled-soap, plums (of which a very mild
+proportion was supplied for the puddings of the
+establishment), and other commodities.  A dreadful
+day it was for young Dobbin when one of the
+youngsters of the school, having run into the town upon
+a poaching excursion for hardbake and polonies, espied
+the cart of Dobbin & Rudge, Grocers and Oilmen, Thames
+Street, London, at the Doctor's door, discharging a cargo
+of the wares in which the firm dealt.
+
+Young Dobbin had no peace after that.  The jokes were
+frightful, and merciless against him.  "Hullo, Dobbin," one
+wag would say, "here's good news in the paper.  Sugars
+is ris', my boy." Another would set a sum--"If a pound
+of mutton-candles cost sevenpence-halfpenny, how much
+must Dobbin cost?" and a roar would follow from all the
+circle of young knaves, usher and all, who rightly
+considered that the selling of goods by retail is a shameful
+and infamous practice, meriting the contempt and scorn
+of all real gentlemen.
+
+"Your father's only a merchant, Osborne," Dobbin said
+in private to the little boy who had brought down the
+storm upon him.  At which the latter replied haughtily,
+"My father's a gentleman, and keeps his carriage"; and
+Mr. William Dobbin retreated to a remote outhouse in
+the playground, where he passed a half-holiday in the
+bitterest sadness and woe.  Who amongst us is there that
+does not recollect similar hours of bitter, bitter childish
+grief? Who feels injustice; who shrinks before a slight;
+who has a sense of wrong so acute, and so glowing a
+gratitude for kindness, as a generous boy? and how many
+of those gentle souls do you degrade, estrange, torture,
+for the sake of a little loose arithmetic, and miserable
+dog-latin?
+
+Now, William Dobbin, from an incapacity to acquire
+the rudiments of the above language, as they are
+propounded in that wonderful book the Eton Latin Grammar,
+was compelled to remain among the very last of Doctor
+Swishtail's scholars, and was "taken down" continually by
+little fellows with pink faces and pinafores when he
+marched up with the lower form, a giant amongst them,
+with his downcast, stupefied look, his dog's-eared primer,
+and his tight corduroys.  High and low, all made fun of
+him.  They sewed up those corduroys, tight as they were.
+They cut his bed-strings.  They upset buckets and benches,
+so that he might break his shins over them, which he
+never failed to do.  They sent him parcels, which, when                                   
+opened, were found to contain the paternal soap and
+candles.  There was no little fellow but had his jeer and
+joke at Dobbin; and he bore everything quite patiently,
+and was entirely dumb and miserable.
+
+Cuff, on the contrary, was the great chief and dandy of
+the Swishtail Seminary.  He smuggled wine in.  He fought
+the town-boys.  Ponies used to come for him to ride home
+on Saturdays.  He had his top-boots in his room, in which
+he used to hunt in the holidays.  He had a gold repeater:
+and took snuff like the Doctor.  He had been to the Opera,
+and knew the merits of the principal actors, preferring
+Mr. Kean to Mr. Kemble.  He could knock you off forty
+Latin verses in an hour.  He could make French poetry.
+What else didn't he know, or couldn't he do? They said
+even the Doctor himself was afraid of him.
+
+Cuff, the unquestioned king of the school, ruled over
+his subjects, and bullied them, with splendid superiority.
+This one blacked his shoes: that toasted his bread, others
+would fag out, and give him balls at cricket during whole
+summer afternoons.  "Figs" was the fellow whom he
+despised most, and with whom, though always abusing him,
+and sneering at him, he scarcely ever condescended to
+hold personal communication.
+
+One day in private, the two young gentlemen had had
+a difference.  Figs, alone in the schoolroom, was
+blundering over a home letter; when Cuff, entering,
+bade him go upon some message, of which tarts were
+probably the subject.
+
+"I can't," says Dobbin; "I want to finish my letter."
+
+"You CAN'T?" says Mr. Cuff, laying hold of that
+document (in which many words were scratched out,
+many were mis-spelt, on which had been spent I don't
+know how much thought, and labour, and tears; for the
+poor fellow was writing to his mother, who was fond of
+him, although she was a grocer's wife, and lived in a back
+parlour in Thames Street).  "You CAN'T?" says Mr. Cuff:
+"I should like to know why, pray? Can't you write to old
+Mother Figs to-morrow?"
+
+"Don't call names," Dobbin said, getting off the bench
+very nervous.
+
+"Well, sir, will you go?" crowed the cock of the school.
+
+"Put down the letter," Dobbin replied; "no gentleman
+readth letterth."
+
+"Well, NOW will you go?" says the other.
+
+"No, I won't.  Don't strike, or I'll THMASH you," roars
+out Dobbin, springing to a leaden inkstand, and looking
+so wicked, that Mr. Cuff paused, turned down his coat
+sleeves again, put his hands into his pockets, and walked
+away with a sneer.  But he never meddled.personally with
+the grocer's boy after that; though we must do him the
+justice to say he always spoke of Mr. Dobbin with con-
+tempt behind his back.
+
+Some time after this interview, it happened that Mr.
+Cuff, on a sunshiny afternoon, was in the neighbourhood
+of poor William Dobbin, who was lying under a tree in
+the playground, spelling over a favourite copy of the
+Arabian Nights which he had apart from the rest of the
+school, who were pursuing their various sports--quite
+lonely, and almost happy.  If people would but leave
+children to themselves; if teachers would cease to bully
+them; if parents would not insist upon directing their
+thoughts, and dominating their feelings--those feelings
+and thoughts which are a mystery to all (for how much
+do you and I know of each other, of our children, of our
+fathers, of our neighbour, and how far more beautiful and
+sacred are the thoughts of the poor lad or girl whom you
+govern likely to be, than those of the dull and world-
+corrupted person who rules him?)--if, I say, parents and
+masters would leave their children alone a little more,
+small harm would accrue, although a less quantity of
+as in praesenti might be acquired.
+
+Well, William Dobbin had for once forgotten the world,
+and was away with Sindbad the Sailor in the Valley of
+Diamonds, or with Prince Ahmed and the Fairy Peribanou
+in that delightful cavern where the Prince found her, and
+whither we should all like to make a tour; when shrill
+cries, as of a little fellow weeping, woke up his pleasant
+reverie; and looking up, he saw Cuff before him,
+belabouring a little boy.
+
+It was the lad who had peached upon him about the
+grocer's cart; but he bore little malice, not at least
+towards the young and small.  "How dare you, sir, break
+the bottle?" says Cuff to the little urchin, swinging a
+yellow cricket-stump over him.
+
+The boy had been instructed to get over the playground
+wall (at a selected spot where the broken glass had been
+removed from the top, and niches made convenient in
+the brick); to run a quarter of a mile; to purchase a pint
+of rum-shrub on credit; to brave all the Doctor's outlying
+spies, and to clamber back into the playground again;
+during the performance of which feat, his foot had slipt,
+and the bottle was broken, and the shrub had been spilt,
+and his pantaloons had been damaged, and he appeared
+before his employer a perfectly guilty and trembling,
+though harmless, wretch.
+
+"How dare you, sir, break it?" says Cuff; "you blundering
+little thief.  You drank the shrub, and now you pretend
+to have broken the bottle.  Hold out your hand, sir."
+
+Down came the stump with a great heavy thump on
+the child's hand.  A moan followed.  Dobbin looked up.
+The Fairy Peribanou had fled into the inmost cavern
+with Prince Ahmed: the Roc had whisked away Sindbad
+the Sailor out of the Valley of Diamonds out of sight, far
+into the clouds: and there was everyday life before
+honest William; and a big boy beating a little one
+without cause.
+
+"Hold out your other hand, sir," roars Cuff to his little
+schoolfellow, whose face was distorted with pain.
+Dobbin quivered, and gathered himself up in his narrow old
+clothes.
+
+"Take that, you little devil!" cried Mr. Cuff, and down
+came the wicket again on the child's hand.--Don't be
+horrified, ladies, every boy at a public school has done it.
+Your children will so do and be done by, in all
+probability.  Down came the wicket again; and Dobbin
+started up.
+  
+I can't tell what his motive was.  Torture in a public
+school is as much licensed as the knout in Russia.  It
+would be ungentlemanlike (in a manner) to resist it.
+Perhaps Dobbin's foolish soul revolted against that exercise
+of tyranny; or perhaps he had a hankering feeling of
+revenge in his mind, and longed to measure himself
+against that splendid bully and tyrant, who had all the
+glory, pride, pomp, circumstance, banners flying, drums
+beating, guards saluting, in the place.  Whatever may have
+been his incentive, however, up he sprang, and screamed
+out, "Hold off, Cuff; don't bully that child any more; or
+I'll--"
+
+"Or you'll what?" Cuff asked in amazement at this
+interruption.  "Hold out your hand, you little beast."
+
+"I'll give you the worst thrashing you ever had in your
+life," Dobbin said, in reply to the first part of Cuff's
+sentence; and little Osborne, gasping and in tears, looked
+up with wonder and incredulity at seeing this amazing
+champion put up suddenly to defend him: while Cuff's
+astonishment was scarcely less.  Fancy our late monarch
+George III when he heard of the revolt of the North
+American colonies: fancy brazen Goliath when little
+David stepped forward and claimed a meeting; and you
+have the feelings of Mr. Reginald Cuff when this
+rencontre was proposed to him.
+
+"After school," says he, of course; after a pause and a
+look, as much as to say, "Make your will, and
+communicate your last wishes to your friends
+between this time and that."
+
+"As you please," Dobbin said.  "You must be my bottle
+holder, Osborne."
+
+"Well, if you like," little Osborne replied; for you see
+his papa kept a carriage, and he was rather ashamed of
+his champion.
+
+Yes, when the hour of battle came, he was almost
+ashamed to say, "Go it, Figs"; and not a single other boy
+in the place uttered that cry for the first two or three
+rounds of this famous combat; at the commencement of
+which the scientific Cuff, with a contemptuous smile on
+his face, and as light and as gay as if he was at a ball,
+planted his blows upon his adversary, and floored that
+unlucky champion three times running.  At each fall there
+was a cheer; and everybody was anxious to have the
+honour of offering the conqueror a knee.
+
+"What a licking I shall get when it's over," young
+Osborne thought, picking up his man.  "You'd best give in,"
+he said to Dobbin; "it's only a thrashing, Figs, and you
+know I'm used to it." But Figs, all whose limbs were in a
+quiver, and whose nostrils were breathing rage, put his
+little bottle-holder aside, and went in for a fourth time.
+  
+As he did not in the least know how to parry the blows
+that were aimed at himself, and Cuff had begun the 
+attack on the three preceding occasions, without ever
+allowing his enemy to strike, Figs now determined that he
+would commence the engagement by a charge on his own
+part; and accordingly, being a left-handed man, brought
+that arm into action, and hit out a couple of times with
+all his might--once at Mr. Cuff's left eye, and once on his
+beautiful Roman nose.
+  
+Cuff went down this time, to the astonishment of the
+assembly.  "Well hit, by Jove," says little Osborne, with
+the air of a connoisseur, clapping his man on the back.
+"Give it him with the left, Figs my boy."
+  
+Figs's left made terrific play during all the rest of the
+combat.  Cuff went down every time.  At the sixth round,
+there were almost as many fellows shouting out, "Go it,
+Figs," as there were youths exclaiming, "Go it, Cuff." At
+the twelfth round the latter champion was all abroad, as
+the saying is, and had lost all presence of mind and power
+of attack or defence.  Figs, on the contrary, was as calm
+as a quaker.  His face being quite pale, his eyes shining
+open, and a great cut on his underlip bleeding profusely,
+gave this young fellow a fierce and ghastly air, which
+perhaps struck terror into many spectators.  Nevertheless,
+his intrepid adversary prepared to close for the
+thirteenth time.
+  
+If I had the pen of a Napier, or a Bell's Life, I should
+like to describe this combat properly.  It was the last
+charge of the Guard--(that is, it would have been, only
+Waterloo had not yet taken place)--it was Ney's column
+breasting the hill of La Haye Sainte, bristling with ten
+thousand bayonets, and crowned with twenty eagles--it
+was the shout of the beef-eating British, as leaping down
+the hill they rushed to hug the enemy in the savage arms
+of battle--in other words, Cuff coming up full of pluck,
+but quite reeling and groggy, the Fig-merchant put in his
+left as usual on his adversary's nose, and sent him down
+for the last time.
+
+"I think that will do for him," Figs said, as his opponent
+dropped as neatly on the green as I have seen Jack
+Spot's ball plump into the pocket at billiards; and the
+fact is, when time was called, Mr. Reginald Cuff was not
+able, or did not choose, to stand up again.
+
+And now all the boys set up such a shout for Figs as
+would have made you think he had been their darling
+champion through the whole battle; and as absolutely
+brought Dr. Swishtail out of his study, curious to know
+the cause of the uproar.  He threatened to flog Figs
+violently, of course; but Cuff, who had come to himself
+by this time, and was washing his wounds, stood up and
+said, "It's my fault, sir--not Figs'--not Dobbin's.  I was
+bullying a little boy; and he served me right." By which
+magnanimous speech he not only saved his conqueror a
+whipping, but got back all his ascendancy over the boys
+which his defeat had nearly cost him.
+
+Young Osborne wrote home to his parents an account
+of the transaction.
+
+Sugarcane House, Richmond, March, 18--
+
+DEAR MAMA,--I hope you are quite well.  I should be
+much obliged to you to send me a cake and five shillings.
+There has been a fight here between Cuff & Dobbin.
+Cuff, you know, was the Cock of the School.  They
+fought thirteen rounds, and Dobbin Licked.  So Cuff is
+now Only Second Cock.  The fight was about me.  Cuff
+was licking me for breaking a bottle of milk, and Figs
+wouldn't stand it.  We call him Figs because his father is
+a Grocer--Figs & Rudge, Thames St., City--I think as
+he fought for me you ought to buy your Tea & Sugar
+at his father's.  Cuff goes home every Saturday, but can't
+this, because he has 2 Black Eyes.  He has a white Pony
+to come and fetch him, and a groom in livery on a bay
+mare.  I wish my Papa would let me have a Pony, and I
+am
+
+Your dutiful Son,
+GEORGE SEDLEY OSBORNE
+
+  P.S.--Give my love to little Emmy.  I am cutting her
+out a Coach in cardboard.  Please not a seed-cake, but a
+plum-cake.
+
+In consequence of Dobbin's victory, his character rose
+prodigiously in the estimation of all his schoolfellows, and
+the name of Figs, which had been a byword of reproach,
+became as respectable and popular a nickname as any
+other in use in the school.  "After all, it's not his fault
+that his father's a grocer," George Osborne said, who,
+though a little chap, had a very high popularity among
+the Swishtail youth; and his opinion was received with
+great applause.  It was voted low to sneer at Dobbin
+about this accident of birth.  "Old Figs" grew to be a
+name of kindness and endearment; and the sneak of an
+usher jeered at him no longer.
+
+And Dobbin's spirit rose with his altered circumstances.
+He made wonderful advances in scholastic learning.  The
+superb Cuff himself, at whose condescension Dobbin
+could only blush and wonder, helped him on with his
+Latin verses; "coached" him in play-hours: carried him
+triumphantly out of the little-boy class into the middle-
+sized form; and even there got a fair place for him.  It
+was discovered, that although dull at classical learning,
+at mathematics he was uncommonly quick.  To the
+contentment of all he passed third in algebra, and got a
+French prize-book at the public Midsummer examination.
+You should have seen his mother's face when Telemaque
+(that delicious romance) was presented to him by
+the Doctor in the face of the whole school and the parents
+and company, with an inscription to Gulielmo Dobbin.  All
+the boys clapped hands in token of applause and
+sympathy.  His blushes, his stumbles, his awkwardness, and
+the number of feet which he crushed as he went back to
+his place, who shall describe or calculate? Old Dobbin, his
+father, who now respected him for the first time, gave
+him two guineas publicly; most of which he spent in a
+general tuck-out for the school: and he came back in a
+tail-coat after the holidays.
+
+Dobbin was much too modest a young fellow to
+suppose that this happy change in all his circumstances
+arose from his own generous and manly disposition: he
+chose, from some perverseness, to attribute his good
+fortune to the sole agency and benevolence of little George
+Osborne, to whom henceforth he vowed such a love and
+affection as is only felt by children--such an affection, as
+we read in the charming fairy-book, uncouth Orson had
+for splendid young Valentine his conqueror.  He flung
+himself down at little Osborne's feet, and loved him.
+Even before they were acquainted, he had admired
+Osborne in secret.  Now he was his valet, his dog, his man
+Friday.  He believed Osborne to be the possessor of
+every perfection, to be the handsomest, the bravest, the
+most active, the cleverest, the most generous of created
+boys.  He shared his money with him: bought him
+uncountable presents of knives, pencil-cases, gold seals,
+toffee, Little Warblers, and romantic books, with large
+coloured pictures of knights and robbers, in many of which
+latter you might read inscriptions to George Sedley
+Osborne, Esquire, from his attached friend William Dobbin
+--the which tokens of homage George received very
+graciously, as became his superior merit.
+
+So that Lieutenant Osborne, when coming to Russell
+Square on the day of the Vauxhall party, said to the
+ladies, "Mrs. Sedley, Ma'am, I hope you have room; I've
+asked Dobbin of ours to come and dine here, and go with
+us to Vauxhall.  He's almost as modest as Jos."
+
+"Modesty! pooh," said the stout gentleman, casting a
+vainqueur look at Miss Sharp.
+
+"He is--but you are incomparably more graceful,
+Sedley," Osborne added, laughing.  "I met him at the
+Bedford, when I went to look for you; and I told him that
+Miss Amelia was come home, and that we were all bent
+on going out for a night's pleasuring; and that Mrs. Sedley
+had forgiven his breaking the punch-bowl at the child's
+party.  Don't you remember the catastrophe, Ma'am, seven
+years ago?"
+
+"Over Mrs. Flamingo's crimson silk gown," said good-
+natured Mrs. Sedley.  "What a gawky it was! And his
+sisters are not much more graceful.  Lady Dobbin was at
+Highbury last night with three of them.  Such figures! my
+dears."
+
+"The Alderman's very rich, isn't he?" Osborne said
+archly.  "Don't you think one of the daughters would be a
+good spec for me, Ma'am?"
+
+"You foolish creature! Who would take you, I should
+like to know, with your yellow face?"
+
+"Mine a yellow face? Stop till you see Dobbin.  Why, he
+had the yellow fever three times; twice at Nassau, and
+once at St. Kitts."
+
+"Well, well; yours is quite yellow enough for us.  Isn't
+it, Emmy?" Mrs. Sedley said: at which speech Miss
+Amelia only made a smile and a blush; and looking at Mr.
+George Osborne's pale interesting countenance, and those
+beautiful black, curling, shining whiskers, which the young
+gentleman himself regarded with no ordinary
+complacency, she thought in her little heart that in
+His Majesty's army, or in the wide world, there never
+was such a face or such a hero.  "I don't care about Captain
+Dobbin's complexion," she said, "or about his awkwardness.
+I shall always like him, I know," her little reason being,
+that he was the friend and champion of George.
+
+"There's not a finer fellow in the service," Osborne
+said, "nor a better officer, though he is not an Adonis,
+certainly." And he looked towards the glass himself with
+much naivete; and in so doing, caught Miss Sharp's eye
+fixed keenly upon him, at which he blushed a little, and
+Rebecca thought in her heart, "Ah, mon beau Monsieur!
+I think I have YOUR gauge"--the little artful minx!
+
+That evening, when Amelia came tripping into the
+drawing-room in a white muslin frock, prepared for
+conquest at Vauxhall, singing like a lark, and as fresh as a
+rose--a very tall ungainly gentleman, with large hands
+and feet, and large ears, set off by a closely cropped head
+of black hair, and in the hideous military frogged coat
+and cocked hat of those times, advanced to meet her, and
+made her one of the clumsiest bows that was ever
+performed by a mortal.
+
+This was no other than Captain William Dobbin, of
+His Majesty's Regiment of Foot, returned from
+yellow fever, in the West Indies, to which the fortune
+of the service had ordered his regiment, whilst so many
+of his gallant comrades were reaping glory in the Peninsula.
+
+He had arrived with a knock so very timid and quiet
+that it was inaudible to the ladies upstairs: otherwise, you
+may be sure Miss Amelia would never have been so bold
+as to come singing into the room.  As it was, the sweet
+fresh little voice went right into the Captain's heart, and
+nestled there.  When she held out her hand for him to
+shake, before he enveloped it in his own, he paused, and
+thought--"Well, is it possible--are you the little maid I
+remember in the pink frock, such a short time ago--the
+night I upset the punch-bowl, just after I was gazetted?
+Are you the little girl that George Osborne said should
+marry him?  What a blooming young creature you seem,
+and what a prize the rogue has got!" All this he thought,
+before he took Amelia's hand into his own, and as he let
+his cocked hat fall.
+
+His history since he left school, until the very moment
+when we have the pleasure of meeting him again, although
+not fully narrated, has yet, I think, been indicated
+sufficiently for an ingenious reader by the conversation
+in the last page.  Dobbin, the despised grocer, was Alderman
+Dobbin--Alderman Dobbin was Colonel of the City Light
+Horse, then burning with military ardour to resist the
+French Invasion.  Colonel Dobbin's corps, in which old
+Mr. Osborne himself was but an indifferent corporal, had
+been reviewed by the Sovereign and the Duke of York;
+and the colonel and alderman had been knighted.  His
+son had entered the army: and young Osborne followed
+presently in the same regiment.  They had served in the
+West Indies and in Canada.  Their regiment had just come
+home, and the attachment of Dobbin to George Osborne
+was as warm and generous now as it had been when the
+two were schoolboys.
+
+So these worthy people sat down to dinner presently.
+They talked about war and glory, and Boney and Lord
+Wellington, and the last Gazette.  In those famous days
+every gazette had a victory in it, and the two gallant young
+men longed to see their own names in the glorious list,
+and cursed their unlucky fate to belong to a regiment
+which had been away from the chances of honour.  Miss
+Sharp kindled with this exciting talk, but Miss Sedley
+trembled and grew quite faint as she heard it.  Mr. Jos
+told several of his tiger-hunting stories, finished the one
+about Miss Cutler and Lance the surgeon; helped
+Rebecca to everything on the table, and himself gobbled
+and drank a great deal.
+
+He sprang to open the door for the ladies, when they
+retired, with the most killing grace--and coming back to
+the table, filled himself bumper after bumper of claret,
+which he swallowed with nervous rapidity.
+
+"He's priming himself," Osborne whispered to Dobbin,
+and at length the hour and the carriage arrived
+for Vauxhall.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+Vauxhall
+
+I know that the tune I am piping is a very mild
+one (although there are some terrific chapters
+coming presently), and must beg the good-natured
+reader to remember that we are only discoursing
+at present about a stockbroker's family in Russell
+Square, who are taking walks, or luncheon, or dinner,
+or talking and making love as people do in common life,
+and without a single passionate and wonderful
+incident to mark the progress of their loves.  The
+argument stands thus--Osborne, in love with Amelia,
+has asked an old friend to dinner and to Vauxhall--Jos
+Sedley is in love with Rebecca.  Will he marry her?
+That is the great subject now in hand.
+
+We might have treated this subject in the genteel, or in
+the romantic, or in the facetious manner.  Suppose we had
+laid the scene in Grosvenor Square, with the very same
+adventures--would not some people have listened?
+Suppose we had shown how Lord Joseph Sedley fell in love,
+and the Marquis of Osborne became attached to Lady
+Amelia, with the full consent of the Duke, her noble
+father: or instead of the supremely genteel, suppose we
+had resorted to the entirely low, and described what was
+going on in Mr. Sedley's kitchen--how black Sambo was
+in love with the cook (as indeed he was), and how he
+fought a battle with the coachman in her behalf; how the
+knife-boy was caught stealing a cold shoulder of mutton,
+and Miss Sedley's new femme de chambre refused to go
+to bed without a wax candle; such incidents might be
+made to provoke much delightful laughter, and be
+supposed to represent scenes of "life." Or if, on the contrary,
+we had taken a fancy for the terrible, and made the lover
+of the new femme de chambre a professional burglar, who
+bursts into the house with his band, slaughters black
+Sambo at the feet of his master, and carries off Amelia in
+her night-dress, not to be let loose again till the third
+volume, we should easily have constructed a tale of
+thrilling interest, through the fiery chapters of which the
+reader should hurry, panting.  But my readers must hope
+for no such romance, only a homely story, and must be
+content with a chapter about Vauxhall, which is so short
+that it scarce deserves to be called a chapter at all.  And
+yet it is a chapter, and a very important one too.  Are not
+there little chapters in everybody's life, that seem to be
+nothing, and yet affect all the rest of the history?
+
+Let us then step into the coach with the Russell Square
+party, and be off to the Gardens.  There is barely room
+between Jos and Miss Sharp, who are on the front seat.  Mr.
+Osborne sitting bodkin opposite, between Captain Dobbin
+and Amelia.
+
+Every soul in the coach agreed that on that night Jos
+would propose to make Rebecca Sharp Mrs. Sedley.  The
+parents at home had acquiesced in the arrangement,
+though, between ourselves, old Mr. Sedley had a feeling
+very much akin to contempt for his son.  He said he was
+vain, selfish, lazy, and effeminate.  He could not endure his
+airs as a man of fashion, and laughed heartily at his
+pompous braggadocio stories.  "I shall leave the fellow half
+my property," he said; "and he will have, besides, plenty
+of his own; but as I am perfectly sure that if you, and I,
+and his sister were to die to-morrow, he would say 'Good
+Gad!' and eat his dinner just as well as usual, I am not
+going to make myself anxious about him.  Let him marry
+whom he likes.  It's no affair of mine."
+
+Amelia, on the other hand, as became a young woman
+of her prudence and temperament, was quite enthusiastic
+for the match.  Once or twice Jos had been on the point
+of saying something very important to her, to which she
+was most willing to lend an ear, but the fat fellow could
+not be brought to unbosom himself of his great secret,
+and very much to his sister's disappointment he only rid
+himself of a large sigh and turned away.
+
+This mystery served to keep Amelia's gentle bosom in a
+perpetual flutter of excitement.  If she did not speak with
+Rebecca on the tender subject, she compensated herself
+with long and intimate conversations with Mrs. Blenkinsop,
+the housekeeper, who dropped some hints to the
+lady's-maid, who may have cursorily mentioned the matter
+to the cook, who carried the news, I have no doubt, to all
+the tradesmen, so that Mr. Jos's marriage was now talked
+of by a very considerable number of persons in the
+Russell Square world.
+
+It was, of course, Mrs. Sedley's opinion that her son
+would demean himself by a marriage with an artist's
+daughter.  "But, lor', Ma'am," ejaculated Mrs. Blenkinsop,
+"we was only grocers when we married Mr. S., who
+was a stock-broker's clerk, and we hadn't five hundred
+pounds among us, and we're rich enough now." And
+Amelia was entirely of this opinion, to which, gradually,
+the good-natured Mrs. Sedley was brought.
+
+Mr. Sedley was neutral.  "Let Jos marry whom he likes,"
+he said; "it's no affair of mine.  This girl has no fortune;
+no more had Mrs. Sedley.  She seems good-humoured and
+clever, and will keep him in order, perhaps.  Better she,
+my dear, than a black Mrs. Sedley, and a dozen of
+mahogany grandchildren."
+
+So that everything seemed to smile upon Rebecca's
+fortunes.  She took Jos's arm, as a matter of course, on going
+to dinner; she had sate by him on the box of his open
+carriage (a most tremendous "buck" he was, as he sat
+there, serene, in state, driving his greys), and though
+nobody said a word on the subject of the marriage,
+everybody seemed to understand it.  All she wanted was
+the proposal, and ah! how Rebecca now felt the want of a
+mother!--a dear, tender mother, who would have managed
+the business in ten minutes, and, in the course of a little
+delicate confidential conversation, would have extracted
+the interesting avowal from the bashful lips of the young
+man!
+
+Such was the state of affairs as the carriage crossed
+Westminster bridge.
+
+The party was landed at the Royal Gardens in due time.
+As the majestic Jos stepped out of the creaking vehicle
+the crowd gave a cheer for the fat gentleman, who blushed
+and looked very big and mighty, as he walked away with
+Rebecca under his arm.  George, of course, took charge of
+Amelia.  She looked as happy as a rose-tree in sunshine.
+
+"I say, Dobbin," says George, "just look to the shawls
+and things, there's a good fellow." And so while he paired
+off with Miss Sedley, and Jos squeezed through the gate
+into the gardens with Rebecca at his side, honest Dobbin
+contented himself by giving an arm to the shawls, and by
+paying at the door for the whole party.
+
+He walked very modestly behind them.  He was not
+willing to spoil sport.  About Rebecca and Jos he did not
+care a fig.  But he thought Amelia worthy even of the
+brilliant George Osborne, and as he saw that good-looking
+couple threading the walks to the girl's delight and
+wonder, he watched her artless happiness with a sort of
+fatherly pleasure.  Perhaps he felt that he would have liked
+to have something on his own arm besides a shawl (the
+people laughed at seeing the gawky young officer carrying
+this female burthen); but William Dobbin was very little
+addicted to selfish calculation at all; and so long as his
+friend was enjoying himself, how should he be discontented?
+And the truth is, that of all the delights of the
+Gardens; of the hundred thousand extra lamps, which
+were always lighted; the fiddlers in cocked hats, who
+played ravishing melodies under the gilded cockle-shell in
+the midst of the gardens; the singers, both of comic and
+sentimental ballads, who charmed the ears there; the
+country dances, formed by bouncing cockneys and
+cockneyesses, and executed amidst jumping, thumping and
+laughter; the signal which announced that Madame Saqui
+was about to mount skyward on a slack-rope ascending
+to the stars; the hermit that always sat in the illuminated
+hermitage; the dark walks, so favourable to the interviews
+of young lovers; the pots of stout handed about by the
+people in the shabby old liveries; and the twinkling boxes,
+in which the happy feasters made-believe to eat slices of
+almost invisible ham--of all these things, and of the
+gentle Simpson, that kind smiling idiot, who, I daresay,
+presided even then over the place--Captain William Dobbin
+did not take the slightest notice.
+
+He carried about Amelia's white cashmere shawl, and
+having attended under the gilt cockle-shell, while Mrs.
+Salmon performed the Battle of Borodino (a savage
+cantata against the Corsican upstart, who had lately met
+with his Russian reverses)--Mr. Dobbin tried to hum it
+as he walked away, and found he was humming--the tune
+which Amelia Sedley sang on the stairs, as she came
+down to dinner.
+
+He burst out laughing at himself; for the truth is, he
+could sing no better than an owl.
+
+It is to be understood, as a matter of course, that our
+young people, being in parties of two and two, made the
+most solemn promises to keep together during the evening,
+and separated in ten minutes afterwards.  Parties at
+Vauxhall always did separate, but 'twas only to meet
+again at supper-time, when they could talk of their mutual
+adventures in the interval.
+  
+What were the adventures of Mr. Osborne and Miss
+Amelia? That is a secret.  But be sure of this--they were
+perfectly happy, and correct in their behaviour; and as
+they had been in the habit of being together any time these
+fifteen years, their tete-a-tete offered no particular
+novelty.
+
+But when Miss Rebecca Sharp and her stout companion
+lost themselves in a solitary walk, in which there were not
+above five score more of couples similarly straying, they
+both felt that the situation was extremely tender and
+critical, and now or never was the moment Miss Sharp
+thought, to provoke that declaration which was trembling
+on the timid lips of Mr. Sedley.  They had previously been
+to the panorama of Moscow, where a rude fellow, treading
+on Miss Sharp's foot, caused her to fall back with a little
+shriek into the arms of Mr. Sedley, and this little incident
+increased the tenderness and confidence of that gentleman
+to such a degree, that he told her several of his favourite
+Indian stories over again for, at least, the sixth time.
+
+"How I should like to see India!" said Rebecca.
+
+"SHOULD you?" said Joseph, with a most killing tenderness;
+and was no doubt about to follow up this artful 
+interrogatory by a question still more tender (for he puffed
+and panted a great deal, and Rebecca's hand, which was
+placed near his heart, could count the feverish pulsations
+of that organ), when, oh, provoking! the bell rang for the
+fireworks, and, a great scuffling and running taking place,
+these interesting lovers were obliged to follow in the
+stream of people.
+
+Captain Dobbin had some thoughts of joining the party
+at supper: as, in truth, he found the Vauxhall
+amusements not particularly lively--but he paraded
+twice before the box where the now united couples were
+met, and nobody took any notice of him.  Covers were laid for
+four.  The mated pairs were prattling away quite happily,
+and Dobbin knew he was as clean forgotten as if he had
+never existed in this world.
+
+"I should only be de trop," said the Captain, looking at
+them rather wistfully.  "I'd best go and talk to the hermit,"
+--and so he strolled off out of the hum of men, and noise,
+and clatter of the banquet, into the dark walk, at the end
+of which lived that well-known pasteboard Solitary.  It
+wasn't very good fun for Dobbin--and, indeed, to be
+alone at Vauxhall, I have found, from my own experience,
+to be one of the most dismal sports ever entered into by a
+bachelor.
+
+The two couples were perfectly happy then in their
+box: where the most delightful and intimate conversation
+took place.  Jos was in his glory, ordering about the waiters
+with great majesty.  He made the salad; and uncorked
+the Champagne; and carved the chickens; and ate and
+drank the greater part of the refreshments on the tables.
+Finally, he insisted upon having a bowl of rack punch;
+everybody had rack punch at Vauxhall.  "Waiter, rack
+punch."
+
+That bowl of rack punch was the cause of all this
+history.  And why not a bowl of rack punch as well as any
+other cause? Was not a bowl of prussic acid the cause of
+Fair Rosamond's retiring from the world? Was not a bowl
+of wine the cause of the demise of Alexander the Great,
+or, at least, does not Dr. Lempriere say so?--so did this
+bowl of rack punch influence the fates of all the principal
+characters in this "Novel without a Hero," which we are
+now relating.  It influenced their life, although most of
+them did not taste a drop of it.
+
+The young ladies did not drink it; Osborne did not
+like it; and the consequence was that Jos, that fat
+gourmand, drank up the whole contents of the bowl;
+and the consequence of his drinking up the whole contents
+of the bowl was a liveliness which at first was astonishing,
+and then became almost painful; for he talked and laughed so
+loud as to bring scores of listeners round the box, much
+to the confusion of the innocent party within it; and,
+volunteering to sing a song (which he did in that maudlin
+high key peculiar to gentlemen in an inebriated state), he
+almost drew away the audience who were gathered round
+the musicians in the gilt scollop-shell, and received from
+his hearers a great deal of applause.
+
+"Brayvo, Fat un!" said one; "Angcore, Daniel Lambert!"
+said another; "What a figure for the tight-rope!"
+exclaimed another wag, to the inexpressible alarm of
+the ladies, and the great anger of Mr. Osborne.
+
+"For Heaven's sake, Jos, let us get up and go," cried
+that gentleman, and the young women rose.
+
+"Stop, my dearest diddle-diddle-darling," shouted Jos,
+now as bold as a lion, and clasping Miss Rebecca round
+the waist.  Rebecca started, but she could not get away her
+hand.  The laughter outside redoubled.  Jos continued to
+drink, to make love, and to sing; and, winking and waving
+his glass gracefully to his audience, challenged all or any
+to come in and take a share of his punch.
+
+Mr. Osborne was just on the point of knocking down a
+gentleman in top-boots, who proposed to take advantage
+of this invitation, and a commotion seemed to be
+inevitable, when by the greatest good luck a gentleman
+of the name of Dobbin, who had been walking about the
+gardens, stepped up to the box.  "Be off, you fools!" said
+this gentleman--shouldering off a great number of the crowd,
+who vanished presently before his cocked hat and fierce
+appearance--and he entered the box in a most agitated state.
+
+"Good Heavens! Dobbin, where have you been?" 0sborne
+said, seizing the white cashmere shawl from his
+friend's arm, and huddling up Amelia in it.--"Make
+yourself useful, and take charge of Jos here, whilst I
+take the ladies to the carriage."
+
+Jos was for rising to interfere--but a single push from
+Osborne's finger sent him puffing back into his seat again,
+and the lieutenant was enabled to remove the ladies in
+safety.  Jos kissed his hand to them as they retreated, and
+hiccupped out "Bless you! Bless you!" Then, seizing
+Captain Dobbin's hand, and weeping in the most pitiful way,
+he confided to that gentleman the secret of his loves.  He
+adored that girl who had just gone out; he had broken
+her heart, he knew he had, by his conduct; he would marry
+her next morning at St. George's, Hanover Square; he'd
+knock up the Archbishop of Canterbury at Lambeth: he
+would, by Jove! and have him in readiness; and, acting on
+this hint, Captain Dobbin shrewdly induced him to leave
+the gardens and hasten to Lambeth Palace, and, when once
+out of the gates, easily conveyed Mr. Jos Sedley into a
+hackney-coach, which deposited him safely at his lodgings.
+
+George Osborne conducted the girls home in safety:
+and when the door was closed upon them, and as he
+walked across Russell Square, laughed so as to astonish
+the watchman.  Amelia looked very ruefully at her friend,
+as they went up stairs, and kissed her, and went to bed
+without any more talking.
+
+"He must propose to-morrow," thought Rebecca.  "He
+called me his soul's darling, four times; he squeezed my
+hand in Amelia's presence.  He must propose to-morrow."
+And so thought Amelia, too.  And I dare say she thought
+of the dress she was to wear as bridesmaid, and of the
+presents which she should make to her nice little sister-in-
+law, and of a subsequent ceremony in which she herself
+might play a principal part, &c., and &c., and &c., and &c.
+
+Oh, ignorant young creatures! How little do you know
+the effect of rack punch! What is the rack in the punch,
+at night, to the rack in the head of a morning? To this
+truth I can vouch as a man; there is no headache in the
+world like that caused by Vauxhall punch.  Through the
+lapse of twenty years, I can remember the consequence
+of two glasses!two wine-glasses!but two, upon the
+honour of a gentleman; and Joseph Sedley, who had a
+liver complaint, had swallowed at least a quart of the
+abominable mixture.
+
+That next morning, which Rebecca thought was to
+dawn upon her fortune, found Sedley groaning in agonies
+which the pen refuses to describe.  Soda-water was not
+invented yet.  Small beer--will it be believed!--was the
+only drink with which unhappy gentlemen soothed the
+fever of their previous night's potation.  With this mild
+beverage before him, George Osborne found the ex-
+Collector of Boggley Wollah groaning on the sofa at
+his lodgings.  Dobbin was already in the room, good-
+naturedly tending his patient of the night before.  The two
+officers, looking at the prostrate Bacchanalian, and
+askance at each other, exchanged the most frightful
+sympathetic grins.  Even Sedley's valet, the most solemn
+and correct of gentlemen, with the muteness and gravity of
+an undertaker, could hardly keep his countenance in
+order, as he looked at his unfortunate master.
+
+"Mr. Sedley was uncommon wild last night, sir," he
+whispered in confidence to Osborne, as the latter mounted
+the stair.  "He wanted to fight the 'ackney-coachman, sir.
+The Capting was obliged to bring him upstairs in his
+harms like a babby." A momentary smile flickered over
+Mr. Brush's features as he spoke; instantly, however, they
+relapsed into their usual unfathomable calm, as he flung
+open the drawing-room door, and announced "Mr.
+Hosbin."
+
+"How are you, Sedley?" that young wag began, after
+surveying his victim.  "No bones broke? There's a
+hackney-coachman downstairs with a black eye, and a
+tied-up head, vowing he'll have the law of you."
+
+"What do you mean--law?" Sedley faintly asked.
+
+"For thrashing him last night--didn't he, Dobbin? You
+hit out, sir, like Molyneux.  The watchman says he never
+saw a fellow go down so straight.  Ask Dobbin."
+
+"You DID have a round with the coachman," Captain
+Dobbin said, "and showed plenty of fight too."
+
+"And that fellow with the white coat at Vauxhall! How
+Jos drove at him! How the women screamed! By Jove,
+sir, it did my heart good to see you.  I thought you civilians
+had no pluck; but I'll never get in your way when you
+are in your cups, Jos."
+
+"I believe I'm very terrible, when I'm roused,"
+ejaculated Jos from the sofa, and made a grimace so
+dreary and ludicrous, that the Captain's politeness could
+restrain him no longer, and he and Osborne fired off a
+ringing volley of laughter.
+
+Osborne pursued his advantage pitilessly.  He thought
+Jos a milksop.  He had been revolving in his mind the
+marriage question pending between Jos and Rebecca, and
+was not over well pleased that a member of a family into
+which he, George Osborne, of the --th, was going
+to marry, should make a mesalliance with a little nobody
+--a little upstart governess.  "You hit, you poor old
+fellow!" said Osborne.  "You terrible! Why, man, you
+couldn't stand--you made everybody laugh in the
+Gardens, though you were crying yourself.  You were
+maudlin, Jos.  Don't you remember singing a song?"
+
+"A what?" Jos asked.
+
+"A sentimental song, and calling Rosa, Rebecca, what's
+her name, Amelia's little friend--your dearest diddle-
+diddle-darling?" And this ruthless young fellow, seizing
+hold of Dobbin's hand, acted over the scene, to the horror
+of the original performer, and in spite of Dobbin's good-
+natured entreaties to him to have mercy.
+
+"Why should I spare him?" Osborne said to his friend's
+remonstrances, when they quitted the invalid, leaving him
+under the hands of Doctor Gollop.  "What the deuce right
+has he to give himself his patronizing airs, and make fools
+of us at Vauxhall? Who's this little schoolgirl that is
+ogling and making love to him? Hang it, the family's
+low enough already, without HER.  A governess is all very
+well, but I'd rather have a lady for my sister-in-law.  I'm
+a liberal man; but I've proper pride, and know my own
+station: let her know hers.  And I'll take down that great
+hectoring Nabob, and prevent him from being made a
+greater fool than he is.  That's why I told him to look out,
+lest she brought an action against him."
+
+"I suppose you know best," Dobbin said, though rather
+dubiously.  "You always were a Tory, and your family's
+one of the oldest in England.  But --"
+
+"Come and see the girls, and make love to Miss Sharp
+yourself," the lieutenant here interrupted his friend; but
+Captain Dobbin declined to join Osborne in his daily visit
+to the young ladies in Russell Square.
+
+As George walked down Southampton Row, from
+Holborn, he laughed as he saw, at the Sedley Mansion,
+in two different stories two heads on the look-out.
+
+The fact is, Miss Amelia, in the drawing-room balcony,
+was looking very eagerly towards the opposite side of the
+Square, where Mr. Osborne dwelt, on the watch for the
+lieutenant himself; and Miss Sharp, from her little bed-
+room on the second floor, was in observation until Mr.
+Joseph's great form should heave in sight.
+
+"Sister Anne is on the watch-tower," said he to Amelia,
+"but there's nobody coming"; and laughing and enjoying
+the joke hugely, he described in the most ludicrous terms
+to Miss Sedley, the dismal condition of her brother.
+
+"I think it's very cruel of you to laugh, George," she
+said, looking particularly unhappy; but George only
+laughed the more at her piteous and discomfited mien,
+persisted in thinking the joke a most diverting one, and
+when Miss Sharp came downstairs, bantered her with a
+great deal of liveliness upon the effect of her charms on
+the fat civilian.
+
+"O Miss Sharp! if you could but see him this morning,"
+he said--"moaning in his flowered dressing-gown--
+writhing on his sofa; if you could but have seen him
+lolling out his tongue to Gollop the apothecary."
+
+"See whom?" said Miss Sharp.
+
+"Whom? O whom?  Captain Dobbin, of course, to whom
+we were all so attentive, by the way, last night."
+
+"We were very unkind to him," Emmy said, blushing
+very much.  "I--I quite forgot him."
+
+"Of course you did," cried Osborne, still on the laugh.
+
+"One can't be ALWAYS thinking about Dobbin, you know,
+Amelia.  Can one, Miss Sharp?"
+
+"Except when he overset the glass of wine at dinner,"
+Miss Sharp said, with a haughty air and a toss of the
+head, "I never gave the existence of Captain Dobbin one
+single moment's consideration."
+
+"Very good, Miss Sharp, I'll tell him," Osborne said;
+and as he spoke Miss Sharp began to have a feeling of
+distrust and hatred towards this young officer, which he
+was quite unconscious of having inspired.  "He is to make
+fun of me, is he?" thought Rebecca.  "Has he been
+laughing about me to Joseph?  Has he frightened him?
+Perhaps he won't come."--A film passed over her eyes,
+and her heart beat quite quick.
+
+"You're always joking," said she, smiling as innocently
+as she could.  "Joke away, Mr. George; there's nobody
+to defend ME." And George Osborne, as she walked away
+--and Amelia looked reprovingly at him--felt some little
+manly compunction for having inflicted any unnecessary
+unkindness upon this helpless creature.  "My dearest
+Amelia," said he, "you are too good--too kind.  You
+don't know the world.  I do.  And your little friend Miss
+Sharp must learn her station."
+
+"Don't you think Jos will--"
+
+"Upon my word, my dear, I don't know.  He may, or
+may not.  I'm not his master.  I only know he is a very
+foolish vain fellow, and put my dear little girl into a very
+painful and awkward position last night.  My dearest
+diddle-diddle-darling!" He was off laughing again, and he
+did it so drolly that Emmy laughed too.
+
+All that day Jos never came.  But Amelia had no fear
+about this; for the little schemer had actually sent away
+the page, Mr. Sambo's aide-de-camp, to Mr. Joseph's
+lodgings, to ask for some book he had promised, and how
+he was; and the reply through Jos's man, Mr. Brush, was,
+that his master was ill in bed, and had just had the doctor
+with him.  He must come to-morrow, she thought, but she
+never had the courage to speak a word on the subject
+to Rebecca; nor did that young woman herself allude
+to it in any way during the whole evening after the night
+at Vauxhall.
+
+The next day, however, as the two young ladies sate on
+the sofa, pretending to work, or to write letters, or to
+read novels, Sambo came into the room with his usual
+engaging grin, with a packet under his arm, and a note
+on a tray.  "Note from Mr. Jos, Miss," says Sambo.
+
+How Amelia trembled as she opened it!
+
+So it ran:
+
+Dear Amelia,--I send you the "Orphan of the Forest."
+I was too ill to come yesterday.  I leave town to-day
+for Cheltenham.  Pray excuse me, if you can, to the
+amiable Miss Sharp, for my conduct at Vauxhall, and
+entreat her to pardon and forget every word I may have
+uttered when excited by that fatal supper.  As soon as
+I have recovered, for my health is very much shaken, I
+shall go to Scotland for some months, and am
+
+Truly yours,
+Jos Sedley
+
+
+It was the death-warrant.  All was over.  Amelia did
+not dare to look at Rebecca's pale face and burning eyes,
+but she dropt the letter into her friend's lap; and got up,
+and went upstairs to her room, and cried her little heart
+out.
+
+Blenkinsop, the housekeeper, there sought her presently
+with consolation, on whose shoulder Amelia wept
+confidentially, and relieved herself a good deal.  "Don't take
+on, Miss.  I didn't like to tell you.  But none of us in the
+house have liked her except at fust.  I sor her with my
+own eyes reading your Ma's letters.  Pinner says she's
+always about your trinket-box and drawers, and
+everybody's drawers, and she's sure she's put your white
+ribbing into her box."
+
+"I gave it her, I gave it her," Amelia said.
+
+But this did not alter Mrs. Blenkinsop's opinion of Miss
+Sharp.  "I don't trust them governesses, Pinner," she
+remarked to the maid.  "They give themselves the hairs and
+hupstarts of ladies, and their wages is no better than
+you nor me."
+
+It now became clear to every soul in the house, except
+poor Amelia, that Rebecca should take her departure,
+and high and low (always with the one exception) agreed
+that that event should take place as speedily as possible.
+Our good child ransacked all her drawers, cupboards,
+reticules, and gimcrack boxes--passed in review all her
+gowns, fichus, tags, bobbins, laces, silk stockings, and
+fallals--selecting this thing and that and the other, to
+make a little heap for Rebecca.  And going to her Papa,
+that generous British merchant, who had promised to
+give her as many guineas as she was years old--she
+begged the old gentleman to give the money to dear
+Rebecca, who must want it, while she lacked for nothing.
+
+She even made George Osborne contribute, and
+nothing loth (for he was as free-handed a young fellow
+as any in the army), he went to Bond Street, and bought
+the best hat and spenser that money could buy.
+
+"That's George's present to you, Rebecca, dear," said
+Amelia, quite proud of the bandbox conveying these
+gifts.  "What a taste he has! There's nobody like him."
+
+"Nobody," Rebecca answered.  "How thankful I am to
+him!" She was thinking in her heart, "It was George
+Osborne who prevented my marriage."--And she loved
+George Osborne accordingly.
+
+She made her preparations for departure with great
+equanimity; and accepted all the kind little Amelia's
+presents, after just the proper degree of hesitation and
+reluctance.  She vowed eternal gratitude to Mrs. Sedley,
+of course; but did not intrude herself upon that good
+lady too much, who was embarrassed, and evidently
+wishing to avoid her.  She kissed Mr. Sedley's hand, when
+he presented her with the purse; and asked permission to
+consider him for the future as her kind, kind friend and
+protector.  Her behaviour was so affecting that he was
+going to write her a cheque for twenty pounds more;
+but he restrained his feelings: the carriage was in waiting
+to take him to dinner, so he tripped away with a "God
+bless you, my dear, always come here when you come to
+town, you know.--Drive to the Mansion House, James."
+
+Finally came the parting with Miss Amelia, over which
+picture I intend to throw a veil.  But after a scene in
+which one person was in earnest and the other a perfect
+performer--after the tenderest caresses, the most pathetic
+tears, the smelling-bottle, and some of the very best
+feelings of the heart, had been called into requisition--
+Rebecca and Amelia parted, the former vowing to love
+her friend for ever and ever and ever.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+Crawley of Queen's Crawley
+
+Among the most respected of the names beginning in C
+which the Court-Guide contained, in the year 18--, was
+that of Crawley, Sir Pitt, Baronet, Great Gaunt Street,
+and Queen's Crawley, Hants.  This honourable name had
+figured constantly also in the Parliamentary list for many
+years, in conjunction with that of a number of other
+worthy gentlemen who sat in turns for the borough.
+
+It is related, with regard to the borough of Queen's
+Crawley, that Queen Elizabeth in one of her progresses,
+stopping at Crawley to breakfast, was so delighted with
+some remarkably fine Hampshire beer which was then
+presented to her by the Crawley of the day (a handsome
+gentleman with a trim beard and a good leg), that she
+forthwith erected Crawley into a borough to send two
+members to Parliament; and the place, from the day of
+that illustrious visit, took the name of Queen's Crawley,
+which it holds up to the present moment.  And though, by
+the lapse of time, and those mutations which age produces
+in empires, cities, and boroughs, Queen's Crawley was no
+longer so populous a place as it had been in Queen Bess's
+time--nay, was come down to that condition of borough
+which used to be denominated rotten--yet, as Sir Pitt
+Crawley would say with perfect justice in his elegant
+way, "Rotten! be hanged--it produces me a good fifteen
+hundred a year."
+
+Sir Pitt Crawley (named after the great Commoner)
+was the son of Walpole Crawley, first Baronet, of the
+Tape and Sealing-Wax Office in the reign of George II.,
+when he was impeached for peculation, as were a great
+number of other honest gentlemen of those days; and
+Walpole Crawley was, as need scarcely be said, son of
+John Churchill Crawley, named after the celebrated
+military commander of the reign of Queen Anne.  The family
+tree (which hangs up at Queen's Crawley) furthermore
+mentions Charles Stuart, afterwards called Barebones
+Crawley, son of the Crawley of James the First's time;
+and finally, Queen Elizabeth's Crawley, who is represented
+as the foreground of the picture in his forked beard and
+armour.  Out of his waistcoat, as usual, grows a tree, on
+the main branches of which the above illustrious names
+are inscribed.  Close by the name of Sir Pitt Crawley,
+Baronet (the subject of the present memoir), are written
+that of his brother, the Reverend Bute Crawley (the great
+Commoner was in disgrace when the reverend gentleman
+was born), rector of Crawley-cum-Snailby, and of various
+other male and female members of the Crawley family.
+
+Sir Pitt was first married to Grizzel, sixth daughter of
+Mungo Binkie, Lord Binkie, and cousin, in consequence,
+of Mr. Dundas.  She brought him two sons: Pitt, named
+not so much after his father as after the heaven-born
+minister; and Rawdon Crawley, from the Prince of
+Wales's friend, whom his Majesty George IV forgot so
+completely.  Many years after her ladyship's demise, Sir
+Pitt led to the altar Rosa, daughter of Mr. G. Dawson,
+of Mudbury, by whom he had two daughters, for whose
+benefit Miss Rebecca Sharp was now engaged as
+governess.  It will be seen that the young lady was come into a
+family of very genteel connexions, and was about to move
+in a much more distinguished circle than that humble one
+which she had just quitted in Russell Square.
+
+She had received her orders to join her pupils, in a
+note which was written upon an old envelope, and which
+contained the following words:
+
+Sir Pitt Crawley begs Miss Sharp and baggidge may be
+hear on Tuesday, as I leaf for Queen's Crawley to-morrow
+morning ERLY.
+
+Great Gaunt Street.
+
+Rebecca had never seen a Baronet, as far as she knew,
+and as soon as she had taken leave of Amelia, and
+counted the guineas which good-natured Mr. Sedley had
+put into a purse for her, and as soon as she had done
+wiping her eyes with her handkerchief (which operation
+she concluded the very moment the carriage had turned
+the corner of the street), she began to depict in her own
+mind what a Baronet must be.  "I wonder, does he wear
+a star?" thought she, "or is it only lords that wear stars?
+But he will be very handsomely dressed in a court suit,
+with ruffles, and his hair a little powdered, like Mr.
+Wroughton at Covent Garden.  I suppose he will be
+awfully proud, and that I shall be treated most
+contemptuously.  Still I must bear my hard lot as well
+as I can--at least, I shall be amongst GENTLEFOLKS, and
+not with vulgar city people": and she fell to thinking of
+her Russell Square friends with that very same philosophical
+bitterness with which, in a certain apologue, the fox is
+represented as speaking of the grapes.
+
+Having passed through Gaunt Square into Great Gaunt
+Street, the carriage at length stopped at a tall gloomy
+house between two other tall gloomy houses, each with a
+hatchment over the middle drawing-room window; as is
+the custom of houses in Great Gaunt Street, in which
+gloomy locality death seems to reign perpetual.  The
+shutters of the first-floor windows of Sir Pitt's mansion
+were closed--those of the dining-room were partially open,
+and the blinds neatly covered up in old newspapers.
+
+John, the groom, who had driven the carriage alone,
+did not care to descend to ring the bell; and so prayed a
+passing milk-boy to perform that office for him.  When the
+bell was rung, a head appeared between the interstices of
+the dining-room shutters, and the door was opened by a
+man in drab breeches and gaiters, with a dirty old coat,
+a foul old neckcloth lashed round his bristly neck, a
+shining bald head, a leering red face, a pair of twinkling grey
+eyes, and a mouth perpetually on the grin
+
+"This Sir Pitt Crawley's?" says John, from the box.
+
+"Ees," says the man at the door, with a nod.
+
+"Hand down these 'ere trunks then," said John.
+
+"Hand 'n down yourself," said the porter.
+
+"Don't you see I can't leave my hosses? Come, bear a
+hand, my fine feller, and Miss will give you some beer,"
+said John, with a horse-laugh, for he was no longer
+respectful to Miss Sharp, as her connexion with the family
+was broken off, and as she had given nothing to the
+servants on coming away.
+
+The bald-headed man, taking his hands out of his
+breeches pockets, advanced on this summons, and
+throwing Miss Sharp's trunk over his shoulder, carried it into
+the house.
+
+"Take this basket and shawl, if you please, and open
+the door," said Miss Sharp, and descended from the
+carriage in much indignation.  "I shall write to Mr. Sedley
+and inform him of your conduct," said she to the groom.
+
+"Don't," replied that functionary.  "I hope you've forgot
+nothink? Miss 'Melia's gownds--have you got them--as
+the lady's maid was to have 'ad? I hope they'll fit you.
+Shut the door, Jim, you'll get no good out of 'ER,"
+continued John, pointing with his thumb towards Miss Sharp:
+"a bad lot, I tell you, a bad lot," and so saying, Mr.
+Sedley's groom drove away.  The truth is, he was attached
+to the lady's maid in question, and indignant that she
+should have been robbed of her perquisites.
+
+On entering the dining-room, by the orders of the
+individual in gaiters, Rebecca found that apartment not
+more cheerful than such rooms usually are, when genteel
+families are out of town.  The faithful chambers seem, as
+it were, to mourn the absence of their masters.  The turkey
+carpet has rolled itself up, and retired sulkily under the
+sideboard: the pictures have hidden their faces behind old
+sheets of brown paper: the ceiling lamp is muffled up in a
+dismal sack of brown holland: the window-curtains have
+disappeared under all sorts of shabby envelopes: the
+marble bust of Sir Walpole Crawley is looking from its
+black corner at the bare boards and the oiled fire-irons,
+and the empty card-racks over the mantelpiece: the
+cellaret has lurked away behind the carpet: the chairs are
+turned up heads and tails along the walls: and in the
+dark corner opposite the statue, is an old-fashioned
+crabbed knife-box, locked and sitting on a dumb waiter.
+
+Two kitchen chairs, and a round table, and an
+attenuated old poker and tongs were, however, gathered
+round the fire-place, as was a saucepan over a feeble
+sputtering fire.  There was a bit of cheese and bread, and
+a tin candlestick on the table, and a little black porter
+in a pint-pot.
+
+"Had your dinner, I suppose? It is not too warm for
+you? Like a drop of beer?"
+
+"Where is Sir Pitt Crawley?" said Miss Sharp
+majestically.
+
+"He, he! I'm Sir Pitt Crawley.  Reklect you owe me a
+pint for bringing down your luggage.  He, he! Ask
+Tinker if I aynt.  Mrs. Tinker, Miss Sharp; Miss
+Governess, Mrs. Charwoman.  Ho, ho!"
+
+The lady addressed as Mrs. Tinker at this moment
+made her appearance with a pipe and a paper of tobacco,
+for which she had been despatched a minute before
+Miss Sharp's arrival; and she handed the articles over to
+Sir Pitt, who had taken his seat by the fire.
+
+"Where's the farden?" said he.  "I gave you three
+halfpence.  Where's the change, old Tinker?"
+
+"There!" replied Mrs. Tinker, flinging down the coin;
+it's only baronets as cares about farthings."
+
+"A farthing a day is seven shillings a year," answered
+the M.P.; "seven shillings a year is the interest of seven
+guineas.  Take care of your farthings, old Tinker, and your
+guineas will come quite nat'ral."
+
+"You may be sure it's Sir Pitt Crawley, young woman,"
+said Mrs. Tinker, surlily; "because he looks to his
+farthings.  You'll know him better afore long."
+
+"And like me none the worse, Miss Sharp," said the
+old gentleman, with an air almost of politeness.  "I must
+be just before I'm generous."
+
+ "He never gave away a farthing in his life," growled
+Tinker.
+
+"Never, and never will: it's against my principle.  Go
+and get another chair from the kitchen, Tinker, if you
+want to sit down; and then we'll have a bit of supper."
+
+Presently the baronet plunged a fork into the saucepan
+on the fire, and withdrew from the pot a piece of tripe
+and an onion, which he divided into pretty equal
+portions, and of which he partook with Mrs. Tinker.  "You
+see, Miss Sharp, when I'm not here Tinker's on board
+wages: when I'm in town she dines with the family.
+Haw! haw! I'm glad Miss Sharp's not hungry, ain't you,
+Tink?" And they fell to upon their frugal supper.
+
+After supper Sir Pitt Crawley began to smoke his
+pipe; and when it became quite dark, he lighted the
+rushlight in the tin candlestick, and producing from an
+interminable pocket a huge mass of papers, began reading
+them, and putting them in order.
+
+"I'm here on law business, my dear, and that's how it
+happens that I shall have the pleasure of such a pretty
+travelling companion to-morrow."
+
+"He's always at law business," said Mrs. Tinker,
+taking up the pot of porter.
+  
+"Drink and drink about," said the Baronet.  "Yes; my
+dear, Tinker is quite right: I've lost and won more
+lawsuits than any man in England.  Look here at Crawley,
+Bart. v. Snaffle.  I'll throw him over, or my name's not
+Pitt Crawley.  Podder and another versus Crawley, Bart.
+Overseers of Snaily parish against Crawley, Bart.  They
+can't prove it's common: I'll defy 'em; the land's mine.
+It no more belongs to the parish than it does to you or
+Tinker here.  I'll beat 'em, if it cost me a thousand guineas.
+Look over the papers; you may if you like, my dear.
+Do you write a good hand? I'll make you useful when
+we're at Queen's Crawley, depend on it, Miss Sharp.
+Now the dowager's dead I want some one."
+
+"She was as bad as he," said Tinker.  "She took the
+law of every one of her tradesmen; and turned away
+forty-eight footmen in four year."
+
+"She was close--very close," said the Baronet, simply;
+"but she was a valyble woman to me, and saved me a
+steward."--And in this confidential strain, and much to
+the amusement of the new-comer, the conversation
+continued for a considerable time.  Whatever Sir Pitt
+Crawley's qualities might be, good or bad, he did not make
+the least disguise of them.  He talked of himself incessantly, sometimes in the coarsest and vulgarest Hampshire accent; sometimes adopting the tone of a man of the world.  And so,
+with injunctions to Miss Sharp to be ready at five in the
+morning, he bade her good night.   "You'll sleep with Tinker
+to-night," he said; "it's a big bed, and there's room for two.
+Lady Crawley died in it.  Good night."
+
+Sir Pitt went off after this benediction, and the solemn
+Tinker, rushlight in hand, led the way up the great
+bleak stone stairs, past the great dreary drawing-room
+doors, with the handles muffled up in paper, into the
+great front bedroom, where Lady Crawley had slept her
+last.  The bed and chamber were so funereal and gloomy,
+you might have fancied, not only that Lady Crawley died
+in the room, but that her ghost inhabited it.  Rebecca
+sprang about the apartment, however, with the greatest
+liveliness, and had peeped into the huge wardrobes, and
+the closets, and the cupboards, and tried the drawers
+which were locked, and examined the dreary pictures
+and toilette appointments, while the old charwoman
+was saying her prayers.  "I shouldn't like to sleep in this
+yeer bed without a good conscience, Miss," said the old
+woman.  "There's room for us and a half-dozen of ghosts
+in it," says Rebecca.  "Tell me all about Lady Crawley
+and Sir Pitt Crawley, and everybody, my DEAR Mrs.
+Tinker."
+
+But old Tinker was not to be pumped by this little
+cross-questioner; and signifying to her that bed was a
+place for sleeping, not conversation, set up in her corner
+of the bed such a snore as only the nose of innocence
+can produce.  Rebecca lay awake for a long, long time,
+thinking of the morrow, and of the new world into which
+she was going, and of her chances of success there.  The
+rushlight flickered in the basin.  The mantelpiece cast up
+a great black shadow, over half of a mouldy old sampler,
+which her defunct ladyship had worked, no doubt, and
+over two little family pictures of young lads, one in a
+college gown, and the other in a red jacket like a soldier.
+When she went to sleep, Rebecca chose that one to
+dream about.
+  
+At four o'clock, on such a roseate summer's morning
+as even made Great Gaunt Street look cheerful, the
+faithful Tinker, having wakened her bedfellow, and bid her
+prepare for departure, unbarred and unbolted the great
+hall door (the clanging and clapping whereof startled
+the sleeping echoes in the street), and taking her way
+into Oxford Street, summoned a coach from a stand
+there.  It is needless to particularize the number of the
+vehicle, or to state that the driver was stationed thus
+early in the neighbourhood of Swallow Street, in hopes
+that some young buck, reeling homeward from the tavern,
+might need the aid of his vehicle, and pay him with
+the generosity of intoxication.
+  
+It is likewise needless to say that the driver, if he had
+any such hopes as those.above stated, was grossly
+disappointed; and that the worthy Baronet whom he drove
+to the City did not give him one single penny more than
+his fare.  It was in vain that Jehu appealed and stormed;
+that he flung down Miss Sharp's bandboxes in the gutter
+at the 'Necks, and swore he would take the law of his
+fare.
+  
+"You'd better not," said one of the ostlers; "it's Sir
+Pitt Crawley."
+  
+"So it is, Joe," cried the Baronet, approvingly; "and
+I'd like to see the man can do me."
+  
+"So should oi," said Joe, grinning sulkily, and
+mounting the Baronet's baggage on the roof of the coach.
+  
+"Keep the box for me, Leader," exclaims the Member
+of Parliament to the coachman; who replied, "Yes,
+Sir Pitt," with a touch of his hat, and rage in his soul
+(for he had promised the box to a young gentleman
+from Cambridge, who would have given a crown to a
+certainty), and Miss Sharp was accommodated with a
+back seat inside the carriage, which might be said to be
+carrying her into the wide world.
+  
+How the young man from Cambridge sulkily put his
+five great-coats in front; but was reconciled when little
+Miss Sharp was made to quit the carriage, and mount
+up beside him--when he covered her up in one of his
+Benjamins, and became perfectly good-humoured--how
+the asthmatic gentleman, the prim lady, who declared
+upon her sacred honour she had never travelled in a
+public carriage before (there is always such a lady in a
+coach--Alas! was; for the coaches, where are they?),
+and the fat widow with the brandy-bottle, took their
+places inside--how the porter asked them all for money,
+and got sixpence from the gentleman and five greasy
+halfpence from the fat widow--and how the carriage
+at length drove away--now threading the dark lanes of
+Aldersgate, anon clattering by the Blue Cupola of St.
+Paul's, jingling rapidly by the strangers' entry of Fleet-
+Market, which, with Exeter 'Change, has now departed
+to the world of shadows--how they passed the White
+Bear in Piccadilly, and saw the dew rising up from the
+market-gardens of Knightsbridge--how Turnhamgreen,
+Brentwood, Bagshot, were passed--need not be told here.
+But the writer of these pages, who has pursued in former
+days, and in the same bright weather, the same remarkable
+journey, cannot but think of it with a sweet and
+tender regret.  Where is the road now, and its merry
+incidents of life? Is there no Chelsea or Greenwich for
+the old honest pimple-nosed coachmen?  I wonder where
+are they, those good fellows? Is old Weller alive or dead?
+and the waiters, yea, and the inns at which they waited,
+and the cold rounds of beef inside, and the stunted ostler,
+with his blue nose and clinking pail, where is he, and
+where is his generation?  To those great geniuses now in
+petticoats, who shall write novels for the beloved reader's
+children, these men and things will be as much legend
+and history as Nineveh, or Coeur de Lion, or Jack
+Sheppard.  For them stage-coaches will have become romances
+--a team of four bays as fabulous as Bucephalus or Black
+Bess.  Ah, how their coats shone, as the stable-men pulled
+their clothes off, and away they went--ah, how their
+tails shook, as with smoking sides at the stage's end
+they demurely walked away into the inn-yard.  Alas!  we
+shall never hear the horn sing at midnight, or see the
+pike-gates fly open any more.  Whither, however, is the
+light four-inside Trafalgar coach carrying us? Let us be
+set down at Queen's Crawley without further divagation,
+and see how Miss Rebecca Sharp speeds there.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+
+Miss Rebecca Sharp to Miss Amelia Sedley,
+Russell Square, London.
+(Free.--Pitt Crawley.)
+
+MY DEAREST, SWEETEST AMELIA,
+     
+With what mingled joy and sorrow do I take up the
+pen to write to my dearest friend!  Oh, what a change
+between to-day and yesterday! Now I am friendless and
+alone; yesterday I was at home, in the sweet company
+of a sister, whom I shall ever, ever cherish!
+  
+I will not tell you in what tears and sadness I passed
+the fatal night in which I separated from you.  YOU went
+on Tuesday to joy and happiness, with your mother and
+YOUR DEVOTED YOUNG SOLDIER by your side; and I thought
+of you all night, dancing at the Perkins's, the prettiest,
+I am sure, of all the young ladies at the Ball.  I was
+brought by the groom in the old carriage to Sir Pitt
+Crawley's town house, where, after John the groom had
+behaved most rudely and insolently to me (alas! 'twas
+safe to insult poverty and misfortune!), I was given over
+to Sir P.'s care, and made to pass the night in an old
+gloomy bed, and by the side of a horrid gloomy old
+charwoman, who keeps the house.  I did not sleep one
+single wink the whole night.
+  
+Sir Pitt is not what we silly girls, when we used to
+read Cecilia at Chiswick, imagined a baronet must have
+been.  Anything, indeed, less like Lord Orville cannot be
+imagined.  Fancy an old, stumpy, short, vulgar, and very
+dirty man, in old clothes and shabby old gaiters, who
+smokes a horrid pipe, and cooks his own horrid supper
+in a saucepan.  He speaks with a country accent, and
+swore a great deal at the old charwoman, at the hackney
+coachman who drove us to the inn where the coach went
+from, and on which I made the journey OUTSIDE FOR THE
+GREATER PART OF THE WAY.
+  
+I was awakened at daybreak by the charwoman, and
+having arrived at the inn, was at first placed inside the
+coach.  But, when we got to a place called Leakington,
+where the rain began to fall very heavily--will you
+believe it?--I was forced to come outside; for Sir Pitt is a
+proprietor of the coach, and as a passenger came at
+Mudbury, who wanted an inside place, I was obliged to
+go outside in the rain, where, however, a young
+gentleman from Cambridge College sheltered me very
+kindly in one of his several great coats.
+  
+This gentleman and the guard seemed to know Sir
+Pitt very well, and laughed at him a great deal.  They
+both agreed in calling him an old screw; which means a
+very stingy, avaricious person.  He never gives any money
+to anybody, they said (and this meanness I hate); and
+the young gentleman made me remark that we drove
+very slow for the last two stages on the road, because
+Sir Pitt was on the box, and because he is proprietor
+of the horses for this part of the journey.  "But won't I
+flog 'em on to Squashmore, when I take the ribbons?"
+said the young Cantab.  "And sarve 'em right, Master
+Jack," said the guard.  When I comprehended the
+meaning of this phrase, and that Master Jack intended to
+drive the rest of the way, and revenge himself on Sir
+Pitt's horses, of course I laughed too.
+  
+A carriage and four splendid horses, covered with
+armorial bearings, however, awaited us at Mudbury,
+four miles from Queen's Crawley, and we made our
+entrance to the baronet's park in state.  There is a fine
+avenue of a mile long leading to the house, and the woman
+at the lodge-gate (over the pillars of which are a serpent
+and a dove, the supporters of the Crawley arms), made
+us a number of curtsies as she flung open the old iron
+carved doors, which are something like those at odious
+Chiswick.
+  
+"There's an avenue," said Sir Pitt, "a mile long.
+There's six thousand pound of timber in them there
+trees.  Do you call that nothing?" He pronounced avenue
+--EVENUE, and nothing--NOTHINK, so droll; and he had
+a Mr. Hodson, his hind from Mudbury, into the carriage
+with him, and they talked about distraining, and selling
+up, and draining and subsoiling, and a great deal about
+tenants and farming--much more than I could
+understand.  Sam Miles had been caught poaching, and Peter
+Bailey had gone to the workhouse at last.  "Serve him
+right," said Sir Pitt; "him and his family has been
+cheating me on that farm these hundred and fifty years."
+Some old tenant, I suppose, who could not pay his rent.
+Sir Pitt might have said "he and his family," to be sure;
+but rich baronets do not need to be careful about
+grammar, as poor governesses must be.
+  
+As we passed, I remarked a beautiful church-spire
+rising above some old elms in the park; and before them,
+in the midst of a lawn, and some outhouses, an old red
+house with tall chimneys covered with ivy, and the
+windows shining in the sun.  "Is that your church, sir?"
+I said.
+  
+"Yes, hang it," (said Sir Pitt, only he used, dear, A MUCH
+WICKEDER WORD); "how's Buty, Hodson? Buty's my
+brother Bute, my dear--my brother the parson.  Buty and
+the Beast I call him, ha, ha!"
+  
+Hodson laughed too, and then looking more grave
+and nodding his head, said, "I'm afraid he's better, Sir
+Pitt.  He was out on his pony yesterday, looking at our
+corn."
+  
+"Looking after his tithes, hang'un (only he used the
+same wicked word).  Will brandy and water never kill
+him? He's as tough as old whatdyecallum--old
+Methusalem."
+  
+Mr. Hodson laughed again.  "The young men is home
+from college.  They've whopped John Scroggins till he's
+well nigh dead."
+  
+"Whop my second keeper!" roared out Sir Pitt.
+  
+"He was on the parson's ground, sir," replied Mr.
+Hodson; and Sir Pitt in a fury swore that if he ever caught
+'em poaching on his ground, he'd transport 'em, by the
+lord he would.  However, he said, "I've sold the
+presentation of the living, Hodson; none of that breed
+shall get it, I war'nt"; and Mr. Hodson said he was quite right:
+and I have no doubt from this that the two brothers are
+at variance--as brothers often are, and sisters too.  Don't
+you remember the two Miss Scratchleys at Chiswick,
+how they used always to fight and quarrel--and Mary
+Box, how she was always thumping Louisa?
+  
+Presently, seeing two little boys gathering sticks in the
+wood, Mr. Hodson jumped out of the carriage, at Sir
+Pitt's order, and rushed upon them with his whip.  "Pitch
+into 'em, Hodson," roared the baronet; "flog their little
+souls out, and bring 'em up to the house, the vagabonds;
+I'll commit 'em as sure as my name's Pitt." And presently
+we heard Mr. Hodson's whip cracking on the
+shoulders of the poor little blubbering wretches, and
+Sir Pitt, seeing that the malefactors were in custody,
+drove on to the hall.
+
+All the servants were ready to meet us, and
+. . .
+
+Here, my dear, I was interrupted last night by a
+dreadful thumping at my door: and who do you think it
+was? Sir Pitt Crawley in his night-cap and dressing-
+gown, such a figure! As I shrank away from such a
+visitor, he came forward and seized my candle.  "No
+candles after eleven o'clock, Miss Becky," said he.  "Go to
+bed in the dark, you pretty little hussy" (that is what
+he called me), "and unless you wish me to come for the
+candle every night, mind and be in bed at eleven." And
+with this, he and Mr. Horrocks the butler went off
+laughing.  You may be sure I shall not encourage any more
+of their visits.  They let loose two immense bloodhounds
+at night, which all last night were yelling and howling
+at the moon.  "I call the dog Gorer," said Sir Pitt; "he's
+killed a man that dog has, and is master of a bull, and
+the mother I used to call Flora; but now I calls her
+Aroarer, for she's too old to bite.  Haw, haw!"
+  
+Before the house of Queen's Crawley, which is an
+odious old-fashioned red brick mansion, with tall
+chimneys and gables of the style of Queen Bess, there is a
+terrace flanked by the family dove and serpent, and on
+which the great hall-door opens.  And oh, my dear, the
+great hall I am sure is as big and as glum as the great
+hall in the dear castle of Udolpho.  It has a large
+fireplace, in which we might put half Miss Pinkerton's
+school, and the grate is big enough to roast an ox at the
+very least.  Round the room hang I don't know how
+many generations of Crawleys, some with beards and
+ruffs, some with huge wigs and toes turned out, some
+dressed in long straight stays and gowns that look as
+stiff as towers, and some with long ringlets, and oh, my
+dear! scarcely any stays at all.  At one end of the hall is
+the great staircase all in black oak, as dismal as may be,
+and on either side are tall doors with stags' heads.over
+them, leading to the billiard-room and the library, and
+the great yellow saloon and the morning-rooms.  I think
+there are at least twenty bedrooms on the first floor; one
+of them has the bed in which Queen Elizabeth slept;
+and I have been taken by my new pupils through all
+these fine apartments this morning.  They are not
+rendered less gloomy, I promise you, by having the shutters
+always shut; and there is scarce one of the apartments,
+but when the light was let into it, I expected to
+see a ghost in the room.  We have a schoolroom on the
+second floor, with my bedroom leading into it on one
+side, and that of the young ladies on the other.  Then
+there are Mr. Pitt's apartments--Mr. Crawley, he is
+called--the eldest son, and Mr. Rawdon Crawley's rooms
+--he is an officer like SOMEBODY, and away with his
+regiment.  There is no want of room I assure you.  You
+might lodge all the people in Russell Square in the
+house, I think, and have space to spare.
+
+Half an hour after our arrival, the great dinner-bell
+was rung, and I came down with my two pupils (they
+are very thin insignificant little chits of ten and eight
+years old).  I came down in your dear muslin gown
+(about which that odious Mrs. Pinner was so rude, 
+because you gave it me); for I am to be treated as one of
+the family, except on company days, when the young
+ladies and I are to dine upstairs.
+
+Well, the great dinner-bell rang, and we all assembled
+in the little drawing-room where my Lady Crawley
+sits.  She is the second Lady Crawley, and mother of the
+young ladies.  She was an ironmonger's daughter, and
+her marriage was thought a great match.  She looks as
+if she had been handsome once, and her eyes are always
+weeping for the loss of her beauty.  She is pale and
+meagre and high-shouldered, and has not a word to say
+for herself, evidently.  Her stepson Mr. Crawley, was
+likewise in the room.  He was in full dress, as pompous
+as an undertaker.  He is pale, thin, ugly, silent; he has
+thin legs, no chest, hay-coloured whiskers, and straw-
+coloured hair.  He is the very picture of his sainted
+mother over the mantelpiece--Griselda of the noble
+house of Binkie.
+
+"This is the new governess, Mr. Crawley," said Lady
+Crawley, coming forward and taking my hand.  "Miss
+Sharp."
+
+"0!" said Mr. Crawley, and pushed his head once
+forward and began again to read a great pamphlet
+with which he was busy.
+
+"I hope you will be kind to my girls," said Lady
+Crawley, with her pink eyes always full of tears.
+
+"Law, Ma, of course she will," said the eldest: and I
+saw at a glance that I need not be afraid of THAT woman.
+"My lady is served," says the butler in black, in an
+immense white shirt-frill, that looked as if it had been
+one of the Queen Elizabeth's ruffs depicted in the hall;
+and so, taking Mr. Crawley's arm, she led the way to the
+dining-room, whither I followed with my little pupils in
+each hand.
+
+Sir Pitt was already in the room with a silver jug.  He
+had just been to the cellar, and was in full dress too;
+that is, he had taken his gaiters off, and showed his little
+dumpy legs in black worsted stockings.  The sideboard
+was covered with glistening old plate--old cups, both
+gold and silver; old salvers and cruet-stands, like
+Rundell and Bridge's shop.  Everything on the table was in
+silver too, and two footmen, with red hair and canary-
+coloured liveries, stood on either side of the sideboard.
+
+Mr. Crawley said a long grace, and Sir Pitt said amen,
+and the great silver dish-covers were removed.
+
+"What have we for dinner, Betsy?' said the Baronet.
+
+"Mutton broth, I believe, Sir Pitt," answered Lady
+Crawley.
+
+"Mouton aux navets," added the butler gravely
+(pronounce, if you please, moutongonavvy); "and the
+soup is potage de mouton a l'Ecossaise.  The side-dishes
+contain pommes de terre au naturel, and choufleur a l'eau."
+
+"Mutton's mutton," said the Baronet, "and a devilish
+good thing.  What SHIP was it, Horrocks, and when did
+you kill?"
+
+"One of the black-faced Scotch, Sir Pitt: we killed on Thursday.
+
+"Who took any?"
+
+"Steel, of Mudbury, took the saddle and two legs, Sir
+Pitt; but he says the last was too young and confounded
+woolly, Sir Pitt."
+
+"Will you take some potage, Miss ah--Miss Blunt?
+said Mr. Crawley.
+
+"Capital Scotch broth, my dear," said Sir Pitt, "though
+they call it by a French name." 
+
+"I believe it is the custom, sir, in decent society," said
+Mr. Crawley, haughtily, "to call the dish as I have called
+it"; and it was served to us on silver soup plates by the
+
+footmen in the canary coats, with the mouton aux
+navets.  Then "ale and water" were brought, and served
+to us young ladies in wine-glasses.  I am not a judge of
+ale, but I can say with a clear conscience I prefer water.
+
+While we were enjoying our repast, Sir Pitt took
+occasion to ask what had become of the shoulders of
+the mutton.
+
+"I believe they were eaten in the servants' hall," said
+my lady, humbly.
+
+"They was, my lady," said Horrocks, "and precious
+little else we get there neither."
+
+Sir Pitt burst into a horse-laugh, and continued his
+conversation with Mr. Horrocks.  "That there little black
+pig of the Kent sow's breed must be uncommon fat
+now."
+
+"It's not quite busting, Sir Pitt," said the butler with
+the gravest air, at which Sir Pitt, and with him the young
+ladies, this time, began to laugh violently.
+
+"Miss Crawley, Miss Rose Crawley," said Mr. Crawley,
+"your laughter strikes me as being exceedingly out
+of place."
+
+"Never mind, my lord," said the Baronet, "we'll try
+the porker on Saturday.  Kill un on Saturday morning,
+John Horrocks.  Miss Sharp adores pork, don't you, Miss
+Sharp?"
+
+And I think this is all the conversation that I remember
+at dinner.  When the repast was concluded a jug of
+hot water was placed before Sir Pitt, with a case-bottle
+containing, I believe, rum.  Mr. Horrocks served myself
+and my pupils with three little glasses of wine, and a
+bumper was poured out for my lady.  When we retired,
+she took from her work-drawer an enormous interminable
+piece of knitting; the young ladies began to play at
+cribbage with a dirty pack of cards.  We had but one
+candle lighted, but it was in a magnificent old silver
+candlestick, and after a very few questions from my lady,
+I had my choice of amusement between a volume of
+sermons, and a pamphlet on the corn-laws, which Mr.
+Crawley had been reading before dinner.
+
+So we sat for an hour until steps were heard.
+
+"Put away the cards, girls," cried my lady, in a great
+tremor; "put down Mr. Crawley's books, Miss Sharp";
+and these orders had been scarcely obeyed, when Mr.
+Crawley entered the room.
+
+"We will resume yesterday's discourse, young ladies,"
+said he, "and you shall each read a page by turns; so
+that Miss a--Miss Short may have an opportunity of
+hearing you"; and the poor girls began to spell a long
+dismal sermon delivered at Bethesda Chapel, Liverpool,
+on behalf of the mission for the Chickasaw Indians.
+Was it not a charming evening?
+
+At ten the servants were told to call Sir Pitt and the
+household to prayers.  Sir Pitt came in first, very much
+flushed, and rather unsteady in his gait; and after him
+the butler, the canaries, Mr. Crawley's man, three other
+men, smelling very much of the stable, and four women,
+one of whom, I remarked, was very much overdressed,
+and who flung me a look of great scorn as she plumped
+down on her knees.
+
+After Mr. Crawley had done haranguing and
+expounding, we received our candles, and then we
+went to bed; and then I was disturbed in my writing, as
+I have described to my dearest sweetest Amelia.
+
+Good night.  A thousand, thousand, thousand kisses!
+
+Saturday.--This morning, at five, I heard the
+shrieking of the little black pig.  Rose and Violet introduced
+me to it yesterday; and to the stables, and to the kennel,
+and to the gardener, who was picking fruit to send to
+market, and from whom they begged hard a bunch of
+hot-house grapes; but he said that Sir Pitt had numbered
+every "Man Jack" of them, and it would be as much as
+his place was worth to give any away.  The darling girls
+caught a colt in a paddock, and asked me if I would
+ride, and began to ride themselves, when the groom,
+coming with horrid oaths, drove them away.
+
+Lady Crawley is always knitting the worsted.  Sir Pitt
+is always tipsy, every night; and, I believe, sits with
+Horrocks, the butler.  Mr. Crawley always reads sermons
+in the evening, and in the morning is locked up in his
+study, or else rides to Mudbury, on county business,
+or to Squashmore, where he preaches, on Wednesdays
+and Fridays, to the tenants there.
+
+A hundred thousand grateful loves to your dear papa
+and mamma.  Is your poor brother recovered of his rack-
+punch? Oh, dear! Oh, dear! How men should beware of
+wicked punch!
+
+Ever and ever thine own
+REBECCA
+
+Everything considered, I think it is quite as well for
+our dear Amelia Sedley, in Russell Square, that Miss
+Sharp and she are parted.  Rebecca is a droll funny
+creature, to be sure; and those descriptions of the poor lady
+weeping for the loss of her beauty, and the gentleman
+"with hay-coloured whiskers and straw-coloured hair,"
+are very smart, doubtless, and show a great knowledge
+of the world.  That she might, when on her knees, have
+been thinking of something better than Miss Horrocks's
+ribbons, has possibly struck both of us.  But my kind
+reader will please to remember that this history has
+"Vanity Fair" for a title, and that Vanity Fair is a
+very vain, wicked, foolish place, full of all sorts of
+humbugs and falsenesses and pretensions.  And while the
+moralist, who is holding forth on the cover ( an accurate
+portrait of your humble servant), professes to wear
+neither gown nor bands, but only the very same long-
+eared livery in which his congregation is arrayed: yet,
+look you, one is bound to speak the truth as far as one
+knows it, whether one mounts a cap and bells or a shovel
+hat; and a deal of disagreeable matter must come out
+in the course of such an undertaking.
+
+I have heard a brother of the story-telling trade, at
+Naples, preaching to a pack of good-for-nothing honest
+lazy fellows by the sea-shore, work himself up into such a
+rage and passion with some of the villains whose wicked
+deeds he was describing and inventing, that the audience
+could not resist it; and they and the poet together would
+burst out into a roar of oaths and execrations against
+the fictitious monster of the tale, so that the hat went
+round, and the bajocchi tumbled into it, in the midst of
+a perfect storm of sympathy.
+
+At the little Paris theatres, on the other hand, you will
+not only hear the people yelling out "Ah gredin! Ah
+monstre:" and cursing the tyrant of the play from the
+boxes; but the actors themselves positively refuse to play
+the wicked parts, such as those of infames Anglais,
+brutal Cossacks, and what not, and prefer to appear
+at a smaller salary, in their real characters as loyal
+Frenchmen.  I set the two stories one against the other,
+so that you may see that it is not from mere mercenary
+motives that the present performer is desirous to show
+up and trounce his villains; but because he has a sincere
+hatred of them, which he cannot keep down, and which
+must find a vent in suitable abuse and bad language.
+
+I warn my "kyind friends," then, that I am going to
+tell a story of harrowing villainy and complicated--but,
+as I trust, intensely interesting--crime.  My rascals are
+no milk-and-water rascals, I promise you.  When we come
+to the proper places we won't spare fine language--No,
+no! But when we are going over the quiet country we
+must perforce be calm.  A tempest in a slop-basin is
+absurd.  We will reserve that sort of thing for the mighty
+ocean and the lonely midnight.  The present Chapter is
+very mild.  Others--But we will not anticipate THOSE.
+
+And, as we bring our characters forward, I will ask
+leave, as a man and a brother, not only to introduce
+them, but occasionally to step down from the platform,
+and talk about them: if they are good and kindly, to
+love them and shake them by the hand: if they are silly,
+to laugh at them confidentially in the reader's sleeve:
+if they are wicked and heartless, to abuse them in the
+strongest terms which politeness admits of.
+
+Otherwise you might fancy it was I who was sneering
+at the practice of devotion, which Miss Sharp finds so
+ridiculous; that it was I who laughed good-humouredly
+at the reeling old Silenus of a baronet--whereas the
+laughter comes from one who has no reverence except
+for prosperity, and no eye for anything beyond success.
+Such people there are living and flourishing in the world
+--Faithless, Hopeless, Charityless: let us have at them,
+dear friends, with might and main.  Some there are, and
+very successful too, mere quacks and fools: and it was
+to combat and expose such as those, no doubt, that
+Laughter was made.
+
+
+            
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+Family Portraits
+
+Sir Pitt Crawley was a philosopher with a taste for what is
+called low life.  His first marriage with the daughter of
+the noble Binkie had been made under the auspices of
+his parents; and as he often told Lady Crawley in her
+lifetime she was such a confounded quarrelsome high-bred
+jade that when she died he was hanged if he would ever take
+another of her sort, at her ladyship's demise he kept his
+promise, and selected for a second wife Miss Rose Dawson,
+daughter of Mr. John Thomas Dawson, ironmonger, of Mudbury.
+What a happy woman was Rose to be my Lady Crawley!
+
+Let us set down the items of her happiness.  In the
+first place, she gave up Peter Butt, a young man who
+kept company with her, and in consequence of his
+disappointment in love, took to smuggling, poaching, and a
+thousand other bad courses.  Then she quarrelled, as in
+duty bound, with all the friends and intimates of her youth,
+who, of course, could not be received by my Lady at
+Queen's Crawley--nor did she find in her new rank and
+abode any persons who were willing to welcome her.
+Who ever did? Sir Huddleston Fuddleston had three
+daughters who all hoped to be Lady Crawley.  Sir Giles
+Wapshot's family were insulted that one of the Wapshot
+girls had not the preference in the marriage, and the
+remaining baronets of the county were indignant at their
+comrade's misalliance.  Never mind the commoners, whom
+we will leave to grumble anonymously.
+
+Sir Pitt did not care, as he said, a brass farden for
+any one of them.  He had his pretty Rose, and what
+more need a man require than to please himself? So he
+used to get drunk every night: to beat his pretty Rose
+sometimes: to leave her in Hampshire when he went to
+London for the parliamentary session, without a single
+friend in the wide world.  Even Mrs. Bute Crawley, the
+Rector's wife, refused to visit her, as she said she would
+never give the pas to a tradesman's daughter.
+
+As the only endowments with which Nature had gifted
+Lady Crawley were those of pink cheeks and a white
+skin, and as she had no sort of character, nor talents,
+nor opinions, nor occupations, nor amusements, nor that
+vigour of soul and ferocity of temper which often falls
+to the lot of entirely foolish women, her hold upon Sir
+Pitt's affections was not very great.  Her roses faded out
+of her cheeks, and the pretty freshness left her figure
+after the birth of a couple of children, and she became
+a mere machine in her husband's house of no more use
+than the late Lady Crawley's grand piano.  Being a light-
+complexioned woman, she wore light clothes, as most
+blondes will, and appeared, in preference, in draggled sea-
+green, or slatternly sky-blue.  She worked that worsted
+day and night, or other pieces like it.  She had
+counterpanes in the course of a few years to all the beds in
+Crawley.  She had a small flower-garden, for which she
+had rather an affection; but beyond this no other like
+or disliking.  When her husband was rude to her she was
+apathetic: whenever he struck her she cried.  She had not
+character enough to take to drinking, and moaned about,
+slipshod and in curl-papers all day.  0 Vanity Fair--
+Vanity Fair! This might have been, but for you, a cheery
+lass--Peter Butt and Rose a happy man and wife, in a
+snug farm, with a hearty family; and an honest portion
+of pleasures, cares, hopes and struggles--but a title and
+a coach and four are toys more precious than happiness
+in Vanity Fair: and if Harry the Eighth or Bluebeard
+were alive now, and wanted a tenth wife, do you suppose
+he could not get the prettiest girl that shall be presented
+this season?
+
+The languid dulness of their mamma did not, as it
+may be supposed, awaken much affection in her little
+daughters, but they were very happy in the servants' hall
+and in the stables; and the Scotch gardener having
+luckily a good wife and some good children, they got a
+little wholesome society and instruction in his lodge,
+which was the only education bestowed upon them until
+Miss Sharp came.
+
+Her engagement was owing to the remonstrances of
+Mr. Pitt Crawley, the only friend or protector Lady
+Crawley ever had, and the only person, besides her
+children, for whom she entertained a little feeble
+attachment.  Mr. Pitt took after the noble Binkies, from
+whom he was descended, and was a very polite and proper
+gentleman.  When he grew to man's estate, and came
+back from Christchurch, he began to reform the
+slackened discipline of the hall, in spite of his father, who
+stood in awe of him.  He was a man of such rigid
+refinement, that he would have starved rather than have
+dined without a white neckcloth.  Once, when just from
+college, and when Horrocks the butler brought him a
+letter without placing it previously on a tray, he gave
+that domestic a look, and administered to him a speech
+so cutting, that Horrocks ever after trembled before him;
+the whole household bowed to him: Lady Crawley's curl-
+papers came off earlier when he was at home: Sir Pitt's
+muddy gaiters disappeared; and if that incorrigible old
+man still adhered to other old habits, he never fuddled
+himself with rum-and-water in his son's presence, and
+only talked to his servants in a very reserved and polite
+manner; and those persons remarked that Sir Pitt never
+swore at Lady Crawley while his son was in the room.
+
+It was he who taught the butler to say, "My lady is
+served," and who insisted on handing her ladyship in to
+dinner.  He seldom spoke to her, but when he did it was
+with the most powerful respect; and he never let her
+quit the apartment without rising in the most stately
+manner to open the door, and making an elegant bow
+at her egress.
+
+At Eton he was called Miss Crawley; and there, I
+am sorry to say, his younger brother Rawdon used to
+lick him violently.  But though his parts were not
+brilliant, he made up for his lack of talent by meritorious
+industry, and was never known, during eight years at
+school, to be subject to that punishment which it is
+generally thought none but a cherub can escape.
+
+At college his career was of course highly creditable.
+And here he prepared himself for public life, into which
+he was to be introduced by the patronage of his
+grandfather, Lord Binkie, by studying the ancient and modern
+orators with great assiduity, and by speaking unceasingly
+at the debating societies.  But though he had a fine flux
+of words, and delivered his little voice with great
+pomposity and pleasure to himself, and never advanced
+any sentiment or opinion which was not perfectly trite and
+stale, and supported by a Latin quotation; yet he failed
+somehow, in spite of a mediocrity which ought to have
+insured any man a success.  He did not even get the
+prize poem, which all his friends said he was sure of.
+
+After leaving college he became Private Secretary to
+Lord Binkie, and was then appointed Attache to the
+Legation at Pumpernickel, which post he filled with
+perfect honour, and brought home despatches, consisting of
+Strasburg pie, to the Foreign Minister of the day.  After
+remaining ten years Attache (several years after the
+lamented Lord Binkie's demise), and finding the
+advancement slow, he at length gave up the diplomatic
+service in some disgust, and began to turn country gentleman.
+
+He wrote a pamphlet on Malt on returning to England
+(for he was an ambitious man, and always liked
+to be before the public), and took a strong part in the
+Negro Emancipation question.  Then he became a friend
+of Mr. Wilberforce's, whose politics he admired, and had
+that famous correspondence with the Reverend Silas
+Hornblower, on the Ashantee Mission.  He was in
+London, if not for the Parliament session, at least in May,
+for the religious meetings.  In the country he was a
+magistrate, and an active visitor and speaker among those
+destitute of religious instruction.  He was said to be
+paying his addresses to Lady Jane Sheepshanks, Lord
+Southdown's third daughter, and whose sister, Lady Emily,
+wrote those sweet tracts, "The Sailor's True Binnacle,"
+and "The Applewoman of Finchley Common."
+
+Miss Sharp's accounts of his employment at Queen's
+Crawley were not caricatures.  He subjected the servants
+there to the devotional exercises before mentioned, in
+which (and so much the better) he brought his father
+to join.  He patronised an Independent meeting-house in
+Crawley parish, much to the indignation of his uncle the
+Rector, and to the consequent delight of Sir Pitt, who
+was induced to go himself once or twice, which occasioned
+some violent sermons at Crawley parish church, directed
+point-blank at the Baronet's old Gothic pew there.  Honest
+Sir Pitt, however, did not feel the force of these
+discourses, as he always took his nap during sermon-time.
+
+Mr. Crawley was very earnest, for the good of the
+nation and of the Christian world, that the old gentleman
+should yield him up his place in Parliament; but this the
+elder constantly refused to do.  Both were of course too
+prudent to give up the fifteen hundred a year which was
+brought in by the second seat (at this period filled by
+Mr. Quadroon, with carte blanche on the Slave question);
+indeed the family estate was much embarrassed, and the
+income drawn from the borough was of great use to the
+house of Queen's Crawley.
+
+It had never recovered the heavy fine imposed upon
+Walpole Crawley, first baronet, for peculation in the Tape
+and Sealing Wax Office.  Sir Walpole was a jolly fellow,
+eager to seize and to spend money (alieni appetens, sui
+profusus, as Mr. Crawley would remark with a sigh),
+and in his day beloved by all the county for the
+constant drunkenness and hospitality which was maintained
+at Queen's Crawley.  The cellars were filled with burgundy
+then, the kennels with hounds, and the stables with
+gallant hunters; now, such horses as Queen's Crawley
+possessed went to plough, or ran in the Trafalgar Coach;
+and it was with a team of these very horses, on an off-
+day, that Miss Sharp was brought to the Hall; for boor
+as he was, Sir Pitt was a stickler for his dignity while
+at home, and seldom drove out but with four horses,
+and though he dined off boiled mutton, had always three
+footmen to serve it.
+
+If mere parsimony could have made a man rich, Sir
+Pitt Crawley might have become very wealthy--if he
+had been an attorney in a country town, with no capital
+but his brains, it is very possible that he would have
+turned them to good account, and might have achieved
+for himself a very considerable influence and competency.
+But he was unluckily endowed with a good name
+and a large though encumbered estate, both of which
+went rather to injure than to advance him.  He had a
+taste for law, which cost him many thousands yearly;
+and being a great deal too clever to be robbed, as he
+said, by any single agent, allowed his affairs to be
+mismanaged by a dozen, whom he all equally mistrusted.
+He was such a sharp landlord, that he could hardly find
+any but bankrupt tenants; and such a close farmer, as
+to grudge almost the seed to the ground, whereupon
+revengeful Nature grudged him the crops which she
+granted to more liberal husbandmen.  He speculated in
+every possible way; he worked mines; bought canal-shares;
+horsed coaches; took government contracts, and was
+the busiest man and magistrate of his county.  As he
+would not pay honest agents at his granite quarry, he
+had the satisfaction of finding that four overseers ran
+away, and took fortunes with them to America.  For want
+of proper precautions, his coal-mines filled with water:
+the government flung his contract of damaged beef upon
+his hands: and for his coach-horses, every mail proprietor
+in the kingdom knew that he lost more horses than any
+man in the country, from underfeeding and buying cheap.
+In disposition he was sociable, and far from being proud;
+nay, he rather preferred the society of a farmer or a
+horse-dealer to that of a gentleman, like my lord, his
+son: he was fond of drink, of swearing, of joking with
+the farmers' daughters: he was never known to give away
+a shilling or to do a good action, but was of a pleasant,
+sly, laughing mood, and would cut his joke and drink
+his glass with a tenant and sell him up the next day;
+or have his laugh with the poacher he was transporting
+with equal good humour.  His politeness for the fair sex
+has already been hinted at by Miss Rebecca Sharp--in
+a word, the whole baronetage, peerage, commonage of
+England, did not contain a more cunning, mean, selfish,
+foolish, disreputable old man.  That blood-red hand of
+Sir Pitt Crawley's would be in anybody's pocket except
+his own; and it is with grief and pain, that, as admirers
+of the British aristocracy, we find ourselves obliged to
+admit the existence of so many ill qualities in a person
+whose name is in Debrett.
+
+One great cause why Mr. Crawley had such a hold
+over the affections of his father, resulted from money
+arrangements.  The Baronet owed his son a sum of money
+out of the jointure of his mother, which he did not find
+it convenient to pay; indeed he had an almost invincible
+repugnance to paying anybody, and could only be brought
+by force to discharge his debts.  Miss Sharp calculated
+(for she became, as we shall hear speedily, inducted
+into most of the secrets of the family) that the mere
+payment of his creditors cost the honourable Baronet
+several hundreds yearly; but this was a delight he could
+not forego; he had a savage pleasure in making the poor
+wretches wait, and in shifting from court to court and
+from term to term the period of satisfaction.  What's the
+good of being in Parliament, he said, if you must pay your
+debts? Hence, indeed, his position as a senator was not
+a little useful to him.
+
+Vanity Fair--Vanity Fair!  Here was a man, who could
+not spell, and did not care to read--who had the habits
+and the cunning of a boor: whose aim in life was
+pettifogging: who never had a taste, or emotion, or
+enjoyment, but what was sordid and foul; and yet he had
+rank, and honours, and power, somehow: and was a
+dignitary of the land, and a pillar of the state.  He was
+high sheriff, and rode in a golden coach.  Great ministers
+and statesmen courted him; and in Vanity Fair he had a
+higher place than the most brilliant genius or spotless
+virtue.
+
+Sir Pitt had an unmarried half-sister who inherited her
+mother's large fortune, and though the Baronet proposed
+to borrow this money of her on mortgage, Miss Crawley
+declined the offer, and preferred the security of the funds.
+She had signified, however, her intention of leaving her
+inheritance between Sir Pitt's second son and the family
+at the Rectory, and had once or twice paid the debts of
+Rawdon Crawley in his career at college and in the army.
+Miss Crawley was, in consequence, an object of great
+respect when she came to Queen's Crawley, for she had
+a balance at her banker's which would have made her
+beloved anywhere.
+
+What a dignity it gives an old lady, that balance at
+the banker's!  How tenderly we look at her faults if she
+is a relative (and may every reader have a score of such),
+what a kind good-natured old creature we find her!  How
+the junior partner of Hobbs and Dobbs leads her smiling
+to the carriage with the lozenge upon it, and the fat
+wheezy coachman! How, when she comes to pay us a
+visit, we generally find an opportunity to let our friends
+know her station in the world!  We say (and with perfect
+truth) I wish I had Miss MacWhirter's signature to a
+cheque for five thousand pounds.  She wouldn't miss it,
+says your wife.  She is my aunt, say you, in an easy
+careless way, when your friend asks if Miss MacWhirter is
+any relative.  Your wife is perpetually sending her little
+testimonies of affection, your little girls work endless
+worsted baskets, cushions, and footstools for her.  What a
+good fire there is in her room when she comes to pay
+you a visit, although your wife laces her stays without
+one!  The house during her stay assumes a festive, neat,
+warm, jovial, snug appearance not visible at other
+seasons.  You yourself, dear sir, forget to go to sleep after
+dinner, and find yourself all of a sudden (though you
+invariably lose) very fond of a rubber.  What good
+dinners you have--game every day, Malmsey-Madeira, and
+no end of fish from London.  Even the servants in the
+kitchen share in the general prosperity; and, somehow,
+during the stay of Miss MacWhirter's fat coachman, the
+beer is grown much stronger, and the consumption of tea
+and sugar in the nursery (where her maid takes her
+meals) is not regarded in the least.  Is it so, or is it not
+so?  I appeal to the middle classes.  Ah, gracious powers!
+I wish you would send me an old aunt--a maiden aunt
+--an aunt with a lozenge on her carriage, and a front
+of light coffee-coloured hair--how my children should
+work workbags for her, and my Julia and I would make
+her comfortable! Sweet--sweet vision! Foolish--foolish
+dream!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+Miss Sharp Begins to Make Friends
+
+And now, being received as a member of the amiable
+family whose portraits we have sketched in the foregoing
+pages, it became naturally Rebecca's duty to make
+herself, as she said, agreeable to her benefactors, and to
+gain their confidence to the utmost of her power.  Who
+can but admire this quality of gratitude in an unprotected
+orphan; and, if there entered some degree of selfishness
+into her calculations, who can say but that her
+prudence was perfectly justifiable?  "I am alone in the
+world," said the friendless girl.  "I have nothing to look
+for but what my own labour can bring me; and while
+that little pink-faced chit Amelia, with not half my sense,
+has ten thousand pounds and an establishment secure,
+poor Rebecca (and my figure is far better than hers)
+has only herself and her own wits to trust to.  Well, let
+us see if my wits cannot provide me with an honourable
+maintenance, and if some day or the other I cannot show
+Miss Amelia my real superiority over her.  Not that I
+dislike poor Amelia: who can dislike such a harmless,
+good-natured creature?--only it will be a fine day when
+I can take my place above her in the world, as why,
+indeed, should I not?"  Thus it was that our little
+romantic friend formed visions of the future for herself--
+nor must we be scandalised that, in all her castles in
+the air, a husband was the principal inhabitant.  Of
+what else have young ladies to think, but husbands? Of
+what else do their dear mammas think?  "I must be my
+own mamma," said Rebecca; not without a tingling
+consciousness of defeat, as she thought over her little
+misadventure with Jos Sedley.
+
+So she wisely determined to render her position with
+the Queen's Crawley family comfortable and secure, and
+to this end resolved to make friends of every one around
+her who could at all interfere with her comfort.
+
+As my Lady Crawley was not one of these personages,
+and a woman, moreover, so indolent and void of
+character as not to be of the least consequence in her own
+house, Rebecca soon found that it was not at all necessary
+to cultivate her good will--indeed, impossible to gain it.  She
+used to talk to her pupils about their "poor mamma"; and,
+though she treated that lady with every demonstration
+of cool respect, it was to the rest of the family that she
+wisely directed the chief part of her attentions.
+
+With the young people, whose applause she thoroughly
+gained, her method was pretty simple.  She did not
+pester their young brains with too much learning, but,
+on the contrary, let them have their own way in
+regard to educating themselves; for what instruction is more
+effectual than self-instruction? The eldest was rather fond
+of books, and as there was in the old library at Queen's
+Crawley a considerable provision of works of light
+literature of the last century, both in the French and English
+languages (they had been purchased by the Secretary
+of the Tape and Sealing Wax Office at the period of his
+disgrace), and as nobody ever troubled the book-shelves
+but herself, Rebecca was enabled agreeably, and, as
+it were, in playing, to impart a great deal of instruction
+to Miss Rose Crawley.
+
+She and Miss Rose thus read together many delightful
+French and English works, among which may be
+mentioned those of the learned Dr. Smollett, of the ingenious
+Mr. Henry Fielding, of the graceful and fantastic
+Monsieur Crebillon the younger, whom our immortal poet
+Gray so much admired, and of the universal Monsieur de
+Voltaire.  Once, when Mr. Crawley asked what the young
+people were reading, the governess replied "Smollett."
+"Oh, Smollett," said Mr. Crawley, quite satisfied.  "His
+history is more dull, but by no means so dangerous as
+that of Mr. Hume.  It is history you are reading?" "Yes,"
+said Miss Rose; without, however, adding that it was the
+history of Mr. Humphrey Clinker.  On another occasion
+he was rather scandalised at finding his sister with a
+book of French plays; but as the governess remarked
+that it was for the purpose of acquiring the French idiom
+in conversation, he was fain to be content.  Mr. Crawley,
+as a diplomatist, was exceedingly proud of his own skill
+in speaking the French language (for he was of the world
+still), and not a little pleased with the compliments which
+the governess continually paid him upon his proficiency.
+
+Miss Violet's tastes were, on the contrary, more rude
+and boisterous than those of her sister.  She knew the
+sequestered spots where the hens laid their eggs.  She
+could climb a tree to rob the nests of the feathered
+songsters of their speckled spoils.  And her pleasure was to
+ride the young colts, and to scour the plains like Camilla.
+She was the favourite of her father and of the stablemen.
+She was the darling, and withal the terror of the
+cook; for she discovered the haunts of the jam-pots, and
+would attack them when they were within her reach.
+She and her sister were engaged in constant battles.  Any
+of which peccadilloes, if Miss Sharp discovered, she did
+not tell them to Lady Crawley; who would have told
+them to the father, or worse, to Mr. Crawley; but
+promised not to tell if Miss Violet would be a good girl
+and love her governess.
+
+With Mr. Crawley Miss Sharp was respectful and
+obedient.  She used to consult him on passages of French
+which she could not understand, though her mother was
+a Frenchwoman, and which he would construe to her
+satisfaction: and, besides giving her his aid in profane
+literature, he was kind enough to select for her books
+of a more serious tendency, and address to her much of
+his conversation.  She admired, beyond measure, his
+speech at the Quashimaboo-Aid Society; took an
+interest in his pamphlet on malt: was often affected, even
+to tears, by his discourses of an evening, and would
+say--"Oh, thank you, sir," with a sigh, and a look up
+to heaven, that made him occasionally condescend to
+shake hands with her.  "Blood is everything, after all,"
+would that aristocratic religionist say.  "How Miss Sharp
+is awakened by my words, when not one of the people
+here is touched.  I am too fine for them--too delicate.
+I must familiarise my style--but she understands it.  Her
+mother was a Montmorency."
+
+Indeed it was from this famous family, as it appears,
+that Miss Sharp, by the mother's side, was descended.
+Of course she did not say that her mother had been on
+the stage; it would have shocked Mr. Crawley's religious
+scruples.  How many noble emigres had this horrid
+revolution plunged in poverty!  She had several stories
+about her ancestors ere she had been many months in
+the house; some of which Mr. Crawley happened to find
+in D'Hozier's dictionary, which was in the library, and
+which strengthened his belief in their truth, and in the
+high-breeding of Rebecca.  Are we to suppose from this
+curiosity and prying into dictionaries, could our heroine
+suppose that Mr. Crawley was interested in her?--no,
+only in a friendly way.  Have we not stated that he was
+attached to Lady Jane Sheepshanks?
+
+He took Rebecca to task once or twice about the
+propriety of playing at backgammon with Sir Pitt, saying
+that it was a godless amusement, and that she would be
+much better engaged in reading "Thrump's Legacy," or
+"The Blind Washerwoman of Moorfields," or any work
+of a more serious nature; but Miss Sharp said her dear
+mother used often to play the same game with the old
+Count de Trictrac and the venerable Abbe du Cornet,
+and so found an excuse for this and other worldly
+amusements.
+
+But it was not only by playing at backgammon with
+the Baronet, that the little governess rendered herself
+agreeable to her employer.  She found many different
+ways of being useful to him.  She read over, with
+indefatigable patience, all those law papers, with which,
+before she came to Queen's Crawley, he had promised
+to entertain her.  She volunteered to copy many of his
+letters, and adroitly altered the spelling of them so as
+to suit the usages of the present day.  She became
+interested in everything appertaining to the estate, to the
+farm, the park, the garden, and the stables; and so delightful
+a companion was she, that the Baronet would seldom
+take his after-breakfast walk without her (and the
+children of course), when she would give her advice as to
+the trees which were to be lopped in the shrubberies, the
+garden-beds to be dug, the crops which were to be cut,
+the horses which were to go to cart or plough.  Before
+she had been a year at Queen's Crawley she had quite
+won the Baronet's confidence; and the conversation at the
+dinner-table, which before used to be held between him
+and Mr. Horrocks the butler, was now almost exclusively
+between Sir Pitt and Miss Sharp.  She was almost
+mistress of the house when Mr. Crawley was absent, but
+conducted herself in her new and exalted situation with
+such circumspection and modesty as not to offend the
+authorities of the kitchen and stable, among whom her
+behaviour was always exceedingly modest and affable.  She
+was quite a different person from the haughty, shy,
+dissatisfied little girl whom we have known previously, and
+this change of temper proved great prudence, a sincere
+desire of amendment, or at any rate great moral courage
+on her part.  Whether it was the heart which dictated this
+new system of complaisance and humility adopted by our
+Rebecca, is to be proved by her after-history.  A system
+of hypocrisy, which lasts through whole years, is one
+seldom satisfactorily practised by a person of one-and-
+twenty; however, our readers will recollect, that, though
+young in years, our heroine was old in life and experience,
+and we have written to no purpose if they have not
+discovered that she was a very clever woman.
+  
+The elder and younger son of the house of Crawley
+were, like the gentleman and lady in the weather-box,
+never at home together--they hated each other cordially:
+indeed, Rawdon Crawley, the dragoon, had a great
+contempt for the establishment altogether, and seldom came
+thither except when his aunt paid her annual visit.
+  
+The great good quality of this old lady has been
+mentioned.  She possessed seventy thousand pounds, and
+had almost adopted Rawdon.  She disliked her elder nephew
+exceedingly, and despised him as a milksop.  In return
+he did not hesitate to state that her soul was irretrievably
+lost, and was of opinion that his brother's chance
+in the next world was not a whit better.  "She is a
+godless woman of the world," would Mr. Crawley say; "she
+lives with atheists and Frenchmen.  My mind shudders
+when I think of her awful, awful situation, and that,
+near as she is to the grave, she should be so given up
+to vanity, licentiousness, profaneness, and folly." In fact,
+the old lady declined altogether to hear his hour's lecture
+of an evening; and when she came to Queen's Crawley
+alone, he was obliged to pretermit his usual devotional
+exercises.
+  
+"Shut up your sarmons, Pitt, when Miss Crawley
+comes down," said his father; "she has written to say
+that she won't stand the preachifying."
+ 
+"O, sir! consider the servants."
+  
+"The servants be hanged," said Sir Pitt; and his son
+thought even worse would happen were they deprived of
+the benefit of his instruction.
+  
+"Why, hang it, Pitt!" said the father to his remonstrance.
+"You wouldn't be such a flat as to let three thousand a
+year go out of the family?"
+  
+"What is money compared to our souls, sir?" continued
+Mr. Crawley.
+  
+"You mean that the old lady won't leave the money
+to you?"--and who knows but it was Mr. Crawley's
+meaning?
+  
+Old Miss Crawley was certainly one of the reprobate.
+She had a snug little house in Park Lane, and, as she ate
+and drank a great deal too much during the season in
+London, she went to Harrowgate or Cheltenham for
+the summer.  She was the most hospitable and jovial of
+old vestals, and had been a beauty in her day, she said.
+(All old women were beauties once, we very well know.)
+She was a bel esprit, and a dreadful Radical for those
+days.  She had been in France (where St. Just, they say,
+inspired her with an unfortunate passion), and loved,
+ever after, French novels, French cookery, and French
+wines.  She read Voltaire, and had Rousseau by heart;
+talked very lightly about divorce, and most energetically
+of the rights of women.  She had pictures of Mr. Fox
+in every room in the house: when that statesman was
+in opposition, I am not sure that she had not flung a
+main with him; and when he came into office, she took
+great credit for bringing over to him Sir Pitt and his
+colleague for Queen's Crawley, although Sir Pitt would
+have come over himself, without any trouble on the honest
+lady's part.  It is needless to say that Sir Pitt was brought
+to change his views after the death of the great Whig
+statesman.
+  
+This worthy old lady took a fancy to Rawdon Crawley
+when a boy, sent him to Cambridge (in opposition to
+his brother at Oxford), and, when the young man was
+requested by the authorities of the first-named University
+to quit after a residence of two years, she bought him
+his commission in the Life Guards Green.
+  
+A perfect and celebrated "blood," or dandy about town,
+was this young officer.  Boxing, rat-hunting, the fives court,
+and four-in-hand driving were then the fashion of our
+British aristocracy; and he was an adept in all these
+noble sciences.  And though he belonged to the
+household troops, who, as it was their duty to rally round the
+Prince Regent, had not shown their valour in foreign
+service yet, Rawdon Crawley had already (apropos of
+play, of which he was immoderately fond) fought three
+bloody duels, in which he gave ample proofs of his
+contempt for death.
+  
+"And for what follows after death," would Mr.
+Crawley observe, throwing his gooseberry-coloured eyes
+up to the ceiling.  He was always thinking of his brother's
+soul, or of the souls of those who differed with him in
+opinion: it is a sort of comfort which many of the
+serious give themselves.
+  
+Silly, romantic Miss Crawley, far from being horrified
+at the courage of her favourite, always used to pay his
+debts after his duels; and would not listen to a word
+that was whispered against his morality.  "He will sow
+his wild oats," she would say, "and is worth far more
+than that puling hypocrite of a brother of his."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+Arcadian Simplicity
+
+Besides these honest folks at the Hall (whose simplicity
+and sweet rural purity surely show the advantage of a
+country life over a town one), we must introduce the
+reader to their relatives and neighbours at the Rectory,
+Bute Crawley and his wife.
+  
+The Reverend Bute Crawley was a tall, stately, jolly,
+shovel-hatted man, far more popular in his county than
+the Baronet his brother.  At college he pulled stroke-oar
+in the Christchurch boat, and had thrashed all the best
+bruisers of the "town." He carried his taste for boxing
+and athletic exercises into private life; there was not a
+fight within twenty miles at which he was not present,
+nor a race, nor a coursing match, nor a regatta, nor a
+ball, nor an election, nor a visitation dinner, nor indeed
+a good dinner in the whole county, but he found means
+to attend it.  You might see his bay mare and gig-lamps
+a score of miles away from his Rectory House, whenever
+there was any dinner-party at Fuddleston, or at Roxby,
+or at Wapshot Hall, or at the great lords of the county,
+with all of whom he was intimate.  He had a fine voice;
+sang "A southerly wind and a cloudy sky"; and gave
+the "whoop" in chorus with general applause.  He rode
+to hounds in a pepper-and-salt frock, and was one of the
+best fishermen in the county.
+  
+Mrs. Crawley, the rector's wife, was a smart little body,
+who wrote this worthy divine's sermons.  Being of a
+domestic turn, and keeping the house a great deal with her
+daughters, she ruled absolutely within the Rectory, wisely
+giving her husband full liberty without.  He was welcome
+to come and go, and dine abroad as many days as his
+fancy dictated, for Mrs. Crawley was a saving woman and
+knew the price of port wine.  Ever since Mrs. Bute carried
+off the young Rector of Queen's Crawley (she was of a
+good family, daughter of the late Lieut.-Colonel
+Hector McTavish, and she and her mother played for
+Bute and won him at Harrowgate), she had been a prudent
+and thrifty wife to him.  In spite of her care, however, he
+was always in debt.  It took him at least ten years to pay
+off his college bills contracted during his father's lifetime.
+In the year 179-, when he was just clear of these
+incumbrances, he gave the odds of 100 to 1 (in twenties)
+against Kangaroo, who won the Derby.  The Rector was
+obliged to take up the money at a ruinous interest, and
+had been struggling ever since.  His sister helped him with
+a hundred now and then, but of course his great hope was
+in her death--when "hang it" (as he would say), "Matilda
+must leave me half her money."
+  
+So that the Baronet and his brother had every reason
+which two brothers possibly can have for being by the
+ears.  Sir Pitt had had the better of Bute in innumerable
+family transactions.  Young Pitt not only did not hunt, but
+set up a meeting house under his uncle's very nose.
+Rawdon, it was known, was to come in for the bulk of Miss
+Crawley's property.  These money transactions--these
+speculations in life and death--these silent battles for
+reversionary spoil--make brothers very loving towards
+each other in Vanity Fair.  I, for my part, have known a
+five-pound note to interpose and knock up a half century's
+attachment between two brethren; and can't but admire,
+as I think what a fine and durable thing Love is among
+worldly people.
+  
+It cannot be supposed that the arrival of such a
+personage as Rebecca at Queen's Crawley, and her gradual
+establishment in the good graces of all people there, could
+be unremarked by Mrs. Bute Crawley.  Mrs. Bute, who
+knew how many days the sirloin of beef lasted at the Hall;
+how much linen was got ready at the great wash; how
+many peaches were on the south wall; how many doses
+her ladyship took when she was ill--for such points are
+matters of intense interest to certain persons in the
+country--Mrs. Bute, I say, could not pass over the Hall
+governess without making every inquiry respecting her
+history and character.  There was always the best understanding
+between the servants at the Rectory and the Hall.
+There was always a good glass of ale in the kitchen of the
+former place for the Hall people, whose ordinary drink
+was very small--and, indeed, the Rector's lady knew
+exactly how much malt went to every barrel of Hall beer--
+ties of relationship existed between the Hall and Rectory
+domestics, as between their masters; and through these
+channels each family was perfectly well acquainted with
+the doings of the other.  That, by the way, may be set
+down as a general remark.  When you and your brother
+are friends, his doings are indifferent to you.  When you
+have quarrelled, all his outgoings and incomings you
+know, as if you were his spy.
+
+Very soon then after her arrival, Rebecca began to take
+a regular place in Mrs. Crawley's bulletin from the Hall.
+It was to this effect: "The black porker's killed--weighed
+x stone--salted the sides--pig's pudding and leg of pork
+for dinner.  Mr. Cramp from Mudbury, over with Sir Pitt
+about putting John Blackmore in gaol--Mr. Pitt at
+meeting (with all the names of the people who attended)--
+my lady as usual--the young ladies with the governess."
+  
+Then the report would come--the new governess be a
+rare manager--Sir Pitt be very sweet on her--Mr.
+Crawley too--He be reading tracts to her--"What an
+abandoned wretch!" said little, eager, active, black-faced Mrs.
+Bute Crawley.
+  
+Finally, the reports were that the governess had "come
+round" everybody, wrote Sir Pitt's letters, did his business,
+managed his accounts--had the upper hand of the whole
+house, my lady, Mr. Crawley, the girls and all--at which
+Mrs. Crawley declared she was an artful hussy, and had
+some dreadful designs in view.  Thus the doings at the
+Hall were the great food for conversation at the Rectory,
+and Mrs. Bute's bright eyes spied out everything that took
+place in the enemy's camp--everything and a great deal
+besides.
+      
+Mrs. Bute Crawley to Miss Pinkerton,
+The Mall, Chiswick.
+
+Rectory, Queen's Crawley, December--.
+
+My Dear Madam,--Although it is so many years since
+I profited by your delightful and invaluable instructions,
+yet I have ever retained the FONDEST and most reverential
+regard for Miss Pinkerton, and DEAR Chiswick.  I hope
+your health is GOOD.  The world and the cause of
+education cannot afford to lose Miss Pinkerton for MANY MANY
+YEARS.  When my friend, Lady Fuddleston, mentioned that
+her dear girls required an instructress (I am too poor to
+engage a governess for mine, but was I not educated at
+Chiswick?)--"Who," I exclaimed, "can we consult but
+the excellent, the incomparable Miss Pinkerton?" In a
+word, have you, dear madam, any ladies on your list,
+whose services might be made available to my kind
+friend and neighbour? I assure you she will take no
+governess BUT OF YOUR CHOOSING.
+  
+My dear husband is pleased to say that he likes 
+EVERYTHING WHICH COMES FROM MISS PINKERTON'S
+SCHOOL.  How I wish I could present him and my beloved
+girls to the friend of my youth, and the ADMIRED of the
+great lexicographer of our country! If you ever travel into
+Hampshire, Mr. Crawley begs me to say, he hopes you will
+adorn our RURAL RECTORY with your presence.  'Tis the
+humble but happy home of
+
+Your affectionate
+Martha Crawley
+
+P.S.  Mr. Crawley's brother, the baronet, with whom
+we are not, alas! upon those terms of UNITY in which it
+BECOMES BRETHREN TO DWELL, has a governess for his
+little girls, who, I am told, had the good fortune to be
+educated at Chiswick.  I hear various reports of her;
+and as I have the tenderest interest in my dearest little
+nieces, whom I wish, in spite of family differences, to
+see among my own children--and as I long to be
+attentive to ANY PUPIL OF YOURS--do, my dear Miss
+Pinkerton, tell me the history of this young lady, whom,
+for YOUR SAKE, I am most anxious to befriend.--M. C.
+
+Miss Pinkerton to Mrs. Bute Crawley.
+
+Johnson House, Chiswick, Dec. 18--.
+
+Dear Madam,--I have the honour to acknowledge
+your polite communication, to which I promptly reply.
+'Tis most gratifying to one in my most arduous position
+to find that my maternal cares have elicited a responsive
+affection; and to recognize in the amiable Mrs. Bute
+Crawley my excellent pupil of former years, the sprightly
+and accomplished Miss Martha MacTavish.  I am happy
+to have under my charge now the daughters of many of
+those who were your contemporaries at my establishment
+--what pleasure it would give me if your own
+beloved young ladies had need of my instructive
+superintendence!
+  
+Presenting my respectful compliments to Lady
+Fuddleston, I have the honour (epistolarily) to introduce
+to her ladyship my two friends, Miss Tuffin and Miss Hawky.
+  
+Either of these young ladies is PERFECTLY QUALIFIED to
+instruct in Greek, Latin, and the rudiments of Hebrew;
+in mathematics and history; in Spanish, French, Italian,
+and geography; in music, vocal and instrumental; in
+dancing, without the aid of a master; and in the
+elements of natural sciences.  In the use of the globes both
+are proficients.  In addition to these Miss Tuffin, who is
+daughter of the late Reverend Thomas Tuffin (Fellow
+of Corpus College, Cambridge), can instruct in the
+Syriac language, and the elements of Constitutional law.
+But as she is only eighteen years of age, and of
+exceedingly pleasing personal appearance, perhaps this
+young lady may be objectionable in Sir Huddleston
+Fuddleston's family.
+  
+Miss Letitia Hawky, on the other hand, is not
+personally well-favoured.  She is-twenty-nine; her face
+is much pitted with the small-pox.  She has a halt in her
+gait, red hair, and a trifling obliquity of vision.  Both
+ladies are endowed with EVERY MORAL AND RELIGIOUS
+VIRTUE.  Their terms, of course, are such as their
+accomplishments merit.  With my most grateful respects
+to the Reverend Bute Crawley, I have the honour to be,
+
+Dear Madam,
+      
+Your most faithful and obedient servant,
+Barbara Pinkerton.
+
+P.S.  The Miss Sharp, whom you mention as
+governess to Sir Pitt Crawley, Bart., M.P., was a pupil
+of mine, and I have nothing to say in her disfavour.
+Though her appearance is disagreeable, we cannot
+control the operations of nature: and though her parents
+were disreputable (her father being a painter, several
+times bankrupt, and her mother, as I have since learned,
+with horror, a dancer at the Opera); yet her talents are
+considerable, and I cannot regret that I received her
+OUT OF CHARITY.  My dread is, lest the principles of the
+mother--who was represented to me as a French
+Countess, forced to emigrate in the late revolutionary horrors;
+but who, as I have since found, was a person of the
+very lowest order and morals--should at any time prove
+to be HEREDITARY in the unhappy young woman whom I
+took as AN OUTCAST.  But her principles have hitherto
+been correct (I believe), and I am sure nothing will
+occur to injure them in the elegant and refined circle
+of the eminent Sir Pitt Crawley.
+
+Miss Rebecca Sharp to Miss Amelia Sedley.
+
+I have not written to my beloved Amelia for these
+many weeks past, for what news was there to tell of the
+sayings and doings at Humdrum Hall, as I have
+christened it; and what do you care whether the turnip crop
+is good or bad; whether the fat pig weighed thirteen
+stone or fourteen; and whether the beasts thrive well
+upon mangelwurzel? Every day since I last wrote has
+been like its neighbour.  Before breakfast, a walk with
+Sir Pitt and his spud; after breakfast studies (such as
+they are) in the schoolroom; after schoolroom, reading
+and writing about lawyers, leases, coal-mines, canals,
+with Sir Pitt (whose secretary I am become); after
+dinner, Mr. Crawley's discourses on the baronet's
+backgammon; during both of which amusements my lady
+looks on with equal placidity.  She has become rather
+more interesting by being ailing of late, which has
+brought a new visitor to the Hall, in the person of a
+young doctor.  Well, my dear, young women need never
+despair.  The young doctor gave a certain friend of yours
+to understand that, if she chose to be Mrs. Glauber, she
+was welcome to ornament the surgery! I told his
+impudence that the gilt pestle and mortar was quite
+ornament enough; as if I was born, indeed, to be a country
+surgeon's wife! Mr. Glauber went home seriously
+indisposed at his rebuff, took a cooling draught, and is now
+quite cured.  Sir Pitt applauded my resolution highly;
+he would be sorry to lose his little secretary, I think;
+and I believe the old wretch likes me as much as it is in
+his nature to like any one.  Marry, indeed! and with a
+country apothecary, after--No, no, one cannot so
+soon forget old associations, about which I will talk no
+more.  Let us return to Humdrum Hall.
+
+For some time past it is Humdrum Hall no longer.
+My dear, Miss Crawley has arrived with her fat horses,
+fat servants, fat spaniel--the great rich Miss Crawley,
+with seventy thousand pounds in the five per cents.,
+whom, or I had better say WHICH, her two brothers
+adore.  She looks very apoplectic, the dear soul; no
+wonder her brothers are anxious about her.  You should see
+them struggling to settle her cushions, or to hand her
+coffee! "When I come into the country," she says (for
+she has a great deal of humour), "I leave my toady,
+Miss Briggs, at home.  My brothers are my toadies here,
+my dear, and a pretty pair they are!"
+  
+When she comes into the country our hall is thrown
+open, and for a month, at least, you would fancy old
+Sir Walpole was come to life again.  We have dinner-
+parties, and drive out in the coach-and-fourthe
+footmen put on their newest canary-coloured liveries; we
+drink claret and champagne as if we were accustomed
+to it every day.  We have wax candles in the schoolroom,
+and fires to warm ourselves with.  Lady Crawley is made
+to put on the brightest pea-green in her wardrobe, and
+my pupils leave off their thick shoes and tight old
+tartan pelisses, and wear silk stockings and muslin frocks,
+as fashionable baronets' daughters should.  Rose came in
+yesterday in a sad plight--the Wiltshire sow (an
+enormous pet of hers) ran her down, and destroyed a most
+lovely flowered lilac silk dress by dancing over it--had
+this happened a week ago, Sir Pitt would have sworn
+frightfully, have boxed the poor wretch's ears, and put
+her upon bread and water for a month.  All he said was,
+"I'll serve you out, Miss, when your aunt's gone," and
+laughed off the accident as quite trivial.  Let us hope his
+wrath will have passed away before Miss Crawley's
+departure.  I hope so, for Miss Rose's sake, I am sure.
+What a charming reconciler and peacemaker money is!
+  
+Another admirable effect of Miss Crawley and her
+seventy thousand pounds is to be seen in the conduct
+of the two brothers Crawley.  I mean the baronet and
+the rector, not OUR brothers--but the former, who hate
+each other all the year round, become quite loving at
+Christmas.  I wrote to you last year how the abominable
+horse-racing rector was in the habit of preaching clumsy
+sermons at us at church, and how Sir Pitt snored in
+answer.  When Miss Crawley arrives there is no such thing
+as quarrelling heard of--the Hall visits the Rectory, and
+vice versa--the parson and the Baronet talk about the
+pigs and the poachers, and the county business, in the
+most affable manner, and without quarrelling in their
+cups, I believe--indeed Miss Crawley won't hear of their
+quarrelling, and vows that she will leave her money to
+the Shropshire Crawleys if they offend her.  If they were
+clever people, those Shropshire Crawleys, they might
+have it all, I think; but the Shropshire Crawley is a
+clergyman like his Hampshire cousin, and mortally offended
+Miss Crawley (who had fled thither in a fit of rage
+against her impracticable brethren) by some strait-laced
+notions of morality.  He would have prayers in the house,
+I believe.
+  
+Our sermon books are shut up when Miss Crawley
+arrives, and Mr. Pitt, whom she abominates, finds it
+convenient to go to town.  On the other hand, the young
+dandy--"blood," I believe, is the term--Captain Crawley
+makes his appearance, and I suppose you will like to
+know what sort of a person he is.
+  
+Well, he is a very large young dandy.  He is six feet
+high, and speaks with a great voice; and swears a great
+deal; and orders about the servants, who all adore him
+nevertheless; for he is very generous of his money, and
+the domestics will do anything for him.  Last week the
+keepers almost killed a bailiff and his man who came
+down from London to arrest the Captain, and who were
+found lurking about the Park wall--they beat them,
+ducked them, and were going to shoot them for
+poachers, but the baronet interfered.
+  
+The Captain has a hearty contempt for his father, I
+can see, and calls him an old PUT, an old SNOB, an old
+CHAW-BACON, and numberless other pretty names.  He has
+a DREADFUL REPUTATION among the ladies.  He brings his
+hunters home with him, lives with the Squires of the
+county, asks whom he pleases to dinner, and Sir Pitt
+dares not say no, for fear of offending Miss Crawley,
+and missing his legacy when she dies of her apoplexy.
+Shall I tell you a compliment the Captain paid me?  I
+must, it is so pretty.  One evening we actually had a
+dance; there was Sir Huddleston Fuddleston and his
+family, Sir Giles Wapshot and his young ladies, and I
+don't know how many more.  Well, I heard him say--
+"By Jove, she's a neat little filly!" meaning your humble
+servant; and he did me the honour to dance two country-
+dances with me.  He gets on pretty gaily with the young
+Squires, with whom he drinks, bets, rides, and talks
+about hunting and shooting; but he says the country
+girls are BORES; indeed, I don't think he is far wrong.
+You should see the contempt with which they look down
+on poor me! When they dance I sit and play the piano
+very demurely; but the other night, coming in rather
+flushed from the dining-room, and seeing me employed
+in this way, he swore out loud that I was the best dancer
+in the room, and took a great oath that he would have
+the fiddlers from Mudbury.
+  
+"I'll go and play a country-dance," said Mrs. Bute
+Crawley, very readily (she is a little, black-faced old
+woman in a turban, rather crooked, and with very
+twinkling eyes); and after the Captain and your poor little
+Rebecca had performed a dance together, do you know
+she actually did me the honour to compliment me upon
+my steps! Such a thing was never heard of before; the
+proud Mrs. Bute Crawley, first cousin to the Earl of
+Tiptoff, who won't condescend to visit Lady Crawley,
+except when her sister is in the country.  Poor Lady
+Crawley! during most part of these gaieties, she is
+upstairs taking pills.
+  
+Mrs. Bute has all of a sudden taken a great fancy to
+me.  "My dear Miss Sharp," she says, "why not bring
+over your girls to the Rectory?--their cousins will be so
+happy to see them." I know what she means.  Signor
+Clementi did not teach us the piano for nothing; at
+which price Mrs. Bute hopes to get a professor for her
+children.  I can see through her schemes, as though she
+told them to me; but I shall go, as I am determined to
+make myself agreeable--is it not a poor governess's
+duty, who has not a friend or protector in the world?
+The Rector's wife paid me a score of compliments about
+the progress my pupils made, and thought, no doubt, to
+touch my heart--poor, simple, country soul!--as if I
+cared a fig about my pupils!
+  
+Your India muslin and your pink silk, dearest Amelia,
+are said to become me very well.  They are a good deal
+worn now; but, you know, we poor girls can't afford des
+fraiches toilettes.  Happy, happy you! who have but to
+drive to St. James's Street, and a dear mother who will
+give you any thing you ask.  Farewell, dearest girl,
+
+Your affectionate
+Rebecca.
+
+P.S.--I wish you could have seen the faces of the
+Miss Blackbrooks (Admiral Blackbrook's daughters, my
+dear), fine young ladies, with dresses from London,
+when Captain Rawdon selected poor me for a partner!
+
+When Mrs. Bute Crawley (whose artifices our ingenious
+Rebecca had so soon discovered) had procured from
+Miss Sharp the promise of a visit, she induced the all-
+powerful Miss Crawley to make the necessary application
+to Sir Pitt, and the good-natured old lady, who loved to
+be gay herself, and to see every one gay and happy round
+about her, was quite charmed, and ready to establish a
+reconciliation and intimacy between her two brothers.
+It was therefore agreed that the young people of both
+families should visit each other frequently for the future,
+and the friendship of course lasted as long as the jovial
+old mediatrix was there to keep the peace.
+  
+"Why did you ask that scoundrel, Rawdon Crawley, to
+dine?" said the Rector to his lady, as they were walking
+home through the park.  "I don't want the fellow.  He looks
+down upon us country people as so many blackamoors.
+He's never content unless he gets my yellow-sealed wine,
+which costs me ten shillings a bottle, hang him! Besides,
+he's such an infernal character--he's a gambler--he's a
+drunkard--he's a profligate in every way.  He shot a man
+in a duel--he's over head and ears in debt, and he's
+robbed me and mine of the best part of Miss Crawley's
+fortune.  Waxy says she has him"--here the Rector shook
+his fist at the moon, with something very like an oath,
+and added, in a melancholious tone, "--, down in her will
+for fifty thousand; and there won't be above thirty to
+divide."
+  
+"I think she's going," said the Rector's wife.  "She was
+very red in the face when we left dinner.  I was obliged
+to unlace her."
+  
+"She drank seven glasses of champagne," said the
+reverend gentleman, in a low voice; "and filthy champagne
+it is, too, that my brother poisons us with--but you
+women never know what's what."
+  
+"We know nothing," said Mrs. Bute Crawley.
+  
+"She drank cherry-brandy after dinner," continued his
+Reverence, "and took curacao with her coffee.  I
+wouldn't take a glass for a five-pound note: it kills me
+with heartburn.  She can't stand it, Mrs. Crawley--she
+must go--flesh and blood won't bear it! and I lay five to
+two, Matilda drops in a year."
+  
+Indulging in these solemn speculations, and thinking
+about his debts, and his son Jim at College, and Frank at
+Woolwich, and the four girls, who were no beauties, poor
+things, and would not have a penny but what they got from
+the aunt's expected legacy, the Rector and his lady walked
+on for a while.
+  
+"Pitt can't be such an infernal villain as to sell the
+reversion of the living.  And that Methodist milksop of an
+eldest son looks to Parliament," continued Mr. Crawley,
+after a pause.
+  
+"Sir Pitt Crawley will do anything," said the Rector's
+wife.  "We must get Miss Crawley to make him promise it
+to James."
+  
+"Pitt will promise anything," replied the brother.  "He
+promised he'd pay my college bills, when my father died;
+he promised he'd build the new wing to the Rectory;
+he promised he'd let me have Jibb's field and the Six-
+acre Meadow--and much he executed his promises! And
+it's to this man's son--this scoundrel, gambler, swindler,
+murderer of a Rawdon Crawley, that Matilda leaves the
+bulk of her money.  I say it's un-Christian.  By Jove, it is.
+The infamous dog has got every vice except hypocrisy,
+and that belongs to his brother."
+  
+"Hush, my dearest love! we're in Sir Pitt's grounds,"
+interposed his wife.
+  
+"I say he has got every vice, Mrs. Crawley.  Don't
+Ma'am, bully me.  Didn't he shoot Captain Marker? Didn't
+he rob young Lord Dovedale at the Cocoa-Tree? Didn't
+he cross the fight between Bill Soames and the Cheshire
+Trump, by which I lost forty pound? You know he did;
+and as for the women, why, you heard that before me, in
+my own magistrate's room "
+  
+"For heaven's sake, Mr. Crawley," said the lady, "spare
+me the details."
+  
+"And you ask this villain into your house!" continued
+the exasperated Rector.  "You, the mother of a young
+family--the wife of a clergyman of the Church of
+England.  By Jove!"
+  
+"Bute Crawley, you are a fool," said the Rector's wife
+scornfully.
+  
+"Well, Ma'am, fool or not--and I don't say, Martha,
+I'm so clever as you are, I never did.  But I won't meet
+Rawdon Crawley, that's flat.  I'll go over to Huddleston,
+that I will, and see his black greyhound, Mrs. Crawley;
+and I'll run Lancelot against him for fifty.  By Jove, I will;
+or against any dog in England.  But I won't meet that
+beast Rawdon Crawley."
+
+"Mr. Crawley, you are intoxicated, as usual," replied
+his wife.  And the next morning, when the Rector woke,
+and called for small beer, she put him in mind of his
+promise to visit Sir Huddleston Fuddleston on Saturday,
+and as he knew he should have a wet night, it was agreed
+that he might gallop back again in time for church on
+Sunday morning.  Thus it will be seen that the parishioners
+of Crawley were equally happy in their Squire and in their
+Rector.
+  
+Miss Crawley had not long been established at the Hall
+before Rebecca's fascinations had won the heart of that
+good-natured London rake, as they had of the country
+innocents whom we have been describing.  Taking her
+accustomed drive, one day, she thought fit to order that
+"that little governess" should accompany her to Mudbury.
+Before they had returned Rebecca had made a conquest
+of her; having made her laugh four times, and amused her
+during the whole of the little journey.
+  
+"Not let Miss Sharp dine at table!" said she to Sir Pitt,
+who had arranged a dinner of ceremony, and asked all the
+neighbouring baronets.  "My dear creature, do you
+suppose I can talk about the nursery with Lady Fuddleston, or
+discuss justices' business with that goose, old Sir Giles
+Wapshot? I insist upon Miss Sharp appearing.  Let Lady
+Crawley remain upstairs, if there is no room.  But little
+Miss Sharp! Why, she's the only person fit to talk to in
+the county!"
+  
+Of course, after such a peremptory order as this, Miss
+Sharp, the governess, received commands to dine with the
+illustrious company below stairs.  And when Sir Huddleston
+had, with great pomp and ceremony, handed Miss
+Crawley in to dinner, and was preparing to take his
+place by her side, the old lady cried out, in a shrill
+voice, "Becky Sharp!  Miss Sharp!  Come you and sit by
+me and amuse me; and let Sir Huddleston sit by Lady
+Wapshot."
+  
+When the parties were over, and the carriages had
+rolled away, the insatiable Miss Crawley would say,
+"Come to my dressing room, Becky, and let us abuse the
+company"--which, between them, this pair of friends did
+perfectly.  Old Sir Huddleston wheezed a great deal at
+dinner; Sir Giles Wapshot had a particularly noisy manner
+of imbibing his soup, and her ladyship a wink of the left
+eye; all of which Becky caricatured to admiration; as well
+as the particulars of the night's conversation; the politics;
+the war; the quarter-sessions; the famous run with the
+H.H., and those heavy and dreary themes, about which
+country gentlemen converse.  As for the Misses Wapshot's
+toilettes and Lady Fuddleston's famous yellow hat, Miss
+Sharp tore them to tatters, to the infinite amusement
+of her audience.
+  
+"My dear, you are a perfect trouvaille," Miss Crawley
+would say.  "I wish you could come to me in London,
+but I couldn't make a butt of you as I do of poor Briggs
+no, no, you little sly creature; you are too clever--Isn't
+she, Firkin?"
+  
+Mrs. Firkin (who was dressing the very small
+remnant of hair which remained on Miss Crawley's pate),
+flung up her head and said, "I think Miss is very clever,"
+with the most killing sarcastic air.  In fact, Mrs. Firkin
+had that natural jealousy which is one of the main
+principles of every honest woman.
+  
+After rebuffing Sir Huddleston Fuddleston, Miss
+Crawley ordered that Rawdon Crawley should lead her in
+to dinner every day, and that Becky should follow with her
+cushion--or else she would have Becky's arm and
+Rawdon with the pillow.  "We must sit together," she said.
+"We're the only three Christians in the county, my love"
+--in which case, it must be confessed, that religion was
+at a very low ebb in the county of Hants.
+  
+Besides being such a fine religionist, Miss Crawley
+was, as we have said, an Ultra-liberal in opinions, and
+always took occasion to express these in the most candid
+manner.
+  
+"What is birth, my dear!" she would say to Rebecca--
+"Look at my brother Pitt; look at the Huddlestons, who
+have been here since Henry II; look at poor Bute at the
+parsonage--is any one of them equal to you in intelligence
+or breeding? Equal to you--they are not even equal to
+poor dear Briggs, my companion, or Bowls, my butler.
+You, my love, are a little paragon--positively a little
+jewel--You have more brains than half the shire--if
+merit had its reward you ought to be a Duchess--no,
+there ought to be no duchesses at all--but you ought to
+have no superior, and I consider you, my love, as my
+equal in every respect; and--will you put some coals on
+the fire, my dear; and will you pick this dress of mine, and
+alter it, you who can do it so well?" So this old philanthropist
+used to make her equal run of her errands, execute her
+millinery, and read her to sleep with French novels,
+every night.
+  
+At this time, as some old readers may recollect, the
+genteel world had been thrown into a considerable state
+of excitement by two events, which, as the papers say,
+might give employment to the gentlemen of the long robe.
+Ensign Shafton had run away with Lady Barbara Fitzurse,
+the Earl of Bruin's daughter and heiress; and poor Vere
+Vane, a gentleman who, up to forty, had maintained a
+most respectable character and reared a numerous family,
+suddenly and outrageously left his home, for the sake of
+Mrs. Rougemont, the actress, who was sixty-five years
+of age.
+  
+"That was the most beautiful part of dear Lord
+Nelson's character," Miss Crawley said.  "He went to the
+deuce for a woman.  There must be good in a man who will
+do that.  I adore all impudent matches.--What I like
+best, is for a nobleman to marry a miller's daughter, as
+Lord Flowerdale did--it makes all the women so angry
+--I wish some great man would run away with you, my
+dear; I'm sure you're pretty enough."
+  
+"Two post-boys!--Oh, it would be delightful!" Rebecca
+owned.
+  
+"And what I like next best, is for a poor fellow to run
+away with a rich girl.  I have set my heart on Rawdon
+running away with some one."
+  
+"A rich some one, or a poor some one?"
+  
+"Why, you goose! Rawdon has not a shilling but what I
+give him.  He is crible de dettes--he must repair his
+fortunes, and succeed in the world."
+  
+"Is he very clever?" Rebecca asked.
+  
+"Clever, my love?--not an idea in the world beyond his
+horses, and his regiment, and his hunting, and his play;
+but he must succeed--he's so delightfully wicked.  Don't
+you know he has hit a man, and shot an injured father
+through the hat only? He's adored in his regiment; and all
+the young men at Wattier's and the Cocoa-Tree swear by
+him."
+  
+When Miss Rebecca Sharp wrote to her beloved friend
+the account of the little ball at Queen's Crawley, and the
+manner in which, for the first time, Captain Crawley had
+distinguished her, she did not, strange to relate, give an
+altogether accurate account of the transaction.  The Captain
+had distinguished her a great number of times before.  The
+Captain had met her in a half-score of walks.  The Captain
+had lighted upon her in a half-hundred of corridors and
+passages.  The Captain had hung over her piano twenty
+times of an evening (my Lady was now upstairs, being ill,
+and nobody heeded her) as Miss Sharp sang.  The Captain had
+written her notes (the best that the great blundering
+dragoon could devise and spell; but dulness gets on
+as well as any other quality with women).  But when he
+put the first of the notes into the leaves of the song she
+was singing, the little governess, rising and looking him
+steadily in the face, took up the triangular missive daintily,
+and waved it about as if it were a cocked hat, and she,
+advancing to the enemy, popped the note into the fire, and
+made him a very low curtsey, and went back to her
+place, and began to sing away again more merrily than
+ever.
+  
+"What's that?" said Miss Crawley, interrupted in her
+after-dinner doze by the stoppage of the music.
+  
+"It's a false note," Miss Sharp said with a laugh; and
+Rawdon Crawley fumed with rage and mortification.
+  
+Seeing the evident partiality of Miss Crawley for the
+new governess, how good it was of Mrs. Bute Crawley not
+to be jealous, and to welcome the young lady to the
+Rectory, and not only her, but Rawdon Crawley, her
+husband's rival in the Old Maid's five per cents! They
+became very fond of each other's society, Mrs. Crawley
+and her nephew.  He gave up hunting; he declined
+entertainments at Fuddleston: he would not dine with the
+mess of the depot at Mudbury: his great pleasure was to stroll
+over to Crawley parsonage--whither Miss Crawley came
+too; and as their mamma was ill, why not the children
+with Miss Sharp? So the children (little dears!) came with
+Miss Sharp; and of an evening some of the party would
+walk back together.  Not Miss Crawley--she preferred her
+carriage--but the walk over the Rectory fields, and in at
+the little park wicket, and through the dark plantation,
+and up the checkered avenue to Queen's Crawley, was
+charming in the moonlight to two such lovers of the
+picturesque as the Captain and Miss Rebecca.
+  
+"O those stars, those stars!" Miss Rebecca would say,
+turning her twinkling green eyes up towards them.  "I
+feel myself almost a spirit when I gaze upon them."
+  
+"O--ah--Gad--yes, so do I exactly, Miss Sharp," the
+other enthusiast replied.  "You don't mind my cigar, do
+you, Miss Sharp?"  Miss Sharp loved the smell of a cigar
+out of doors beyond everything in the world--and she just
+tasted one too, in the prettiest way possible, and gave a
+little puff, and a little scream, and a little giggle, and
+restored the delicacy to the Captain, who twirled his
+moustache, and straightway puffed it into a blaze that
+glowed quite red in the dark plantation, and swore--"Jove
+--aw--Gad--aw--it's the finest segaw I ever smoked in
+the world aw," for his intellect and conversation were
+alike brilliant and becoming to a heavy young dragoon.
+  
+Old Sir Pitt, who was taking his pipe and beer, and
+talking to John Horrocks about a "ship" that was to be killed,
+espied the pair so occupied from his study-window, and
+with dreadful oaths swore that if it wasn't for Miss
+Crawley, he'd take Rawdon and bundle un out of doors, like a
+rogue as he was.
+  
+"He be a bad'n, sure enough," Mr. Horrocks remarked;
+"and his man Flethers is wuss, and have made such a row
+in the housekeeper's room about the dinners and hale, as
+no lord would make--but I think Miss Sharp's a match
+for'n, Sir Pitt," he added, after a pause.
+
+And so, in truth, she was--for father and son too.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+Quite a Sentimental Chapter
+
+We must now take leave of Arcadia, and those amiable
+people practising the rural virtues there, and travel back
+to London, to inquire what has become of Miss Amelia
+"We don't care a fig for her," writes some unknown
+correspondent with a pretty little handwriting and a pink seal
+to her note.  "She is fade and insipid," and adds some more
+kind remarks in this strain, which I should never have
+repeated at all, but that they are in truth prodigiously
+complimentary to the young lady whom they concern.
+  
+Has the beloved reader, in his experience of society,
+never heard similar remarks by good-natured female
+friends; who always wonder what you CAN see in Miss
+Smith that is so fascinating; or what COULD induce Major
+Jones to propose for that silly insignificant simpering Miss
+Thompson, who has nothing but her wax-doll face to
+recommend her? What is there in a pair of pink cheeks
+and blue eyes forsooth? these dear Moralists ask, and hint
+wisely that the gifts of genius, the accomplishments of the
+mind, the mastery of Mangnall's Questions, and a ladylike
+knowledge of botany and geology, the knack of making
+poetry, the power of rattling sonatas in the Herz-manner,
+and so forth, are far more valuable endowments for a
+female, than those fugitive charms which a few years will
+inevitably tarnish.  It is quite edifying to hear women
+speculate upon the worthlessness and the duration of
+beauty.
+  
+But though virtue is a much finer thing, and those
+hapless creatures who suffer under the misfortune of good
+looks ought to be continually put in mind of the fate
+which awaits them; and though, very likely, the heroic
+female character which ladies admire is a more glorious
+and beautiful object than the kind, fresh, smiling, artless,
+tender little domestic goddess, whom men are inclined
+to worship--yet the latter and inferior sort of women
+must have this consolation--that the men do admire them
+after all; and that, in spite of all our kind friends' warnings
+and protests, we go on in our desperate error and
+folly, and shall to the end of the chapter.  Indeed, for my
+own part, though I have been repeatedly told by persons
+for whom I have the greatest respect, that Miss Brown is
+an insignificant chit, and Mrs. White has nothing but her
+petit minois chiffonne, and Mrs. Black has not a word to
+say for herself; yet I know that I have had the most
+delightful conversations with Mrs. Black (of course, my
+dear Madam, they are inviolable): I see all the men in a
+cluster round Mrs. White's chair: all the young fellows
+battling to dance with Miss Brown; and so I am tempted
+to think that to be despised by her sex is a very great
+compliment to a woman.
+  
+The young ladies in Amelia's society did this for her
+very satisfactorily.  For instance, there was scarcely any
+point upon which the Misses Osborne, George's sisters,
+and the Mesdemoiselles Dobbin agreed so well as in their
+estimate of her very trifling merits: and their wonder that
+their brothers could find any charms in her.  "We are kind
+to her," the Misses Osborne said, a pair of fine black-
+browed young ladies who had had the best of governesses,
+masters, and milliners; and they treated her with
+such extreme kindness and condescension, and patronised
+her so insufferably, that the poor little thing was in fact
+perfectly dumb in their presence, and to all outward
+appearance as stupid as they thought her.  She made efforts
+to like them, as in duty bound, and as sisters of her
+future husband.  She passed "long mornings" with them
+--the most dreary and serious of forenoons.  She drove
+out solemnly in their great family coach with them, and
+Miss Wirt their governess, that raw-boned Vestal.  They
+took her to the ancient concerts by way of a treat, and
+to the oratorio, and to St. Paul's to see the charity
+children, where in such terror was she of her friends, she
+almost did not dare be affected by the hymn the children
+sang.  Their house was comfortable; their papa's table
+rich and handsome; their society solemn and genteel;
+their self-respect prodigious; they had the best pew at
+the Foundling: all their habits were pompous and orderly,
+and all their amusements intolerably dull and decorous.
+After every one of her visits (and oh how glad she was
+when they were over!) Miss Osborne and Miss Maria
+Osborne, and Miss Wirt, the vestal governess, asked each
+other with increased wonder, "What could George find in
+that creature?"
+  
+How is this? some carping reader exclaims.  How is it
+that Amelia, who had such a number of friends at
+school, and was so beloved there, comes out into the
+world and is spurned by her discriminating sex? My dear
+sir, there were no men at Miss Pinkerton's establishment
+except the old dancing-master; and you would not have
+had the girls fall out about HIM? When George, their
+handsome brother, ran off directly after breakfast, and
+dined from home half-a-dozen times a week, no wonder
+the neglected sisters felt a little vexation.  When young
+Bullock (of the firm of Hulker, Bullock & Co., Bankers,
+Lombard Street), who had been making up to Miss Maria
+the last two seasons, actually asked Amelia to dance the
+cotillon, could you expect that the former young lady
+should be pleased? And yet she said she was, like an
+artless forgiving creature.  "I'm so delighted you like dear
+Amelia," she said quite eagerly to Mr. Bullock after the
+dance.  "She's engaged to my brother George; there's not
+much in her, but she's the best-natured and most
+unaffected young creature: at home we're all so fond of her."
+Dear girl! who can calculate the depth of affection
+expressed in that enthusiastic SO?
+  
+Miss Wirt and these two affectionate young women so
+earnestly and frequently impressed upon George
+Osborne's mind the enormity of the sacrifice he was making,
+and his romantic generosity in throwing himself away
+upon Amelia, that I'm not sure but that he really thought
+he was one of the most deserving characters in the British
+army, and gave himself up to be loved with a good deal
+of easy resignation.
+  
+Somehow, although he left home every morning, as was
+stated, and dined abroad six days in the week, when his
+sisters believed the infatuated youth to be at Miss Sedley's
+apron-strings: he was NOT always with Amelia, whilst the
+world supposed him at her feet.  Certain it is that on more
+occasions than one, when Captain Dobbin called to look
+for his friend, Miss Osborne (who was very attentive to
+the Captain, and anxious to hear his military stories, and
+to know about the health of his dear Mamma), would
+laughingly point to the opposite side of the square, and
+say, "Oh, you must go to the Sedleys' to ask for George;
+WE never see him from morning till night." At which kind
+of speech the Captain would laugh in rather an absurd
+constrained manner, and turn off the conversation, like
+a consummate man of the world, to some topic of general
+interest, such as the Opera, the Prince's last ball at
+Carlton House, or the weather--that blessing to society.
+  
+"What an innocent it is, that pet of yours," Miss Maria
+would then say to Miss Jane, upon the Captain's
+departure.  "Did you see how he blushed at the mention of
+poor George on duty?"
+  
+"It's a pity Frederick Bullock hadn't some of his
+modesty, Maria," replies the elder sister, with a toss of he
+head.
+  
+"Modesty!  Awkwardness you mean, Jane.  I don't want
+Frederick to trample a hole in my muslin frock, as
+Captain Dobbin did in yours at Mrs. Perkins'."
+  
+"In YOUR frock, he, he!  How could he? Wasn't he
+dancing with Amelia?"
+  
+The fact is, when Captain Dobbin blushed so, and
+looked so awkward, he remembered a circumstance of
+which he did not think it was necessary to inform the
+young ladies, viz., that he had been calling at Mr. Sedley's
+house already, on the pretence of seeing George, of
+course, and George wasn't there, only poor little Amelia,
+with rather a sad wistful face, seated near the drawing-
+room window, who, after some very trifling stupid talk,
+ventured to ask, was there any truth in the report that
+the regiment was soon to be ordered abroad; and had
+Captain Dobbin seen Mr. Osborne that day?
+  
+The regiment was not ordered abroad as yet; and
+Captain Dobbin had not seen George.  "He was with his
+sister, most likely," the Captain said.  "Should he go and
+fetch the truant?"  So she gave him her hand kindly and
+gratefully: and he crossed the square; and she waited
+and waited, but George never came.
+  
+Poor little tender heart! and so it goes on hoping and
+beating, and longing and trusting.  You see it is not much
+of a life to describe.  There is not much of what you call
+incident in it.  Only one feeling all day--when will he
+come? only one thought to sleep and wake upon.  I 
+believe George was playing billiards with Captain Cannon
+in Swallow Street at the time when Amelia was asking
+Captain Dobbin about him; for George was a jolly
+sociable fellow, and excellent in all games of skill.
+  
+Once, after three days of absence, Miss Amelia put on
+her bonnet, and actually invaded the Osborne house.
+"What! leave our brother to come to us?" said the young
+ladies.  "Have you had a quarrel, Amelia? Do tell us!"
+No, indeed, there had been no quarrel.  "Who could
+quarrel with him?" says she, with her eyes filled with tears.
+She only came over to--to see her dear friends; they had
+not met for so long.  And this day she was so perfectly
+stupid and awkward, that the Misses Osborne and their
+governess, who stared after her as she went sadly away,
+wondered more than ever what George could see in poor
+little Amelia.
+  
+Of course they did.  How was she to bare that timid
+little heart for the inspection of those young ladies with
+their bold black eyes? It was best that it should shrink
+and hide itself.  I know the Misses Osborne were excellent
+critics of a Cashmere shawl, or a pink satin slip; and
+when Miss Turner had hers dyed purple, and made into
+a spencer; and when Miss Pickford had her ermine
+tippet twisted into a muff and trimmings, I warrant you the
+changes did not escape the two intelligent young women
+before mentioned.  But there are things, look you, of a
+finer texture than fur or satin, and all Solomon's glories,
+and all the wardrobe of the Queen of Sheba--things
+whereof the beauty escapes the eyes of many
+connoisseurs.  And there are sweet modest little souls on
+which you light, fragrant and blooming tenderly in quiet shady
+places; and there are garden-ornaments, as big as brass
+warming-pans, that are fit to stare the sun itself out of
+countenance.  Miss Sedley was not of the sunflower sort;
+and I say it is out of the rules of all proportion to draw
+a violet of the size of a double dahlia.
+  
+No, indeed; the life of a good young girl who is in the
+paternal nest as yet, can't have many of those thrilling
+incidents to which the heroine of romance commonly lays
+claim.  Snares or shot may take off the old birds foraging
+without--hawks may be abroad, from which they escape
+or by whom they suffer; but the young ones in the nest
+have a pretty comfortable unromantic sort of existence
+in the down and the straw, till it comes to their turn,
+too, to get on the wing.  While Becky Sharp was on her
+own wing in the country, hopping on all sorts of twigs,
+and amid a multiplicity of traps, and pecking up her food
+quite harmless and successful, Amelia lay snug in her
+home of Russell Square; if she went into the world, it
+was under the guidance of the elders; nor did it seem
+that any evil could befall her or that opulent cheery
+comfortable home in which she was affectionately sheltered.
+Mamma had her morning duties, and her daily drive,
+and the delightful round of visits and shopping which
+forms the amusement, or the profession as you may call
+it, of the rich London lady.  Papa conducted his
+mysterious operations in the City--a stirring place in those
+days, when war was raging all over Europe, and empires
+were being staked; when the "Courier" newspaper had
+tens of thousands of subscribers; when one day brought
+you a battle of Vittoria, another a burning of Moscow, or
+a newsman's horn blowing down Russell Square about
+dinner-time, announced such a fact as--"Battle of
+Leipsic--six hundred thousand men engaged--total
+defeat of the French--two hundred thousand killed." Old
+Sedley once or twice came home with a very grave face;
+and no wonder, when such news as this was agitating all
+the hearts and all the Stocks of Europe.
+  
+Meanwhile matters went on in Russell Square, Bloomsbury,
+just as if matters in Europe were not in the least
+disorganised.  The retreat from Leipsic made no
+difference in the number of meals Mr. Sambo took in the
+servants' hall; the allies poured into France, and the
+dinner-belI rang at five o'clock just as usual.  I don't think
+poor Amelia cared anything about Brienne and Montmirail,
+or was fairly interested in the war until the abdication
+of the Emperor; when she clapped her hands and said
+prayers--oh, how grateful! and flung herself into George
+Osborne's arms with all her soul, to the astonishment of
+everybody who witnessed that ebullition of sentiment.
+The fact is, peace was declared, Europe was going to be
+at rest; the Corsican was overthrown, and Lieutenant
+Osborne's regiment would not be ordered on service.  That
+was the way in which Miss Amelia reasoned.  The fate of
+Europe was Lieutenant George Osborne to her.  His
+dangers being over, she sang Te Deum.  He was her Europe:
+her emperor: her allied monarchs and august prince
+regent.  He was her sun and moon; and I believe she
+thought the grand illumination and ball at the Mansion
+House, given to the sovereigns, were especially in honour
+of George Osborne.
+
+  
+We have talked of shift, self, and poverty, as those
+dismal instructors under whom poor Miss Becky Sharp
+got her education.  Now, love was Miss Amelia Sedley's
+last tutoress, and it was amazing what progress our young
+lady made under that popular teacher.  In the course of
+fifteen or eighteen months' daily and constant attention to
+this eminent finishing governess, what a deal of secrets
+Amelia learned, which Miss Wirt and the black-eyed
+young ladies over the way, which old Miss Pinkerton of
+Chiswick herself, had no cognizance of!  As, indeed, how
+should any of those prim and reputable virgins?  With
+Misses P. and W. the tender passion is out of the
+question: I would not dare to breathe such an idea regarding
+them.  Miss Maria Osborne, it is true, was "attached" to
+Mr. Frederick Augustus Bullock, of the firm of Hulker,
+Bullock & Bullock; but hers was a most respectable
+attachment, and she would have taken Bullock Senior just
+the same, her mind being fixed--as that of a well-bred
+young woman should be--upon a house in Park Lane,
+a country house at Wimbledon, a handsome chariot, and
+two prodigious tall horses and footmen, and a fourth of
+the annual profits of the eminent firm of Hulker &
+Bullock, all of which advantages were represented in the
+person of Frederick Augustus.  Had orange blossoms been
+invented then (those touching emblems of female purity
+imported by us from France, where people's daughters
+are universally sold in marriage), Miss Maria, I say,
+would have assumed the spotless wreath, and stepped into
+the travelling carriage by the side of gouty, old, bald-
+headed, bottle-nosed Bullock Senior; and devoted her
+beautiful existence to his happiness with perfect modesty
+--only the old gentleman was married already; so she
+bestowed her young affections on the junior partner.
+Sweet, blooming, orange flowers!  The other day I saw
+Miss Trotter (that was), arrayed in them, trip into the
+travelling carriage at St. George's, Hanover Square, and
+Lord Methuselah hobbled in after.  With what an engaging
+modesty she pulled down the blinds of the chariot--the
+dear innocent!  There were half the carriages of Vanity
+Fair at the wedding.
+  
+This was not the sort of love that finished Amelia's
+education; and in the course of a year turned a good young
+girl into a good young woman--to be a good wife
+presently, when the happy time should come.  This young
+person (perhaps it was very imprudent in her parents to
+encourage her, and abet her in such idolatry and silly
+romantic ideas) loved, with all her heart, the young
+officer in His Majesty's service with whom we have made a
+brief acquaintance.  She thought about him the very first
+moment on waking; and his was the very last name
+mentioned m her prayers.  She never had seen a man so
+beautiful or so clever: such a figure on horseback: such
+a dancer: such a hero in general.  Talk of the Prince's
+bow! what was it to George's? She had seen Mr.
+Brummell, whom everybody praised so.  Compare such a person
+as that to her George! Not amongst all the beaux at the
+Opera (and there were beaux in those days with actual
+opera hats) was there any one to equal him.  He was only
+good enough to be a fairy prince; and oh, what
+magnanimity to stoop to such a humble Cinderella!  Miss
+Pinkerton would have tried to check this blind devotion
+very likely, had she been Amelia's confidante; but not
+with much success, depend upon it.  It is in the nature and
+instinct of some women.  Some are made to scheme, and
+some to love; and I wish any respected bachelor that
+reads this may take the sort that best likes him.
+  
+While under this overpowering impression, Miss Amelia
+neglected her twelve dear friends at Chiswick most
+cruelly, as such selfish people commonly will do.  She had
+but this subject, of course, to think about; and Miss
+Saltire was too cold for a confidante, and she couldn't
+bring her mind to tell Miss Swartz, the woolly-haired
+young heiress from St. Kitt's.  She had little Laura Martin
+home for the holidays; and my belief is, she made a
+confidante of her, and promised that Laura should come
+and live with her when she was married, and gave Laura
+a great deal of information regarding the passion of
+love, which must have been singularly useful and novel
+to that little person.  Alas, alas!  I fear poor Emmy had
+not a well-regulated mind.
+  
+What were her parents doing, not to keep this little
+heart from beating so fast?  Old Sedley did not seem much
+to notice matters.  He was graver of late, and his City
+affairs absorbed him.  Mrs. Sedley was of so easy and
+uninquisitive a nature that she wasn't even jealous.  Mr.
+Jos was away, being besieged by an Irish widow at
+Cheltenham.  Amelia had the house to herself--ah! too
+much to herself sometimes--not that she ever doubted;
+for, to be sure, George must be at the Horse Guards;
+and he can't always get leave from Chatham; and he must
+see his friends and sisters, and mingle in society when
+in town (he, such an ornament to every society!); and
+when he is with the regiment, he is too tired to write long
+letters.  I know where she kept that packet she had--and
+can steal in and out of her chamber like Iachimo--like
+Iachimo?  No--that is a bad part.  I will only act
+Moonshine, and peep harmless into the bed where faith and
+beauty and innocence lie dreaming.
+  
+But if Osborne's were short and soldierlike letters, it
+must be confessed, that were Miss Sedley's letters to Mr.
+Osborne to be published, we should have to extend this
+novel to such a multiplicity of volumes as not the most
+sentimental reader could support; that she not only filled
+sheets of large paper, but crossed them with the most
+astonishing perverseness; that she wrote whole pages out
+of poetry-books without the least pity; that she
+underlined words and passages with quite a frantic emphasis;
+and, in fine, gave the usual tokens of her condition.  She
+wasn't a heroine.  Her letters were full of repetition.  She
+wrote rather doubtful grammar sometimes, and in her
+verses took all sorts of liberties with the metre.  But oh,
+mesdames, if you are not allowed to touch the heart
+sometimes in spite of syntax, and are not to be loved
+until you all know the difference between trimeter and
+tetrameter, may all Poetry go to the deuce, and every
+schoolmaster perish miserably!
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+Sentimental and Otherwise
+
+I fear the gentleman to whom Miss Amelia's letters were
+addressed was rather an obdurate critic.  Such a number
+of notes followed Lieutenant Osborne about the country,
+that he became almost ashamed of the jokes of his
+mess-room companions regarding them, and ordered his
+servant never to deliver them except at his private apartment.
+He was seen lighting his cigar with one, to the horror of
+Captain Dobbin, who, it is my belief, would have given
+a bank-note for the document.
+  
+For some time George strove to keep the liaison a
+secret.  There was a woman in the case, that he admitted.
+"And not the first either," said Ensign Spooney to Ensign
+Stubble.  "That Osborne's a devil of a fellow.  There was a
+judge's daughter at Demerara went almost mad about
+him; then there was that beautiful quadroon girl, Miss
+Pye, at St. Vincent's, you know; and since he's been
+home, they say he's a regular Don Giovanni, by Jove."
+  
+Stubble and Spooney thought that to be a "regular
+Don Giovanni, by Jove" was one of the finest qualities a
+man could possess, and Osborne's reputation was
+prodigious amongst the young men of the regiment.  He
+was famous in field-sports, famous at a song, famous on
+parade; free with his money, which was bountifully
+supplied by his father.  His coats were better made than
+any man's in the regiment, and he had more of them.  He
+was adored by the men.  He could drink more than any
+officer of the whole mess, including old Heavytop, the
+colonel.  He could spar better than Knuckles, the private
+(who would have been a corporal but for his drunkenness,
+and who had been in the prize-ring); and was the best
+batter and bowler, out and out, of the regimental club.
+He rode his own horse, Greased Lightning, and won the
+Garrison cup at Quebec races.  There were other people
+besides Amelia who worshipped him.  Stubble and
+Spooney thought him a sort of Apollo; Dobbin took him
+to be an Admirable Crichton; and Mrs. Major O'Dowd
+acknowledged he was an elegant young fellow, and put
+her in mind of Fitzjurld Fogarty, Lord Castlefogarty's
+second son.
+  
+Well, Stubble and Spooney and the rest indulged in
+most romantic conjectures regarding this female
+correspondent of Osborne's--opining that it was a Duchess in
+London who was in love with him--or that it was a
+General's daughter, who was engaged to somebody else,
+and madly attached to him--or that it was a Member of
+Parliament's lady, who proposed four horses and an
+elopement--or that it was some other victim of a passion
+delightfully exciting, romantic, and disgraceful to all
+parties, on none of which conjectures would Osborne throw
+the least light, leaving his young admirers and friends to
+invent and arrange their whole history.
+  
+And the real state of the case would never have been
+known at all in the regiment but for Captain Dobbin's
+indiscretion.  The Captain was eating his breakfast one
+day in the mess-room, while Cackle, the assistant-surgeon,
+and the two above-named worthies were speculating upon
+Osborne's intrigue--Stubble holding out that the lady
+was a Duchess about Queen Charlotte's court, and Cackle
+vowing she was an opera-singer of the worst reputation.
+At this idea Dobbin became so moved, that though his
+mouth was full of eggs and bread-and-butter at the time,
+and though he ought not to have spoken at all, yet he
+couldn't help blurting out, "Cackle, you're a stupid fool.
+You're always talking nonsense and scandal.  Osborne is
+not going to run off with a Duchess or ruin a milliner.
+Miss Sedley is one of the most charming young women
+that ever lived.  He's been engaged to her ever so long;
+and the man who calls her names had better not do so
+in my hearing." With which, turning exceedingly red,
+Dobbin ceased speaking, and almost choked himself with
+a cup of tea.  The story was over the regiment in half-an-
+hour; and that very evening Mrs. Major O'Dowd wrote
+off to her sister Glorvina at O'Dowdstown not to hurry
+from Dublin--young Osborne being prematurely engaged
+already.
+  
+She complimented the Lieutenant in an appropriate
+speech over a glass of whisky-toddy that evening, and he
+went home perfectly furious to quarrel with Dobbin (who
+had declined Mrs. Major O'Dowd's party, and sat in his
+own room playing the flute, and, I believe, writing poetry
+in a very melancholy manner)--to quarrel with Dobbin
+for betraying his secret.
+  
+"Who the deuce asked you to talk about my affairs?"
+Osborne shouted indignantly.  "Why the devil is all the
+regiment to know that I am going to be married? Why is
+that tattling old harridan, Peggy O'Dowd, to make free
+with my name at her d--d supper-table, and advertise
+my engagement over the three kingdoms? After all, what
+right have you to say I am engaged, or to meddle in my
+business at all, Dobbin?"
+  
+"It seems to me," Captain Dobbin began.
+  
+"Seems be hanged, Dobbin," his junior interrupted
+him.  "I am under obligations to you, I know it, a d--d
+deal too well too; but I won't be always sermonised by
+you because you're five years my senior.  I'm hanged if
+I'll stand your airs of superiority and infernal pity and
+patronage.  Pity and patronage! I should like to know in
+what I'm your inferior?"
+  
+"Are you engaged?" Captain Dobbin interposed.
+  
+"What the devil's that to you or any one here if I am?"
+  
+"Are you ashamed of it?" Dobbin resumed.
+  
+"What right have you to ask me that question, sir? I
+should like to know," George said.
+  
+"Good God, you don't mean to say you want to break
+off?" asked Dobbin, starting up.
+  
+"In other words, you ask me if I'm a man of honour,"
+said Osborne, fiercely; "is that what you mean? You've
+adopted such a tone regarding me lately that I'm --
+if I'll bear it any more."
+  
+"What have I done? I've told you you were neglecting
+a sweet girl, George.  I've told you that when you go to
+town you ought to go to her, and not to the gambling-
+houses about St. James's."
+  
+"You want your money back, I suppose," said George,
+with a sneer.
+  
+"Of course I do--I always did, didn't I?" says Dobbin.
+"You speak like a generous fellow."
+  
+"No, hang it, William, I beg your pardon"--here
+George interposed in a fit of remorse; "you have been my
+friend in a hundred ways, Heaven knows.  You've got me
+out of a score of scrapes.  When Crawley of the Guards
+won that sum of money of me I should have been done
+but for you: I know I should.  But you shouldn't deal so
+hardly with me; you shouldn't be always catechising me.
+I am very fond of Amelia; I adore her, and that sort of
+thing.  Don't look angry.  She's faultless; I know she is.
+But you see there's no fun in winning a thing unless you
+play for it.  Hang it: the regiment's just back from the
+West Indies, I must have a little fling, and then when I'm
+married I'll reform; I will upon my honour, now.  And--I
+say--Dob--don't be angry with me, and I'll give you a
+hundred next month, when I know my father will stand
+something handsome; and I'll ask Heavytop for leave,
+and I'll go to town, and see Amelia to-morrow--there
+now, will that satisfy you?"
+  
+"It is impossible to be long angry with you, George,"
+said the good-natured Captain; "and as for the money,
+old boy, you know if I wanted it you'd share your last
+shilling with me."
+  
+"That I would, by Jove, Dobbin," George said, with
+the greatest generosity, though by the way he never had
+any money to spare.
+  
+"Only I wish you had sown those wild oats of yours,
+George.  If you could have seen poor little Miss Emmy's
+face when she asked me about you the other day, you
+would have pitched those billiard-balls to the deuce.  Go
+and comfort her, you rascal.  Go and write her a long
+letter.  Do something to make her happy; a very little will."
+  
+"I believe she's d--d fond of me," the Lieutenant said,
+with a self-satisfied air; and went off to finish the evening
+with some jolly fellows in the mess-room.
+  
+Amelia meanwhile, in Russell Square, was looking at
+the moon, which was shining upon that peaceful spot, as
+well as upon the square of the Chatham barracks, where
+Lieutenant Osborne was quartered, and thinking to
+herself how her hero was employed.  Perhaps he is visiting
+the sentries, thought she; perhaps he is bivouacking;
+perhaps he is attending the couch of a wounded comrade, or
+studying the art of war up in his own desolate chamber.
+And her kind thoughts sped away as if they were angels
+and had wings, and flying down the river to Chatham
+and Rochester, strove to peep into the barracks where
+George was. . . . All things considered, I think it was
+as well the gates were shut, and the sentry allowed no
+one to pass; so that the poor little white-robed angel
+could not hear the songs those young fellows were
+roaring over the whisky-punch.
+  
+The day after the little conversation at Chatham
+barracks, young Osborne, to show that he would be as good
+as his word, prepared to go to town, thereby incurring
+Captain Dobbin's applause.  "I should have liked to make her
+a little present," Osborne said to his friend in confidence,
+"only I am quite out of cash until my father tips up." But
+Dobbin would not allow this good nature and generosity
+to be balked, and so accommodated Mr. Osborne with a
+few pound notes, which the latter took after a little faint
+scruple.
+  
+And I dare say he would have bought something very
+handsome for Amelia; only, getting off the coach in Fleet
+Street, he was attracted by a handsome shirt-pin in a
+jeweller's window, which he could not resist; and having
+paid for that, had very little money to spare for indulging
+in any further exercise of kindness.  Never mind: you may
+be sure it was not his presents Amelia wanted.  When he
+came to Russell Square, her face lighted up as if he had
+been sunshine.  The little cares, fears, tears, timid
+misgivings, sleepless fancies of I don't know how many days
+and nights, were forgotten, under one moment's influence
+of that familiar, irresistible smile.  He beamed on her
+from the drawing-room door--magnificent, with
+ambrosial whiskers, like a god.  Sambo, whose face as he
+announced Captain Osbin (having conferred a brevet rank
+on that young officer) blazed with a sympathetic grin, saw
+the little girl start, and flush, and jump up from her
+watching-place in the window; and Sambo retreated: and
+as soon as the door was shut, she went fluttering to
+Lieutenant George Osborne's heart as if it was the only natural
+home for her to nestle in.  Oh, thou poor panting little
+soul!  The very finest tree in the whole forest, with the
+straightest stem, and the strongest arms, and the
+thickest foliage, wherein you choose to build and coo, may
+be marked, for what you know, and may be down with a
+crash ere long.  What an old, old simile that is, between
+man and timber!
+  
+In the meanwhile, George kissed her very kindly on
+her forehead and glistening eyes, and was very gracious
+and good; and she thought his diamond shirt-pin (which
+she had not known him to wear before) the prettiest
+ornament ever seen.
+
+The observant reader, who has marked our young
+Lieutenant's previous behaviour, and has preserved our
+report of the brief conversation which he has just had
+with Captain Dobbin, has possibly come to certain
+conclusions regarding the character of Mr. Osborne.  Some
+cynical Frenchman has said that there are two parties to
+a love-transaction: the one who loves and the other who
+condescends to be so treated.  Perhaps the love is
+occasionally on the man's side; perhaps on the lady's.
+Perhaps some infatuated swain has ere this mistaken
+insensibility for modesty, dulness for maiden reserve, mere
+vacuity for sweet bashfulness, and a goose, in a word,
+for a swan.  Perhaps some beloved female subscriber has
+arrayed an ass in the splendour and glory of her
+imagination; admired his dulness as manly simplicity;
+worshipped his selfishness as manly superiority; treated his
+stupidity as majestic gravity, and used him as the
+brilliant fairy Titania did a certain weaver at Athens.  I think
+I have seen such comedies of errors going on in the
+world.  But this is certain, that Amelia believed her lover
+to be one of the most gallant and brilliant men in the
+empire: and it is possible Lieutenant Osborne thought
+so too.
+
+He was a little wild: how many young men are; and
+don't girls like a rake better than a milksop?  He hadn't
+sown his wild oats as yet, but he would soon: and quit
+the army now that peace was proclaimed; the Corsican
+monster locked up at Elba; promotion by consequence
+over; and no chance left for the display of his undoubted
+military talents and valour: and his allowance, with
+Amelia's settlement, would enable them to take a snug
+place in the country somewhere, in a good sporting
+neighbourhood; and he would hunt a little, and farm a
+little; and they would be very happy.  As for remaining
+in the army as a married man, that was impossible.
+Fancy Mrs. George Osborne in lodgings in a county
+town; or, worse still, in the East or West Indies, with a
+society of officers, and patronized by Mrs. Major O'Dowd!
+Amelia died with laughing at Osborne's stories about
+Mrs. Major O'Dowd.  He loved her much too fondly to
+subject her to that horrid woman and her vulgarities,
+and the rough treatment of a soldier's wife.  He didn't
+care for himself--not he; but his dear little girl should
+take the place in society to which, as his wife, she was
+entitled: and to these proposals you may be sure she
+acceded, as she would to any other from the same author.
+   
+Holding this kind of conversation, and building
+numberless castles in the air (which Amelia adorned with all
+sorts of flower-gardens, rustic walks, country churches,
+Sunday schools, and the like; while George had his
+mind's eye directed to the stables, the kennel, and the
+cellar), this young pair passed away a couple of hours
+very pleasantly; and as the Lieutenant had only that
+single day in town, and a great deal of most important
+business to transact, it was proposed that Miss Emmy should
+dine with her future sisters-in-law.  This invitation was
+accepted joyfully.  He conducted her to his sisters; where
+he left her talking and prattling in a way that astonished
+those ladies, who thought that George might make
+something of her; and he then went off to transact
+his business.
+   
+In a word, he went out and ate ices at a pastry-cook's
+shop in Charing Cross; tried a new coat in Pall Mall;
+dropped in at the Old Slaughters', and called for Captain
+Cannon; played eleven games at billiards with the
+Captain, of which he won eight, and returned to Russell
+Square half an hour late for dinner, but in very good
+humour.
+
+It was not so with old Mr. Osborne.  When that
+gentleman came from the City, and was welcomed in the
+drawing-room by his daughters and the elegant Miss
+Wirt, they saw at once by his face--which was puffy,
+solemn, and yellow at the best of times--and by the
+scowl and twitching of his black eyebrows, that the heart
+within his large white waistcoat was disturbed and
+uneasy.  When Amelia stepped forward to salute him, which
+she always did with great trembling and timidity, he gave
+a surly grunt of recognition, and dropped the little hand
+out of his great hirsute paw without any attempt to hold
+it there.  He looked round gloomily at his eldest daughter; who, comprehending the meaning of his look, which
+asked unmistakably, "Why the devil is she here?" said
+at once:
+  
+"George is in town, Papa; and has gone to the Horse
+Guards, and will be back to dinner."
+  
+"O he is, is he? I won't have the dinner kept waiting
+for him, Jane"; with which this worthy man lapsed into
+his particular chair, and then the utter silence in his
+genteel, well-furnished drawing-room was only
+interrupted by the alarmed ticking of the great French clock.
+  
+When that chronometer, which was surmounted by a
+cheerful brass group of the sacrifice of Iphigenia, tolled
+five in a heavy cathedral tone, Mr. Osborne pulled the
+bell at his right hand-violently, and the butler rushed up.
+  
+"Dinner!" roared Mr. Osborne.
+  
+"Mr. George isn't come in, sir," interposed the man.
+  
+"Damn Mr. George, sir.  Am I master of the house?
+DINNER!~ Mr. Osborne scowled.  Amelia trembled.  A
+telegraphic communication of eyes passed between the other
+three ladies.  The obedient bell in the lower regions began
+ringing the announcement of the meal.  The tolling over,
+the head of the family thrust his hands into the great
+tail-pockets of his great blue coat with brass buttons, and
+without waiting for a further announcement strode
+downstairs alone, scowling over his shoulder at the four
+females.
+  
+"What's the matter now, my dear?" asked one of the
+other, as they rose and tripped gingerly behind the sire.
+  
+"I suppose the funds are falling," whispered Miss Wirt;
+and so, trembling and in silence, this hushed female
+company followed their dark leader.  They took their places
+in silence.  He growled out a blessing, which sounded as
+gruffly as a curse.  The great silver dish-covers were
+removed.  Amelia trembled in her place, for she was next
+to the awful Osborne, and alone on her side of the table
+--the gap being occasioned by the absence of George.
+  
+"Soup?" says Mr. Osborne, clutching the ladle, fixing
+his eyes on her, in a sepulchral tone; and having helped
+her and the rest, did not speak for a while.
+  
+"Take Miss Sedley's plate away," at last he said.  "She
+can't eat the soup--no more can I.  It's beastly.  Take away
+the soup, Hicks, and to-morrow turn the cook out of
+the house, Jane."
+  
+Having concluded his observations upon the soup, Mr.
+Osborne made a few curt remarks respecting the fish,
+also of a savage and satirical tendency, and cursed
+Billingsgate with an emphasis quite worthy of the place.
+Then he lapsed into silence, and swallowed sundry
+glasses of wine, looking more and more terrible, till a
+brisk knock at the door told of George's arrival when
+everybody began to rally.
+  
+"He could not come before.  General Daguilet had kept
+him waiting at the Horse Guards.  Never mind soup or
+fish.  Give him anything--he didn't care what.  Capital
+mutton--capital everything." His good humour contrasted
+with his father's severity; and he rattled on unceasingly
+during dinner, to the delight of all--of one especially,
+who need not be mentioned.
+  
+As soon as the young ladies had discussed the orange
+and the glass of wine which formed the ordinary
+conclusion of the dismal banquets at Mr. Osborne's house,
+the signal to make sail for the drawing-room was given,
+and they all arose and departed.  Amelia hoped George
+would soon join them there.  She began playing some of
+his favourite waltzes (then newly imported) at the great
+carved-legged, leather-cased grand piano in the drawing-
+room overhead.  This little artifice did not bring him.  He
+was deaf to the waltzes; they grew fainter and fainter;
+the discomfited performer left the huge instrument
+presently; and though her three friends performed some of
+the loudest and most brilliant new pieces of their
+repertoire, she did not hear a single note, but sate thinking,
+and boding evil.  Old Osborne's scowl, terrific always, had
+never before looked so deadly to her.  His eyes followed
+her out of the room, as if she had been guilty of something.
+When they brought her coffee, she started as
+though it were a cup of poison which Mr. Hicks, the
+butler, wished to propose to her.  What mystery was
+there lurking? Oh, those women!  They nurse and cuddle
+their presentiments, and make darlings of their ugliest
+thoughts, as they do of their deformed children.
+  
+The gloom on the paternal countenance had also
+impressed George Osborne with anxiety.  With such
+eyebrows, and a look so decidedly bilious, how was he to
+extract that money from the governor, of which George
+was consumedly in want? He began praising his father's
+wine.  That was generally a successful means of cajoling
+the old gentleman.
+  
+"We never got such Madeira in the West Indies, sir, as
+yours.  Colonel Heavytop took off three bottles of that you
+sent me down, under his belt the other day."
+  
+"Did he?" said the old gentleman.  "It stands me in
+eight shillings a bottle."
+  
+"Will you take six guineas a dozen for it, sir?" said
+George, with a laugh.  "There's one of the greatest men in
+the kingdom wants some."
+  
+"Does he?" growled the senior.  "Wish he may get it."
+  
+"When General Daguilet was at Chatham, sir, Heavytop
+gave him a breakfast, and asked me for some of the
+wine.  The General liked it just as well--wanted a pipe
+for the Commander-in-Chief.  He's his Royal Highness's
+right-hand man."
+  
+"It is devilish fine wine," said the Eyebrows, and they
+looked more good-humoured; and George was going to
+take advantage of this complacency, and bring the
+supply question on the mahogany, when the father, relapsing
+into solemnity, though rather cordial in manner, bade
+him ring the bell for claret.  "And we'll see if that's as
+good as the Madeira, George, to which his Royal
+Highness is welcome, I'm sure.  And as we are drinking it,
+I'll talk to you about a matter of importance."
+  
+Amelia heard the claret bell ringing as she sat
+nervously upstairs.  She thought, somehow, it was a
+mysterious and presentimental bell.  Of the presentiments
+which some people are always having, some surely
+must come right.
+  
+"What I want to know, George," the old gentleman
+said, after slowly smacking his first bumper--"what I
+want to know is, how you and--ah--that little thing
+upstairs, are carrying on?"
+  
+"I think, sir, it is not hard to see," George said, with a
+self-satisfied grin.  "Pretty clear, sir.--What capital wine!"
+  
+"What d'you mean, pretty clear, sir?"
+  
+"Why, hang it, sir, don't push me too hard.  I'm a
+modest man.  I--ah--I don't set up to be a lady-killer;
+but I do own that she's as devilish fond of me as she
+can be.  Anybody can see that with half an eye."
+  
+"And you yourself?"
+  
+"Why, sir, didn't you order me to marry her, and ain't
+I a good boy? Haven't our Papas settled it ever so long?"
+  
+"A pretty boy, indeed.  Haven't I heard of your doings,
+sir, with Lord Tarquin, Captain Crawley of the Guards,
+~the Honourable Mr. Deuceace and that set.  Have a care
+sir, have a care."
+  
+The old gentleman pronounced these aristocratic
+names with the greatest gusto.  Whenever he met a great
+man he grovelled before him, and my-lorded him as only
+a free-born Briton can do.  He came home and looked
+out his history in the Peerage: he introduced his name
+into his daily conversation; he bragged about his
+Lordship to his daughters.  He fell down prostrate and basked
+in him as a Neapolitan beggar does in the sun.  George
+was alarmed when he heard the names.  He feared his
+father might have been informed of certain transactions
+at play.  But the old moralist eased him by saying
+serenely:
+  
+"Well, well, young men will be young men.  And the
+comfort to me is, George, that living in the best society
+in England, as I hope you do; as I think you do; as my
+means will allow you to do--"
+
+"Thank you, sir," says George, making his point at
+once.  "One can't live with these great folks for nothing;
+and my purse, sir, look at it"; and he held up a little
+token which had been netted by Amelia, and contained
+the very last of Dobbin's pound notes.
+ 
+"You shan't want, sir.  The British merchant's son
+shan't want, sir.  My guineas are as good as theirs,
+George, my boy; and I don't grudge 'em.  Call on Mr.
+Chopper as you go through the City to-morrow; he'll
+have something for you.  I don't grudge money when I
+know you're in good society, because I know that good
+society can never go wrong.  There's no pride in me.  I
+was a humbly born man--but you have had advantages.
+Make a good use of 'em.  Mix with the young nobility.
+There's many of 'em who can't spend a dollar to your
+guinea, my boy.  And as for the pink bonnets (here from
+under the heavy eyebrows there came a knowing and not
+very pleasing leer)--why boys will be boys.  Only there's
+one thing I order you to avoid, which, if you do not, I'll
+cut you off with a shilling, by Jove; and that's gambling,
+
+ 
+"Oh, of course, sir," said George.
+  
+"But to return to the other business about Amelia:
+why shouldn't you marry higher than a stockbroker's
+daughter, George--that's what I want to know?"
+  
+"It's a family business, sir,".says George, cracking
+filberts.  "You and Mr. Sedley made the match a hundred
+years ago."
+ 
+"I don't deny it; but people's positions alter, sir.  I don't
+deny that Sedley made my fortune, or rather put me in
+the way of acquiring, by my own talents and genius, that
+proud position, which, I may say, I occupy in the tallow
+trade and the City of London.  I've shown my gratitude
+to Sedley; and he's tried it of late, sir, as my cheque-book
+can show.  George!  I tell you in confidence I don't
+like the looks of Mr. Sedley's affairs.  My chief clerk,
+Mr. Chopper, does not like the looks of 'em, and he's an
+old file, and knows 'Change as well as any man in
+London.  Hulker & Bullock are looking shy at him.  He's been
+dabbling on his own account I fear.  They say the Jeune
+Amelie was his, which was taken by the Yankee
+privateer Molasses.  And that's flat--unless I see Amelia's ten
+thousand down you don't marry her.  I'll have no lame
+duck's daughter in my family.  Pass the wine, sir--or
+ring for coffee."
+  
+With which Mr. Osborne spread out the evening
+paper, and George knew from this signal that the
+colloquy was ended, and that his papa was about to
+take a nap.
+  
+He hurried upstairs to Amelia in the highest spirits.
+What was it that made him more attentive to her on that
+night than he had been for a long time--more eager to
+amuse her, more tender, more brilliant in talk?  Was it
+that his generous heart warmed to her at the prospect of
+misfortune; or that the idea of losing the dear little prize
+made him value it more?
+  
+She lived upon the recollections of that happy evening
+for many days afterwards, remembering his words; his
+looks; the song he sang; his attitude, as he leant over her
+or looked at her from a distance.  As it seemed to her,
+no night ever passed so quickly at Mr. Osborne's house
+before; and for once this young person was almost
+provoked to be angry by the premature arrival of Mr.
+Sambo with her shawl.
+  
+George came and took a tender leave of her the next
+morning; and then hurried off to the City, where he
+visited Mr. Chopper, his father's head man, and received
+from that gentleman a document which he exchanged at
+Hulker & Bullock's for a whole pocketful of money.  As
+George entered the house, old John Sedley was passing
+out of the banker's parlour, looking very dismal.  But his
+godson was much too elated to mark the worthy
+stockbroker's depression, or the dreary eyes which the kind
+old gentleman cast upon him.  Young Bullock did not
+come grinning out of the parlour with him as had been
+his wont in former years.
+  
+And as the swinging doors of Hulker, Bullock & Co.
+closed upon Mr. Sedley, Mr. Quill, the cashier (whose
+benevolent occupation it is to hand out crisp bank-notes
+from a drawer and dispense sovereigns out of a copper
+shovel), winked at Mr. Driver, the clerk at the desk on
+his right.  Mr. Driver winked again.
+  
+"No go," Mr. D. whispered.
+
+"Not at no price," Mr. Q. said.  "Mr. George Osborne,
+ sir, how will you take it?" George crammed eagerly a
+quantity of notes into his pockets, and paid Dobbin fifty
+pounds that very evening at mess.
+  
+That very evening Amelia wrote him the tenderest of
+long letters.  Her heart was overflowing with tenderness,
+but it still foreboded evil.  What was the cause of Mr.
+Osborne's dark looks? she asked.  Had any difference
+arisen between him and her papa? Her poor papa
+returned so melancholy from the City, that all were
+alarmed about him at home--in fine, there were four
+pages of loves and fears and hopes and forebodings.
+  
+"Poor little Emmy--dear little Emmy.  How fond she
+is of me," George said, as he perused the missive--"and
+Gad, what a headache that mixed punch has given me!"
+Poor little Emmy, indeed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+Miss Crawley at Home
+
+About this time there drove up to an exceedingly snug
+and well-appointed house in Park Lane, a travelling chariot
+with a lozenge on the panels, a discontented female in a
+green veil and crimped curls on the rumble, and a large
+and confidential man on the box.  It was the equipage of
+our friend Miss Crawley, returning from Hants.  The
+carriage windows were shut; the fat spaniel, whose head and
+tongue ordinarily lolled out of one of them, reposed on the
+lap of the discontented female.  When the vehicle stopped,
+a large round bundle of shawls was taken out of the
+carriage by the aid of various domestics and a young
+lady who accompanied the heap of cloaks.  That bundle
+contained Miss Crawley, who was conveyed upstairs
+forthwith, and put into a bed and chamber warmed properly
+as for the reception of an invalid.  Messengers went off
+for her physician and medical man.  They came,
+consulted, prescribed, vanished.  The young companion of
+Miss Crawley, at the conclusion of their interview, came
+in to receive their instructions, and administered those
+antiphlogistic medicines which the eminent men ordered.
+  
+Captain Crawley of the Life Guards rode up from
+Knightsbridge Barracks the next day; his black charger
+pawed the straw before his invalid aunt's door.  He was
+most affectionate in his inquiries regarding that amiable
+relative.  There seemed to be much source of apprehension.
+He found Miss Crawley's maid (the discontented
+female) unusually sulky and despondent; he found Miss
+Briggs, her dame de compagnie, in tears alone in the
+drawing-room.  She had hastened home, hearing of her
+beloved friend's illness.  She wished to fly to her couch,
+that couch which she, Briggs, had so often smoothed in
+the hour of sickness.  She was denied admission to Miss
+Crawley's apartment.  A stranger was administering her
+medicines--a stranger from the country--an odious Miss
+. . .--tears choked the utterance of the dame de
+compagnie, and she buried her crushed affections and her
+poor old red nose in her pocket handkerchief.
+  
+Rawdon Crawley sent up his name by the sulky femme
+de chambre, and Miss Crawley's new companion, coming
+tripping down from the sick-room, put a little hand into
+his as he stepped forward eagerly to meet her, gave a
+glance of great scorn at the bewildered Briggs, and
+beckoning the young Guardsman out of the back drawing-
+room, led him downstairs into that now desolate dining-
+parlour, where so many a good dinner had been
+celebrated.
+  
+Here these two talked for ten minutes, discussing, no
+doubt, the symptoms of the old invalid above stairs; at
+the end of which period the parlour bell was rung briskly,
+and answered on that instant by Mr. Bowls, Miss
+Crawley's large confidential butler (who, indeed, happened to
+be at the keyhole during the most part of the interview);
+and the Captain coming out, curling his mustachios,
+mounted the black charger pawing among the straw, to
+the admiration of the little blackguard boys collected in
+the street.  He looked in at the dining-room window,
+managing his horse, which curvetted and capered beautifully
+--for one instant the young person might be seen at the
+window, when her figure vanished, and, doubtless, she
+went upstairs again to resume the affecting duties of
+benevolence.
+  
+Who could this young woman be, I wonder?  That
+evening a little dinner for two persons was laid in the dining-
+room--when Mrs. Firkin, the lady's maid, pushed into her
+mistress's apartment, and bustled about there during
+the vacancy occasioned by the departure of the new
+nurse--and the latter and Miss Briggs sat down to the
+neat little meal.
+  
+Briggs was so much choked by emotion that she could
+hardly take a morsel of meat.  The young person carved a
+fowl with the utmost delicacy, and asked so distinctly for
+egg-sauce, that poor Briggs, before whom that delicious
+condiment was placed, started, made a great clattering
+with the ladle, and once more fell back in the most
+gushing hysterical state.
+  
+"Had you not better give Miss Briggs a glass of wine?"
+said the person to Mr. Bowls, the large confidential man.
+He did so.  Briggs seized it mechanically, gasped it down
+convulsively, moaned a little, and began to play with the
+chicken on her plate.
+  
+"I think we shall be able to help each other," said
+the person with great suavity: "and shall have no need
+of Mr. Bowls's kind services.  Mr. Bowls, if you please,
+we will ring when we want you." He went downstairs,
+where, by the way, he vented the most horrid curses
+upon the unoffending footman, his subordinate.
+  
+"It is a pity you take on so, Miss Briggs," the young
+lady said, with a cool, slightly sarcastic, air.
+  
+"My dearest friend is so ill, and wo--o--on't see
+me," gurgled out Briggs in an agony of renewed grief.
+  
+"She's not very ill any more.  Console yourself, dear
+Miss Briggs.  She has only overeaten herself--that is all.
+She is greatly better.  She will soon be quite restored again.
+She is weak from being cupped and from medical
+treatment, but she will rally immediately.  Pray console
+yourself, and take a little more wine."
+  
+"But why, why won't she see me again?" Miss Briggs
+bleated out.  "Oh, Matilda, Matilda, after three-and-
+twenty years' tenderness! is this the return to your poor,
+poor Arabella?"
+  
+"Don't cry too much, poor Arabella," the other said
+(with ever so little of a grin); "she only won't see you,
+because she says you don't nurse her as well as I do.
+It's no pleasure to me to sit up all night.  I wish you
+might do it instead."
+  
+"Have I not tended that dear couch for years?"
+Arabella said, "and now--"
+  
+"Now she prefers somebody else.  Well, sick people
+have these fancies, and must be humoured.  When she's
+well I shall go."
+  
+"Never, never," Arabella exclaimed, madly inhaling her
+salts-bottle.
+  
+"Never be well or never go, Miss Briggs?" the other
+said, with the same provoking good-nature.  "Pooh--she
+will be well in a fortnight, when I shall go back to my
+little pupils at Queen's Crawley, and to their mother,
+who is a great deal more sick than our friend.  You need
+not be jealous about me, my dear Miss Briggs.  I am a
+poor little girl without any friends, or any harm in me.
+I don't want to supplant you in Miss Crawley's good
+graces.  She will forget me a week after I am gone: and
+her affection for you has been the work of years.  Give
+me a little wine if you please, my dear Miss Briggs,
+and let us be friends.  I'm sure I want friends."
+  
+The placable and soft-hearted Briggs speechlessly
+pushed out her hand at this appeal; but she felt the
+desertion most keenly for all that, and bitterly, bitterly
+moaned the fickleness of her Matilda.  At the end of half
+an hour, the meal over, Miss Rebecca Sharp (for such,
+astonishing to state, is the name of her who has been
+described ingeniously as "the person" hitherto), went
+upstairs again to her patient's rooms, from which, with
+the most engaging politeness, she eliminated poor Firkin.
+"Thank you, Mrs. Firkin, that will quite do; how nicely
+you make it! I will ring when anything is wanted." "Thank
+you"; and Firkin came downstairs in a tempest of
+jealousy, only the more dangerous because she was forced
+to confine it in her own bosom.
+  
+Could it be the tempest which, as she passed the
+landing of the first floor, blew open the drawing-room door?
+No; it was stealthily opened by the hand of Briggs.
+Briggs had been on the watch. Briggs too well heard the
+creaking Firkin descend the stairs, and the clink of the
+spoon and gruel-basin the neglected female carried.
+  
+"Well, Firkin?" says she, as the other entered the
+apartment. "Well, Jane?"
+  
+"Wuss and wuss, Miss B.," Firkin said, wagging her
+head.
+  
+"Is she not better then?"
+  
+"She never spoke but once, and I asked her if she felt
+a little more easy, and she told me to hold my stupid
+tongue. Oh, Miss B., I never thought to have seen this
+day!"  And the water-works again began to play.
+  
+"What sort of a person is this Miss Sharp, Firkin? I
+little thought, while enjoying my Christmas revels in the
+elegant home of my firm friends, the Reverend Lionel
+Delamere and his amiable lady, to find a stranger had
+taken my place in the affections of my dearest, my still
+dearest Matilda!"  Miss Briggs, it will be seen by her
+language, was of a literary and sentimental turn, and had
+once published a volume of poems--"Trills of the
+Nightingale"--by subscription.
+  
+"Miss B., they are all infatyated about that young
+woman," Firkin replied. "Sir Pitt wouldn't have let her
+go, but he daredn't refuse Miss Crawley anything. Mrs.
+Bute at the Rectory jist as bad--never happy out of her
+sight. The Capting quite wild about her. Mr. Crawley
+mortial jealous. Since Miss C. was took ill, she won't
+have nobody near her but Miss Sharp, I can't tell for
+where nor for why; and I think somethink has bewidged
+everybody."
+  
+Rebecca passed that night in constant watching upon
+Miss Crawley; the next night the old lady slept so
+comfortably, that Rebecca had time for several hours'
+comfortable repose herself on the sofa, at the foot of her
+patroness's bed; very soon, Miss Crawley was so well
+that she sat up and laughed heartily at a perfect
+imitation of Miss Briggs and her grief, which Rebecca
+described to her. Briggs' weeping snuffle, and her manner
+of using the handkerchief, were so completely rendered
+that Miss Crawley became quite cheerful, to the
+admiration of the doctors when they visited her, who usually
+found this worthy woman of the world, when the least
+sickness attacked her, under the most abject depression
+and terror of death.
+  
+Captain Crawley came every day, and received bulletins
+from Miss Rebecca respecting his aunt's health.
+This improved so rapidly, that poor Briggs was allowed
+to see her patroness; and persons with tender hearts
+may imagine the smothered emotions of that sentimental
+female, and the affecting nature of the interview.
+  
+Miss Crawley liked to have Briggs in a good deal
+soon.  Rebecca used to mimic her to her face with the
+most admirable gravity, thereby rendering the imitation
+doubly piquant to her worthy patroness.
+
+The causes which had led to the deplorable illness of
+Miss Crawley, and her departure from her brother's
+house in the country, were of such an unromantic nature
+that they are hardly fit to be explained in this genteel
+and sentimental novel.  For how is it possible to hint of a
+delicate female, living in good society, that she ate and
+drank too much, and that a hot supper of lobsters
+profusely enjoyed at the Rectory was the reason of an
+indisposition which Miss Crawley herself persisted was
+solely attributable to the dampness of the weather?  The
+attack was so sharp that Matilda--as his Reverence
+expressed it--was very nearly "off the hooks"; all the
+family were in a fever of expectation regarding the will,
+and Rawdon Crawley was making sure of at least forty
+thousand pounds before the commencement of the
+London season.  Mr. Crawley sent over a choice parcel of
+tracts, to prepare her for the change from Vanity Fair
+and Park Lane for another world; but a good doctor
+from Southampton being called in in time, vanquished
+the lobster which was so nearly fatal to her, and gave
+her sufficient strength to enable her to return to London.
+The Baronet did not disguise his exceeding mortification
+at the turn which affairs took.
+  
+While everybody was attending on Miss Crawley, and
+messengers every hour from the Rectory were carrying
+news of her health to the affectionate folks there, there
+was a lady in another part of the house, being exceedingly
+ill, of whom no one took any notice at all; and this was
+the lady of Crawley herself.  The good doctor shook his
+head after seeing her; to which visit Sir Pitt consented,
+as it could be paid without a fee; and she was left fading
+away in her lonely chamber, with no more heed paid to
+her than to a weed in the park.
+  
+The young ladies, too, lost much of the inestimable
+benefit of their governess's instruction, So affectionate a
+nurse was Miss Sharp, that Miss Crawley would take
+her medicines from no other hand.  Firkin had been
+deposed long before her mistress's departure from the
+country.  That faithful attendant found a gloomy consolation
+on returning to London, in seeing Miss Briggs suffer
+the same pangs of jealousy and undergo the same
+faithless treatment to which she herself had been subject.
+  
+Captain Rawdon got an extension of leave on his
+aunt's illness, and remained dutifully at home.  He was
+always in her antechamber.  (She lay sick in the state
+bedroom, into which you entered by the little blue
+saloon.) His father was always meeting him there; or if he
+came down the corridor ever so quietly, his father's
+door was sure to open, and the hyena face of the old
+gentleman to glare out.  What was it set one to watch
+the other so?  A generous rivalry, no doubt, as to which
+should be most attentive to the dear sufferer in the state
+bedroom.  Rebecca used to come out and comfort both
+of them; or one or the other of them rather.  Both of
+these worthy gentlemen were most anxious to have news
+of the invalid from her little confidential messenger.
+  
+At dinner--to which meal she descended for half an
+hour--she kept the peace between them: after which she
+disappeared for the night; when Rawdon would ride over
+to the depot of the 150th at Mudbury, leaving his papa
+to the society of Mr. Horrocks and his rum and water.
+She passed as weary a fortnight as ever mortal spent in
+Miss Crawley's sick-room; but her little nerves seemed
+to be of iron, as she was quite unshaken by the duty and
+the tedium of the sick-chamber.
+  
+She never told until long afterwards how painful that
+duty was; how peevish a patient was the jovial old lady;
+how angry; how sleepless; in what horrors of death;
+during what long nights she lay moaning, and in almost
+delirious agonies respecting that future world which she
+quite ignored when she was in good health.--Picture to
+yourself, oh fair young reader, a worldly, selfish,
+graceless, thankless, religionless old woman, writhing in pain
+and fear, and without her wig.  Picture her to yourself,
+and ere you be old, learn to love and pray!
+  
+Sharp watched this graceless bedside with indomitable
+patience.  Nothing escaped her; and, like a prudent steward,
+she found a use for everything.  She told many a
+good story about Miss Crawley's illness in after days--
+stories which made the lady blush through her artificial
+carnations.  During the illness she was never out of
+temper; always alert; she slept light, having a perfectly clear
+conscience; and could take that refreshment at almost
+any minute's warning.  And so you saw very few traces of
+fatigue in her appearance.  Her face might be a trifle
+paler, and the circles round her eyes a little blacker than
+usual; but whenever she came out from the sick-room
+she was always smiling, fresh, and neat, and looked as
+trim in her little dressing-gown and cap, as in her
+smartest evening suit.
+  
+The Captain thought so, and raved about her in
+uncouth convulsions.  The barbed shaft of love had
+penetrated his dull hide.  Six weeks--appropinquity--
+opportunity--had victimised him completely.  He made a
+confidante of his aunt at the Rectory, of all persons in the
+world.  She rallied him about it; she had perceived his
+folly; she warned him; she finished by owning that little
+Sharp was the most clever, droll, odd, good-natured,
+simple, kindly creature in England.  Rawdon must not
+trifle with her affections, though--dear Miss Crawley
+would never pardon him for that; for she, too, was quite
+overcome by the little governess, and loved Sharp like a
+daughter.  Rawdon must go away--go back to his
+regiment and naughty London, and not play with a poor
+artless girl's feelings.
+  
+Many and many a time this good-natured lady,
+compassionating the forlorn life-guardsman's condition,
+gave him an opportunity of seeing Miss Sharp at the Rectory,
+and of walking home with her, as we have seen.  When
+men of a certain sort, ladies, are in love, though they
+see the hook and the string, and the whole apparatus
+with which they are to be taken, they gorge the bait
+nevertheless--they must come to it--they must swallow
+it--and are presently struck and landed gasping.  Rawdon
+saw there was a manifest intention on Mrs. Bute's part
+to captivate him with Rebecca.  He was not very wise;
+but he was a man about town, and had seen several
+seasons.  A light dawned upon his dusky soul, as he thought,
+through a speech of Mrs. Bute's.
+  
+"Mark my words, Rawdon," she said.  "You will have
+Miss Sharp one day for your relation."
+  
+"What relation--my cousin, hey, Mrs. Bute? James
+sweet on her, hey?" inquired the waggish officer.
+  
+"More than that," Mrs. Bute said, with a flash from
+her black eyes.
+  
+"Not Pitt?  He sha'n't have her.  The sneak a'n't
+worthy of her.  He's booked to Lady Jane Sheepshanks."
+  
+"You men perceive nothing.  You silly, blind creature
+--if anything happens to Lady Crawley, Miss Sharp will
+be your mother-in-law; and that's what will happen."
+  
+Rawdon Crawley, Esquire, gave vent to a prodigious
+whistle, in token of astonishment at this announcement.
+He couldn't deny it.  His father's evident liking for Miss
+Sharp had not escaped him.  He knew the old gentleman's
+character well; and a more unscrupulous old--whyou--
+he did not conclude the sentence, but walked home,
+curling his mustachios, and convinced he had found a
+clue to Mrs. Bute's mystery.
+  
+"By Jove, it's too bad," thought Rawdon, "too bad, by
+Jove! I do believe the woman wants the poor girl to be
+ruined, in order that she shouldn't come into the family
+as Lady Crawley."
+  
+When he saw Rebecca alone, he rallied her about his
+father's attachment in his graceful way.  She flung up her
+head scornfully, looked him full in the face, and said,
+  
+"Well, suppose he is fond of me.  I know he is, and
+others too.  You don't think I am afraid of him, Captain
+Crawley?  You don't suppose I can't defend my own
+honour," said the little woman, looking as stately as a
+queen.
+  
+"Oh, ah, why--give you fair warning--look out, you
+know--that's all," said the mustachio-twiddler.
+  
+"You hint at something not honourable, then?" said
+she, flashing out.
+
+"O Gad--really--Miss Rebecca," the heavy dragoon
+interposed.
+  
+"Do you suppose I have no feeling of self-respect,
+because I am poor and friendless, and because rich people
+have none?  Do you think, because I am a governess, I
+have not as much sense, and feeling, and good breeding
+as you gentlefolks in Hampshire? I'm a Montmorency.
+Do you suppose a Montmorency is not as good as a
+Crawley?"
+  
+When Miss Sharp was agitated, and alluded to her
+maternal relatives, she spoke with ever so slight a
+foreign accent, which gave a great charm to her clear
+ringing voice.  "No," she continued, kindling as she spoke to
+the Captain; "I can endure poverty, but not shame--
+neglect, but not insult; and insult from--from you."
+  
+Her feelings gave way, and she burst into tears.
+  
+"Hang it, Miss Sharp--Rebecca--by Jove--upon my
+soul, I wouldn't for a thousand pounds.  Stop, Rebecca!"
+  
+She was gone.  She drove out with Miss Crawley that
+day.  It was before the latter's illness.  At dinner she was
+unusually brilliant and lively; but she would take no
+notice of the hints, or the nods, or the clumsy expostulations
+of the humiliated, infatuated guardsman.  Skirmishes
+of this sort passed perpetually during the little campaign
+--tedious to relate, and similar in result.  The Crawley
+heavy cavalry was maddened by defeat, and routed
+every day.                        
+
+If the Baronet of Queen's Crawley had not had the
+fear of losing his sister's legacy before his eyes, he never
+would have permitted his dear girls to lose the educational
+blessings which their invaluable governess was conferring
+upon them.  The old house at home seemed a desert
+without her, so useful and pleasant had Rebecca
+made herself there.  Sir Pitt's letters were not copied and
+corrected; his books not made up; his household
+business and manifold schemes neglected, now that his little
+secretary was away.  And it was easy to see how necessary
+such an amanuensis was to him, by the tenor and
+spelling of the numerous letters which he sent to her,
+entreating her and commanding her to return.  Almost every
+day brought a frank from the Baronet, enclosing the
+most urgent prayers to Becky for her return, or conveying
+pathetic statements to Miss Crawley, regarding the
+neglected state of his daughters' education; of which
+documents Miss Crawley took very little heed.
+  
+Miss Briggs was not formally dismissed, but her place
+as companion was a sinecure and a derision; and her
+company was the fat spaniel in the drawing-room, or
+occasionally the discontented Firkin in the housekeeper's
+closet.  Nor though the old lady would by no means
+hear of Rebecca's departure, was the latter regularly
+installed in office in Park Lane.  Like many wealthy people,
+it was Miss Crawley's habit to accept as much service as
+she could get from her inferiors; and good-naturedly to
+take leave of them when she no longer found them
+useful.  Gratitude among certain rich folks is scarcely natural
+or to be thought of.  They take needy people's services
+as their due.  Nor have you, O poor parasite and humble
+hanger-on, much reason to complain!  Your friendship
+for Dives is about as sincere as the return which it usually
+gets.  It is money you love, and not the man; and were
+Croesus and his footman to change places you know,
+you poor rogue, who would have the benefit of your
+allegiance.
+  
+And I am not sure that, in spite of Rebecca's simplicity
+and activity, and gentleness and untiring good
+humour, the shrewd old London lady, upon whom these
+treasures of friendship were lavished, had not a lurking
+suspicion all the while of her affectionate nurse and friend.
+It must have often crossed Miss Crawley's mind that
+nobody does anything for nothing.  If she measured her own
+feeling towards the world, she must have been pretty
+well able to gauge those of the world towards herself;
+and perhaps she reflected that it is the ordinary lot of
+people to have no friends if they themselves care for
+nobody.
+  
+Well, meanwhile Becky was the greatest comfort and
+convenience to her, and she gave her a couple of new
+gowns, and an old necklace and shawl, and showed her
+friendship by abusing all her intimate acquaintances to
+her new confidante (than which there can't be a more
+touching proof of regard), and meditated vaguely some
+great future benefit--to marry her perhaps to Clump,
+the apothecary, or to settle her in some advantageous
+way of life; or at any rate, to send her back to Queen's
+Crawley when she had done with her, and the full
+London season had begun.
+  
+When Miss Crawley was convalescent and descended
+to the drawing-room, Becky sang to her, and otherwise
+amused her; when she was well enough to drive out,
+Becky accompanied her.  And amongst the drives which
+they took, whither, of all places in the world, did Miss
+Crawley's admirable good-nature and friendship actually
+induce her to penetrate, but to Russell Square,
+Bloomsbury, and the house of John Sedley, Esquire.
+  
+Ere that event, many notes had passed, as may be
+imagined, between the two dear friends.  During the
+months of Rebecca's stay in Hampshire, the eternal
+friendship had (must it be owned?) suffered considerable
+diminution, and grown so decrepit and feeble with old
+age as to threaten demise altogether.  The fact is, both
+girls had their own real affairs to think of: Rebecca her
+advance with her employers--Amelia her own absorbing
+topic.  When the two girls met, and flew into each other's
+arms with that impetuosity which distinguishes the
+behaviour of young ladies towards each other, Rebecca
+performed her part of the embrace with the most perfect
+briskness and energy.  Poor little Amelia blushed as she
+kissed her friend, and thought she had been guilty of
+something very like coldness towards her.
+  
+Their first interview was but a very short one.  Amelia
+was just ready to go out for a walk.  Miss Crawley was
+waiting in her carriage below, her people wondering at
+the locality in which they found themselves, and gazing
+upon honest Sambo, the black footman of Bloomsbury,
+as one of the queer natives of the place.  But when Amelia
+came down with her kind smiling looks (Rebecca must
+introduce her to her friend, Miss Crawley was longing
+to see her, and was too ill to leave her carriage)--when,
+I say, Amelia came down, the Park Lane shoulder-knot
+aristocracy wondered more and more that such a thing
+could come out of Bloomsbury; and Miss Crawley was
+fairly captivated by the sweet blushing face of the young
+lady who came forward so timidly and so gracefully to
+pay her respects to the protector of her friend.
+
+"What a complexion, my dear! What a sweet voice!"
+Miss Crawley said, as they drove away westward after
+the little interview.  "My dear Sharp, your young friend
+is charming.  Send for her to Park Lane, do you hear?"
+Miss Crawley had a good taste.  She liked natural
+manners--a little timidity only set them off.  She liked pretty
+faces near her; as she liked pretty pictures and nice
+china.  She talked of Amelia with rapture half a dozen
+times that day.  She mentioned her to Rawdon Crawley,
+who came dutifully to partake of his aunt's chicken.
+  
+Of course, on this Rebecca instantly stated that Amelia
+was engaged to be married--to a Lieutenant Osborne--
+a very old flame.
+  
+"Is he a man in a line-regiment?" Captain Crawley
+asked, remembering after an effort, as became a
+guardsman, the number of the regiment, the --th.
+  
+Rebecca thought that was the regiment.  "The
+Captain's name," she said, "was Captain Dobbin."
+  
+"A lanky gawky fellow," said Crawley, "tumbles over
+everybody.  I know him; and Osborne's a goodish-looking
+fellow, with large black whiskers?"
+  
+"Enormous," Miss Rebecca Sharp said, "and
+enormously proud of them, I assure you."
+  
+Captain Rawdon Crawley burst into a horse-laugh by
+way of reply; and being pressed by the ladies to explain,
+did so when the explosion of hilarity was over.  "He
+fancies he can play at billiards," said he.  "I won two
+hundred of him at the Cocoa-Tree.  HE play, the young
+flat!  He'd have played for anything that day, but his friend
+Captain Dobbin carried him off, hang him!"
+  
+"Rawdon, Rawdon, don't be so wicked," Miss Crawley
+remarked, highly pleased.
+  
+"Why, ma'am, of all the young fellows I've seen out
+of the line, I think this fellow's the greenest.  Tarquin and
+Deuceace get what money they like out of him.  He'd go
+to the deuce to be seen with a lord.  He pays their
+dinners at Greenwich, and they invite the company."
+  
+"And very pretty company too, I dare say."
+  
+"Quite right, Miss Sharp.  Right, as usual, Miss Sharp.
+Uncommon pretty company--haw, haw!" and the
+Captain laughed more and more, thinking he had made a
+good joke.
+
+"Rawdon, don't be naughty!" his aunt exclaimed.
+  
+"Well, his father's a City man--immensely rich, they
+say.  Hang those City fellows, they must bleed; and I've
+not done with him yet, I can tell you.  Haw, haw!"
+  
+"Fie, Captain Crawley; I shall warn Amelia.  A
+gambling husband!"
+  
+"Horrid, ain't he, hey?" the Captain said with great
+solemnity; and then added, a sudden thought having
+struck him: "Gad, I say, ma'am, we'll have him here."
+  
+"Is he a presentable sort of a person?" the aunt
+inquired.
+  
+"Presentable?--oh, very well.  You wouldn't see any
+difference," Captain Crawley answered.  "Do let's have
+him, when you begin to see a few people; and his
+whatdyecallem--his inamorato--eh, Miss Sharp; that's what
+you call it--comes.  Gad, I'll write him a note, and have
+him; and I'll try if he can play piquet as well as billiards.
+Where does he live, Miss Sharp?"
+  
+Miss Sharp told Crawley the Lieutenant's town address;
+and a few days after this conversation, Lieutenant
+Osborne received a letter, in Captain Rawdon's
+schoolboy hand, and enclosing a note of invitation from
+Miss Crawley.
+  
+Rebecca despatched also an invitation to her darling
+Amelia, who, you may be sure, was ready enough to
+accept it when she heard that George was to be of the
+party.  It was arranged that Amelia was to spend the
+morning with the ladies of Park Lane, where all were
+very kind to her.  Rebecca patronised her with calm
+superiority: she was so much the cleverer of the two, and
+her friend so gentle and unassuming, that she always
+yielded when anybody chose to command, and so took
+Rebecca's orders with perfect meekness and good humour.
+Miss Crawley's graciousness was also remarkable.  She
+continued her raptures about little Amelia, talked about
+her before her face as if she were a doll, or a servant,
+or a picture, and admired her with the most benevolent
+wonder possible.  I admire that admiration which the
+genteel world sometimes extends to the commonalty.
+There is no more agreeable object in life than to see
+Mayfair folks condescending.  Miss Crawley's prodigious
+benevolence rather fatigued poor little Amelia, and I am
+not sure that of the three ladies in Park Lane she did
+not find honest Miss Briggs the most agreeable.  She
+sympathised with Briggs as with all neglected or gentle
+people: she wasn't what you call a woman of spirit.
+  
+George came to dinner--a repast en garcon with
+Captain Crawley.
+  
+The great family coach of the Osbornes transported
+him to Park Lane from Russell Square; where the young
+ladies, who were not themselves invited, and professed
+the greatest indifference at that slight, nevertheless looked
+at Sir Pitt Crawley's name in the baronetage; and learned
+everything which that work had to teach about the
+Crawley family and their pedigree, and the Binkies, their
+relatives, &c., &c.  Rawdon Crawley received George Osborne
+with great frankness and graciousness: praised his play at
+billiards: asked him when he would have his revenge:
+was interested about Osborne's regiment: and would have
+proposed piquet to him that very evening, but Miss
+Crawley absolutely forbade any gambling in her house;
+so that the young Lieutenant's purse was not lightened
+by his gallant patron, for that day at least.  However, they
+made an engagement for the next, somewhere: to look
+at a horse that Crawley had to sell, and to try him in the
+Park; and to dine together, and to pass the evening with
+some jolly fellows.  "That is, if you're not on duty to that
+pretty Miss Sedley," Crawley said, with a knowing wink.
+"Monstrous nice girl, 'pon my honour, though, Osborne,"
+he was good enough to add.  "Lots of tin, I suppose, eh?"
+  
+Osborne wasn't on duty; he would join Crawley with
+pleasure: and the latter, when they met the next day,
+praised his new friend's horsemanship--as he might with
+perfect honesty--and introduced him to three or four
+young men of the first fashion, whose acquaintance
+immensely elated the simple young officer.
+  
+"How's little Miss Sharp, by-the-bye?" Osborne inquired
+of his friend over their wine, with a dandified air.
+"Good-natured little girl that.  Does she suit you well at
+Queen's Crawley? Miss Sedley liked her a good deal last
+year."
+  
+Captain Crawley looked savagely at the Lieutenant out
+of his little blue eyes, and watched him when he went up
+to resume his acquaintance with the fair governess.  Her
+conduct must have relieved Crawley if there was any
+jealousy in the bosom of that life-guardsman.
+  
+When the young men went upstairs, and after
+Osborne's introduction to Miss Crawley, he walked up to
+Rebecca with a patronising, easy swagger.  He was going
+to be kind to her and protect her.  He would even shake
+hands with her, as a friend of Amelia's; and saying, "Ah,
+Miss Sharp! how-dy-doo?" held out his left hand towards
+her, expecting that she would be quite confounded at
+the honour.
+  
+Miss Sharp put out her right forefinger, and gave him
+a little nod, so cool and killing, that Rawdon Crawley,
+watching the operations from the other room, could
+hardly restrain his laughter as he saw the Lieutenant's
+entire discomfiture; the start he gave, the pause, and the
+perfect clumsiness with which he at length condescended
+to take the finger which was offered for his embrace.
+  
+"She'd beat the devil, by Jove!" the Captain said, in a
+rapture; and the Lieutenant, by way of beginning the
+conversation, agreeably asked Rebecca how she liked her
+new place.
+  
+"My place?" said Miss Sharp, coolly, "how kind of you
+to remind me of it!  It's a tolerably good place: the wages
+are pretty good--not so good as Miss Wirt's, I believe,
+with your sisters in Russell Square.  How are those young
+ladies?--not that I ought to ask."
+  
+"Why not?" Mr. Osborne said, amazed.
+  
+"Why, they never condescended to speak to me, or to
+ask me into their house, whilst I was staying with Amelia;
+but we poor governesses, you know, are used to slights of
+this sort."
+  
+"My dear Miss Sharp!" Osborne ejaculated.
+  
+"At least in some families," Rebecca continued.  "You
+can't think what a difference there is though.  We are not
+so wealthy in Hampshire as you lucky folks of the City.
+But then I am in a gentleman's family--good old
+English stock.  I suppose you know Sir Pitt's father refused a
+peerage.  And you see how I am treated.  I am pretty
+comfortable.  Indeed it is rather a good place.  But how
+very good of you to inquire!"
+  
+Osborne was quite savage.  The little governess
+patronised him and persiffled him until this young
+British Lion felt quite uneasy; nor could he muster sufficient
+presence of mind to find a pretext for backing out
+of this most delectable conversation.
+   
+"I thought you liked the City families pretty well," he
+said, haughtily.
+   
+"Last year you mean, when I was fresh from that
+horrid vulgar school?  Of course I did.  Doesn't every girl like
+to come home for the holidays?  And how was I to know
+any better?  But oh, Mr. Osborne, what a difference
+eighteen months' experience makes! eighteen months spent,
+pardon me for saying so, with gentlemen.  As for dear
+Amelia, she, I grant you, is a pearl, and would be charming anywhere.  There now, I see you are beginning to be
+in a good humour; but oh these queer odd City people!
+And Mr. Jos--how is that wonderful Mr. Joseph?"
+   
+"It seems to me you didn't dislike that wonderful Mr.
+Joseph last year," Osborne said kindly.
+   
+"How severe of you!  Well, entre nous, I didn't break
+my heart about him; yet if he had asked me to do what
+you mean by your looks (and very expressive and kind
+they are, too), I wouldn't have said no."
+   
+Mr. Osborne gave a look as much as to say, "Indeed,
+how very obliging!"
+   
+"What an honour to have had you for a brother-in-law,
+you are thinking? To be sister-in-law to George
+Osborne, Esquire, son of John Osborne, Esquire, son of--
+what was your grandpapa, Mr. Osborne?  Well, don't be
+angry.  You can't help your pedigree, and I quite agree
+with you that I would have married Mr. Joe Sedley; for
+could a poor penniless girl do better?  Now you know
+the whole secret.  I'm frank and open; considering all
+things, it was very kind of you to allude to the
+circumstance--very kind and polite.  Amelia dear, Mr.
+Osborne and I were talking about your poor brother Joseph.
+How is he?"
+   
+Thus was George utterly routed.  Not that Rebecca was
+in the right; but she had managed most successfully to
+put him in the wrong.  And he now shamefully fled,
+feeling, if he stayed another minute, that he would have
+been made to look foolish in the presence of Amelia.
+   
+Though Rebecca had had the better of him, George was
+above the meanness of talebearing or revenge upon a
+lady--only he could not help cleverly confiding to
+Captain Crawley, next day, some notions of his regarding
+Miss Rebecca--that she was a sharp one, a dangerous
+one, a desperate flirt, &c.; in all of which opinions
+Crawley agreed laughingly, and with every one of which Miss
+Rebecca was made acquainted before twenty-four hours
+were over.  They added to her original regard for Mr.
+Osborne.  Her woman's instinct had told her that it was
+George who had interrupted the success of her first
+love-passage, and she esteemed him accordingly.
+  
+"I only just warn you," he said to Rawdon Crawley,
+with a knowing look--he had bought the horse, and lost
+some score of guineas after dinner, "I just warn you--I
+know women, and counsel you to be on the look-out."
+  
+"Thank you, my boy," said Crawley, with a look of
+peculiar gratitude.  "You're wide awake, I see." And
+George went off, thinking Crawley was quite right.
+  
+He told Amelia of what he had done, and how he had
+counselled Rawdon Crawley--a devilish good,
+straightforward fellow--to be on his guard against that
+little sly, scheming Rebecca.
+  
+"Against whom?" Amelia cried.
+  
+"Your friend the governess.--Don't look so astonished."
+  
+"O George, what have you done?" Amelia said.  For her
+woman's eyes, which Love had made sharp-sighted, had
+in one instant discovered a secret which was invisible to
+Miss Crawley, to poor virgin Briggs, and above all,
+to the stupid peepers of that young whiskered prig,
+Lieutenant Osborne.
+  
+For as Rebecca was shawling her in an upper apartment,
+where these two friends had an opportunity for a
+little of that secret talking and conspiring which form
+the delight of female life, Amelia, coming up to Rebecca,
+and taking her two little hands in hers, said, "Rebecca,
+I see it all."
+
+Rebecca kissed her.
+  
+And regarding this delightful secret, not one syllable
+more was said by either of the young women.  But it was
+destined to come out before long.
+  
+Some short period after the above events, and Miss
+Rebecca Sharp still remaining at her patroness's house
+in Park Lane, one more hatchment might have been seen
+in Great Gaunt Street, figuring amongst the many which
+usually ornament that dismal quarter.  It was over Sir
+Pitt Crawley's house; but it did not indicate the worthy
+baronet's demise.  It was a feminine hatchment, and
+indeed a few years back had served as a funeral compliment
+to Sir Pitt's old mother, the late dowager Lady Crawley.
+Its period of service over, the hatchment had come
+down from the front of the house, and lived in retirement somewhere in the back premises of Sir Pitt's mansion.
+It reappeared now for poor Rose Dawson.  Sir Pitt
+was a widower again.  The arms quartered on the shield
+along with his own were not, to be sure, poor Rose's.
+She had no arms.  But the cherubs painted on the
+scutcheon answered as well for her as for Sir Pitt's
+mother, and Resurgam was written under the coat,
+flanked by the Crawley Dove and Serpent.  Arms and
+Hatchments, Resurgam.--Here is an opportunity for
+moralising!
+  
+Mr. Crawley had tended that otherwise friendless
+bedside.  She went out of the world strengthened by such
+words and comfort as he could give her.  For many years
+his was the only kindness she ever knew; the only
+friendship that solaced in any way that feeble, lonely soul.
+Her heart was dead long before her body.  She had sold
+it to become Sir Pitt Crawley's wife.  Mothers and
+daughters are making the same bargain every day in
+Vanity Fair.
+  
+When the demise took place, her husband was in
+London attending to some of his innumerable schemes,
+and busy with his endless lawyers.  He had found time,
+nevertheless, to call often in Park Lane, and to despatch
+many notes to Rebecca, entreating her, enjoining her,
+commanding her to return to her young pupils in the
+country, who were now utterly without companionship
+during their mother's illness.  But Miss Crawley would
+not hear of her departure; for though there was no lady
+of fashion in London who would desert her friends more
+complacently as soon as she was tired of their society,
+and though few tired of them sooner, yet as long as her
+engoument lasted her attachment was prodigious, and
+she clung still with the greatest energy to Rebecca.
+
+The news of Lady Crawley's death provoked no more
+grief or comment than might have been expected in Miss
+Crawley's family circle.  "I suppose I must put off my
+party for the 3rd," Miss Crawley said; and added, after a
+pause, "I hope my brother will have the decency not to
+marry again." "What a confounded rage Pitt will be in if
+he does," Rawdon remarked, with his usual regard for his
+elder brother.  Rebecca said nothing.  She seemed by far the
+gravest and most impressed of the family.  She left the
+room before Rawdon went away that day; but they met
+by chance below, as he was going away after taking leave,
+and had a parley together.
+  
+On the morrow, as Rebecca was gazing from the window,
+she startled Miss Crawley, who was placidly occupied
+with a French novel, by crying out in an alarmed
+tone, "Here's Sir Pitt, Ma'am!" and the Baronet's knock
+followed this announcement.
+  
+"My dear, I can't see him.  I won't see him.  Tell Bowls
+not at home, or go downstairs and say I'm too ill to
+receive any one.  My nerves really won't bear my brother
+at this moment," cried out Miss Crawley, and resumed
+the novel.
+  
+"She's too ill to see you, sir," Rebecca said, tripping
+down to Sir Pitt, who was preparing to ascend.
+  
+"So much the better," Sir Pitt answered.  "I want to
+see YOU, Miss Becky.  Come along a me into the parlour,"
+and they entered that apartment together.
+  
+"I wawnt you back at Queen's Crawley, Miss," the
+baronet said, fixing his eyes upon her, and taking off his
+black gloves and his hat with its great crape hat-band.
+His eyes had such a strange look, and fixed upon her so
+steadfastly, that Rebecca Sharp began almost to tremble.
+  
+"I hope to come soon," she said in a low voice, "as
+soon as Miss Crawley is better--and return to--to the
+dear children."
+  
+"You've said so these three months, Becky," replied
+Sir Pitt, "and still you go hanging on to my sister, who'll
+fling you off like an old shoe, when she's wore you out.
+I tell you I want you.  I'm going back to the Vuneral.
+Will you come back?  Yes or no?"
+
+"I daren't--I don't think--it would be right--to be
+alone--with you, sir," Becky said, seemingly in great
+agitation.
+  
+"I say agin, I want you," Sir Pitt said, thumping the
+table.  "I can't git on without you.  I didn't see what it was
+till you went away.  The house all goes wrong.  It's not
+the same place.  All my accounts has got muddled agin.
+You MUST come back.  Do come back.  Dear Becky, do
+come."
+  
+"Come--as what, sir?" Rebecca gasped out.
+  
+"Come as Lady Crawley, if you like," the Baronet
+said, grasping his crape hat.  "There! will that zatusfy you?
+Come back and be my wife.  Your vit vor't.  Birth be
+hanged.  You're as good a lady as ever I see.  You've got
+more brains in your little vinger than any baronet's wife
+in the county.  Will you come? Yes or no?"
+  
+"Oh, Sir Pitt!" Rebecca said, very much moved.
+  
+"Say yes, Becky," Sir Pitt continued.  "I'm an old man,
+but a good'n.  I'm good for twenty years.  I'll make you
+happy, zee if I don't.  You shall do what you like; spend
+what you like; and 'ave it all your own way.  I'll make
+you a zettlement.  I'll do everything reglar.  Look year!"
+and the old man fell down on his knees and leered at
+her like a satyr.
+  
+Rebecca started back a picture of consternation.  In
+the course of this history we have never seen her lose her
+presence of mind; but she did now, and wept some of the
+most genuine tears that ever fell from her eyes.
+  
+"Oh, Sir Pitt!" she said.  "Oh, sir--I--I'm married
+ALREADY."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+In Which Rebecca's Husband Appears
+for a Short Time
+
+Every reader of a sentimental turn (and we desire
+no other) must have been pleased with the
+tableau with which the last act of our little
+drama concluded; for what can be prettier than
+an image of Love on his knees before Beauty?
+               
+But when Love heard that awful confession from
+Beauty that she was married already, he
+bounced up from his attitude of humility on the carpet,
+uttering exclamations which caused poor little Beauty to
+be more frightened than she was when she made her
+avowal.  "Married; you're joking," the Baronet cried, after
+the first explosion of rage and wonder.  "You're
+making vun of me, Becky.  Who'd ever go to marry you
+without a shilling to your vortune?"
+  
+"Married! married!" Rebecca said, in an agony of tears
+--her voice choking with emotion, her handkerchief up
+to her ready eyes, fainting against the mantelpiece a
+figure of woe fit to melt the most obdurate heart.  "0
+Sir Pitt, dear Sir Pitt, do not think me ungrateful for all
+your goodness to me.  It is only your generosity that has
+extorted my secret."
+
+"Generosity be hanged!" Sir Pitt roared out.  "Who is
+it tu, then, you're married? Where was it?"
+   
+"Let me come back with you to the country, sir!  Let
+me watch over you as faithfully as ever!  Don't, don't
+separate me from dear Queen's Crawley!"
+   
+"The feller has left you, has he?" the Baronet said,
+beginning, as he fancied, to comprehend.  "Well, Becky--
+come back if you like.  You can't eat your cake and have
+it.  Any ways I made you a vair offer.  Coom back as
+governess--you shall have it all your own way." She
+held out one hand.  She cried fit to break her heart; her
+ringlets fell over her face, and over the marble
+mantelpiece where she laid it.
+   
+"So the rascal ran off, eh?"  Sir Pitt said, with a hideous
+attempt at consolation.  "Never mind, Becky, I'LL take
+care of 'ee."
+   
+"Oh, sir! it would be the pride of my life to go back
+to Queen's Crawley, and take care of the children, and
+of you as formerly, when you said you were pleased with
+the services of your little Rebecca.  When I think of what
+you have just offered me, my heart fills with gratitude
+indeed it does.  I can't be your wife, sir; let me--let me be
+your daughter."
+  
+Saying which, Rebecca went down on HER knees in a
+most tragical way, and, taking Sir Pitt's horny black
+hand between her own two (which were very pretty and
+white, and as soft as satin), looked up in his face with an
+expression of exquisite pathos and confidence, when--
+when the door opened, and Miss Crawley sailed in.
+  
+Mrs. Firkin and Miss Briggs, who happened by chance
+to be at the parlour door soon after the Baronet and
+Rebecca entered the apartment, had also seen accidentally,
+through the keyhole, the old gentleman prostrate
+before the governess, and had heard the generous proposal
+which he made her.  It was scarcely out of his mouth
+when Mrs. Firkin and Miss Briggs had streamed up the
+stairs, had rushed into the drawing-room where Miss
+Crawley was reading the French novel, and had given
+that old lady the astounding intelligence that Sir Pitt
+was on his knees, proposing to Miss Sharp.  And if you
+calculate the time for the above dialogue to take place
+--the time for Briggs and Firkin to fly to the drawing-
+room--the time for Miss Crawley to be astonished, and
+to drop her volume of Pigault le Brun--and the time for
+her to come downstairs--you will see how exactly
+accurate this history is, and how Miss Crawley must have
+appeared at the very instant when Rebecca had assumed
+the attitude of humility.
+  
+"It is the lady on the ground, and not the gentleman,"
+Miss Crawley said, with a look and voice of great scorn.
+"They told me that YOU were on your knees, Sir Pitt: do
+kneel once more, and let me see this pretty couple!"
+  
+"I have thanked Sir Pitt Crawley, Ma'am," Rebecca
+said, rising, "and have told him that--that I never can
+become Lady Crawley."
+  
+"Refused him!"  Miss Crawley said, more bewildered
+than ever.  Briggs and Firkin at the door opened the eyes
+of astonishment and the lips of wonder.
+  
+"Yes--refused," Rebecca continued, with a sad,
+tearful voice.
+  
+"And am I to credit my ears that you absolutely
+proposed to her, Sir Pitt?" the old lady asked.
+  
+"Ees," said the Baronet, "I did."
+  
+"And she refused you as she says?"
+  
+"Ees," Sir Pitt said, his features on a broad grin.
+  
+"It does not seem to break your heart at any rate,"
+Miss Crawley remarked.
+  
+"Nawt a bit," answered Sir Pitt, with a coolness and
+good-humour which set Miss Crawley almost mad with
+bewilderment.  That an old gentleman of station should
+fall on his knees to a penniless governess, and burst out
+laughing because she refused to marry him--that a
+penniless governess should refuse a Baronet with four
+thousand a year--these were mysteries which Miss Crawley
+could never comprehend.  It surpassed any complications
+of intrigue in her favourite Pigault le Brun.
+  
+"I'm glad you think it good sport, brother," she
+continued, groping wildly through this amazement.
+  
+"Vamous," said Sir Pitt.  "Who'd ha' thought it! what a
+sly little devil! what a little fox it waws!" he muttered
+to himself, chuckling with pleasure.
+  
+"Who'd have thought what?" cries Miss Crawley,
+stamping with her foot.  "Pray, Miss Sharp, are you
+waiting for the Prince Regent's divorce, that you don't think
+our family good enough for you?"
+  
+"My attitude," Rebecca said, "when you came in,
+ma'am, did not look as if I despised such an honour as
+this good--this noble man has deigned to offer me.  Do
+you think I have no heart?  Have you all loved me, and
+been so kind to the poor orphan--deserted--girl, and
+am I to feel nothing?  O my friends!  O my benefactors!
+may not my love, my life, my duty, try to repay the
+confidence you have shown me?  Do you grudge me even
+gratitude, Miss Crawley?  It is too much--my heart is
+too full"; and she sank down in a chair so pathetically,
+that most of the audience present were perfectly melted
+with her sadness.
+  
+"Whether you marry me or not, you're a good little
+girl, Becky, and I'm your vriend, mind," said Sir Pitt, and
+putting on his crape-bound hat, he walked away--greatly
+to Rebecca's relief; for it was evident that her secret
+was unrevealed to Miss Crawley, and she had the
+advantage of a brief reprieve.
+  
+Putting her handkerchief to her eyes, and nodding
+away honest Briggs, who would have followed her
+upstairs, she went up to her apartment; while Briggs and
+Miss Crawley, in a high state of excitement, remained
+to discuss the strange event, and Firkin, not less moved,
+dived down into the kitchen regions, and talked of it
+with all the male and female company there.  And so
+impressed was Mrs. Firkin with the news, that she thought
+proper to write off by that very night's post, "with her
+humble duty to Mrs. Bute Crawley and the family at the
+Rectory, and Sir Pitt has been and proposed for to marry
+Miss Sharp, wherein she has refused him, to the wonder
+of all."
+  
+The two ladies in the dining-room (where worthy
+Miss Briggs was delighted to be admitted once more to
+confidential conversation with her patroness) wondered
+to their hearts' content at Sir Pitt's offer, and Rebecca's
+refusal; Briggs very acutely suggesting that there must
+have been some obstacle in the shape of a previous
+attachment, otherwise no young woman in her senses would
+ever have refused so advantageous a proposal.
+
+"You would have accepted it yourself, wouldn't you,
+Briggs?" Miss Crawley said, kindly.
+  
+"Would it not be a privilege to be Miss Crawley's
+sister?" Briggs replied, with meek evasion.
+  
+"Well, Becky would have made a good Lady Crawley,
+after all," Miss Crawley remarked (who was mollified by
+the girl's refusal, and very liberal and generous now there
+was no call for her sacrifices).  "She has brains in plenty
+(much more wit in her little finger than you have, my
+poor dear Briggs, in all your head).  Her manners are
+excellent, now I have formed her.  She is a Montmorency,
+Briggs, and blood is something, though I despise it for
+my part; and she would have held her own amongst those
+pompous stupid Hampshire people much better than that
+unfortunate ironmonger's daughter."
+  
+Briggs coincided as usual, and the "previous attachment"
+was then discussed in conjectures.  "You poor
+friendless creatures are always having some foolish
+tendre," Miss Crawley said.  "You yourself, you know,
+were in love with a writing-master (don't cry, Briggs--
+you're always crying, and it won't bring him to life again),
+and I suppose this unfortunate Becky has been silly
+and sentimental too--some apothecary, or house-steward,
+or painter, or young curate, or something of that sort."
+  
+"Poor thing! poor thing!" says Briggs (who was thinking
+of twenty-four years back, and that hectic young
+writing-master whose lock of yellow hair, and whose
+letters, beautiful in their illegibility, she cherished in
+her old desk upstairs).  "Poor thing, poor thing!" says
+Briggs.  Once more she was a fresh-cheeked lass of eighteen;
+she was at evening church, and the hectic writing-master
+and she were quavering out of the same psalm-book.
+  
+"After such conduct on Rebecca's part," Miss Crawley
+said enthusiastically, "our family should do something.
+Find out who is the objet, Briggs.  I'll set him up in a
+shop; or order my portrait of him, you know; or speak
+to my cousin, the Bishopand I'll doter Becky, and
+we'll have a wedding, Briggs, and you shall make the
+breakfast, and be a bridesmaid."
+
+Briggs declared that it would be delightful, and vowed
+that her dear Miss Crawley was always kind and generous,
+and went up to Rebecca's bedroom to console her
+and prattle about the offer, and the refusal, and the
+cause thereof; and to hint at the generous intentions of
+Miss Crawley, and to find out who was the gentleman
+that had the mastery of Miss Sharp's heart.
+  
+Rebecca was very kind, very affectionate and affected
+--responded to Briggs's offer of tenderness with grateful
+fervour--owned there was a secret attachment--a
+delicious mystery--what a pity Miss Briggs had not
+remained half a minute longer at the keyhole!  Rebecca
+might, perhaps, have told more: but five minutes after
+Miss Briggs's arrival in Rebecca's apartment, Miss Crawley
+actually made her appearance there--an unheard-of
+honour--her impatience had overcome her; she could not
+wait for the tardy operations of her ambassadress: so
+she came in person, and ordered Briggs out of the room.
+And expressing her approval of Rebecca's conduct, she
+asked particulars of the interview, and the previous
+transactions which had brought about the astonishing
+offer of Sir Pitt.
+  
+Rebecca said she had long had some notion of the
+partiality with which Sir Pitt honoured her (for he was
+in the habit of making his feelings known in a very frank
+and unreserved manner) but, not to mention private
+reasons with which she would not for the present trouble
+Miss Crawley, Sir Pitt's age, station, and habits were
+such as to render a marriage quite impossible; and
+could a woman with any feeling of self-respect and any
+decency listen to proposals at such a moment, when
+the funeral of the lover's deceased wife had not actually
+taken place?
+  
+"Nonsense, my dear, you would never have refused
+him had there not been some one else in the case," Miss
+Crawley said, coming to her point at once.  "Tell me the
+private reasons; what are the private reasons?  There is
+some one; who is it that has touched your heart?"
+  
+Rebecca cast down her eyes, and owned there was.
+"You have guessed right, dear lady," she said, with a
+sweet simple faltering voice.  "You wonder at one so
+poor and friendless having an attachment, don't you?
+I have never heard that poverty was any safeguard
+against it.  I wish it were."
+  
+"My poor dear child," cried Miss Crawley, who was
+always quite ready to be sentimental, "is our passion
+unrequited, then?  Are we pining in secret? Tell me all,
+and let me console you."
+  
+"I wish you could, dear Madam," Rebecca said in the
+same tearful tone.  "Indeed, indeed, I need it." And she
+laid her head upon Miss Crawley's shoulder and wept
+there so naturally that the old lady, surprised into
+sympathy, embraced her with an almost maternal
+kindness, uttered many soothing protests of regard and
+affection for her, vowed that she loved her as a daughter,
+and would do everything in her power to serve her.  "And
+now who is it, my dear?  Is it that pretty Miss Sedley's
+brother?  You said something about an affair with him.
+I'll ask him here, my dear.  And you shall have him:
+indeed you shall."
+  
+"Don't ask me now," Rebecca said.  "You shall know
+all soon.  Indeed you shall.  Dear kind Miss Crawley--
+dear friend, may I say so?"
+  
+"That you may, my child," the old lady replied, kissing
+her.
+  
+"I can't tell you now," sobbed out Rebecca, "I am
+very miserable.  But O! love me always--promise you will
+love me always." And in the midst of mutual tears--for
+the emotions of the younger woman had awakened the
+sympathies of the elder--this promise was solemnly given
+by Miss Crawley, who left her little protege, blessing
+and admiring her as a dear, artless, tender-hearted,
+affectionate, incomprehensible creature.
+  
+And now she was left alone to think over the sudden
+and wonderful events of the day, and of what had been
+and what might have been.  What think you were the
+private feelings of Miss, no (begging her pardon) of
+Mrs. Rebecca?  If, a few pages back, the present writer
+claimed the privilege of peeping into Miss Amelia
+Sedley's bedroom, and understanding with the omniscience
+of the novelist all the gentle pains and passions which
+were tossing upon that innocent pillow, why should he
+not declare himself to be Rebecca's confidante too,
+master of her secrets, and seal-keeper of that young
+woman's conscience?
+  
+Well, then, in the first place, Rebecca gave way to
+some very sincere and touching regrets that a piece of
+marvellous good fortune should have been so near her,
+and she actually obliged to decline it.  In this natural
+emotion every properly regulated mind will certainly
+share.  What good mother is there that would not
+commiserate a penniless spinster, who might have been
+my lady, and have shared four thousand a year?  What
+well-bred young person is there in all Vanity Fair, who
+will not feel for a hard-working, ingenious, meritorious
+girl, who gets such an honourable, advantageous, provoking
+offer, just at the very moment when it is out of her
+power to accept it?  I am sure our friend Becky's
+disappointment deserves and will command every
+sympathy.
+  
+I remember one night being in the Fair myself, at an
+evening party.  I observed old Miss Toady there also
+present, single out for her special attentions and flattery
+little Mrs. Briefless, the barrister's wife, who is of a
+good family certainly, but, as we all know, is as poor
+as poor can be.
+  
+What, I asked in my own mind, can cause this
+obsequiousness on the part of Miss Toady; has Briefless
+got a county court, or has his wife had a fortune left her?
+Miss Toady explained presently, with that simplicity
+which distinguishes all her conduct.  "You know," she
+said, "Mrs.Briefless is granddaughter of Sir John Redhand,
+who is so ill at Cheltenham that he can't last six
+months.  Mrs.  Briefless's papa succeeds; so you see she
+will be a baronet's daughter." And Toady asked Briefless
+and his wife to dinner the very next week.
+  
+If the mere chance of becoming a baronet's daughter
+can procure a lady such homage in the world, surely,
+surely we may respect the agonies of a young woman
+who has lost the opportunity of becoming a baronet's
+wife.  Who would have dreamed of Lady Crawley dying
+so soon?  She was one of those sickly women that
+might have lasted these ten years--Rebecca thought to
+herself, in all the woes of repentance--and I might have
+been my lady!  I might have led that old man whither I
+would.  I might have thanked Mrs. Bute for her
+patronage, and Mr. Pitt for his insufferable condescension.  I
+would have had the town-house newly furnished and
+decorated.  I would have had the handsomest carriage in
+London, and a box at the opera; and I would have
+been presented next season.  All this might have been;
+and now--now all was doubt and mystery.
+  
+But Rebecca was a young lady of too much resolution
+and energy of character to permit herself much useless
+and unseemly sorrow for the irrevocable past; so, having
+devoted only the proper portion of regret to it, she wisely
+turned her whole attention towards the future, which
+was now vastly more important to her.  And she
+surveyed her position, and its hopes, doubts, and chances.
+  
+In the first place, she was MARRIED--that was a great
+fact.  Sir Pitt knew it.  She was not so much surprised into
+the avowal, as induced to make it by a sudden calculation.
+It must have come some day: and why not now
+as at a later period? He who would have married her
+himself must at least be silent with regard to her marriage.
+How Miss Crawley would bear the news--was the great
+question.  Misgivings Rebecca had; but she remembered
+all Miss Crawley had said; the old lady's avowed
+contempt for birth; her daring liberal opinions; her
+general romantic propensities; her almost doting attachment
+to her nephew, and her repeatedly expressed fondness for
+Rebecca herself.  She is so fond of him, Rebecca thought,
+that she will forgive him anything: she is so used to me
+that I don't think she could be comfortable without
+me: when the eclaircissement comes there will be a
+scene, and hysterics, and a great quarrel, and then a
+great reconciliation.  At all events, what use was there
+in delaying? the die was thrown, and now or to-morrow
+the issue must be the same.  And so, resolved that Miss
+Crawley should have the news, the young person
+debated in her mind as to the best means of conveying it
+to her; and whether she should face the storm that must
+come, or fly and avoid it until its first fury was blown
+over.  In this state of meditation she wrote the following
+letter:
+
+Dearest Friend,
+
+The great crisis which we have debated
+about so often is COME.  Half of my secret is known, and
+I have thought and thought, until I am quite sure that
+now is the time to reveal THE WHOLE OF THE MYSTERY.  Sir
+Pitt came to me this morning, and made--what do you
+think?--A DECLARATION IN FORM.  Think of that!  Poor
+little me.  I might have been Lady Crawley.  How pleased
+Mrs. Bute would have been: and ma tante if I had taken
+precedence of her! I might have been somebody's
+mamma, instead of--O, I tremble, I tremble, when I
+think how soon we must tell all!
+  
+Sir Pitt knows I am married, and not knowing to
+whom, is not very much displeased as yet.  Ma tante is
+ACTUALLY ANGRY that I should have refused him.  But she
+is all kindness and graciousness.  She condescends to say
+I would have made him a good wife; and vows that
+she will be a mother to your little Rebecca.  She will be
+shaken when she first hears the news.  But need we fear
+anything beyond a momentary anger?  I think not: I AM
+SURE not.  She dotes upon you so (you naughty, good-for-
+nothing man), that she would pardon you ANYTHING:
+and, indeed, I believe, the next place in her heart is
+mine: and that she would be miserable without me.
+Dearest! something TELLS ME we shall conquer.  You shall
+leave that odious regiment: quit gaming, racing, and BE
+A GOOD BOY; and we shall all live in Park Lane, and ma
+tante shall leave us all her money.
+  
+I shall try and walk to-morrow at 3 in the usual place.
+If Miss B. accompanies me, you must come to dinner,
+and bring an answer, and put it in the third volume of
+Porteus's Sermons.  But, at all events, come to your own
+
+R.
+
+To Miss Eliza Styles,
+At Mr. Barnet's, Saddler, Knightsbridge.
+
+And I trust there is no reader of this little story who
+has not discernment enough to perceive that the Miss
+Eliza Styles (an old schoolfellow, Rebecca said, with
+whom she had resumed an active correspondence of late,
+and who used to fetch these letters from the saddler's),
+wore brass spurs, and large curling mustachios, and was
+indeed no other than Captain Rawdon Crawley.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+
+The Letter on the Pincushion
+
+How they were married is not of the slightest
+consequence to anybody.  What is to hinder a Captain who
+is a major, and a young lady who is of age, from purchasing
+a licence, and uniting themselves at any church in this
+town?  Who needs to be told, that if a woman has a will
+she will assuredly find a way?--My belief is that one
+day, when Miss Sharp had gone to pass the forenoon
+with her dear friend Miss Amelia Sedley in Russell
+Square, a lady very like her might have been seen
+entering a church in the City, in company with a gentleman
+with dyed mustachios, who, after a quarter of an hour's
+interval, escorted her back to the hackney-coach in
+waiting, and that this was a quiet bridal party.
+  
+And who on earth, after the daily experience we have,
+can question the probability of a gentleman marrying
+anybody? How many of the wise and learned have
+married their cooks?  Did not Lord Eldon himself, the
+most prudent of men, make a runaway match? Were not
+Achilles and Ajax both in love with their servant maids?
+And are we to expect a heavy dragoon with strong
+desires and small brains, who had never controlled a
+passion in his life, to become prudent all of a sudden,
+and to refuse to pay any price for an indulgence to
+which he had a mind?  If people only made prudent
+marriages, what a stop to population there would be!
+  
+It seems to me, for my part, that Mr. Rawdon's marriage
+was one of the honestest actions which we shall have to
+record in any portion of that gentleman's biography which
+has to do with the present history.  No one will say it is
+unmanly to be captivated by a woman, or, being
+captivated, to marry her; and the admiration, the delight, the
+passion, the wonder, the unbounded confidence, and frantic adoration with which, by degrees, this big warrior got
+to regard the little Rebecca, were feelings which the ladies
+at least will pronounce were not altogether discreditable
+to him.  When she sang, every note thrilled in his dull
+soul, and tingled through his huge frame.  When she spoke,
+he brought all the force of his brains to listen and wonder.
+If she was jocular, he used to revolve her jokes in his
+mind, and explode over them half an hour afterwards in
+the street, to the surprise of the groom in the tilbury by
+his side, or the comrade riding with him in Rotten Row.
+Her words were oracles to him, her smallest actions
+marked by an infallible grace and wisdom.  "How she
+sings,--how she paints," thought he.  "How she rode that
+kicking mare at Queen's Crawley!"  And he would say to
+her in confidential moments, "By Jove, Beck, you're fit
+to be Commander-in-Chief, or Archbishop of Canterbury,
+by Jove."  Is his case a rare one? and don't we see every
+day in the world many an honest Hercules at the
+apron-strings of Omphale, and great whiskered Samsons
+prostrate in Delilah's lap?
+  
+When, then, Becky told him that the great crisis was
+near, and the time for action had arrived, Rawdon 
+expressed himself as ready to act under her orders, as he
+would be to charge with his troop at the command of his
+colonel.  There was no need for him to put his letter into
+the third volume of Porteus.  Rebecca easily found a
+means to get rid of Briggs, her companion, and met her
+faithful friend in "the usual place" on the next day.  She
+had thought over matters at night, and communicated to
+Rawdon the result of her determinations.  He agreed, of
+course, to everything; was quite sure that it was all
+right: that what she proposed was best; that Miss Crawley
+would infallibly relent, or "come round," as he said, after
+a time.  Had Rebecca's resolutions been entirely different,
+he would have followed them as implicitly.  "You have
+head enough for both of us, Beck," said he.  "You're sure
+to get us out of the scrape.  I never saw your equal, and
+I've met with some clippers in my time too." And with
+this simple confession of faith, the love-stricken dragoon
+left her to execute his part of the project which she had
+formed for the pair.
+  
+It consisted simply in the hiring of quiet lodgings at
+Brompton, or in the neighbourhood of the barracks, for
+Captain and Mrs. Crawley.  For Rebecca had determined,
+and very prudently, we think, to fly.  Rawdon was
+only too happy at her resolve; he had been entreating
+her to take this measure any time for weeks past.  He
+pranced off to engage the lodgings with all the impetuosity
+of love.  He agreed to pay two guineas a week so readily,
+that the landlady regretted she had asked him so little.
+He ordered in a piano, and half a nursery-house full of
+flowers: and a heap of good things.  As for shawls, kid
+gloves, silk stockings, gold French watches, bracelets and
+perfumery, he sent them in with the profusion of blind
+love and unbounded credit.  And having relieved his mind
+by this outpouring of generosity, he went and dined
+nervously at the club, waiting until the great moment of his
+life should come.
+
+  The occurrences of the previous day; the admirable
+conduct of Rebecca in refusing an offer so advantageous
+to her, the secret unhappiness preying upon her, the
+sweetness and silence with which she bore her affliction,
+made Miss Crawley much more tender than usual.  An
+event of this nature, a marriage, or a refusal, or a
+proposal, thrills through a whole household of women, and
+sets all their hysterical sympathies at work.  As an
+observer of human nature, I regularly frequent St. George's,
+Hanover Square, during the genteel marriage season; and
+though I have never seen the bridegroom's male friends
+give way to tears, or the beadles and officiating clergy
+any way affected, yet it is not at all uncommon to see
+women who are not in the least concerned in the
+operations going on--old ladies who are long past marrying,
+stout middle-aged females with plenty of sons and daughters,
+let alone pretty young creatures in pink bonnets, who
+are on their promotion, and may naturally take an
+interest in the ceremony--I say it is quite common to see
+the women present piping, sobbing, sniffling; hiding their
+little faces in their little useless pocket-handkerchiefs;
+and heaving, old and young, with emotion.  When my
+friend, the fashionable John Pimlico, married the lovely
+Lady Belgravia Green Parker, the excitement was so
+general that even the little snuffy old pew-opener who let me
+into the seat was in tears.  And wherefore? I inquired of
+my own soul: she was not going to be married.
+  
+Miss Crawley and Briggs in a word, after the affair of
+Sir Pitt, indulged in the utmost luxury of sentiment, and
+Rebecca became an object of the most tender interest to
+them.  In her absence Miss Crawley solaced herself with
+the most sentimental of the novels in her library.  Little
+Sharp, with her secret griefs, was the heroine of the day.
+  
+That night Rebecca sang more sweetly and talked more
+pleasantly than she had ever been heard to do in Park
+Lane.  She twined herself round the heart of Miss Crawley.
+She spoke lightly and laughingly of Sir Pitt's proposal,
+ridiculed it as the foolish fancy of an old man; and her
+eyes filled with tears, and Briggs's heart with unutterable
+pangs of defeat, as she said she desired no other lot than
+to remain for ever with her dear benefactress.  "My dear
+little creature," the old lady said, "I don't intend to let
+you stir for years, that you may depend upon it.  As for
+going back to that odious brother of mine after what
+has passed, it is out of the question.  Here you stay with me
+and Briggs.  Briggs wants to go to see her relations very
+often.  Briggs, you may go when you like.  But as for you,
+my dear, you must stay and take care of the old woman."
+  
+If Rawdon Crawley had been then and there present,
+instead of being at the club nervously drinking claret, the
+pair might have gone down on their knees before the old
+spinster, avowed all, and been forgiven in a twinkling.
+But that good chance was denied to the young couple,
+doubtless in order that this story might be written, in
+which numbers of their wonderful adventures are narrated
+--adventures which could never have occurred to them
+if they had been housed and sheltered under the
+comfortable uninteresting forgiveness of Miss Crawley.
+
+Under Mrs. Firkin's orders, in the Park Lane establishment,
+was a young woman from Hampshire, whose business it was,
+among other duties, to knock at Miss Sharp's door with
+that jug of hot water which Firkin would rather have
+perished than have presented to the intruder.  This
+girl, bred on the family estate, had a brother in Captain
+Crawley's troop, and if the truth were known, I daresay
+it would come out that she was aware of certain arrangements,
+which have a great deal to do with this history.
+At any rate she purchased a yellow shawl, a pair of green
+boots, and a light blue hat with a red feather with three
+guineas which Rebecca gave her, and as little Sharp was
+by no means too liberal with her money, no doubt it
+was for services rendered that Betty Martin was so bribed.
+  
+On the second day after Sir Pitt Crawley's offer to
+Miss Sharp, the sun rose as usual, and at the usual hour
+Betty Martin, the upstairs maid, knocked at the door of
+the governess's bedchamber.
+  
+No answer was returned, and she knocked again.  Silence
+was still uninterrupted; and Betty, with the hot water,
+opened the door and entered the chamber.
+  
+The little white dimity bed was as smooth and trim as
+on the day previous, when Betty's own hands had helped
+to make it.  Two little trunks were corded in one end of
+the room; and on the table before the window--on the
+pincushionthe great fat pincushion lined with pink
+inside, and twilled like a lady's nightcap--lay a letter.  It
+had been reposing there probably all night.
+  
+Betty advanced towards it on tiptoe, as if she were
+afraid to awake it--looked at it, and round the room,
+with an air of great wonder and satisfaction; took up the
+letter, and grinned intensely as she turned it round and
+over, and finally carried it into Miss Briggs's room
+below.
+  
+How could Betty tell that the letter was for Miss Briggs,
+I should like to know?  All the schooling Betty had had
+was at Mrs. Bute Crawley's Sunday school, and she could
+no more read writing than Hebrew.
+  
+"La, Miss Briggs," the girl exclaimed, "O, Miss,
+something must have happened--there's nobody in Miss
+Sharp's room; the bed ain't been slep in, and she've run
+away, and left this letter for you, Miss."
+  
+"WHAT!" cries Briggs, dropping her comb, the thin wisp
+of faded hair falling over her shoulders; "an elopement!
+Miss Sharp a fugitive!  What, what is this?" and she eagerly
+broke the neat seal, and, as they say, "devoured the
+contents" of the letter addressed to her.
+
+Dear Miss Briggs [the refugee wrote], the kindest
+heart in the world, as yours is, will pity and sympathise
+with me and excuse me.  With tears, and prayers, and
+blessings, I leave the home where the poor orphan has
+ever met with kindness and affection.  Claims even
+superior to those of my benefactress call me hence.  I go to
+my duty--to my HUSBAND.  Yes, I am married.  My
+husband COMMANDS me to seek the HUMBLE HOME which
+we call ours.  Dearest Miss Briggs, break the news as your
+delicate sympathy will know how to do it--to my dear,
+my beloved friend and benefactress.  Tell her, ere I went,
+I shed tears on her dear pillow--that pillow that I have
+so often soothed in sickness--that I long AGAIN to watch
+--Oh, with what joy shall I return to dear Park Lane!
+How I tremble for the answer which is to SEAL MY FATE!
+When Sir Pitt deigned to offer me his hand, an honour
+of which my beloved Miss Crawley said I was DESERVING
+(my blessings go with her for judging the poor orphan
+worthy to be HER SISTER!) I told Sir Pitt that I was already
+A WIFE.  Even he forgave me.  But my courage failed me,
+when I should have told him all--that I could not be
+his wife, for I WAS HIS DAUGHTER!  I am wedded to the best
+and most generous of men--Miss Crawley's Rawdon is
+MY Rawdon.  At his COMMAND I open my lips, and
+follow him to our humble home, as I would THROUGH THE
+WORLD.  O, my excellent and kind friend, intercede with
+my Rawdon's beloved aunt for him and the poor girl to
+whom all HIS NOBLE RACE have shown such UNPARALLELED
+AFFECTION.  Ask Miss Crawley to receive HER CHILDREN.  I
+can say no more, but blessings, blessings on all in the
+dear house I leave, prays
+
+Your affectionate and GRATEFUL
+Rebecca Crawley.
+Midnight.
+
+Just as Briggs had finished reading this affecting and
+interesting document, which reinstated her in her position
+as first confidante of Miss Crawley, Mrs. Firkin entered
+the room.  "Here's Mrs. Bute Crawley just arrived by
+the mail from Hampshire, and wants some tea; will you
+come down and make breakfast, Miss?"
+   
+And to the surprise of Firkin, clasping her dressing-gown
+around her, the wisp of hair floating dishevelled
+behind her, the little curl-papers still sticking in bunches
+round her forehead, Briggs sailed down to Mrs. Bute with
+the letter in her hand containing the wonderful news.
+
+"Oh, Mrs. Firkin," gasped Betty, "sech a business.  Miss
+Sharp have a gone and run away with the Capting, and
+they're off to Gretney Green!"  We would devote a chapter
+to describe the emotions of Mrs. Firkin, did not the
+passions of her mistresses occupy our genteeler muse.
+
+When Mrs. Bute Crawley, numbed with midnight travelling,
+and warming herself at the newly crackling parlour
+fire, heard from Miss Briggs the intelligence of the
+clandestine marriage, she declared it was quite providential
+that she should have arrived at such a time to assist poor
+dear Miss Crawley in supporting the shock--that Rebecca
+was an artful little hussy of whom she had always
+had her suspicions; and that as for Rawdon Crawley, she
+never could account for his aunt's infatuation regarding
+him, and had long considered him a profligate, lost,
+and abandoned being.  And this awful conduct, Mrs. Bute
+said, will have at least this good effect, it will open poor
+dear Miss Crawley's eyes to the real character of this
+wicked man.  Then Mrs. Bute had a comfortable hot toast
+and tea; and as there was a vacant room in the house
+now, there was no need for her to remain at the Gloster
+Coffee House where the Portsmouth mail had set her
+down, and whence she ordered Mr. Bowls's aide-de-camp
+the footman to bring away her trunks.
+  
+Miss Crawley, be it known, did not leave her room until
+near noon--taking chocolate in bed in the morning, while
+Becky Sharp read the Morning Post to her, or otherwise
+amusing herself or dawdling.  The conspirators below
+agreed that they would spare the dear lady's feelings
+until she appeared in her drawing-room: meanwhile it was
+announced to her that Mrs. Bute Crawley had come up
+from Hampshire by the mail, was staying at the Gloster,
+sent her love to Miss Crawley, and asked for breakfast
+with Miss Briggs.  The arrival of Mrs. Bute, which would
+not have caused any extreme delight at another period,
+was hailed with pleasure now; Miss Crawley being pleased
+at the notion of a gossip with her sister-in-law regarding
+the late Lady Crawley, the funeral arrangements pending,
+and Sir Pitt's abrupt proposal to Rebecca.
+  
+It was not until the old lady was fairly ensconced in
+her usual arm-chair in the drawing-room, and the
+preliminary embraces and inquiries had taken place between
+the ladies, that the conspirators thought it advisable to
+submit her to the operation.  Who has not admired the
+artifices and delicate approaches with which women
+"prepare" their friends for bad news?  Miss Crawley's two
+friends made such an apparatus of mystery before they
+broke the intelligence to her, that they worked her up to
+the necessary degree of doubt and alarm.
+  
+"And she refused Sir Pitt, my dear, dear Miss Crawley,
+prepare yourself for it," Mrs. Bute said, "because--
+because she couldn't help herself."
+  
+"Of course there was a reason," Miss Crawley answered.
+"She liked somebody else.  I told Briggs so yesterday."
+
+"LIKES somebody else!" Briggs gasped.  "O my dear
+friend, she is married already."
+  
+"Married already," Mrs. Bute chimed in; and both sate
+with clasped hands looking from each other at their
+victim.
+  
+"Send her to me, the instant she comes in.  The little
+sly wretch: how dared she not tell me?" cried out Miss
+Crawley.
+  
+"She won't come in soon.  Prepare yourself, dear friend
+--she's gone out for a long time--she's--she's gone
+altogether."
+  
+"Gracious goodness, and who's to make my chocolate?
+Send for her and have her back; I desire that she come
+back," the old lady said.
+  
+"She decamped last night, Ma'am," cried Mrs. Bute.
+  
+"She left a letter for me," Briggs exclaimed.  "She's
+married to--"
+  
+"Prepare her, for heaven's sake.  Don't torture her, my
+dear Miss Briggs."
+  
+"She's married to whom?" cries the spinster in a
+nervous fury.
+  
+"To--to a relation of--"
+  
+"She refused Sir Pitt," cried the victim.  "Speak at once.
+Don't drive me mad."
+  
+"O Ma'am--prepare her, Miss Briggs--she's married
+to Rawdon Crawley."
+  
+"Rawdon married Rebecca--governess--nobod--
+Get out of my house, you fool, you idiot--you stupid old
+Briggs how dare you? You're in the plot--you made
+him marry, thinking that I'd leave my money from him--
+you did, Martha," the poor old lady screamed in hysteric
+sentences.
+  
+"I, Ma'am, ask a member of this family to marry a
+drawing-master's daughter?"
+  
+"Her mother was a Montmorency," cried out the old
+lady, pulling at the bell with all her might.
+  
+"Her mother was an opera girl, and she has been on
+the stage or worse herself," said Mrs. Bute.
+  
+Miss Crawley gave a final scream, and fell back in a
+faint.  They were forced to take her back to the room
+which she had just quitted.  One fit of hysterics succeeded
+another.  The doctor was sent for--the apothecary arrived.
+Mrs. Bute took up the post of nurse by her bedside.  "Her
+relations ought to be round about her," that amiable
+woman said.
+  
+She had scarcely been carried up to her room, when a
+new person arrived to whom it was also necessary to break
+the news.  This was Sir Pitt.  "Where's Becky?" he said,
+coming in.  "Where's her traps? She's coming with me to
+Queen's Crawley."
+  
+"Have you not heard the astonishing intelligence
+regarding her surreptitious union?" Briggs asked.
+  
+"What's that to me?" Sir Pitt asked.  "I know she's
+married.  That makes no odds.  Tell her to come down at
+once, and not keep me."
+  
+"Are you not aware, sir," Miss Briggs asked, "that she
+has left our roof, to the dismay of Miss Crawley, who is
+nearly killed by the intelligence of Captain Rawdon's union
+with her?"
+  
+When Sir Pitt Crawley heard that Rebecca was married
+to his son, he broke out into a fury of language, which it
+would do no good to repeat in this place, as indeed it
+sent poor Briggs shuddering out of the room; and with her
+we will shut the door upon the figure of the frenzied old
+man, wild with hatred and insane with baffled desire.
+  
+One day after he went to Queen's Crawley, he burst
+like a madman into the room she had used when there
+--dashed open her boxes with his foot, and flung about
+her papers, clothes, and other relics.  Miss Horrocks, the
+butler's daughter, took some of them.  The children
+dressed themselves and acted plays in the others.  It was
+but a few days after the poor mother had gone to her
+lonely burying-place; and was laid, unwept and
+disregarded, in a vault full of strangers.
+
+"Suppose the old lady doesn't come to," Rawdon said to
+his little wife, as they sate together in the snug little
+Brompton lodgings.  She had been trying the new piano
+all the morning.  The new gloves fitted her to a nicety; the
+new shawls became her wonderfully; the new rings
+glittered on her little hands, and the new watch ticked at her
+waist; "suppose she don't come round, eh, Becky?"
+  
+"I'LL make your fortune," she said; and Delilah patted
+Samson's cheek.
+  
+"You can do anything," he said, kissing the little hand.
+"By Jove you can; and we'll drive down to the Star and
+Garter, and dine, by Jove."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+How Captain Dobbin Bought a Piano
+
+If there is any exhibition in all Vanity Fair which Satire
+and Sentiment can visit arm in arm together; where you
+light on the strangest contrasts laughable and tearful:
+where you may be gentle and pathetic, or savage and
+cynical with perfect propriety: it is at one of those public
+assemblies, a crowd of which are advertised every day in
+the last page of the Times newspaper, and over which
+the late Mr. George Robins used to preside with so much
+dignity.  There are very few London people, as I fancy,
+who have not attended at these meetings, and all with a
+taste for moralizing must have thought, with a sensation
+and interest not a little startling and queer, of the day
+when their turn shall come too, and Mr. Hammerdown
+will sell by the orders of Diogenes' assignees, or will be
+instructed by the executors, to offer to public competition,
+the library, furniture, plate, wardrobe, and choice cellar
+of wines of Epicurus deceased.
+  
+Even with the most selfish disposition, the Vanity Fairian,
+as he witnesses this sordid part of the obsequies of a
+departed friend, can't but feel some sympathies and regret.
+My Lord Dives's remains are in the family vault: the
+statuaries are cutting an inscription veraciously
+commemorating his virtues, and the sorrows of his heir,
+who is disposing of his goods.  What guest at Dives's table
+can pass the familiar house without a sigh? .--the familiar
+house of which the lights used to shine so cheerfully at
+seven o'clock, of which the hall-doors opened so readily,
+of which the obsequious servants, as you passed up the
+comfortable stair, sounded your name from landing to
+landing, until it reached the apartment where jolly old
+Dives welcomed his friends!  What a number of them he
+had; and what a noble way of entertaining them.  How
+witty people used to be here who were morose when they
+got out of the door; and how courteous and friendly men
+who slandered and hated each other everywhere else!  He
+was pompous, but with such a cook what would one not
+swallow? he was rather dull, perhaps, but would not
+such wine make any conversation pleasant?  We must get
+some of his Burgundy at any price, the mourners cry at
+his club.  "I got this box at old Dives's sale," Pincher says,
+handing it round, "one of Louis XV's mistresses--pretty
+thing, is it not?--sweet miniature," and they talk of the
+way in which young Dives is dissipating his fortune.
+  
+How changed the house is, though!  The front is patched
+over with bills, setting forth the particulars of the furniture
+in staring capitals.  They have hung a shred of carpet out
+of an upstairs window--a half dozen of porters are lounging
+on the dirty steps--the hall swarms with dingy guests
+of oriental countenance, who thrust printed cards into
+your hand, and offer to bid.  Old women and amateurs
+have invaded the upper apartments, pinching the bed-
+curtains, poking into the feathers, shampooing the
+mattresses, and clapping the wardrobe drawers to and fro.
+Enterprising young housekeepers are measuring the
+looking-glasses and hangings to see if they will suit the new
+menage (Snob will brag for years that he has purchased
+this or that at Dives's sale), and Mr. Hammerdown is
+sitting on the great mahogany dining-tables, in the dining-
+room below, waving the ivory hammer, and employing all
+the artifices of eloquence, enthusiasm, entreaty, reason,
+despair; shouting to his people; satirizing Mr. Davids for
+his sluggishness; inspiriting Mr. Moss into action;
+imploring, commanding, bellowing, until down comes the
+hammer like fate, and we pass to the next lot.  O Dives,
+who would ever have thought, as we sat round the broad
+table sparkling with plate and spotless linen, to have seen
+such a dish at the head of it as that roaring auctioneer?
+  
+It was rather late in the sale.  The excellent drawing-
+room furniture by the best makers; the rare and famous
+wines selected, regardless of cost, and with the well-known
+taste of the purchaser; the rich and complete set of family
+plate had been sold on the previous days.  Certain of the
+best wines (which all had a great character among
+amateurs in the neighbourhood) had been purchased for his
+master, who knew them very well, by the butler of our
+friend John Osborne, Esquire, of Russell Square.  A small
+portion of the most useful articles of the plate had been
+bought by some young stockbrokers from the City.  And
+now the public being invited to the purchase of minor
+objects, it happened that the orator on the table was
+expatiating on the merits of a picture, which he sought
+to recommend to his audience: it was by no means so
+select or numerous a company as had attended the
+previous days of the auction.
+  
+"No. 369," roared Mr. Hammerdown.  "Portrait of a
+gentleman on an elephant.  Who'll bid for the gentleman
+on the elephant?  Lift up the picture, Blowman, and let
+the company examine this lot." A long, pale, military-
+looking gentleman, seated demurely at the mahogany
+table, could not help grinning as this valuable lot was
+shown by Mr. Blowman.  "Turn the elephant to the
+Captain, Blowman.  What shall we say, sir, for the elephant?"
+but the Captain, blushing in a very hurried and discomfited
+manner, turned away his head.
+  
+"Shall we say twenty guineas for this work of art?--
+fifteen, five, name your own price.  The gentleman
+without the elephant is worth five pound."
+
+"I wonder it ain't come down with him," said a
+professional wag, "he's anyhow a precious big one"; at
+which (for the elephant-rider was represented as of a very
+stout figure) there was a general giggle in the room.
+  
+"Don't be trying to deprecate the value of the lot, Mr.
+Moss," Mr. Hammerdown said; "let the company
+examine it as a work of art--the attitude of the gallant
+animal quite according to natur'; the gentleman in a
+nankeen jacket, his gun in his hand, is going to the
+chase; in the distance a banyhann tree and a pagody,
+most likely resemblances of some interesting spot in our
+famous Eastern possessions.  How much for this lot?
+Come, gentlemen, don't keep me here all day."
+  
+Some one bid five shillings, at which the military
+gentleman looked towards the quarter from which this
+splendid offer had come, and there saw another officer
+with a young lady on his arm, who both appeared to be
+highly amused with the scene, and to whom, finally, this
+lot was knocked down for half a guinea.  He at the
+table looked more surprised and discomposed than ever
+when he spied this pair, and his head sank into his
+military collar, and he turned his back upon them, so as
+to avoid them altogether.
+  
+Of all the other articles which Mr. Hammerdown had
+the honour to offer for public competition that day it is
+not our purpose to make mention, save of one only, a
+little square piano, which came down from the upper
+regions of the house (the state grand piano having
+been disposed of previously); this the young lady tried
+with a rapid and skilful hand (making the officer blush
+and start again), and for it, when its turn came, her
+agent began to bid.
+  
+But there was an opposition here.  The Hebrew aide-de-
+camp in the service of the officer at the table bid against
+the Hebrew gentleman employed by the elephant
+purchasers, and a brisk battle ensued over this little piano,
+the combatants being greatly encouraged by Mr.
+Hammerdown.
+  
+At last, when the competition had been prolonged for
+some time, the elephant captain and lady desisted from
+the race; and the hammer coming down, the auctioneer
+said:--"Mr. Lewis, twenty-five," and Mr. Lewis's chief
+thus became the proprietor of the little square piano.
+Having effected the purchase, he sate up as if he was
+greatly relieved, and the unsuccessful competitors
+catching a glimpse of him at this moment, the lady
+said to her friend,
+
+"Why, Rawdon, it's Captain Dobbin."
+  
+I suppose Becky was discontented with the new piano
+her husband had hired for her, or perhaps the
+proprietors of that instrument had fetched it away,
+declining farther credit, or perhaps she had a particular
+attachment for the one which she had just tried to purchase,
+recollecting it in old days, when she used to play upon
+it, in the little sitting-room of our dear Amelia Sedley.
+
+The sale was at the old house in Russell Square, where
+we passed some evenings together at the beginning of
+this story.  Good old John Sedley was a ruined man.  His
+name had been proclaimed as a defaulter on the Stock
+Exchange, and his bankruptcy and commercial extermination
+had followed.  Mr. Osborne's butler came to buy some of the
+famous port wine to transfer to the cellars over the way.
+As for one dozen well-manufactured silver spoons and
+forks at per oz., and one dozen dessert ditto ditto,
+there were three young stockbrokers (Messrs. Dale,
+Spiggot, and Dale, of Threadneedle Street, indeed),
+who, having had dealings with the old man, and
+kindnesses from him in days when he was kind to
+everybody with whom he dealt, sent this little spar out
+of the wreck with their love to good Mrs. Sedley; and with
+respect to the piano, as it had been Amelia's, and as she
+might miss it and want one now, and as Captain William
+Dobbin could no more play upon it than he could dance
+on the tight rope, it is probable that he did not purchase
+the instrument for his own use.
+  
+In a word, it arrived that evening at a wonderful small
+cottage in a street leading from the Fulham Road--one
+of those streets which have the finest romantic names--
+(this was called St. Adelaide Villas, Anna-Maria Road
+West), where the houses look like baby-houses; where
+the people, looking out of the first-floor windows, must
+infallibly, as you think, sit with their feet in the parlours;
+where the shrubs in the little gardens in front bloom with
+a perennial display of little children's pinafores, little red
+socks, caps, &c. (polyandria polygynia); whence you
+hear the sound of jingling spinets and women singing;
+where little porter pots hang on the railings sunning
+themselves; whither of evenings you see City clerks
+padding wearily: here it was that Mr. Clapp, the clerk of
+Mr. Sedley, had his domicile, and in this asylum the good
+old gentleman hid his head with his wife and daughter
+when the crash came.
+  
+Jos Sedley had acted as a man of his disposition
+would, when the announcement of the family misfortune
+reached him.  He did not come to London, but he wrote
+to his mother to draw upon his agents for whatever
+money was wanted, so that his kind broken-spirited old
+parents had no present poverty to fear.  This done, Jos
+went on at the boarding-house at Cheltenham pretty
+much as before.  He drove his curricle; he drank his
+claret; he played his rubber; he told his Indian stories,
+and the Irish widow consoled and flattered him as usual.
+His present of money, needful as it was, made little
+impression on his parents; and I have heard Amelia say
+that the first day on which she saw her father lift up his
+head after the failure was on the receipt of the packet
+of forks and spoons with the young stockbrokers' love,
+over which he burst out crying like a child, being greatly
+more affected than even his wife, to whom the present
+was addressed.  Edward Dale, the junior of the house,
+who purchased the spoons for the firm, was, in fact, very
+sweet upon Amelia, and offered for her in spite of all.
+He married Miss Louisa Cutts (daughter of Higham and
+Cutts, the eminent cornfactors) with a handsome fortune
+in 1820; and is now living in splendour, and with a
+numerous family, at his elegant villa, Muswell Hill.  But
+we must not let the recollections of this good fellow
+cause us to diverge from the principal history.
+
+I hope the reader has much too good an opinion of
+Captain and Mrs. Crawley to suppose that they ever
+would have dreamed of paying a visit to so remote a
+district as Bloomsbury, if they thought the family whom
+they proposed to honour with a visit were not merely
+out of fashion, but out of money, and could be
+serviceable to them in no possible manner.  Rebecca was
+entirely surprised at the sight of the comfortable old house
+where she had met with no small kindness, ransacked by
+brokers and bargainers, and its quiet family treasures
+given up to public desecration and plunder.  A month
+after her flight, she had bethought her of Amelia, and
+Rawdon, with a horse-laugh, had expressed a perfect
+willingness to see young George Osborne again.  "He's a
+very agreeable acquaintance, Beck," the wag added.  "I'd
+like to sell him another horse, Beck.  I'd like to play a
+few more games at billiards with him.  He'd be what I
+call useful just now, Mrs. C.--ha, ha!" by which sort of
+speech it is not to be supposed that Rawdon Crawley had
+a deliberate desire to cheat Mr. Osborne at play, but only
+wished to take that fair advantage of him which almost
+every sporting gentleman in Vanity Fair considers to be
+his due from his neighbour.
+  
+The old aunt was long in "coming-to." A month had
+elapsed.  Rawdon was denied the door by Mr. Bowls; his
+servants could not get a lodgment in the house at Park
+Lane; his letters were sent back unopened.  Miss Crawley
+never stirred out--she was unwell--and Mrs. Bute
+remained still and never left her.  Crawley and his wife both
+of them augured evil from the continued presence of
+Mrs. Bute.
+  
+"Gad, I begin to perceive now why she was always
+bringing us together at Queen's Crawley," Rawdon said.
+  
+"What an artful little woman!" ejaculated Rebecca.
+  
+"Well, I don't regret it, if you don't," the Captain
+cried, still in an amorous rapture with his wife, who
+rewarded him with a kiss by way of reply, and was
+indeed not a little gratified by the generous confidence
+of her husband.
+  
+"If he had but a little more brains," she thought to
+herself, "I might make something of him"; but she never
+let him perceive the opinion she had of him; listened
+with indefatigable complacency to his stories of the
+stable and the mess; laughed at all his jokes; felt the
+greatest interest in Jack Spatterdash, whose cab-horse
+had come down, and Bob Martingale, who had been
+taken up in a gambling-house, and Tom Cinqbars, who
+was going to ride the steeplechase.  When he came home
+she was alert and happy: when he went out she pressed
+him to go: when he stayed at home, she played and
+sang for him, made him good drinks, superintended his
+dinner, warmed his slippers, and steeped his soul in
+comfort.  The best of women (I have heard my grandmother
+say) are hypocrites.  We don't know how much
+they hide from us: how watchful they are when they
+seem most artless and confidential: how often those frank
+smiles which they wear so easily, are traps to cajole or
+elude or disarm--I don't mean in your mere coquettes,
+but your domestic models, and paragons of female virtue.
+Who has not seen a woman hide the dulness of a stupid
+husband, or coax the fury of a savage one?  We accept
+this amiable slavishness, and praise a woman for it: we
+call this pretty treachery truth.  A good housewife is of
+necessity a humbug; and Cornelia's husband was
+hoodwinked, as Potiphar was--only in a different way.
+  
+By these attentions, that veteran rake, Rawdon Crawley,
+found himself converted into a very happy and submissive
+married man.  His former haunts knew him not.
+They asked about him once or twice at his clubs, but did
+not miss him much: in those booths of Vanity Fair people
+seldom do miss each other.  His secluded wife ever smiling
+and cheerful, his little comfortable lodgings, snug
+meals, and homely evenings, had all the charms of novelty
+and secrecy.  The marriage was not yet declared to the
+world, or published in the Morning Post.  All his creditors
+would have come rushing on him in a body, had they
+known that he was united to a woman without fortune.
+"My relations won't cry fie upon me," Becky said, with
+rather a bitter laugh; and she was quite contented to wait
+until the old aunt should be reconciled, before she claimed
+her place in society.  So she lived at Brompton, and
+meanwhile saw no one, or only those few of her husband's
+male companions who were admitted into her little
+dining-room.  These were all charmed with her.  The little
+dinners, the laughing and chatting, the music afterwards,
+delighted all who participated in these enjoyments.  Major
+Martingale never thought about asking to
+see the marriage licence, Captain Cinqbars was perfectly
+enchanted with her skill in making punch.  And young
+Lieutenant Spatterdash (who was fond of piquet, and
+whom Crawley would often invite) was evidently and
+quickly smitten by Mrs. Crawley; but her own
+circumspection and modesty never forsook her for a
+moment, and Crawley's reputation as a fire-eating and
+jealous warrior was a further and complete defence to
+his little wife.
+  
+There are gentlemen of very good blood and fashion
+in this city, who never have entered a lady's drawing-
+room; so that though Rawdon Crawley's marriage might
+be talked about in his county, where, of course, Mrs.
+Bute had spread the news, in London it was doubted, or
+not heeded, or not talked about at all.  He lived comfortably
+on credit.  He had a large capital of debts, which
+laid out judiciously, will carry a man along for many
+years, and on which certain men about town contrive
+to live a hundred times better than even men with ready
+money can do.  Indeed who is there that walks London
+streets, but can point out a half-dozen of men riding
+by him splendidly, while he is on foot, courted by fashion,
+bowed into their carriages by tradesmen, denying
+themselves nothing, and living on who knows what?  We
+see Jack Thriftless prancing in the park, or darting in his
+brougham down Pall Mall: we eat his dinners served on
+his miraculous plate.  "How did this begin," we say, "or
+where will it end?" "My dear fellow," I heard Jack once
+say, "I owe money in every capital in Europe."  The end
+must come some day, but in the meantime Jack thrives
+as much as ever; people are glad enough to shake him by
+the hand, ignore the little dark stories that are whispered
+every now and then against him, and pronounce him a
+good-natured, jovial, reckless fellow.
+  
+Truth obliges us to confess that Rebecca had married a
+gentleman of this order.  Everything was plentiful in his
+house but ready money, of which their menage pretty
+early felt the want; and reading the Gazette one day,
+and coming upon the announcement of "Lieutenant G.
+Osborne to be Captain by purchase, vice Smith, who
+exchanges," Rawdon uttered that sentiment regarding
+Amelia's lover, which ended in the visit to Russell Square.
+  
+When Rawdon and his wife wished to communicate
+with Captain Dobbin at the sale, and to know particulars
+of the catastrophe which had befallen Rebecca's
+old acquaintances, the Captain had vanished; and such
+information as they got was from a stray porter or broker
+at the auction.
+  
+"Look at them with their hooked beaks," Becky said,
+getting into the buggy, her picture under her arm, in
+great glee.  "They're like vultures after a battle."
+  
+"Don't know.  Never was in action, my dear.  Ask
+Martingale; he was in Spain, aide-de-camp to General
+Blazes."
+  
+"He was a very kind old man, Mr. Sedley," Rebecca
+said; "I'm really sorry he's gone wrong."
+  
+"O stockbrokers--bankrupts--used to it, you know,"
+Rawdon replied, cutting a fly off the horse's ear.
+  
+"I wish we could have afforded some of the plate,
+Rawdon," the wife continued sentimentally.  "Five-and-
+twenty guineas was monstrously dear for that little piano.
+We chose it at Broadwood's for Amelia, when she came
+from school.  It only cost five-and-thirty then."
+  
+"What-d'-ye-call'em--'Osborne,' will cry off now, I
+suppose, since the family is smashed.  How cut up your
+pretty little friend will be; hey, Becky?"
+  
+"I daresay she'll recover it," Becky said with a smile
+--and they drove on and talked about something else.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+Who Played on the Piano Captain Dobbin Bought
+
+Our surprised story now finds itself for a moment
+among very famous events and personages, and
+hanging on to the skirts of history.  When the eagles
+of Napoleon Bonaparte, the Corsican upstart, were
+flying from Provence, where they had perched after a brief
+sojourn in Elba, and from steeple to steeple until they
+reached the towers of Notre Dame, I wonder whether the
+Imperial birds had any eye for a little corner of the parish
+of Bloomsbury, London, which you might have thought so quiet,
+that even the whirring and flapping of those mighty wings
+would pass unobserved there?
+  
+"Napoleon has landed at Cannes."  Such news might
+create a panic at Vienna, and cause Russia to drop his
+cards, and take Prussia into a corner, and Talleyrand
+and Metternich to wag their heads together, while Prince
+Hardenberg, and even the present Marquis of Londonderry,
+were puzzled; but how was this intelligence to affect a young
+lady in Russell Square, before whose door the watchman
+sang the hours when she was asleep: who, if she
+strolled in the square, was guarded there by the
+railings and the beadle:  who, if she walked ever so short
+a distance to buy a ribbon in Southampton Row, was
+followed by Black Sambo with an enormous cane:  who
+was always cared for, dressed, put to bed, and watched
+over by ever so many guardian angels, with and without
+wages?  Bon Dieu, I say, is it not hard that the fateful
+rush of the great Imperial struggle can't take place without
+affecting a poor little harmless girl of eighteen, who
+is occupied in billing and cooing, or working muslin
+collars in Russell Square?  You too, kindly, homely flower!
+--is the great roaring war tempest coming to sweep you
+down, here, although cowering under the shelter of
+Holborn?  Yes; Napoleon is flinging his last stake, and poor
+little Emmy Sedley's happiness forms, somehow, part of it.
+  
+In the first place, her father's fortune was swept down
+with that fatal news.  All his speculations had of late gone
+wrong with the luckless old gentleman.  Ventures had
+failed; merchants had broken; funds had risen when he
+calculated they would fall.  What need to particularize?
+If success is rare and slow, everybody knows how quick
+and easy ruin is.  Old Sedley had kept his own sad counsel.
+Everything seemed to go on as usual in the quiet,
+opulent house; the good-natured mistress pursuing, quite
+unsuspiciously, her bustling idleness, and daily easy
+avocations; the daughter absorbed still in one selfish, tender
+thought, and quite regardless of all the world besides,
+when that final crash came, under which the worthy
+family fell.
+  
+One night Mrs. Sedley was writing cards for a party;
+the Osbornes had given one, and she must not be
+behindhand; John Sedley, who had come home very late from
+the City, sate silent at the chimney side, while his wife
+was prattling to him; Emmy had gone up to her room
+ailing and low-spirited.  "She's not happy," the mother
+went on.  "George Osborne neglects her.  I've no patience
+with the airs of those people.  The girls have not been in
+the house these three weeks; and George has been twice
+in town without coming.  Edward Dale saw him at the
+Opera.  Edward would marry her I'm sure: and there's
+Captain Dobbin who, I think, would--only I hate all
+army men.  Such a dandy as George has become.  With
+his military airs, indeed!  We must show some folks that
+we're as good as they.  Only give Edward Dale any
+encouragement, and you'll see.  We must have a party, Mr.
+S.  Why don't you speak, John?  Shall I say Tuesday fortnight?
+Why don't you answer? Good God, John, what has happened?"
+  
+John Sedley sprang up out of his chair to meet his
+wife, who ran to him.  He seized her in his arms, and
+said with a hasty voice, "We're ruined, Mary.  We've
+got the world to begin over again, dear.  It's best that you
+should know all, and at once."  As he spoke, he trembled
+in every limb, and almost fell.  He thought the news would
+have overpowered his wife--his wife, to whom he had
+never said a hard word.  But it was he that was the most
+moved, sudden as the shock was to her.  When he sank
+back into his seat, it was the wife that took the office of
+consoler.  She took his trembling hand, and kissed it, and
+put it round her neck: she called him her John--her dear
+John--her old man--her kind old man; she poured out a
+hundred words of incoherent love and tenderness; her
+faithful voice and simple caresses wrought this sad heart
+up to an inexpressible delight and anguish, and cheered
+and solaced his over-burdened soul.
+  
+Only once in the course of the long night as they sate
+together, and poor Sedley opened his pent-up soul, and
+told the story of his losses and embarrassments--the
+treason of some of his oldest friends, the manly kindness
+of some, from whom he never could have expected it--in
+a general confession--only once did the faithful wife give
+way to emotion.
+  
+"My God, my God, it will break Emmy's heart," she
+said.
+  
+The father had forgotten the poor girl.  She was lying,
+awake and unhappy, overhead.  In the midst of friends,
+home, and kind parents, she was alone.  To how many
+people can any one tell all?  Who will be open where there
+is no sympathy, or has call to speak to those who never
+can understand?  Our gentle Amelia was thus solitary.  She
+had no confidante, so to speak, ever since she had anything
+to confide.  She could not tell the old mother her
+doubts and cares; the would-be sisters seemed every day
+more strange to her.  And she had misgivings and fears
+which she dared not acknowledge to herself, though she
+was always secretly brooding over them.
+
+Her heart tried to persist in asserting that George
+Osborne was worthy and faithful to her, though she knew
+otherwise.  How many a thing had she said, and got no
+echo from him.  How many suspicions of selfishness and
+indifference had she to encounter and obstinately
+overcome.  To whom could the poor little martyr tell these
+daily struggles and tortures?  Her hero himself only half
+understood her.  She did not dare to own that the man she
+loved was her inferior; or to feel that she had given her
+heart away too soon.  Given once, the pure bashful
+maiden was too modest, too tender, too trustful, too
+weak, too much woman to recall it.  We are Turks with
+the affections of our women; and have made them
+subscribe to our doctrine too.  We let their bodies go abroad
+liberally enough, with smiles and ringlets and pink
+bonnets to disguise them instead of veils and yakmaks.  But
+their souls must be seen by only one man, and they obey
+not unwillingly, and consent to remain at home as our
+slaves--ministering to us and doing drudgery for us.
+
+So imprisoned and tortured was this gentle little heart,
+when in the month of March, Anno Domini 1815,
+Napoleon landed at Cannes, and Louis XVIII fled, and all
+Europe was in alarm, and the funds fell, and old John
+Sedley was ruined.
+
+We are not going to follow the worthy old stockbroker
+through those last pangs and agonies of ruin through
+which he passed before his commercial demise befell.
+They declared him at the Stock Exchange; he was
+absent from his house of business: his bills were protested:
+his act of bankruptcy formal.  The house and furniture of
+Russell Square were seized and sold up, and he and his
+family were thrust away, as we have seen, to hide their
+heads where they might.
+
+John Sedley had not the heart to review the domestic
+establishment who have appeared now and anon in our
+pages and of whom he was now forced by poverty to
+take leave.  The wages of those worthy people were
+discharged with that punctuality which men frequently show
+who only owe in great sums--they were sorry to leave
+good places--but they did not break their hearts at parting
+from their adored master and mistress.  Amelia's maid
+was profuse in condolences, but went off quite resigned
+to better herself in a genteeler quarter of the town.  Black
+Sambo, with the infatuation of his profession, determined
+on setting up a public-house.  Honest old Mrs. Blenkinsop
+indeed, who had seen the birth of Jos and Amelia, and
+the wooing of John Sedley and his wife, was for staying
+by them without wages, having amassed a considerable
+sum in their service: and she accompanied the fallen
+people into their new and humble place of refuge, where
+she tended them and grumbled against them for a while.
+
+Of all Sedley's opponents in his debates with his creditors
+which now ensued, and harassed the feelings of the
+humiliated old gentleman so severely, that in six weeks he
+oldened more than he had done for fifteen years before--
+the most determined and obstinate seemed to be John
+Osborne, his old friend and neighbour--John Osborne,
+whom he had set up in life--who was under a hundred
+obligations to him--and whose son was to marry Sedley's
+daughter.  Any one of these circumstances would account
+for the bitterness of Osborne's opposition.
+
+When one man has been under very remarkable
+obligations to another, with whom he subsequently quarrels,
+a common sense of decency, as it were, makes of the
+former a much severer enemy than a mere stranger
+would be.  To account for your own hard-heartedness and
+ingratitude in such a case, you are bound to prove the
+other party's crime.  It is not that you are selfish, brutal,
+and angry at the failure of a speculation--no, no--it is
+that your partner has led you into it by the basest treachery
+and with the most sinister motives.  From a mere
+sense of consistency, a persecutor is bound to show that
+the fallen man is a villain--otherwise he, the persecutor,
+is a wretch himself.
+
+And as a general rule, which may make all creditors
+who are inclined to be severe pretty comfortable in their
+minds, no men embarrassed are altogether honest, very
+likely.  They conceal something; they exaggerate chances
+of good luck; hide away the real state of affairs; say that
+things are flourishing when they are hopeless, keep a
+smiling face (a dreary smile it is) upon the verge of
+bankruptcy--are ready to lay hold of any pretext for
+delay or of any money, so as to stave off the inevitable
+ruin a few days longer.  "Down with such dishonesty,"
+says the creditor in triumph, and reviles his sinking
+enemy.  "You fool, why do you catch at a straw?" calm
+good sense says to the man that is drowning.  "You villain,
+why do you shrink from plunging into the irretrievable
+Gazette?" says prosperity to the poor devil battling in
+that black gulf.  Who has not remarked the readiness with
+which the closest of friends and honestest of men suspect
+and accuse each other of cheating when they fall out
+on money matters? Everybody does it.  Everybody is right,
+I suppose, and the world is a rogue.
+
+Then Osborne had the intolerable sense of former
+benefits to goad and irritate him: these are always a
+cause of hostility aggravated.  Finally, he had to break off
+the match between Sedley's daughter and his son; and
+as it had gone very far indeed, and as the poor girl's
+happiness and perhaps character were compromised, it was
+necessary to show the strongest reasons for the rupture,
+and for John Osborne to prove John Sedley to be a very
+bad character indeed.
+
+At the meetings of creditors, then, he comported himself
+with a savageness and scorn towards Sedley, which
+almost succeeded in breaking the heart of that ruined
+bankrupt man.  On George's intercourse with Amelia he
+put an instant veto--menacing the youth with maledictions
+if he broke his commands, and vilipending the
+poor innocent girl as the basest and most artful of vixens.
+One of the great conditions of anger and hatred is, that
+you must tell and believe lies against the hated object, in
+order, as we said, to be consistent.
+
+When the great crash came--the announcement of
+ruin, and the departure from Russell Square, and the
+declaration that all was over between her and George--all
+over between her and love, her and happiness, her and
+faith in the world--a brutal letter from John Osborne
+told her in a few curt lines that her father's conduct had
+been of such a nature that all engagements between the
+families were at an end--when the final award came, it
+did not shock her so much as her parents, as her mother
+rather expected (for John Sedley himself was entirely
+prostrate in the ruins of his own affairs and shattered
+honour).  Amelia took the news very palely and calmly.
+It was only the confirmation of the dark presages which
+had long gone before.  It was the mere reading of the
+sentence--of the crime she had long ago been guilty--the
+crime of loving wrongly, too violently, against reason.
+She told no more of her thoughts now than she had
+before.  She seemed scarcely more unhappy now when
+convinced all hope was over, than before when she felt but
+dared not confess that it was gone.  So she changed from
+the large house to the small one without any mark or
+difference; remained in her little room for the most part;
+pined silently; and died away day by day.  I do not mean
+to say that all females are so.  My dear Miss Bullock, I
+do not think your heart would break in this way.  You are
+a strong-minded young woman with proper principles.
+I do not venture to say that mine would; it has suffered,
+and, it must be confessed, survived.  But there are some
+souls thus gently constituted, thus frail, and delicate, and
+tender.
+
+Whenever old John Sedley thought of the affair
+between George and Amelia, or alluded to it, it was with
+bitterness almost as great as Mr. Osborne himself had
+shown.  He cursed Osborne and his family as heartless,
+wicked, and ungrateful.  No power on earth, he swore,
+would induce him to marry his daughter to the son of
+such a villain, and he ordered Emmy to banish George
+from her mind, and to return all the presents and letters
+which she had ever had from him.
+
+She promised acquiescence, and tried to obey.  She put
+up the two or three trinkets: and, as for the letters, she
+drew them out of the place.where she kept them; and
+read them over--as if she did not know them by heart
+already: but she could not part with them.  That effort
+was too much for her; she placed them back in her
+bosom again--as you have seen a woman nurse a child
+that is dead.  Young Amelia felt that she would die or lose
+her senses outright, if torn away from this last consolation.
+How she used to blush and lighten up when those
+letters came!  How she used to trip away with a beating
+heart, so that she might read unseen!  If they were cold,
+yet how perversely this fond little soul interpreted them
+into warmth.  If they were short or selfish, what excuses
+she found for the writer!
+
+It was over these few worthless papers that she brooded
+and brooded.  She lived in her past life--every letter
+seemed to recall some circumstance of it.  How well she
+remembered them all!  His looks and tones, his dress,
+what he said and how--these relics and remembrances
+of dead affection were all that were left her in the world.
+And the business of her life, was--to watch the corpse
+of Love.
+
+To death she looked with inexpressible longing.  Then,
+she thought, I shall always be able to follow him.  I am not
+praising her conduct or setting her up as a model for
+Miss Bullock to imitate.  Miss B. knows how to regulate
+her feelings better than this poor little creature.  Miss B.
+would never have committed herself as that imprudent
+Amelia had done; pledged her love irretrievably;
+confessed her heart away, and got back nothing--only a
+brittle promise which was snapt and worthless in a
+moment.  A long engagement is a partnership which one
+party is free to keep or to break, but which involves all
+the capital of the other.
+
+Be cautious then, young ladies; be wary how you
+engage.  Be shy of loving frankly; never tell all you feel, or
+(a better way still), feel very little.  See the consequences
+of being prematurely honest and confiding, and mistrust
+yourselves and everybody.  Get yourselves married as they
+do in France, where the lawyers are the bridesmaids and
+confidantes.  At any rate, never have any feelings which
+may make you uncomfortable, or make any promises
+which you cannot at any required moment command and
+withdraw.  That is the way to get on, and be respected,
+and have a virtuous character in Vanity Fair.
+
+If Amelia could have heard the comments regarding
+her which were made in the circle from which her father's
+ruin had just driven her, she would have seen what her
+own crimes were, and how entirely her character was
+jeopardised.  Such criminal imprudence Mrs. Smith never
+knew of; such horrid familiarities Mrs. Brown had
+always condemned, and the end might be a warning to HER
+daughters.  "Captain Osborne, of course, could not marry
+a bankrupt's daughter," the Misses Dobbin said.  "It was
+quite enough to have been swindled by the father.  As for
+that little Amelia, her folly had really passed all--"
+
+"All what?" Captain Dobbin roared out.  "Haven't they
+been engaged ever since they were children?  Wasn't it
+as good as a marriage?  Dare any soul on earth breathe a
+word against the sweetest, the purest, the tenderest, the
+most angelical of young women?"
+
+"La, William, don't be so highty-tighty with US.  We're
+not men.  We can't fight you," Miss Jane said.  "We've said
+nothing against Miss Sedley: but that her conduct
+throughout was MOST IMPRUDENT, not to call it by any
+worse name; and that her parents are people who
+certainly merit their misfortunes."
+
+"Hadn't you better, now that Miss Sedley is free,
+propose for her yourself, William?" Miss Ann asked
+sarcastically.  "It would be a most eligible family
+connection.  He!  he!"
+
+"I marry her!" Dobbin said, blushing very much, and
+talking quick.  "If you are so ready, young ladies, to chop
+and change, do you suppose that she is?  Laugh and sneer
+at that angel.  She can't hear it; and she's miserable and
+unfortunate, and deserves to be laughed at.  Go on
+joking, Ann.  You're the wit of the family, and the others
+like to hear it."
+
+"I must tell you again we're not in a barrack, William,"
+Miss Ann remarked.
+
+"In a barrack, by Jove--I wish anybody in a barrack
+would say what you do," cried out this uproused British
+lion.  "I should like to hear a man breathe a word against
+her, by Jupiter.  But men don't talk in this way, Ann: it's
+only women, who get together and hiss, and shriek, and
+cackle.  There, get away--don't begin to cry.  I only said
+you were a couple of geese," Will Dobbin said, perceiving
+Miss Ann's pink eyes were beginning to moisten as
+usual.  "Well, you're not geese, you're swans--anything
+you like, only do, do leave Miss Sedley alone."
+
+Anything like William's infatuation about that silly little
+flirting, ogling thing was never known, the mamma
+and sisters agreed together in thinking: and they trembled
+lest, her engagement being off with Osborne, she should
+take up immediately her other admirer and Captain.
+In which forebodings these worthy young women no
+doubt judged according to the best of their experience; or
+rather (for as yet they had had no opportunities of
+marrying or of jilting) according to their own notions of
+right and wrong.
+
+"It is a mercy, Mamma, that the regiment is ordered
+abroad," the girls said.  "THIS danger, at any rate, is
+spared our brother."
+
+Such, indeed, was the fact; and so it is that the French
+Emperor comes in to perform a part in this domestic
+comedy of Vanity Fair which we are now playing, and
+which would never have been enacted without the
+intervention of this august mute personage.  It was he
+that ruined the Bourbons and Mr. John Sedley.  It was
+he whose arrival in his capital called up all France in
+arms to defend him there; and all Europe to oust him.
+While the French nation and army were swearing fidelity
+round the eagles in the Champ de Mars, four mighty
+European hosts were getting in motion for the great
+chasse a l'aigle; and one of these was a British army, of
+which two heroes of ours, Captain Dobbin and Captain
+Osborne, formed a portion.
+
+The news of Napoleon's escape and landing was
+received by the gallant --th with a fiery delight and
+enthusiasm, which everybody can understand who knows
+that famous corps.  From the colonel to the smallest
+drummer in the regiment, all were filled with hope and
+ambition and patriotic fury; and thanked the French Emperor
+as for a personal kindness in coming to disturb the peace
+of Europe.  Now was the time the --th had so long
+panted for, to show their comrades in arms that they
+could fight as well as the Peninsular veterans, and that
+all the pluck and valour of the --th had not been killed
+by the West Indies and the yellow fever.  Stubble and
+Spooney looked to get their companies without purchase.
+Before the end of the campaign (which she resolved
+to share), Mrs. Major O'Dowd hoped to write
+herself Mrs. Colonel O'Dowd, C.B.  Our two friends
+(Dobbin and Osborne) were quite as much excited as the
+rest: and each in his way--Mr. Dobbin very quietly, Mr.
+Osborne very loudly and energetically--was bent upon
+doing his duty, and gaining his share of honour and
+distinction.
+
+The agitation thrilling through the country and army
+in consequence of this news was so great, that private
+matters were little heeded: and hence probably George
+Osborne, just gazetted to his company, busy with preparations
+for the march, which must come inevitably, and
+panting for further promotion--was not so much affected
+by other incidents which would have interested him at a
+more quiet period.  He was not, it must be confessed,
+very much cast down by good old Mr. Sedley's catastrophe.
+He tried his new uniform, which became him
+very handsomely, on the day when the first meeting of
+the creditors of the unfortunate gentleman took place.
+His father told him of the wicked, rascally, shameful
+conduct of the bankrupt, reminded him of what he had
+said about Amelia, and that their connection was broken
+off for ever; and gave him that evening a good sum of
+money to pay for the new clothes and epaulets in which
+he looked so well.  Money was always useful to this free-
+handed young fellow, and he took it without many words.
+The bills were up in the Sedley house, where he had
+passed so many, many happy hours.  He could see
+them as he walked from home that night (to the Old
+Slaughters', where he put up when in town) shining white
+in the moon.  That comfortable home was shut, then, upon
+Amelia and her parents: where had they taken refuge?
+The thought of their ruin affected him not a little.  He
+was very melancholy that night in the coffee-room at
+the Slaughters'; and drank a good deal, as his comrades
+remarked there.
+
+Dobbin came in presently, cautioned him about the
+drink, which he only took, he said, because he was
+deuced low; but when his friend began to put to him
+clumsy inquiries, and asked him for news in a significant
+manner, Osborne declined entering into conversation with
+him, avowing, however, that he was devilish disturbed
+and unhappy.
+
+Three days afterwards, Dobbin found Osborne in his
+room at the barracks--his head on the table, a number
+of papers about, the young Captain evidently in a state
+of great despondency.  "She--she's sent me back some
+things I gave her--some damned trinkets.  Look here!"
+There was a little packet directed in the well-known hand
+to Captain George Osborne, and some things lying about
+--a ring, a silver knife he had bought, as a boy, for her
+at a fair; a gold chain, and a locket with hair in it.  "It's
+all over," said he, with a groan of sickening remorse.
+"Look, Will, you may read it if you like."
+
+There was a little letter of a few lines, to which he
+pointed, which said:
+
+
+My papa has ordered me to return to you these
+presents, which you made in happier days to me; and I
+am to write to you for the last time.  I think, I know you
+feel as much as I do the blow which has come upon us.
+It is I that absolve you from an engagement which is
+impossible in our present misery.  I am sure you had no
+share in it, or in the cruel suspicions of Mr. Osborne,
+which are the hardest of all our griefs to bear.  Farewell.
+Farewell.  I pray God to strengthen me to bear this and
+other calamities, and to bless you always.     A.
+
+I shall often play upon the piano--your piano.  It was
+like you to send it.
+
+Dobbin was very soft-hearted.  The sight of women
+and children in pain always used to melt him.  The idea
+of Amelia broken-hearted and lonely tore that good-
+natured soul with anguish.  And he broke out into an
+emotion, which anybody who likes may consider unmanly.
+He swore that Amelia was an angel, to which Osborne
+said aye with all his heart.  He, too, had been reviewing
+the history of their lives--and had seen her from her
+childhood to her present age, so sweet, so innocent,
+so charmingly simple, and artlessly fond and tender.
+
+What a pang it was to lose all that: to have had it and
+not prized it!  A thousand homely scenes and recollections
+crowded on him--in which he always saw her good
+and beautiful.  And for himself, he blushed with remorse
+and shame, as the remembrance of his own selfishness
+and indifference contrasted with that perfect purity.  For
+a while, glory, war, everything was forgotten, and the
+pair of friends talked about her only.
+
+"Where are they?" Osborne asked, after a long talk,
+and a long pause--and, in truth, with no little shame at
+thinking that he had taken no steps to follow her.  "Where
+are they? There's no address to the note."
+
+Dobbin knew.  He had not merely sent the piano; but
+had written a note to Mrs. Sedley, and asked permission
+to come and see her--and he had seen her, and Amelia
+too, yesterday, before he came down to Chatham; and,
+what is more, he had brought that farewell letter and
+packet which had so moved them.
+
+The good-natured fellow had found Mrs. Sedley only
+too willing to receive him, and greatly agitated by the
+arrival of the piano, which, as she conjectured, MUST have
+come from George, and was a signal of amity on his
+part.  Captain Dobbin did not correct this error of the
+worthy lady, but listened to all her story of complaints
+and misfortunes with great sympathy--condoled with
+her losses and privations, and agreed in reprehending the
+cruel conduct of Mr. Osborne towards his first benefactor. 
+When she had eased her overflowing bosom somewhat,
+and poured forth many of her sorrows, he had the
+courage to ask actually to see Amelia, who was above in
+her room as usual, and whom her mother led trembling
+downstairs.
+
+Her appearance was so ghastly, and her look of despair
+so pathetic, that honest William Dobbin was frightened
+as he beheld it; and read the most fatal forebodings in
+that pale fixed face.  After sitting in his company a minute
+or two, she put the packet into his hand, and said,
+"Take this to Captain Osborne, if you please, and--and I
+hope he's quite well--and it was very kind of you to
+come and see us--and we like our new house very much.
+And I--I think I'll go upstairs, Mamma, for I'm not very
+strong." And with this, and a curtsey and a smile, the
+poor child went her way.  The mother, as she led her up,
+cast back looks of anguish towards Dobbin.  The good
+fellow wanted no such appeal.  He loved her himself too
+fondly for that.  Inexpressible grief, and pity, and terror
+pursued him, and he came away as if he was a criminal
+after seeing her.
+
+When Osborne heard that his friend had found her,
+he made hot and anxious inquiries regarding the poor
+child.  How was she?  How did she look?  What did she
+say?  His comrade took his hand, and looked him in the
+face.
+
+"George, she's dying," William Dobbin said--and could
+speak no more.
+
+There was a buxom Irish servant-girl, who performed
+all the duties of the little house where the Sedley family
+had found refuge: and this girl had in vain, on many
+previous days, striven to give Amelia aid or consolation.
+Emmy was much too sad to answer, or even to be aware
+of the attempts the other was making in her favour.
+
+Four hours after the talk between Dobbin and Osborne,
+this servant-maid came into Amelia's room, where she
+sate as usual, brooding silently over her letters--her
+little treasures.  The girl, smiling, and looking arch and
+happy, made many trials to attract poor Emmy's
+attention, who, however, took no heed of her.
+
+"Miss Emmy," said the girl.
+
+"I'm coming," Emmy said, not looking round.
+
+"There's a message," the maid went on.  "There's
+something--somebody--sure, here's a new letter for you--
+don't be reading them old ones any more." And she gave
+her a letter, which Emmy took, and read.
+
+"I must see you," the letter said.  "Dearest Emmy--
+dearest love--dearest wife, come to me."
+
+George and her mother were outside, waiting until she
+had read the letter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+Miss Crawley at Nurse
+
+We have seen how Mrs. Firkin, the lady's maid, as soon
+as any event of importance to the Crawley family came
+to her knowledge, felt bound to communicate it to Mrs.
+Bute Crawley, at the Rectory; and have before
+mentioned how particularly kind and attentive that good-
+natured lady was to Miss Crawley's confidential servant.
+She had been a gracious friend to Miss Briggs, the
+companion, also; and had secured the latter's good-will by a
+number of those attentions and promises, which cost so
+little in the making, and are yet so valuable and agreeable to
+the recipient.  Indeed every good economist and
+manager of a household must know how cheap and yet
+how amiable these professions are, and what a flavour
+they give to the most homely dish in life.  Who was the
+blundering idiot who said that "fine words butter no
+parsnips"?  Half the parsnips of society are served and
+rendered palatable with no other sauce.  As the immortal
+Alexis Soyer can make more delicious soup for a half-
+penny than an ignorant cook can concoct with pounds of
+vegetables and meat, so a skilful artist will make a few
+simple and pleasing phrases go farther than ever so much
+substantial benefit-stock in the hands of a mere bungler.
+Nay, we know that substantial benefits often sicken some
+stomachs; whereas, most will digest any amount of fine
+words, and be always eager for more of the same food.
+Mrs. Bute had told Briggs and Firkin so often of the
+depth of her affection for them; and what she would do,
+if she had Miss Crawley's fortune, for friends so excellent
+and attached, that the ladies in question had the deepest
+regard for her; and felt as much gratitude and
+confidence as if Mrs. Bute had loaded them with the most
+expensive favours.
+
+Rawdon Crawley, on the other hand, like a selfish
+heavy dragoon as he was, never took the least trouble to
+conciliate his aunt's aides-de-camp, showed his contempt
+for the pair with entire frankness--made Firkin pull off
+his boots on one occasion--sent her out in the rain on
+ignominious messages--and if he gave her a guinea, flung
+it to her as if it were a box on the ear.  As his aunt, too,
+made a butt of Briggs, the Captain followed the
+example, and levelled his jokes at her--jokes about as
+delicate as a kick from his charger.  Whereas, Mrs. Bute
+consulted her in matters of taste or difficulty, admired
+her poetry, and by a thousand acts of kindness and
+politeness, showed her appreciation of Briggs; and if she
+made Firkin a twopenny-halfpenny present, accompanied
+it with so many compliments, that the twopence-half-
+penny was transmuted into gold in the heart of the grateful
+waiting-maid, who, besides, was looking forwards
+quite contentedly to some prodigious benefit which must
+happen to her on the day when Mrs. Bute came into her
+fortune.
+
+The different conduct of these two people is pointed
+out respectfully to the attention of persons commencing
+the world.  Praise everybody, I say to such: never be
+squeamish, but speak out your compliment both point-
+blank in a man's face, and behind his back, when
+you know there is a reasonable chance of his hearing it
+again.  Never lose a chance of saying a kind word.  As
+Collingwood never saw a vacant place in his estate but
+he took an acorn out of his pocket and popped it in;
+so deal with your compliments through life.  An acorn
+costs nothing; but it may sprout into a prodigious bit of
+timber.
+
+In a word, during Rawdon Crawley's prosperity, he was
+only obeyed with sulky acquiescence; when his disgrace
+came, there was nobody to help or pity him.  Whereas,
+when Mrs. Bute took the command at Miss Crawley's
+house, the garrison there were charmed to act under
+such a leader, expecting all sorts of promotion from her
+promises, her generosity, and her kind words.
+
+That he would consider himself beaten, after one defeat,
+and make no attempt to regain the position he had
+lost, Mrs. Bute Crawley never allowed herself to suppose.
+She knew Rebecca to be too clever and spirited and
+desperate a woman to submit without a struggle; and felt
+that she must prepare for that combat, and be incessantly
+watchful against assault; or mine, or surprise.
+
+In the first place, though she held the town, was she
+sure of the principal inhabitant?  Would Miss Crawley
+herself hold out; and had she not a secret longing to
+welcome back the ousted adversary?  The old lady liked
+Rawdon, and Rebecca, who amused her.  Mrs. Bute could
+not disguise from herself the fact that none of her party
+could so contribute to the pleasures of the town-bred
+lady.  "My girls' singing, after that little odious governess's,
+I know is unbearable," the candid Rector's wife
+owned to herself.  "She always used to go to sleep when
+Martha and Louisa played their duets.  Jim's stiff
+college manners and poor dear Bute's talk about his dogs
+and horses always annoyed her.  If I took her to the
+Rectory, she would grow angry with us all, and fly, I
+know she would; and might fall into that horrid
+Rawdon's clutches again, and be the victim of that little
+viper of a Sharp.  Meanwhile, it is clear to me that she is
+exceedingly unwell, and cannot move for some weeks, at
+any rate; during which we must think of some plan to
+protect her from the arts of those unprincipled people."
+
+In the very best-of moments, if anybody told Miss
+Crawley that she was, or looked ill, the trembling old
+lady sent off for her doctor; and I daresay she was very
+unwell after the sudden family event, which might serve
+to shake stronger nerves than hers.  At least, Mrs. Bute
+thought it was her duty to inform the physician, and the
+apothecary, and the dame-de-compagnie, and the domestics,
+that Miss Crawley was in a most critical state, and
+that they were to act accordingly.  She had the street laid
+knee-deep with straw; and the knocker put by with Mr.
+Bowls's plate.  She insisted that the Doctor should call
+twice a day; and deluged her patient with draughts every
+two hours.  When anybody entered the room, she uttered
+a shshshsh so sibilant and ominous, that it frightened the
+poor old lady in her bed, from which she could
+not look without seeing Mrs. Bute's beady eyes eagerly
+fixed on her, as the latter sate steadfast in the arm-chair
+by the bedside.  They seemed to lighten in the dark (for
+she kept the curtains closed) as she moved about the
+room on velvet paws like a cat.  There Miss Crawley lay
+for days--ever so many days--Mr. Bute reading books
+of devotion to her: for nights, long nights, during which
+she had to hear the watchman sing, the night-light sputter;
+visited at midnight, the last thing, by the stealthy apothecary;
+and then left to look at Mrs. Bute's twinkling eyes,
+or the flicks of yellow that the rushlight threw on the
+dreary darkened ceiling.  Hygeia herself would have
+fallen sick under such a regimen; and how much more
+this poor old nervous victim?  It has been said that when
+she was in health and good spirits, this venerable
+inhabitant of Vanity Fair had as free notions about religion
+and morals as Monsieur de Voltaire himself could desire,
+but when illness overtook her, it was aggravated by
+the most dreadful terrors of death, and an utter cowardice
+took possession of the prostrate old sinner.
+
+Sick-bed homilies and pious reflections are, to be sure,
+out of place in mere story-books, and we are not going
+(after the fashion of some novelists of the present day)
+to cajole the.public into a sermon, when it is only a
+comedy that the reader pays his money to witness.  But,
+without preaching, the truth may surely be borne in mind,
+that the bustle, and triumph, and laughter, and gaiety
+which Vanity Fair exhibits in public, do not always pursue
+the performer into private life, and that the most
+dreary depression of spirits and dismal repentances
+sometimes overcome him.  Recollection of the best ordained
+banquets will scarcely cheer sick epicures.  Reminiscences
+of the most becoming dresses and brilliant ball triumphs
+will go very little way to console faded beauties.  Perhaps
+statesmen, at a particular period of existence, are
+not much gratified at thinking over the most triumphant
+divisions; and the success or the pleasure of yesterday
+becomes of very small account when a certain
+(albeit uncertain) morrow is in view, about which all of
+us must some day or other be speculating.  O brother
+wearers of motley!  Are there not moments when one
+grows sick of grinning and tumbling, and the jingling of
+cap and bells?  This, dear friends and companions, is my
+amiable object--to walk with you through the Fair, to
+examine the shops and the shows there; and that we
+should all come home after the flare, and the noise, and
+the gaiety, and be perfectly miserable in private.
+
+"If that poor man of mine had a head on his shoulders,"
+Mrs. Bute Crawley thought to herself, "how useful he
+might be, under present circumstances, to this unhappy
+old lady!  He might make her repent of her shocking
+free-thinking ways; he might urge her to do her duty,
+and cast off that odious reprobate who has disgraced
+himself and his family; and he might induce her to do
+justice to my dear girls and the two boys, who require
+and deserve, I am sure, every assistance which their
+relatives can give them."
+
+And, as the hatred of vice is always a progress towards
+virtue, Mrs. Bute Crawley endeavoured to instil
+her sister-in-law a proper abhorrence for all Rawdon
+Crawley's manifold sins: of which his uncle's wife brought
+forward such a catalogue as indeed would have served
+to condemn a whole regiment of young officers.  If a man
+has committed wrong in life, I don't know any moralist
+more anxious to point his errors out to the world than
+his own relations; so Mrs. Bute showed a perfect family
+interest and knowledge of Rawdon's history.  She had all
+the particulars of that ugly quarrel with Captain Marker,
+in which Rawdon, wrong from the beginning, ended in
+shooting the Captain.  She knew how the unhappy Lord
+Dovedale, whose mamma had taken a house at Oxford,
+so that he might be educated there, and who had never
+touched a card in his life till he came to London, was
+perverted by Rawdon at the Cocoa-Tree, made helplessly
+tipsy by this abominable seducer and perverter of youth,
+and fleeced of four thousand pounds.  She described with
+the most vivid minuteness the agonies of the country
+families whom he had ruined--the sons whom he had
+plunged into dishonour and poverty--the daughters
+whom he had inveigled into perdition.  She knew the poor
+tradesmen who were bankrupt by his extravagance--the
+mean shifts and rogueries with which he had ministered
+to it--the astounding falsehoods by which he had imposed
+upon the most generous of aunts, and the ingratitude and
+ridicule by which he had repaid her sacrifices.  She
+imparted these stories gradually to Miss Crawley; gave her
+the whole benefit of them; felt it to be her bounden duty
+as a Christian woman and mother of a family to do so;
+had not the smallest remorse or compunction for the
+victim whom her tongue was immolating; nay, very likely
+thought her act was quite meritorious, and plumed
+herself upon her resolute manner of performing it.  Yes,
+if a man's character is to be abused, say what you will,
+there's nobody like a relation to do the business.  And one
+is bound to own, regarding this unfortunate wretch of a
+Rawdon Crawley, that the mere truth was enough to
+condemn him, and that all inventions of scandal were quite
+superfluous pains on his friends' parts.
+
+Rebecca, too, being now a relative, came in for the
+fullest share of Mrs. Bute's kind inquiries.  This indefatigable
+pursuer of truth (having given strict orders that the
+door was to be denied to all emissaries or letters
+from Rawdon), took Miss Crawley's carriage, and drove
+to her old friend Miss Pinkerton, at Minerva House,
+Chiswick Mall, to whom she announced the dreadful
+intelligence of Captain Rawdon's seduction by Miss Sharp,
+and from whom she got sundry strange particulars
+regarding the ex-governess's birth and early history.  The
+friend of the Lexicographer had plenty of information
+to give.  Miss Jemima was made to fetch the drawing-
+master's receipts and letters.  This one was from a
+spunging-house: that entreated an advance: another was
+full of gratitude for Rebecca's reception by the ladies of
+Chiswick: and the last document from the unlucky artist's
+pen was that in which, from his dying bed, he recommended
+his orphan child to Miss Pinkerton's protection.  There
+were juvenile letters and petitions from Rebecca, too, in
+the collection, imploring aid for her father or declaring
+her own gratitude.  Perhaps in Vanity Fair there are no
+better satires than letters.  Take a bundle of your dear
+friend's of ten years back--your dear friend whom you
+hate now.  Look at a file of your sister's! how you clung
+to each other till you quarrelled about the twenty-pound
+legacy!  Get down the round-hand scrawls of your son
+who has half broken your heart with selfish undutifulness
+since; or a parcel of your own, breathing endless
+ardour and love eternal, which were sent back by your
+mistress when she married the Nabob--your mistress for
+whom you now care no more than for Queen Elizabeth.
+Vows, love, promises, confidences, gratitude, how queerly
+they read after a while!  There ought to be a law in
+Vanity Fair ordering the destruction of every written
+document (except receipted tradesmen's bills) after a
+certain brief and proper interval.  Those quacks and
+misanthropes who advertise indelible Japan ink should be
+made to perish along with their wicked discoveries.  The
+best ink for Vanity Fair use would be one that faded
+utterly in a couple of days, and left the paper clean and
+blank, so that you might write on it to somebody else.
+
+From Miss Pinkerton's the indefatigable Mrs. Bute
+followed the track of Sharp and his daughter back to the
+lodgings in Greek Street, which the defunct painter had
+occupied; and where portraits of the landlady in white
+satin, and of the husband in brass buttons, done by Sharp
+in lieu of a quarter's rent, still decorated the parlour
+walls.  Mrs. Stokes was a communicative person, and
+quickly told all she knew about Mr. Sharp; how dissolute
+and poor he was; how good-natured and amusing; how he
+was always hunted by bailiffs and duns; how, to the landlady's horror, though she never could abide the woman,
+he did not marry his wife till a short time before her
+death; and what a queer little wild vixen his daughter
+was; how she kept them all laughing with her fun and
+mimicry; how she used to fetch the gin from the public-house,
+and was known in all the studios in the quarter--in brief,
+Mrs. Bute got such a full account of her new niece's
+parentage, education, and behaviour as would
+scarcely have pleased Rebecca, had the latter known that
+such inquiries were being made concerning her.
+
+Of all these industrious researches Miss Crawley had
+the full benefit.  Mrs. Rawdon Crawley was the daughter
+of an opera-girl.  She had danced herself.  She had been a
+model to the painters.  She was brought up as became
+her mother's daughter.  She drank gin with her father,
+&c. &c. It was a lost woman who was married to a lost
+man; and the moral to be inferred from Mrs. Bute's
+tale was, that the knavery of the pair was irremediable,
+and that no properly conducted person should ever notice
+them again.
+
+These were the materials which prudent Mrs. Bute
+gathered together in Park Lane, the provisions and
+ammunition as it were with which she fortified the house
+against the siege which she knew that Rawdon and his
+wife would lay to Miss Crawley.
+
+But if a fault may be found with her arrangements, it
+is this, that she was too eager: she managed rather too
+well; undoubtedly she made Miss Crawley more ill than
+was necessary; and though the old invalid succumbed
+to her authority, it was so harassing and severe, that the
+victim would be inclined to escape at the very first chance
+which fell in her way.  Managing women, the ornaments
+of their sex--women who order everything for everybody,
+and know so much better than any person concerned
+what is good for their neighbours, don't sometimes
+speculate upon the possibility of a domestic revolt, or
+upon other extreme consequences resulting from their
+overstrained authority.
+
+Thus, for instance, Mrs. Bute, with the best intentions
+no doubt in the world, and wearing herself to death as
+she did by foregoing sleep, dinner, fresh air, for the sake
+of her invalid sister-in-law, carried her conviction of the
+old lady's illness so far that she almost managed her
+into her coffin.  She pointed out her sacrifices and their
+results one day to the constant apothecary, Mr. Clump.
+
+"I am sure, my dear Mr. Clump," she said, "no efforts
+of mine have been wanting to restore our dear invalid,
+whom the ingratitude of her nephew has laid on the bed
+of sickness.  I never shrink from personal discomfort: I
+never refuse to sacrifice myself."
+
+"Your devotion, it must be confessed, is admirable,"
+Mr. Clump says, with a low bow; "but--"
+
+"I have scarcely closed my eyes since my arrival: I
+give up sleep, health, every comfort, to my sense of duty.
+When my poor James was in the smallpox, did I allow any
+hireling to nurse him?  No."
+
+"You did what became an excellent mother, my dear
+Madam--the best of mothers; but--~'
+
+"As the mother of a family and the wife of an English
+clergyman, I humbly trust that my principles are good,"
+Mrs. Bute said, with a happy solemnity of conviction;
+"and, as long as Nature supports me, never, never, Mr.
+Clump, will I desert the post of duty.  Others may bring
+that grey head with sorrow to the bed of sickness (here
+Mrs. Bute, waving her hand, pointed to one of old Miss
+Crawley's coffee-coloured fronts, which was perched on
+a stand in the dressing-room), but I will never quit it.
+Ah, Mr. Clump!  I fear, I know, that the couch needs
+spiritual as well as medical consolation."
+
+"What I was going to observe, my dear Madam,"--
+here the resolute Clump once more interposed with a
+bland air--"what I was going to observe when you gave
+utterance to sentiments which do you so much honour,
+was that I think you alarm yourself needlessly about our
+kind friend, and sacrifice your own health too prodigally
+in her favour."
+
+"I would lay down my life for my duty, or for any
+member of my husband's family," Mrs. Bute interposed.
+
+"Yes, Madam, if need were; but we don't want Mrs
+Bute Crawley to be a martyr," Clump said gallantly.  "Dr
+Squills and myself have both considered Miss Crawley's
+case with every anxiety and care, as you may suppose.  We
+see her low-spirited and nervous; family events have
+agitated her."
+
+"Her nephew will come to perdition," Mrs. Crawley
+cried.
+
+"Have agitated her: and you arrived like a guardian
+angel, my dear Madam, a positive guardian angel, I
+assure you, to soothe her under the pressure of calamity.
+But Dr. Squills and I were thinking that our amiable
+friend is not in such a state as renders confinement to her
+bed necessary.  She is depressed, but this confinement
+perhaps adds to her depression.  She should have change,
+fresh air, gaiety; the most delightful remedies in the
+pharmacopoeia," Mr. Clump said, grinning and showing
+his handsome teeth.  "Persuade her to rise, dear Madam;
+drag her from her couch and her low spirits; insist upon
+her taking little drives.  They will restore the roses too to
+your cheeks, if I may so speak to Mrs. Bute Crawley."
+
+"The sight of her horrid nephew casually in the Park,
+where I am told the wretch drives with the brazen partner
+of his crimes," Mrs. Bute said (letting the cat of selfishness
+out of the bag of secrecy), "would cause her such
+a shock, that we should have to bring her back to bed
+again.  She must not go out, Mr. Clump.  She shall not go
+out as long as I remain to watch over her; And as for my
+health, what matters it?  I give it cheerfully, sir.  I sacrifice
+it at the altar of my duty."
+
+"Upon my word, Madam," Mr. Clump now said bluntly,
+"I won't answer for her life if she remains locked up
+in that dark room.  She is so nervous that we may lose
+her any day; and if you wish Captain Crawley to be her
+heir, I warn you frankly, Madam, that you are doing
+your very best to serve him."
+
+"Gracious mercy! is her life in danger?" Mrs. Bute
+cried.  "Why, why, Mr. Clump, did you not inform me
+sooner?"
+
+The night before, Mr. Clump and Dr. Squills had had a
+consultation (over a bottle of wine at the house of Sir
+Lapin Warren, whose lady was about to present him
+with a thirteenth blessing), regarding Miss Crawley and
+her case.
+
+"What a little harpy that woman from Hampshire is,
+Clump," Squills remarked, "that has seized upon old
+Tilly Crawley.  Devilish good Madeira."
+
+"What a fool Rawdon Crawley has been," Clump replied,
+"to go and marry a governess!  There was something
+about the girl, too."
+
+"Green eyes, fair skin, pretty figure, famous frontal
+development," Squills remarked.  "There is something
+about her; and Crawley was a fool, Squills."
+
+"A d-- fool--always was," the apothecary replied.
+
+"Of course the old girl will fling him over," said the
+physician, and after a pause added, "She'll cut up well, I
+suppose."
+
+"Cut up," says Clump with a grin; "I wouldn't have her
+cut up for two hundred a year."
+
+"That Hampshire woman will kill her in two months,
+Clump, my boy, if she stops about her," Dr. Squills said.
+"Old woman; full feeder; nervous subject; palpitation of
+the heart; pressure on the brain; apoplexy; off she goes.
+Get her up, Clump; get her out: or I wouldn't give many
+weeks' purchase for your two hundred a year." And it was
+acting upon this hint that the worthy apothecary spoke
+with so much candour to Mrs. Bute Crawley.
+
+Having the old lady under her hand: in bed: with nobody
+near, Mrs. Bute had made more than one assault
+upon her, to induce her to alter her will.  But Miss Crawley's
+usual terrors regarding death increased greatly when
+such dismal propositions were made to her, and Mrs.
+Bute saw that she must get her patient into cheerful spirits
+and health before she could hope to attain the pious object
+which she had in view.  Whither to take her was the
+next puzzle.  The only place where she is not likely to
+meet those odious Rawdons is at church, and that won't
+amuse her, Mrs. Bute justly felt.  "We must go and visit
+our beautiful suburbs of London," she then thought.  "I
+hear they are the most picturesque in the world"; and so
+she had a sudden interest for Hampstead, and Hornsey,
+and found that Dulwich had great charms for her, and
+getting her victim into her carriage, drove her to those
+rustic spots, beguiling the little journeys with conversations
+about Rawdon and his wife, and telling every story
+to the old lady which could add to her indignation against
+this pair of reprobates.
+
+Perhaps Mrs. Bute pulled the string unnecessarily tight.
+For though she worked up Miss Crawley to a proper dislike
+of her disobedient nephew, the invalid had a great
+hatred and secret terror of her victimizer, and panted
+to escape from her.  After a brief space, she rebelled
+against Highgate and Hornsey utterly.  She would go into
+the Park.  Mrs. Bute knew they would meet the abominable
+Rawdon there, and she was right.  One day in the
+ring, Rawdon's stanhope came in sight; Rebecca was
+seated by him.  In the enemy's equipage Miss Crawley
+occupied her usual place, with Mrs. Bute on her left, the
+poodle and Miss Briggs on the back seat.  It was a nervous
+moment, and Rebecca's heart beat quick as she recognized the carriage; and as the two vehicles crossed each
+other in a line, she clasped her hands, and looked towards
+the spinster with a face of agonized attachment and devotion. Rawdon himself trembled, and his face grew purple
+behind his dyed mustachios.  Only old Briggs was moved
+in the other carriage, and cast her great eyes nervously
+towards her old friends.  Miss Crawley's bonnet was resolutely
+turned towards the Serpentine.  Mrs. Bute happened to
+be in ecstasies with the poodle, and was calling him a little
+darling, and a sweet little zoggy, and a pretty pet.  The
+carriages moved on, each in his line.
+
+"Done, by Jove," Rawdon said to his wife.
+
+"Try once more, Rawdon," Rebecca answered.  "Could
+not you lock your wheels into theirs, dearest?"
+
+Rawdon had not the heart for that manoeuvre.  When
+the carriages met again, he stood up in his stanhope; he
+raised his hand ready to doff his hat; he looked with all
+his eyes.  But this time Miss Crawley's face was not turned
+away; she and Mrs. Bute looked him full in the face,
+and cut their nephew pitilessly.  He sank back in his seat
+with an oath, and striking out of the ring, dashed away
+desperately homewards.
+
+It was a gallant and decided triumph for Mrs. Bute.
+But she felt the danger of many such meetings, as she
+saw the evident nervousness of Miss Crawley; and she
+determined that it was most necessary for her dear
+friend's health, that they should leave town for a while,
+and recommended Brighton very strongly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+
+In Which Captain Dobbin Acts as the Messenger of Hymen
+
+Without knowing how, Captain William Dobbin found
+himself the great promoter, arranger, and manager of the
+match between George Osborne and Amelia.  But for him
+it never would have taken place:  he could not but
+confess as much to himself, and smiled rather bitterly as he
+thought that he of all men in the world should be the
+person upon whom the care of this marriage had fallen.
+But though indeed the conducting of this negotiation was
+about as painful a task as could be set to him, yet when
+he had a duty to perform, Captain Dobbin was accustomed
+to go through it without many words or much
+hesitation:  and, having made up his mind completely,
+that if Miss Sedley was balked of her husband she would
+die of the disappointment, he was determined to use all
+his best endeavours to keep her alive.
+
+I forbear to enter into minute particulars of the interview
+between George and Amelia, when the former was
+brought back to the feet (or should we venture to say the
+arms?) of his young mistress by the intervention of his
+friend honest William.  A much harder heart than
+George's would have melted at the sight of that sweet
+face so sadly ravaged by grief and despair, and at the
+simple tender accents in which she told her little broken-
+hearted story: but as she did not faint when her mother,
+trembling, brought Osborne to her; and as she only gave
+relief to her overcharged grief, by laying her head on
+her lover's shoulder and there weeping for a while the
+most tender, copious, and refreshing tears--old Mrs.
+Sedley, too greatly relieved, thought it was best to leave
+the young persons to themselves; and so quitted Emmy
+crying over George's hand, and kissing it humbly, as if he
+were her supreme chief and master, and as if she were
+quite a guilty and unworthy person needing every favour
+and grace from him.
+
+This prostration and sweet unrepining obedience
+exquisitely touched and flattered George Osborne.  He saw a
+slave before him in that simple yielding faithful creature,
+and his soul within him thrilled secretly somehow
+at the knowledge of his power.  He would be generous-
+minded, Sultan as he was, and raise up this kneeling
+Esther and make a queen of her:  besides, her sadness
+and beauty touched him as much as her submission, and
+so he cheered her, and raised her up and forgave her, so
+to speak.  All her hopes and feelings, which were dying
+and withering, this her sun having been removed from
+her, bloomed again and at once, its light being restored.
+You would scarcely have recognised the beaming little
+face upon Amelia's pillow that night as the one that was
+laid there the night before, so wan, so lifeless, so
+careless of all round about.  The honest Irish maid-servant,
+delighted with the change, asked leave to kiss the face
+that had grown all of a sudden so rosy.  Amelia put her
+arms round the girl's neck and kissed her with all her
+heart, like a child.  She was little more.  She had that night
+a sweet refreshing sleep, like one--and what a spring of
+inexpressible happiness as she woke in the morning sunshine!
+
+"He will be here again to-day," Amelia thought.  "He is
+the greatest and best of men."  And the fact is, that
+George thought he was one of the generousest creatures
+alive: and that he was making a tremendous sacrifice in
+marrying this young creature.
+
+While she and Osborne were having their delightful
+tete-a-tete above stairs, old Mrs. Sedley and Captain
+Dobbin were conversing below upon the state of the
+affairs, and the chances and future arrangements of the
+young people.  Mrs. Sedley having brought the two lovers
+together and left them embracing each other with all their
+might, like a true woman, was of opinion that no power
+on earth would induce Mr. Sedley to consent to the match
+between his daughter and the son of a man who had so
+shamefully, wickedly, and monstrously treated him.  And
+she told a long story about happier days and their earlier
+splendours, when Osborne lived in a very humble way in
+the New Road, and his wife was too glad to receive some
+of Jos's little baby things, with which Mrs. Sedley
+accommodated her at the birth of one of Osborne's own
+children.  The fiendish ingratitude of that man, she was
+sure, had broken Mr. S.'s heart: and as for a marriage,
+he would never, never, never, never consent.
+
+"They must run away together, Ma'am," Dobbin said,
+laughing, "and follow the example of Captain Rawdon
+Crawley, and Miss Emmy's friend the little governess."
+Was it possible? Well she never!  Mrs. Sedley was all
+excitement about this news.  She wished that Blenkinsop were
+here to hear it:  Blenkinsop always mistrusted that Miss
+Sharp.--What an escape Jos had had! and she described
+the already well-known love-passages between Rebecca and
+the Collector of Boggley Wollah.
+
+It was not, however, Mr. Sedley's wrath which Dobbin
+feared, so much as that of the other parent concerned,
+and he owned that he had a very considerable doubt
+and anxiety respecting the behaviour of the black-browed
+old tyrant of a Russia merchant in Russell Square.  He
+has forbidden the match peremptorily, Dobbin thought.
+He knew what a savage determined man Osborne was, and
+how he stuck by his word.  The only chance George has
+of reconcilement," argued his friend, "is by distinguishing
+himself in the coming campaign.  If he dies they both go
+together.  If he fails in distinction--what then?  He has
+some money from his mother, I have heard enough to
+purchase his majority--or he must sell out and go and
+dig in Canada, or rough it in a cottage in the country."
+With such a partner Dobbin thought he would not mind
+Siberia--and, strange to say, this absurd and utterly
+imprudent young fellow never for a moment considered that
+the want of means to keep a nice carriage and horses,
+and of an income which should enable its possessors to
+entertain their friends genteelly, ought to operate as bars
+to the union of George and Miss Sedley.
+
+It was these weighty considerations which made him
+think too that the marriage should take place as quickly
+as possible.  Was he anxious himself, I wonder, to have it
+over.?--as people, when death has occurred, like to press
+forward the funeral, or when a parting is resolved upon,
+hasten it.  It is certain that Mr. Dobbin, having taken the
+matter in hand, was most extraordinarily eager in the
+conduct of it.  He urged on George the necessity of immediate
+action:  he showed the chances of reconciliation with
+his father, which a favourable mention of his name in the
+Gazette must bring about.  If need were he would go himself
+and brave both the fathers in the business.  At all
+events, he besought George to go through with it before
+the orders came, which everybody expected, for the
+departure of the regiment from England on foreign service.
+
+Bent upon these hymeneal projects, and with the applause
+and consent of Mrs. Sedley, who did not care to
+break the matter personally to her husband, Mr. Dobbin
+went to seek John Sedley at his house of call in the City,
+the Tapioca Coffee-house, where, since his own offices
+were shut up, and fate had overtaken him, the poor
+broken-down old gentleman used to betake himself daily,
+and write letters and receive them, and tie them up into
+mysterious bundles, several of which he carried in the
+flaps of his coat.  I don't know anything more dismal than
+that business and bustle and mystery of a ruined man:  those
+letters from the wealthy which he shows you:  those worn
+greasy documents promising support and offering
+condolence which he places wistfully before you, and on
+which he builds his hopes of restoration and future fortune.
+My beloved reader has no doubt in the course of
+his experience been waylaid by many such a luckless
+companion.  He takes you into the corner; he has his bundle
+of papers out of his gaping coat pocket; and the tape off,
+and the string in his mouth, and the favourite letters
+selected and laid before you; and who does not know the
+sad eager half-crazy look which he fixes on you with his
+hopeless eyes?
+
+Changed into a man of this sort, Dobbin found the
+once florid, jovial, and prosperous John Sedley.  His
+coat, that used to be so glossy and trim, was white at the
+seams, and the buttons showed the copper.  His face had
+fallen in, and was unshorn; his frill and neckcloth hung
+limp under his bagging waistcoat.  When he used to treat
+the boys in old days at a coffee-house, he would shout
+and laugh louder than anybody there, and have all the
+waiters skipping round him; it was quite painful to see
+how humble and civil he was to John of the Tapioca, a
+blear-eyed old attendant in dingy stockings and cracked
+pumps, whose business it was to serve glasses of wafers,
+and bumpers of ink in pewter, and slices of paper to the
+frequenters of this dreary house of entertainment, where
+nothing else seemed to be consumed.  As for William
+Dobbin, whom he had tipped repeatedly in his youth, and
+who had been the old gentleman's butt on a thousand
+occasions, old Sedley gave his hand to him in a very
+hesitating humble manner now, and called him "Sir." A
+feeling of shame and remorse took possession of William
+Dobbin as the broken old man so received and addressed
+him, as if he himself had been somehow guilty of the
+misfortunes which had brought Sedley so low.
+
+"I am very glad to see you, Captain Dobbin, sir," says
+he, after a skulking look or two at his visitor (whose lanky
+figure and military appearance caused some excitement
+likewise to twinkle in the blear eyes of the waiter in the
+cracked dancing pumps, and awakened the old lady in
+black, who dozed among the mouldy old coffee-cups in the
+bar).  "How is the worthy alderman, and my lady, your
+excellent mother, sir?"  He looked round at the waiter as
+he said, "My lady," as much as to say, "Hark ye, John, I
+have friends still, and persons of rank and reputation,
+too."  "Are you come to do anything in my way, sir?  My
+young friends Dale and Spiggot do all my business for me
+now, until my new offices are ready; for I'm only here
+temporarily, you know, Captain.  What can we do for you.
+sir?  Will you like to take anything?"
+
+Dobbin, with a great deal of hesitation and stuttering,
+protested that he was not in the least hungry or thirsty;
+that he had no business to transact; that he only came
+to ask if Mr. Sedley was well, and to shake hands with
+an old friend; and, he added, with a desperate perversion
+of truth, "My mother is very well--that is, she's been very
+unwell, and is only waiting for the first fine day to go out
+and call upon Mrs. Sedley.  How is Mrs. Sedley, sir?  I
+hope she's quite well."  And here he paused, reflecting on
+his own consummate hypocrisy; for the day was as fine,
+and the sunshine as bright as it ever is in Coffin Court,
+where the Tapioca Coffee-house is situated: and Mr.
+Dobbin remembered that he had seen Mrs. Sedley himself
+only an hour before, having driven Osborne down to Fulham
+in his gig, and left him there tete-a-tete with Miss Amelia.
+
+"My wife will be very happy to see her ladyship,"
+Sedley replied, pulling out his papers.  "I've a very kind
+letter here from your father, sir, and beg my respectful
+compliments to him.  Lady D. will find us in rather a
+smaller house than we were accustomed to receive our
+friends in; but it's snug, and the change of air does good
+to my daughter, who was suffering in town rather--you
+remember little Emmy, sir?--yes, suffering a good deal."
+The old gentleman's eyes were wandering as he spoke, and
+he was thinking of something else, as he sate thrumming
+on his papers and fumbling at the worn red tape.
+
+"You're a military man," he went on; "I ask you, Bill
+Dobbin, could any man ever have speculated upon the
+return of that Corsican scoundrel from Elba?  When the
+allied sovereigns were here last year, and we gave 'em
+that dinner in the City, sir, and we saw the Temple of
+Concord, and the fireworks, and the Chinese bridge in
+St. James's Park, could any sensible man suppose that
+peace wasn't really concluded, after we'd actually sung Te
+Deum for it, sir?  I ask you, William, could I suppose that
+the Emperor of Austria was a damned traitor--a traitor,
+and nothing more?  I don't mince words--a double-faced
+infernal traitor and schemer, who meant to have his son-
+in-law back all along.  And I say that the escape of Boney
+from Elba was a damned imposition and plot, sir, in
+which half the powers of Europe were concerned, to
+bring the funds down, and to ruin this country.  That's
+why I'm here, William.  That's why my name's in the
+Gazette.  Why, sir?--because I trusted the Emperor of
+Russia and the Prince Regent.  Look here.  Look at my
+papers.  Look what the funds were on the 1st of March
+--what the French fives were when I bought for the
+count.  And what they're at now.  There was collusion, sir,
+or that villain never would have escaped.  Where was the
+English Commissioner who allowed him to get away?  He
+ought to be shot, sir--brought to a court-martial, and
+shot, by Jove."
+
+"We're going to hunt Boney out, sir," Dobbin said,
+rather alarmed at the fury of the old man, the veins of
+whose forehead began to swell, and who sate drumming
+his papers with his clenched fist.  "We are going to hunt
+him out, sir--the Duke's in Belgium already, and we
+expect marching orders every day."
+
+"Give him no quarter.  Bring back the villain's head, sir.
+Shoot the coward down, sir," Sedley roared.  "I'd enlist
+myself, by--; but I'm a broken old man--ruined by
+that damned scoundrel--and by a parcel of swindling
+thieves in this country whom I made, sir, and who are
+rolling in their carriages now," he added, with a break in
+his voice.
+
+Dobbin was not a little affected by the sight of this once
+kind old friend, crazed almost with misfortune and raving
+with senile anger.  Pity the fallen gentleman: you to whom
+money and fair repute are the chiefest good; and so,
+surely, are they in Vanity Fair.
+
+"Yes," he continued, "there are some vipers that you
+warm, and they sting you afterwards.  There are some
+beggars that you put on horseback, and they're the first
+to ride you down.  You know whom I mean, William
+Dobbin, my boy.  I mean a purse-proud villain in Russell
+Square, whom I knew without a shilling, and whom I
+pray and hope to see a beggar as he was when I
+befriended him."
+
+"I have heard something of this, sir, from my friend
+George," Dobbin said, anxious to come to his point.  "The
+quarrel between you and his father has cut him up a great
+deal, sir.  Indeed, I'm the bearer of a message from him."
+
+"O, THAT'S your errand, is it?" cried the old man,
+jumping up.  "What! perhaps he condoles with me, does he?
+Very kind of him, the stiff-backed prig, with his dandified
+airs and West End swagger.  He's hankering about my
+house, is he still?  If my son had the courage of a man,
+he'd shoot him.  He's as big a villain as his father.  I won't
+have his name mentioned in my house.  I curse the day
+that ever I let him into it; and I'd rather see my daughter
+dead at my feet than married to him."
+
+"His father's harshness is not George's fault, sir.  Your
+daughter's love for him is as much your doing as his.  Who
+are you, that you are to play with two young people's
+affections and break their hearts at your will?"
+
+"Recollect it's not his father that breaks the match off,"
+old Sedley cried out.  "It's I that forbid it.  That family and
+mine are separated for ever.  I'm fallen low, but not so
+low as that: no, no.  And so you may tell the whole race--
+son, and father and sisters, and all."
+
+"It's my belief, sir, that you have not the power or the
+right to separate those two," Dobbin answered in a low
+voice; "and that if you don't give your daughter your
+consent it will be her duty to marry without it.  There's no
+reason she should die or live miserably because you
+are wrong-headed.  To my thinking, she's just as much
+married as if the banns had been read in all the churches in
+London.  And what better answer can there be to Osborne's
+charges against you, as charges there are, than
+that his son claims to enter your family and marry your
+daughter?"
+
+A light of something like satisfaction seemed to break
+over old Sedley as this point was put to him: but he still
+persisted that with his consent the marriage between
+Amelia and George should never take place.
+
+"We must do it without," Dobbin said, smiling, and told
+Mr. Sedley, as he had told Mrs. Sedley in the day, before,
+the story of Rebecca's elopement with Captain Crawley.  It
+evidently amused the old gentleman.  "You're terrible
+fellows, you Captains," said he, tying up his papers; and his
+face wore something like a smile upon it, to the astonishment
+of the blear-eyed waiter who now entered, and had
+never seen such an expression upon Sedley's countenance
+since he had used the dismal coffee-house.
+
+The idea of hitting his enemy Osborne such a blow
+soothed, perhaps, the old gentleman: and, their colloquy
+presently ending, he and Dobbin parted pretty good friends.
+
+"My sisters say she has diamonds as big as pigeons'
+eggs," George said, laughing.  "How they must set off her
+complexion!  A perfect illumination it must be when her
+jewels are on her neck.  Her jet-black hair is as curly as
+Sambo's.  I dare say she wore a nose ring when she went
+to court; and with a plume of feathers in her top-knot
+she would look a perfect Belle Sauvage."
+
+George, in conversation with Amelia, was rallying the
+appearance of a young lady of whom his father and sisters
+had lately made the acquaintance, and who was an object
+of vast respect to the Russell Square family.  She was reported
+to have I don't know how many plantations in the
+West Indies; a deal of money in the funds; and three
+stars to her name in the East India stockholders' list.  She
+had a mansion in Surrey, and a house in Portland Place.
+The name of the rich West India heiress had been mentioned
+with applause in the Morning Post.  Mrs. Haggistoun,
+Colonel Haggistoun's widow, her relative, "chaperoned"
+her, and kept her house.  She was just from school, where
+she had completed her education, and George and his
+sisters had met her at an evening party at old Hulker's
+house, Devonshire Place (Hulker, Bullock, and Co. were
+long the correspondents of her house in the West Indies),
+and the girls had made the most cordial advances to her,
+which the heiress had received with great good humour.
+An orphan in her position--with her money--so interesting!
+the Misses Osborne said.  They were full of their new
+friend when they returned from the Hulker ball to Miss
+Wirt, their companion; they had made arrangements for
+continually meeting, and had the carriage and drove to see
+her the very next day.  Mrs. Haggistoun, Colonel Haggistoun's
+widow, a relation of Lord Binkie, and always talking
+of him, struck the dear unsophisticated girls as rather
+haughty, and too much inclined to talk about her great
+relations: but Rhoda was everything they could wish--
+the frankest, kindest, most agreeable creature--wanting a
+little polish, but so good-natured.  The girls Christian-
+named each other at once.
+
+"You should have seen her dress for court, Emmy,"
+Osborne cried, laughing.  "She came to my sisters to show
+it off, before she was presented in state by my Lady
+Binkie, the Haggistoun's kinswoman.  She's related to every
+one, that Haggistoun.  Her diamonds blazed out like
+Vauxhall on the night we were there.  (Do you remember
+Vauxhall, Emmy, and Jos singing to his dearest diddle
+diddle darling?)  Diamonds and mahogany, my dear!
+think what an advantageous contrast--and the white
+feathers in her hair--I mean in her wool.  She had
+earrings like chandeliers; you might have lighted 'em
+up, by Jove--and a yellow satin train that streeled after
+her like the tail of a cornet."
+
+"How old is she?" asked Emmy, to whom George was
+rattling away regarding this dark paragon, on the morning
+of their reunion--rattling away as no other man in the
+world surely could.
+
+"Why the Black Princess, though she has only just left
+school, must be two or three and twenty.  And you should
+see the hand she writes!  Mrs. Colonel Haggistoun usually
+writes her letters, but in a moment of confidence, she put
+pen to paper for my sisters; she spelt satin satting, and
+Saint James's, Saint Jams."
+
+"Why, surely it must be Miss Swartz, the parlour
+boarder," Emmy said, remembering that good-natured
+young mulatto girl, who had been so hysterically affected
+when Amelia left Miss Pinkerton's academy
+
+"The very name," George said.  "Her father was a German
+Jew--a slave-owner they say--connected with the
+Cannibal Islands in some way or other.  He died last year,
+and Miss Pinkerton has finished her education.  She can
+play two pieces on the piano; she knows three songs;
+she can write when Mrs. Haggistoun is by to spell for her;
+and Jane and Maria already have got to love her as a
+sister."
+
+"I wish they would have loved me," said Emmy, wistfully.
+"They were always very cold to me."
+
+"My dear child, they would have loved you if you had
+had two hundred thousand pounds," George replied.  "That
+is the way in which they have been brought up.  Ours is
+a ready-money society.  We live among bankers and City
+big-wigs, and be hanged to them, and every man, as he
+talks to you, is jingling his guineas in his pocket.  There is
+that jackass Fred Bullock is going to marry Maria--
+there's Goldmore, the East India Director, there's Dipley,
+in the tallow trade--OUR trade," George said, with an
+uneasy laugh and a blush.  "Curse the whole pack of money-
+grubbing vulgarians!  I fall asleep at their great heavy
+dinners.  I feel ashamed in my father's great stupid
+parties.  I've been accustomed to live with gentlemen, and
+men of the world and fashion, Emmy, not with a parcel
+of turtle-fed tradesmen.  Dear little woman, you are the only
+person of our set who ever looked, or thought, or spoke
+like a lady: and you do it because you're an angel and
+can't help it.  Don't remonstrate.  You are the only lady.
+Didn't Miss Crawley remark it, who has lived in the
+best company in Europe?  And as for Crawley, of the Life
+Guards, hang it, he's a fine fellow: and I like him for
+marrying the girl he had chosen."
+
+Amelia admired Mr. Crawley very much, too, for this;
+and trusted Rebecca would be happy with him, and hoped
+(with a laugh) Jos would be consoled.  And so the pair
+went on prattling, as in quite early days.  Amelia's
+confidence being perfectly restored to her, though she
+expressed a great deal of pretty jealousy about Miss Swartz,
+and professed to be dreadfully frightened--like a hypocrite
+as she was--lest George should forget her for the
+heiress and her money and her estates in Saint Kitt's.  But
+the fact is, she was a great deal too happy to have fears
+or doubts or misgivings of any sort: and having George
+at her side again, was not afraid of any heiress or beauty,
+or indeed of any sort of danger.
+
+When Captain Dobbin came back in the afternoon to
+these people--which he did with a great deal of sympathy
+for them--it did his heart good to see how Amelia had
+grown young again--how she laughed, and chirped, and
+sang familiar old songs at the piano, which were only
+interrupted by the bell from without proclaiming Mr.
+Sedley's return from the City, before whom George received a
+signal to retreat.
+
+Beyond the first smile of recognition--and even that was
+an hypocrisy, for she thought his arrival rather provoking
+--Miss Sedley did not once notice Dobbin during his
+visit.  But he was content, so that he saw her happy; and
+thankful to have been the means of making her so.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+
+A Quarrel About an Heiress
+
+Love may be felt for any young lady endowed with such
+qualities as Miss Swartz possessed; and a great dream of
+ambition entered into old Mr. Osborne's soul, which she
+was to realize.  He encouraged, with the utmost enthusiasm
+and friendliness, his daughters' amiable attachment to the
+young heiress, and protested that it gave him the sincerest
+pleasure as a father to see the love of his girls so well disposed.
+
+"You won't find," he would say to Miss Rhoda, "that
+splendour and rank to which you are accustomed at the
+West End, my dear Miss, at our humble mansion in Russell
+Square.  My daughters are plain, disinterested girls, but
+their hearts are in the right place, and they've conceived
+an attachment for you which does them honour--I say,
+which does them honour.  I'm a plain, simple, humble
+British merchant--an honest one, as my respected friends
+Hulker and Bullock will vouch, who were the correspondents
+of your late lamented father.  You'll find us a
+united, simple, happy, and I think I may say respected,
+family--a plain table, a plain people, but a warm welcome,
+my dear Miss Rhoda--Rhoda, let me say, for my
+heart warms to you, it does really.  I'm a frank man, and
+I like you.  A glass of Champagne!  Hicks, Champagne to
+Miss Swartz."
+
+There is little doubt that old Osborne believed all he
+said, and that the girls were quite earnest in their
+protestations of affection for Miss Swartz.  People in Vanity
+Fair fasten on to rich folks quite naturally.  If the simplest
+people are disposed to look not a little kindly on
+great Prosperity (for I defy any member of the British
+public to say that the notion of Wealth has not something
+awful and pleasing to him; and you, if you are told that
+the man next you at dinner has got half a million, not to
+look at him with a certain interest)--if the simple look
+benevolently on money, how much more do your old
+worldlings regard it!  Their affections rush out to meet and
+welcome money.  Their kind sentiments awaken spontaneously towards the interesting possessors of it.  I know
+some respectable people who don't consider themselves
+at liberty to indulge in friendship for any individual who
+has not a certain competency, or place in society.  They
+give a loose to their feelings on proper occasions.  And
+the proof is, that the major part of the Osborne family,
+who had not, in fifteen years, been able to get up a
+hearty regard for Amelia Sedley, became as fond of Miss
+Swartz in the course of a single evening as the most
+romantic advocate of friendship at first sight could desire.
+
+What a match for George she'd be (the sisters and
+Miss Wirt agreed), and how much better than that
+insignificant little Amelia!  Such a dashing young fellow as
+he is, with his good looks, rank, and accomplishments,
+would be the very husband for her.  Visions of balls in
+Portland Place, presentations at Court, and introductions
+to half the peerage, filled the minds of the young ladies;
+who talked of nothing but George and his grand
+acquaintances to their beloved new friend.
+
+Old Osborne thought she would be a great match, too,
+for his son.  He should leave the army; he should go into
+Parliament; he should cut a figure in the fashion and in
+the state.  His blood boiled with honest British exultation,
+as he saw the name of Osborne ennobled in the person
+of his son, and thought that he might be the progenitor of
+a glorious line of baronets.  He worked in the City and on
+'Change, until he knew everything relating to the fortune
+of the heiress, how her money was placed, and where her
+estates lay.  Young Fred Bullock, one of his chief informants,
+would have liked to make a bid for her himself
+(it was so the young banker expressed it), only he was
+booked to Maria Osborne.  But not being able to secure
+her as a wife, the disinterested Fred quite approved of her
+as a sister-in-law.  "Let George cut in directly and win
+her," was his advice.  "Strike while the iron's hot, you
+know--while she's fresh to the town: in a few weeks
+some d-- fellow from the West End will come in with a
+title and a rotten rent-roll and cut all us City men out, as
+Lord Fitzrufus did last year with Miss Grogram, who was
+actually engaged to Podder, of Podder & Brown's.  The
+sooner it is done the better, Mr. Osborne; them's my
+sentiments," the wag said; though, when Osborne had left
+the bank parlour, Mr. Bullock remembered Amelia, and
+what a pretty girl she was, and how attached to George
+Osborne; and he gave up at least ten seconds of his
+valuable time to regretting the misfortune which had
+befallen that unlucky young woman.
+
+While thus George Osborne's good feelings, and his
+good friend and genius, Dobbin, were carrying back the
+truant to Amelia's feet, George's parent and sisters were
+arranging this splendid match for him, which they never
+dreamed he would resist.
+
+When the elder Osborne gave what he called "a hint,"
+there was no possibility for the most obtuse to mistake
+his meaning.  He called kicking a footman downstairs a
+hint to the latter to leave his service.  With his usual
+frankness and delicacy he told Mrs. Haggistoun that he
+would give her a cheque for five thousand pounds on the
+day his son was married to her ward; and called that
+proposal a hint, and considered it a very dexterous piece
+of diplomacy.  He gave George finally such another hint
+regarding the heiress; and ordered him to marry her out
+of hand, as he would have ordered his butler to draw a
+cork, or his clerk to write a letter.
+
+This imperative hint disturbed George a good deal.  He
+was in the very first enthusiasm and delight of his second
+courtship of Amelia, which was inexpressibly sweet
+to him.  The contrast of her manners and appearance with
+those of the heiress, made the idea of a union with the
+latter appear doubly ludicrous and odious.  Carriages and
+opera-boxes, thought he; fancy being seen in them by the
+side of such a mahogany charmer as that!  Add to all
+that the junior Osborne was quite as obstinate as the
+senior: when he wanted a thing, quite as firm in his
+resolution to get it; and quite as violent when angered,
+as his father in his most stern moments.
+
+On the first day when his father formally gave him the
+hint that he was to place his affections at Miss Swartz's
+feet, George temporised with the old gentleman.  "You
+should have thought of the matter sooner, sir," he said.
+"It can't be done now, when we're expecting every day
+to go on foreign service.  Wait till my return, if I do
+return"; and then he represented, that the time when the
+regiment was daily expecting to quit England, was
+exceedingly ill-chosen: that the few days or weeks during
+which they were still to remain at home, must be
+devoted to business and not to love-making: time enough
+for that when he came home with his majority; "for, I
+promise you," said he, with a satisfied air, "that one
+way or other you shall read the name of George Osborne
+in the Gazette."
+
+The father's reply to this was founded upon the
+information which he had got in the City: that the West
+End chaps would infallibly catch hold of the heiress if
+any delay took place: that if he didn't marry Miss S., he
+might at least have an engagement in writing, to come
+into effect when he returned to England; and that a man
+who could get ten thousand a year by staying at home,
+was a fool to risk his life abroad.
+
+"So that you would have me shown up as a coward, sir,
+and our name dishonoured for the sake of Miss Swartz's
+money," George interposed.
+
+This remark staggered the old gentleman; but as he
+had to reply to it, and as his mind was nevertheless
+made up, he said, "You will dine here to-morrow, sir,
+and every day Miss Swartz comes, you will be here to
+pay your respects to her.  If you want for money, call
+upon Mr. Chopper." Thus a new obstacle was in George's
+way, to interfere with his plans regarding Amelia; and
+about which he and Dobbin had more than one confidential consultation.  His friend's opinion respecting the
+line of conduct which he ought to pursue, we know
+already.  And as for Osborne, when he was once bent on a
+thing, a fresh obstacle or two only rendered him the
+more resolute.
+
+The dark object of the conspiracy into which the chiefs
+of the Osborne family had entered, was quite ignorant of
+all their plans regarding her (which, strange to say, her
+friend and chaperon did not divulge), and, taking all the
+young ladies' flattery for genuine sentiment, and being,
+as we have before had occasion to show, of a very
+warm and impetuous nature, responded to their affection
+with quite a tropical ardour.  And if the truth may be told,
+I dare say that she too had some selfish attraction in the
+Russell Square house; and in a word, thought George
+Osborne a very nice young man.  His whiskers had made
+an impression upon her, on the very first night she
+beheld them at the ball at Messrs. Hulkers; and, as we
+know, she was not the first woman who had been
+charmed by them.  George had an air at once swaggering
+and melancholy, languid and fierce.  He looked like a
+man who had passions, secrets, and private harrowing
+griefs and adventures.  His voice was rich and deep.  He
+would say it was a warm evening, or ask his partner to
+take an ice, with a tone as sad and confidential as if he
+were breaking her mother's death to her, or preluding a
+declaration of love.  He trampled over all the young bucks
+of his father's circle, and was the hero among those
+third-rate men.  Some few sneered at him and hated him.
+Some, like Dobbin, fanatically admired him.  And his whiskers
+had begun to do their work, and to curl themselves
+round the affections of Miss Swartz.
+
+Whenever there was a chance of meeting him in Russell
+Square, that simple and good-natured young woman
+was quite in a flurry to see her dear Misses Osborne.  She
+went to great expenses in new gowns, and bracelets, and
+bonnets, and in prodigious feathers.  She adorned her
+person with her utmost skill to please the Conqueror,
+and exhibited all her simple accomplishments to win his
+favour.  The girls would ask her, with the greatest
+gravity, for a little music, and she would sing her three
+songs and play her two little pieces as often as ever
+they asked, and with an always increasing pleasure to
+herself.  During these delectable entertainments, Miss
+Wirt and the chaperon sate by, and conned over the
+peerage, and talked about the nobility.
+
+The day after George had his hint from his father, and
+a short time before the hour of dinner, he was lolling
+upon a sofa in the drawing-room in a very becoming
+and perfectly natural attitude of melancholy.  He had
+been, at his father's request, to Mr. Chopper in the City
+(the old-gentleman, though he gave great sums to his
+son, would never specify any fixed allowance for him,
+and rewarded him only as he was in the humour).  He
+had then been to pass three hours with Amelia, his
+dear little Amelia, at Fulham; and he came home to
+find his sisters spread in starched muslin in the drawing-
+room, the dowagers cackling in the background, and
+honest Swartz in her favourite amber-coloured satin, with
+turquoise bracelets, countless rings, flowers, feathers, and
+all sorts of tags and gimcracks, about as elegantly
+decorated as a she chimney-sweep on May-day.
+
+The girls, after vain attempts to engage him in conversation,
+talked about fashions and the last drawing-room
+until he was perfectly sick of their chatter.  He
+contrasted their behaviour with little Emmy's--their
+shrill voices with her tender ringing tones; their attitudes
+and their elbows and their starch, with her humble soft
+movements and modest graces.  Poor Swartz was seated
+in a place where Emmy had been accustomed to sit.
+Her bejewelled hands lay sprawling in her amber satin
+lap.  Her tags and ear-rings twinkled, and her big eyes
+rolled about.  She was doing nothing with perfect contentment,
+and thinking herself charming.  Anything so becoming
+as the satin the sisters had never seen.
+
+"Dammy," George said to a confidential friend, "she
+looked like a China doll, which has nothing to do all day
+but to grin and wag its head.  By Jove, Will, it was all I
+I could do to prevent myself from throwing the sofa-
+cushion at her." He restrained that exhibition of
+sentiment, however.
+
+The sisters began to play the Battle of Prague.  "Stop
+that d-- thing," George howled out in a fury from the
+sofa.  "It makes me mad.  You play us something, Miss
+Swartz, do.  Sing something, anything but the Battle of
+Prague."
+
+"Shall I sing 'Blue Eyed Mary' or the air from the
+Cabinet?" Miss Swartz asked.
+
+"That sweet thing from the Cabinet," the sisters said.
+
+"We've had that," replied the misanthrope on the sofa
+
+"I can sing 'Fluvy du Tajy,' " Swartz said, in a meek
+voice, "if I had the words." It was the last of the worthy
+young woman's collection.
+
+"O, 'Fleuve du Tage,' " Miss Maria cried; "we have the
+song," and went off to fetch the book in which it was.
+
+Now it happened that this song, then in the height of
+the fashion, had been given to the young ladies by a young
+friend of theirs, whose name was on the title, and Miss
+Swartz, having concluded the ditty with George's applause
+(for he remembered that it was a favourite of Amelia's),
+was hoping for an encore perhaps, and fiddling with the
+leaves of the music, when her eye fell upon the title, and
+she saw "Amelia Sedley" written in the comer.
+
+"Lor!" cried Miss Swartz, spinning swiftly round on
+the music-stool, "is it my Amelia?  Amelia that was at
+Miss P.'s at Hammersmith?  I know it is.  It's her.  and--
+Tell me about her--where is she?"
+
+"Don't mention her," Miss Maria Osborne said
+hastily.  "Her family has disgraced itself.  Her father
+cheated Papa, and as for her, she is never to be mentioned
+HERE." This was Miss Maria's return for George's
+rudeness about the Battle of Prague.
+
+"Are you a friend of Amelia's?" George said, bouncing
+up.  "God bless you for it, Miss Swartz.  Don't believe
+what,the girls say.  SHE'S not to blame at any rate.
+She's the best--"
+
+"You know you're not to speak about her, George,"
+cried Jane.  "Papa forbids it."
+
+"Who's to prevent me?" George cried out.  "I will speak
+of her.  I say she's the best, the kindest, the gentlest, the
+sweetest girl in England; and that, bankrupt or no, my
+sisters are not fit to hold candles to her.  If you like her,
+go and see her, Miss Swartz; she wants friends now; and
+I say, God bless everybody who befriends her.  Anybody
+who speaks kindly of her is my friend; anybody who
+speaks against her is my enemy.  Thank you, Miss Swartz";
+and he went up and wrung her hand.
+
+"George! George!" one of the sisters cried imploringly.
+
+"I say," George said fiercely, "I thank everybody who
+loves Amelia Sed--" He stopped.  Old Osborne was in
+the room with a face livid with rage, and eyes like hot
+coals.
+
+Though George had stopped in his sentence, yet, his
+blood being up, he was not to be cowed by all the
+generations of Osborne; rallying instantly, he replied to
+the bullying look of his father, with another so indicative
+of resolution and defiance that the elder man quailed in
+his turn, and looked away.  He felt that the tussle was
+coming.  "Mrs. Haggistoun, let me take you down to dinner,"
+he said.  "Give your arm to Miss Swartz, George,"
+and they marched.
+
+"Miss Swartz, I love Amelia, and we've been engaged
+almost all our lives," Osborne said to his partner; and
+during all the dinner, George rattled on with a volubility
+which surprised himself, and made his father doubly
+nervous for the fight which was to take place as soon as
+the ladies were gone.
+
+The difference between the pair was, that while the
+father was violent and a bully, the son had thrice the
+nerve and courage of the parent, and could not merely
+make an attack, but resist it; and finding that the moment
+was now come when the contest between him and
+his father was to be decided, he took his dinner with
+perfect coolness and appetite before the engagement
+began.  Old Osborne, on the contrary, was nervous, and
+drank much.  He floundered in his conversation with the
+ladies, his neighbours: George's coolness only rendering
+him more angry.  It made him half mad to see the calm
+way in which George, flapping his napkin, and with a
+swaggering bow, opened the door for the ladies to leave
+the room; and filling himself a glass of wine, smacked it,
+and looked his father full in the face, as if to say,
+"Gentlemen of the Guard, fire first." The old man also took a
+supply of ammunition, but his decanter clinked against
+the glass as he tried to fill it.
+
+After giving a great heave, and with a purple choking
+face, he then began.  "How dare you, sir, mention that
+person's name before Miss Swartz to-day, in my drawing-
+room? I ask you, sir, how dare you do it?"
+
+"Stop, sir," says George, "don't say dare, sir.  Dare
+isn't a word to be used to a Captain in the British Army."
+
+"I shall say what I like to my son, sir.  I can cut him off
+with a shilling if I like.  I can make him a beggar if I like.
+I WILL say what I like," the elder said.
+
+"I'm a gentleman though I AM your son, sir," George
+answered haughtily.  "Any communications which you
+have to make to me, or any orders which you may
+please to give, I beg may be couched in that kind of
+language which I am accustomed to hear."
+
+Whenever the lad assumed his haughty manner, it
+always created either great awe or great irritation in the
+parent.  Old Osborne stood in secret terror of his son as a
+better gentleman than himself; and perhaps my readers
+may have remarked in their experience of this Vanity Fair
+of ours, that there is no character which a low-minded
+man so much mistrusts as that of a gentleman.
+
+"My father didn't give me the education you have had,
+nor the advantages you have had, nor the money you
+have had.  If I had kept the company SOME FOLKS have
+had through MY MEANS, perhaps my son wouldn't have
+any reason to brag, sir, of his SUPERIORITY and WEST END
+AIRS (these words were uttered in the elder Osborne's
+most sarcastic tones).  But it wasn't considered the part
+of a gentleman, in MY time, for a man to insult his father.
+If I'd done any such thing, mine would have kicked me
+downstairs, sir."
+
+"I never insulted you, sir.  I said I begged you to
+remember your son was a gentleman as well as yourself.
+I know very well that you give me plenty of money,"
+said George (fingering a bundle of notes which he had
+got in the morning from Mr. Chopper).  "You tell it me
+often enough, sir.  There's no fear of my forgetting it."
+
+"I wish you'd remember other things as well, sir," the
+sire answered.  "I wish you'd remember that in this house
+--so long as you choose to HONOUR it with your COMPANY,
+Captain--I'm the master, and that name, and that
+that--that you--that I say--"
+
+"That what, sir?" George asked, with scarcely a sneer,
+filling another glass of claret.
+
+"--!" burst out his father with a screaming oath--
+"that the name of those Sedleys never be mentioned
+here, sir--not one of the whole damned lot of 'em, sir."
+
+"It wasn't I, sir, that introduced Miss Sedley's name.  It
+was my sisters who spoke ill of her to Miss Swartz; and
+by Jove I'll defend her wherever I go.  Nobody shall
+speak lightly of that name in my presence.  Our family
+has done her quite enough injury already, I think, and
+may leave off reviling her now she's down.  I'll shoot any
+man but you who says a word against her."
+
+"Go on, sir, go on," the old gentleman said, his eyes
+starting out of his head.
+
+"Go on about what, sir? about the way in which we've
+treated that angel of a girl?  Who told me to love her?  It
+was your doing.  I might have chosen elsewhere, and
+looked higher, perhaps, than your society: but I obeyed
+you.  And now that her heart's mine you give me orders
+to fling it away, and punish her, kill her perhaps--for
+the faults of other people.  It's a shame, by Heavens,"
+said George, working himself up into passion and
+enthusiasm as he proceeded, "to play at fast and loose with
+a young girl's affections--and with such an angel as that
+--one so superior to the people amongst whom she lived,
+that she might have excited envy, only she was so good
+and gentle, that it's a wonder anybody dared to hate her.
+If I desert her, sir, do you suppose she forgets me?"
+
+"I ain't going to have any of this dam sentimental nonsense
+and humbug here, sir," the father cried out.  "There
+shall be no beggar-marriages in my family.  If you choose
+to fling away eight thousand a year, which you may have
+for the asking, you may do it: but by Jove you take your
+pack and walk out of this house, sir.  Will you do as I tell
+you, once for all, sir, or will you not?"
+
+"Marry that mulatto woman?" George said, pulling up
+his shirt-collars.  "I don't like the colour, sir.  Ask the
+black that sweeps opposite Fleet Market, sir.  I'm not
+going to marry a Hottentot Venus."
+
+Mr. Osborne pulled frantically at the cord by which he
+was accustomed to summon the butler when he wanted
+wine--and almost black in the face, ordered that functionary
+to call a coach for Captain Osborne.
+
+"I've done it," said George, coming into the Slaughters'
+an hour afterwards, looking very pale.
+
+"What, my boy?" says Dobbin.
+
+George told what had passed between his father and
+himself.
+
+"I'll marry her to-morrow," he said with an oath.  "I
+love her more every day, Dobbin."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+
+A Marriage and Part of a Honeymoon
+
+Enemies the most obstinate and courageous can't hold
+out against starvation; so the elder Osborne felt himself
+pretty easy about his adversary in the encounter we have
+just described; and as soon as George's supplies fell
+short, confidently expected his unconditional submission.
+It was unlucky, to be sure, that the lad should have secured
+a stock of provisions on the very day when the first
+encounter took place; but this relief was only temporary,
+old Osborne thought, and would but delay George's
+surrender.  No communication passed between father and
+son for some days.  The former was sulky at this silence,
+but not disquieted; for, as he said, he knew where he
+could put the screw upon George, and only waited the
+result of that operation.  He told the sisters the upshot of
+the dispute between them, but ordered them to take no
+notice of the matter, and welcome George on his return
+as if nothing had happened.  His cover was laid as usual
+every day, and perhaps the old gentleman rather anxiously
+expected him; but he never came.  Some one inquired
+at the Slaughters' regarding him, where it was said
+that he and his friend Captain Dobbin had left town.
+
+One gusty, raw day at the end of April--the rain whipping
+the pavement of that ancient street where the old
+Slaughters' Coffee-house was once situated--George Osborne
+came into the coffee-room, looking very haggard
+and pale; although dressed rather smartly in a blue coat
+and brass buttons, and a neat buff waistcoat of the fashion
+of those days.  Here was his friend Captain Dobbin,
+in blue and brass too, having abandoned the military
+frock and French-grey trousers, which were the usual
+coverings of his lanky person.
+
+Dobbin had been in the coffee-room for an hour or
+more.  He had tried all the papers, but could not read
+them.  He had looked at the clock many scores of times;
+and at the street, where the rain was pattering down,
+and the people as they clinked by in pattens, left long
+reflections on the shining stone: he tattooed at the table:
+he bit his nails most completely, and nearly to the quick
+(he was accustomed to ornament his great big hands in
+this way): he balanced the tea-spoon dexterously on the
+milk jug: upset it, &c., &c.; and in fact showed those
+signs of disquietude, and practised those desperate
+attempts at amusement, which men are accustomed to
+employ when very anxious, and expectant, and perturbed
+in mind.
+
+Some of his comrades, gentlemen who used the room,
+joked him about the splendour of his costume and his
+agitation of manner.  One asked him if he was going to be
+married?  Dobbin laughed, and said he would send his
+acquaintance (Major Wagstaff of the Engineers) a piece of
+cake when that event took place.  At length Captain Osborne
+made his appearance, very smartly dressed, but
+very pale and agitated as we have said.  He wiped his
+pale face with a large yellow bandanna pocket-handkerchief
+that was prodigiously scented.  He shook hands with
+Dobbin, looked at the clock, and told John, the waiter,
+to bring him some curacao.  Of this cordial he swallowed
+off a couple of glasses with nervous eagerness.
+His friend asked with some interest about his health.
+
+"Couldn't get a wink of sleep till daylight, Dob," said
+he.  "Infernal headache and fever.  Got up at nine, and
+went down to the Hummums for a bath.  I say, Dob, I feel
+just as I did on the morning I went out with Rocket at
+Quebec."
+
+"So do I," William responded.  "I was a deuced deal
+more nervous than you were that morning.  You made a
+famous breakfast, I remember.  Eat something now."
+
+"You're a good old fellow, Will.  I'll drink your health,
+old boy, and farewell to--"
+
+"No, no; two glasses are enough," Dobbin interrupted
+him.  "Here, take away the liqueurs, John.  Have some
+cayenne-pepper with your fowl.  Make haste though, for it
+is time we were there."
+
+It was about half an hour from twelve when this
+brief meeting and colloquy took place between the two
+captains.  A coach, into which Captain Osborne's servant
+put his master's desk and dressing-case, had been in
+waiting for some time; and into this the two gentlemen
+hurried under an umbrella, and the valet mounted on the
+box, cursing the rain and the dampness of the coachman
+who was steaming beside him.  "We shall find a better
+trap than this at the church-door," says he; "that's a
+comfort." And the carriage drove on, taking the road
+down Piccadilly, where Apsley House and St. George's
+Hospital wore red jackets still; where there were oil-
+lamps; where Achilles was not yet born; nor the Pimlico
+arch raised; nor the hideous equestrian monster which
+pervades it and the neighbourhood; and so they drove
+down by Brompton to a certain chapel near the Fulham
+Road there.
+
+A chariot was in waiting with four horses; likewise a
+coach of the kind called glass coaches.  Only a very few
+idlers were collected on account of the dismal rain.
+
+"Hang it!" said George, "I said only a pair."
+
+"My master would have four," said Mr. Joseph Sedley's
+servant, who was in waiting; and he and Mr. Osborne's
+man agreed as they followed George and William into
+the church, that it was a "reg'lar shabby turn
+hout; and with scarce so much as a breakfast or a
+wedding faviour."
+
+"Here you are," said our old friend, Jos Sedley, coming
+forward.  "You're five minutes late, George, my boy.
+What a day, eh? Demmy, it's like the commencement of
+the rainy season in Bengal.  But you'll find my carriage
+is watertight.  Come along, my mother and Emmy are in the
+vestry."
+
+Jos Sedley was splendid.  He was fatter than ever.  His
+shirt collars were higher; his face was redder; his shirt-
+frill flaunted gorgeously out of his variegated waistcoat.
+Varnished boots were not invented as yet; but the Hessians
+on his beautiful legs shone so, that they must have been
+the identical pair in which the gentleman in the old picture
+used to shave himself; and on his light green coat
+there bloomed a fine wedding favour, like a great white
+spreading magnolia.
+
+In a word, George had thrown the great cast.  He was
+going to be married.  Hence his pallor and nervousness--
+his sleepless night and agitation in the morning.  I have
+heard people who have gone through the same thing
+own to the same emotion.  After three or four ceremonies,
+you get accustomed to it, no doubt; but the first
+dip, everybody allows, is awful.
+
+The bride was dressed in a brown silk pelisse (as
+Captain Dobbin has since informed me), and wore a straw
+bonnet with a pink ribbon; over the bonnet she had a
+veil of white Chantilly lace, a gift from Mr. Joseph Sedley,
+her brother.  Captain Dobbin himself had asked leave
+to present her with a gold chain and watch, which she
+sported on this occasion; and her mother gave her her
+diamond brooch--almost the only trinket which was left
+to the old lady.  As the service went on, Mrs. Sedley sat
+and whimpered a great deal in a pew, consoled by the
+Irish maid-servant and Mrs. Clapp from the lodgings.
+Old Sedley would not be present.  Jos acted for his father,
+giving away the bride, whilst Captain Dobbin stepped up
+as groomsman to his friend George.
+
+There was nobody in the church besides the officiating
+persons and the small marriage party and their attendants.
+The two valets sat aloof superciliously.  The rain
+came rattling down on the windows.  In the intervals of
+the service you heard it, and the sobbing of old Mrs.
+Sedley in the pew.  The parson's tones echoed sadly
+through the empty walls.  Osborne's "I will" was sounded
+in very deep bass.  Emmy's response came fluttering up
+to her lips from her heart, but was scarcely heard by
+anybody except Captain Dobbin.
+
+When the service was completed, Jos Sedley came
+forward and kissed his sister, the bride, for the first time
+for many months--George's look of gloom had gone, and
+he seemed quite proud and radiant.  "It's your turn,
+William," says he, putting his hand fondly upon Dobbin's
+shoulder; and Dobbin went up and touched Amelia on
+the cheek.
+
+Then they went into the vestry and signed the register.
+"God bless you, Old Dobbin," George said, grasping him
+by the hand, with something very like moisture glistening
+in his eyes.  William replied only by nodding his head.
+His heart was too full to say much.
+
+"Write directly, and come down as soon as you can,
+you know," Osborne said.  After Mrs. Sedley had taken an
+hysterical adieu of her daughter, the pair went off to the
+carriage.  "Get out of the way, you little devils," George
+cried to a small crowd of damp urchins, that were hanging
+about the chapel-door.  The rain drove into the bride
+and bridegroom's faces as they passed to the chariot.
+The postilions' favours draggled on their dripping jackets.
+The few children made a dismal cheer, as the carriage,
+splashing mud, drove away.
+
+William Dobbin stood in the church-porch, looking at it,
+a queer figure.  The small crew of spectators jeered him.
+He was not thinking about them or their laughter.
+
+"Come home and have some tiffin, Dobbin," a voice
+cried behind him; as a pudgy hand was laid on his shoulder,
+and the honest fellow's reverie was interrupted.  But
+the Captain had no heart to go a-feasting with Jos Sedley.
+He put the weeping old lady and her attendants into the
+carriage along with Jos, and left them without any farther
+words passing.  This carriage, too, drove away, and the
+urchins gave another sarcastical cheer.
+
+"Here, you little beggars," Dobbin said, giving some
+sixpences amongst them, and then went off by himself
+through the rain.  It was all over.  They were married, and
+happy, he prayed God.  Never since he was a boy had he
+felt so miserable and so lonely.  He longed with a heart-
+sick yearning for the first few days to be over, that he
+might see her again.
+
+Some ten days after the above ceremony, three young
+men of our acquaintance were enjoying that beautiful
+prospect of bow windows on the one side and blue sea
+on the other, which Brighton affords to the traveller.
+Sometimes it is towards the ocean--smiling with countless
+dimples, speckled with white sails, with a hundred
+bathing-machines kissing the skirt of his blue garment--
+that the Londoner looks enraptured: sometimes, on the
+contrary, a lover of human nature rather than of prospects
+of any kind, it is towards the bow windows that
+he turns, and that swarm of human life which they
+exhibit.  From one issue the notes of a piano, which a young
+lady in ringlets practises six hours daily, to the delight
+of the fellow-lodgers: at another, lovely Polly, the nurse-
+maid, may be seen dandling Master Omnium in her arms:
+whilst Jacob, his papa, is beheld eating prawns, and
+devouring the Times for breakfast, at the window below.
+Yonder are the Misses Leery, who are looking out for the
+young officers of the Heavies, who are pretty sure to be
+pacing the cliff; or again it is a City man, with a nautical
+turn, and a telescope, the size of a six-pounder, who has
+his instrument pointed seawards, so as to command every
+pleasure-boat, herring-boat, or bathing-machine that
+comes to, or quits, the shore, &c., &c.  But have we any
+leisure for a description of Brighton?--for Brighton, a
+clean Naples with genteel lazzaroni--for Brighton, that
+always looks brisk, gay, and gaudy, like a harlequin's
+jacket--for Brighton, which used to be seven hours
+distant from London at the time of our story; which is now
+only a hundred minutes off; and which may approach
+who knows how much nearer, unless Joinville comes and
+untimely bombards it?
+
+"What a monstrous fine girl that is in the lodgings
+over the milliner's," one of these three promenaders
+remarked to the other; "Gad, Crawley, did you see what a
+wink she gave me as I passed?"
+
+"Don't break her heart, Jos, you rascal," said another.
+"Don't trifle with her affections, you Don Juan!"
+
+"Get away," said Jos Sedley, quite pleased, and leering up
+at the maid-servant in question with a most killing
+ogle.  Jos was even more splendid at Brighton than he had
+been at his sister's marriage.  He had brilliant under-waistcoats,
+any one of which would have set up a moderate buck.
+He sported a military frock-coat, ornamented with
+frogs, knobs, black buttons, and meandering embroidery.
+He had affected a military appearance and habits of late;
+and he walked with his two friends, who were of that
+profession, clinking his boot-spurs, swaggering prodigiously,
+and shooting death-glances at all the servant girls
+who were worthy to be slain.
+
+"What shall we do, boys, till the ladies return?" the
+buck asked.  The ladies were out to Rottingdean in his
+carriage on a drive.
+
+"Let's have a game at billiards," one of his friends
+said--the tall one, with lacquered mustachios.
+
+"No, dammy; no, Captain," Jos replied, rather
+alarmed.  "No billiards to-day, Crawley, my boy;
+yesterday was enough."
+
+"You play very well," said Crawley, laughing.  "Don't
+he, Osborne? How well he made that-five stroke, eh?"
+
+"Famous," Osborne said.  "Jos is a devil of a fellow
+at billiards, and at everything else, too.  I wish there were
+any tiger-hunting about here! we might go and kill a few
+before dinner.  (There goes a fine girl! what an ankle, eh,
+Jos?) Tell us that story about the tiger-hunt, and the
+way you did for him in the jungle--it's a wonderful story
+that, Crawley." Here George Osborne gave a yawn.  "It's
+rather slow work," said he, "down here; what shall we
+do?"
+
+"Shall we go and look at some horses that Snaffler's
+just brought from Lewes fair?" Crawley said.
+
+"Suppose we go and have some jellies at Dutton's,"
+and the rogue Jos, willing to kill two birds with one
+stone.  "Devilish fine gal at Dutton's."
+
+"Suppose we go and see the Lightning come in, it's
+just about time?" George said.  This advice prevailing
+over the stables and the jelly, they turned towards the
+coach-office to witness the Lightning's arrival.
+
+As they passed, they met the carriage--Jos Sedley's
+open carriage, with its magnificent armorial bearings--
+that splendid conveyance in which he used to drive, about
+at Cheltonham, majestic and solitary, with his arms
+folded, and his hat cocked; or, more happy, with ladies
+by his side.
+
+Two were in the carriage now: one a little person, with
+light hair, and dressed in the height of the fashion; the
+other in a brown silk pelisse, and a straw bonnet with
+pink ribbons, with a rosy, round, happy face, that did
+you good to behold.  She checked the carriage as it
+neared the three gentlemen, after which exercise of
+authority she looked rather nervous, and then began to
+blush most absurdly.  "We have had a delightful drive,
+George," she said, "and--and we're so glad to come back;
+and, Joseph, don't let him be late."
+
+"Don't be leading our husbands into mischief, Mr.
+Sedley, you wicked, wicked man you," Rebecca said,
+shaking at Jos a pretty little finger covered with the
+neatest French kid glove.  "No billiards, no smoking, no
+naughtiness!"
+
+"My dear Mrs. Crawley--Ah now! upon my honour!"
+was all Jos could ejaculate by way of reply; but he managed
+to fall into a tolerable attitude, with his head lying
+on his shoulder, grinning upwards at his victim, with one
+hand at his back, which he supported on his cane, and
+the other hand (the one with the diamond ring) fumbling
+in his shirt-frill and among his under-waistcoats.  As the
+carriage drove off he kissed the diamond hand to the fair
+ladies within.  He wished all Cheltenham, all Chowringhee,
+all Calcutta, could see him in that position, waving his
+hand to such a beauty, and in company with such a
+famous buck as Rawdon Crawley of the Guards.
+
+Our young bride and bridegroom had chosen Brighton
+as the place where they would pass the first few days after
+their marriage; and having engaged apartments at the
+Ship Inn, enjoyed themselves there in great comfort and
+quietude, until Jos presently joined them.  Nor was he
+the only companion they found there.  As they were
+coming into the hotel from a sea-side walk one afternoon,
+on whom should they light but Rebecca and her
+husband.  The recognition was immediate.  Rebecca flew
+into the arms of her dearest friend.  Crawley and Osborne
+shook hands together cordially enough: and Becky, in
+the course of a very few hours, found means to make the
+latter forget that little unpleasant passage of words which
+had happened between them.  "Do you remember the last
+time we met at Miss Crawley's, when I was so rude to
+you, dear Captain Osborne? I thought you seemed careless
+about dear Amelia.  It was that made me angry: and
+so pert: and so unkind: and so ungrateful.  Do forgive
+me!" Rebecca said, and she held out her hand with so
+frank and winning a grace, that Osborne could not but
+take it.  By humbly and frankly acknowledging yourself to
+be in the wrong, there is no knowing, my son, what good
+you may do.  I knew once a gentleman and very worthy
+practitioner in Vanity Fair, who used to do little wrongs
+to his neighbours on purpose, and in order to apologise
+for them in an open and manly way afterwards--and
+what ensued?  My friend Crocky Doyle was liked everywhere,
+and deemed to be rather impetuous--but the honestest
+fellow.  Becky's humility passed for sincerity with
+George Osborne.
+
+These two young couples had plenty of tales to relate
+to each other.  The marriages of either were discussed;
+and their prospects in life canvassed with the greatest
+frankness and interest on both sides.  George's marriage
+was to be made known to his father by his friend
+Captain Dobbin; and young Osborne trembled rather for the
+result of that communication.  Miss Crawley, on whom
+all Rawdon's hopes depended, still held out.  Unable to
+make an entry into her house in Park Lane, her
+affectionate nephew and niece had followed her to
+Brighton, where they had emissaries continually planted
+at her door.
+
+"I wish you could see some of Rawdon's friends who
+are always about our door," Rebecca said, laughing.  "Did
+you ever see a dun, my dear; or a bailiff and his man?
+Two of the abominable wretches watched all last week
+at the greengrocer's opposite, and we could not get away
+until Sunday.  If Aunty does not relent, what shall we
+do?"
+
+Rawdon, with roars of laughter, related a dozen amusing
+anecdotes of his duns, and Rebecca's adroit treatment
+of them.  He vowed with a great oath that there was
+no woman in Europe who could talk a creditor over as
+she could.  Almost immediately after their marriage, her
+practice had begun, and her husband found the immense
+value of such a wife.  They had credit in plenty, but they
+had bills also in abundance, and laboured under a scarcity
+of ready money.  Did these debt-difficulties affect Rawdon's
+good spirits?  No.  Everybody in Vanity Fair must
+have remarked how well those live who are comfortably
+and thoroughly in debt: how they deny themselves nothing;
+how jolly and easy they are in their minds.  Rawdon
+and his wife had the very best apartments at the inn at
+Brighton; the landlord, as he brought in the first dish,
+bowed before them as to his greatest customers: and
+Rawdon abused the dinners and wine with an audacity
+which no grandee in the land could surpass.  Long custom,
+a manly appearance, faultless boots and clothes,
+and a happy fierceness of manner, will often help a man
+as much as a great balance at the banker's.
+
+The two wedding parties met constantly in each other's
+apartments.  After two or three nights the gentlemen of an
+evening had a little piquet, as their wives sate and chatted
+apart.  This pastime, and the arrival of Jos Sedley, who
+made his appearance in his grand open carriage, and who
+played a few games at billiards with Captain Crawley,
+replenished Rawdon's purse somewhat, and gave him the
+benefit of that ready money for which the greatest spirits
+are sometimes at a stand-still.
+
+So the three gentlemen walked down to see the Lightning
+coach come in.  Punctual to the minute, the coach
+crowded inside and out, the guard blowing his accustomed
+tune on the horn--the Lightning came tearing
+down the street, and pulled up at the coach-office.
+
+"Hullo! there's old Dobbin," George cried, quite delighted
+to see his old friend perched on the roof; and
+whose promised visit to Brighton had been delayed until
+now.  "How are you, old fellow?  Glad you're come down.
+Emmy'll be delighted to see you," Osborne said, shaking
+his comrade warmly by the hand as soon as his descent
+from the vehicle was effected--and then he added, in a
+lower and agitated voice, "What's the news?  Have you
+been in Russell Square?  What does the governor say?
+Tell me everything."
+
+Dobbin looked very pale and grave.  "I've seen your
+father," said he.  "How's Amelia--Mrs. George?  I'll tell
+you all the news presently: but I've brought the great
+news of all: and that is--"
+
+"Out with it, old fellow," George said.
+
+"We're ordered to Belgium.  All the army goes--guards
+and all.  Heavytop's got the gout, and is mad at not being
+able to move.  O'Dowd goes in command, and we embark
+from Chatham next week." This news of war could
+not but come with a shock upon our lovers, and caused
+all these gentlemen to look very serious.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+Captain Dobbin Proceeds on His Canvass
+
+What is the secret mesmerism which friendship
+possesses, and under the operation of which a person
+ordinarily sluggish, or cold, or timid, becomes wise,
+active, and resolute, in another's behalf?  As Alexis,
+after a few passes from Dr. Elliotson, despises pain,
+reads with the back of his head, sees miles off,
+looks into next week, and performs other wonders,
+of which, in his own private normal condition, he is
+quite incapable; so you see, in the affairs of the world
+and under the magnetism of friendships, the modest
+man becomes bold, the shy confident, the lazy active, or
+the impetuous prudent and peaceful.  What is it, on the
+other hand, that makes the lawyer eschew his own cause,
+and call in his learned brother as an adviser?  And what causes
+the doctor, when ailing, to send for his rival, and not sit
+down and examine his own tongue in the chimney Bass,
+or write his own prescription at his study-table?  I throw
+out these queries for intelligent readers to answer, who
+know, at once, how credulous we are, and how sceptical,
+how soft and how obstinate, how firm for others and how
+diffident about ourselves:  meanwhile, it is certain that
+our friend William Dobbin, who was personally of so
+complying a disposition that if his parents had pressed
+him much, it is probable he would have stepped down
+into the kitchen and married the cook, and who, to further
+his own interests, would have found the most insuperable
+difficulty in walking across the street, found himself as
+busy and eager in the conduct of George Osborne's
+affairs, as the most selfish tactician could be in the pursuit
+of his own.
+
+Whilst our friend George and his young wife were
+enjoying the first blushing days of the honeymoon at
+Brighton, honest William was left as George's plenipotentiary
+in London, to transact all the business part of the marriage.
+His duty it was to call upon old Sedley and his
+wife, and to keep the former in good humour:  to draw Jos
+and his brother-in-law nearer together, so that Jos's position
+and dignity, as collector of Boggley Wollah, might
+compensate for his father's loss of station, and tend to
+reconcile old Osborne to the alliance:  and finally, to
+communicate it to the latter in such a way as should least
+irritate the old gentleman.
+
+Now, before he faced the head of the Osborne house
+with the news which it was his duty to tell, Dobbin bethought
+him that it would be politic to make friends of the
+rest of the family, and, if possible, have the ladies on his
+side. They can't be angry in their hearts, thought he.  No
+woman ever was really angry at a romantic marriage.  A
+little crying out, and they must come round to their
+brother; when the three of us will lay siege to old Mr.
+Osborne.  So this Machiavellian captain of infantry cast
+about him for some happy means or stratagem by which
+he could gently and gradually bring the Misses Osborne
+to a knowledge of their brother's secret.
+
+By a little inquiry regarding his mother's engagements,
+he was pretty soon able to find out by whom of her ladyship's friends parties were given at that season; where
+he would be likely to meet Osborne's sisters; and, though
+he had that abhorrence of routs and evening parties
+which many sensible men, alas! entertain, he soon found
+one where the Misses Osborne were to be present.
+Making his appearance at the ball, where he danced a couple
+of sets with both of them, and was prodigiously polite, he
+actually had the courage to ask Miss Osborne for a few
+minutes' conversation at an early hour the next day, when
+he had, he said, to communicate to her news of the
+very greatest interest.
+
+What was it that made her start back, and gaze upon
+him for a moment, and then on the ground at her feet,
+and make as if she would faint on his arm, had he not by
+opportunely treading on her toes, brought the young lady
+back to self-control?  Why was she so violently agitated
+at Dobbin's request?  This can never be known.  But when
+he came the next day, Maria was not in the drawing-room
+with her sister, and Miss Wirt went off for the purpose
+of fetching the latter, and the Captain and Miss Osborne
+were left together.  They were both so silent that the ticktock
+of the Sacrifice of Iphigenia clock on the mantelpiece
+became quite rudely audible.
+
+"What a nice party it was last night," Miss Osborne at
+length began, encouragingly; "and--and how you're
+improved in your dancing, Captain Dobbin.  Surely somebody
+has taught you," she added, with amiable archness.
+
+"You should see me dance a reel with Mrs. Major
+O'Dowd of ours; and a jig--did you ever see a jig?  But
+I think anybody could dance with you, Miss Osborne,
+who dance so well."
+
+"Is the Major's lady young and beautiful, Captain?" the
+fair questioner continued.  "Ah, what a terrible thing it
+must be to be a soldier's wife!  I wonder they have any
+spirits to dance, and in these dreadful times of war, too!
+O Captain Dobbin, I tremble sometimes when I think of
+our dearest George, and the dangers of the poor soldier.
+Are there many married officers of the --th, Captain
+Dobbin?"
+
+"Upon my word, she's playing her hand rather too
+openly," Miss Wirt thought; but this observation is merely parenthetic, and was not heard through the crevice of
+the door at which the governess uttered it.
+
+"One of our young men is just married," Dobbin said,
+now coming to the point.  "It was a very old attachment,
+and the young couple are as poor as church mice."
+"O, how delightful! O, how romantic!" Miss Osborne
+cried, as the Captain said "old attachment" and "poor."
+Her sympathy encouraged him.
+
+"The finest young fellow in the regiment," he continued.
+"Not a braver or handsomer officer in the army; and
+such a charming wife!  How you would like her!  how
+you will like her when you know her, Miss Osborne."  The
+young lady thought the actual moment had arrived, and
+that Dobbin's nervousness which now came on and was
+visible in many twitchings of his face, in his manner of
+beating the ground with his great feet, in the rapid
+buttoning and unbuttoning of his frock-coat, &c.--Miss
+Osborne, I say, thought that when he had given himself a
+little air, he would unbosom himself entirely, and
+prepared eagerly to listen.  And the clock, in the altar on
+which Iphigenia was situated, beginning, after a preparatory convulsion, to toll twelve, the mere tolling seemed
+as if it would last until one--so prolonged was the knell
+to the anxious spinster.
+
+"But it's not about marriage that I came to speak--
+that is that marriage--that is--no, I mean--my dear
+Miss Osborne, it's about our dear friend George,"
+Dobbin said.
+
+"About George?" she said in a tone so discomfited
+that Maria and Miss Wirt laughed at the other side of
+the door, and even that abandoned wretch of a Dobbin
+felt inclined to smile himself; for he was not altogether
+unconscious of the state of affairs:  George having often
+bantered him gracefully and said, "Hang it, Will, why
+don't you take old Jane?  She'll have you if you ask her.
+I'll bet you five to two she will."
+
+"Yes, about George, then," he continued.  "There has
+been a difference between him and Mr. Osborne.  And I
+regard him so much--for you know we have been like
+brothers--that I hope and pray the quarrel may be
+settled.  We must go abroad, Miss Osborne.  We may be
+ordered off at a day's warning.  Who knows what may
+happen in the campaign?  Don't be agitated, dear Miss
+Osborne; and those two at least should part friends."
+
+"There has been no quarrel, Captain Dobbin, except
+a little usual scene with Papa," the lady said.  "We are
+expecting George back daily.  What Papa wanted was only
+for his good.  He has but to come back, and I'm sure all
+will be well; and dear Rhoda, who went away from here
+in sad sad anger, I know will forgive him.  Woman forgives
+but too readily, Captain."
+
+"Such an angel as YOU I am sure would," Mr. Dobbin
+said, with atrocious astuteness.  "And no man can pardon
+himself for giving a woman pain.  What would you feel,
+if a man were faithless to you?"
+
+"I should perish--I should throw myself out of window--
+I should take poison--I should pine and die.  I
+know I should," Miss cried, who had nevertheless gone
+through one or two affairs of the heart without any idea
+of suicide.
+
+"And there are others," Dobbin continued, "as true
+and as kind-hearted as yourself.  I'm not speaking about
+the West Indian heiress, Miss Osborne, but about a poor
+girl whom George once loved, and who was bred from
+her childhood to think of nobody but him.  I've seen her
+in her poverty uncomplaining, broken-hearted, without a
+fault.  It is of Miss Sedley I speak.  Dear Miss Osborne,
+can your generous heart quarrel with your brother for
+being faithful to her?  Could his own conscience ever
+forgive him if he deserted her?  Be her friend--she always
+loved you--and--and I am come here charged by George
+to tell you that he holds his engagement to her as the
+most sacred duty he has; and to entreat you, at least,
+to be on his side."
+
+When any strong emotion took possession of Mr. Dobbin,
+and after the first word or two of hesitation, he could
+speak with perfect fluency, and it was evident that his
+eloquence on this occasion made some impression upon
+the lady whom he addressed.
+
+"Well," said she, "this is--most surprising--most painful--
+most extraordinary--what will Papa say?--that
+George should fling away such a superb establishment as
+was offered to himbut at any rate he has found a very
+brave champion in you, Captain Dobbin.  It is of no use,
+however," she continued, after a pause; "I feel for poor
+Miss Sedley, most certainly--most sincerely, you know.
+We never thought the match a good one, though we were
+always very kind to her here--very.  But Papa will never
+consent, I am sure.  And a well brought up young woman,
+you know--with a well-regulated mind, must--George
+must give her up, dear Captain Dobbin, indeed he must."
+
+"Ought a man to give up the woman he loved, just
+when misfortune befell her?" Dobbin said, holding out
+his hand.  "Dear Miss Osborne, is this the counsel I hear
+from you?  My dear young lady! you must befriend her.
+He can't give her up.  He must not give her up.  Would a
+man, think you, give YOU up if you were poor?"
+
+This adroit question touched the heart of Miss Jane
+Osborne not a little.  "I don't know whether we poor girls
+ought to believe what you men say, Captain," she said.
+"There is that in woman's tenderness which induces her
+to believe too easily.  I'm afraid you are cruel, cruel
+deceivers,"--and Dobbin certainly thought he felt a
+pressure of the hand which Miss Osborne had extended
+to him.
+
+He dropped it in some alarm.  "Deceivers!" said he.
+"No, dear Miss Osborne, all men are not; your brother
+is not; George has loved Amelia Sedley ever since they
+were children; no wealth would make him marry any but
+her.  Ought he to forsake her?  Would you counsel him to
+do so?"
+
+What could Miss Jane say to such a question, and with
+her own peculiar views?  She could not answer it, so she
+parried it by saying, "Well, if you are not a deceiver, at
+least you are very romantic"; and Captain William let
+this observation pass without challenge.
+
+At length when, by the help of farther polite speeches,
+he deemed that Miss Osborne was sufficiently prepared to
+receive the whole news, he poured it into her ear.
+"George could not give up Amelia--George was married
+to her"--and then he related the circumstances of the
+marriage as we know them already:  how the poor girl
+would have died had not her lover kept his faith:  how
+Old Sedley had refused all consent to the match, and a
+licence had been got: and Jos Sedley had come from
+Cheltenham to give away the bride: how they had gone
+to Brighton in Jos's chariot-and-four to pass the honeymoon:
+and how George counted on his dear kind sisters to
+befriend him with their father, as women--so true
+and tender as they were--assuredly would do.  And so,
+asking permission (readily granted) to see her again, and
+rightly conjecturing that the news he had brought would
+be told in the next five minutes to the other ladies,
+Captain Dobbin made his bow and took his leave.
+
+He was scarcely out of the house, when Miss Maria
+and Miss Wirt rushed in to Miss Osborne, and the
+whole wonderful secret was imparted to them by that
+lady.  To do them justice, neither of the sisters was very
+much displeased.  There is something about a runaway
+match with which few ladies can be seriously angry, and
+Amelia rather rose in their estimation, from the spirit
+which she had displayed in consenting to the union.  As
+they debated the story, and prattled about it, and wondered
+what Papa would do and say, came a loud knock,
+as of an avenging thunder-clap, at the door, which made
+these conspirators start.  It must be Papa, they thought.
+But it was not he.  It was only Mr. Frederick Bullock,
+who had come from the City according to appointment,
+to conduct the ladies to a flower-show.
+
+This gentleman, as may be imagined, was not kept
+long in ignorance of the secret.  But his face, when he
+heard it, showed an amazement which was very different
+to that look of sentimental wonder which the countenances
+of the sisters wore.  Mr. Bullock was a man of the world,
+and a junior partner of a wealthy firm.  He knew what
+money was, and the value of it: and a delightful throb
+of expectation lighted up his little eyes, and caused him
+to smile on his Maria, as he thought that by this piece
+of folly of Mr. George's she might be worth thirty
+thousand pounds more than he had ever hoped to
+get with her.
+
+"Gad!  Jane," said he, surveying even the elder sister
+with some interest, "Eels will be sorry he cried off.  You
+may be a fifty thousand pounder yet."
+
+The sisters had never thought of the money question
+up to that moment, but Fred Bullock bantered them
+with graceful gaiety about it during their forenoon's
+excursion; and they had risen not a little in their own
+esteem by the time when, the morning amusement over,
+they drove back to dinner.  And do not let my respected
+reader exclaim against this selfishness as unnatural.  It
+was but this present morning, as he rode on the omnibus
+from Richmond; while it changed horses, this present
+chronicler, being on the roof, marked three little children
+playing in a puddle below, very dirty, and friendly, and
+happy.  To these three presently came another little one.
+"POLLY," says she, "YOUR SISTER'S GOT A PENNY."  At which
+the children got up from the puddle instantly, and ran
+off to pay their court to Peggy.  And as the omnibus drove
+off I saw Peggy with the infantine procession at her
+tail, marching with great dignity towards the stall of a
+neighbouring lollipop-woman.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+
+
+In Which Mr. Osborne Takes Down the Family Bible
+
+So having prepared the sisters, Dobbin hastened away
+to the City to perform the rest and more difficult part
+of the task which he had undertaken.  The idea of facing
+old Osborne rendered him not a little nervous, and more
+than once he thought of leaving the young ladies to
+communicate the secret, which, as he was aware, they could
+not long retain.  But he had promised to report to George
+upon the manner in which the elder Osborne bore the
+intelligence; so going into the City to the paternal
+counting-house in Thames Street, he despatched thence
+a note to Mr. Osborne begging for a half-hour's conversation
+relative to the affairs of his son George.  Dobbin's messenger
+returned from Mr. Osborne's house of business, with the
+compliments of the latter, who would be very happy to see the
+Captain immediately, and away accordingly Dobbin went
+to confront him.
+
+The Captain, with a half-guilty secret to confess, and
+with the prospect of a painful and stormy interview
+before him, entered Mr. Osborne's offices with a most
+dismal countenance and abashed gait, and, passing through
+the outer room where Mr. Chopper presided, was greeted
+by that functionary from his desk with a waggish air
+which farther discomfited him.  Mr. Chopper winked and
+nodded and pointed his pen towards his patron's door,
+and said, "You'll find the governor all right," with the
+most provoking good humour.
+
+Osborne rose too, and shook him heartily by the hand,
+and said, "How do, my dear boy?" with a cordiality that
+made poor George's ambassador feel doubly guilty.  His
+hand lay as if dead in the old gentleman's grasp.  He felt
+that he, Dobbin, was more or less the cause of all that
+had happened.  It was he had brought back George to
+Amelia: it was he had applauded, encouraged, transacted
+almost the marriage which he was come to reveal to
+George's father:  and the latter was receiving him with
+smiles of welcome; patting him on the shoulder, and calling
+him "Dobbin, my dear boy." The envoy had indeed
+good reason to hang his head.
+
+Osborne fully believed that Dobbin had come to
+announce his son's surrender.  Mr. Chopper and his
+principal were talking over the matter between George and
+his father, at the very moment when Dobbin's messenger
+arrived.  Both agreed that George was sending in his
+submission.  Both had been expecting it for some days--and
+"Lord! Chopper, what a marriage we'll have!" Mr.
+Osborne said to his clerk, snapping his big fingers, and
+jingling all the guineas and shillings in his great pockets
+as he eyed his subordinate with a look of triumph.
+
+With similar operations conducted in both pockets,
+and a knowing jolly air, Osborne from his chair regarded
+Dobbin seated blank and silent opposite to him.  "What
+a bumpkin he is for a Captain in the army," old Osborne
+thought.  "I wonder George hasn't taught him better
+manners."
+
+At last Dobbin summoned courage to begin.  "Sir," said
+he, "I've brought you some very grave news.  I have been
+at the Horse Guards this morning, and there's no doubt
+that our regiment will be ordered abroad, and on its
+way to Belgium before the week is over.  And you know,
+sir, that we shan't be home again before a tussle which
+may be fatal to many of us."
+  Osborne looked grave.  "My s-- , the regiment will
+do its duty, sir, I daresay," he said.
+
+"The French are very strong, sir," Dobbin went on.
+"The Russians and Austrians will be a long time before
+they can bring their troops down.  We shall have the first
+of the fight, sir; and depend on it Boney will take care
+that it shall be a hard one."
+
+"What are you driving at, Dobbin?" his interlocutor
+said, uneasy and with a scowl.  "I suppose no Briton's
+afraid of any d-- Frenchman, hey?"
+
+"I only mean, that before we go, and considering the
+great and certain risk that hangs over every one of us--
+if there are any differences between you and George--it
+would be as well, sir, that--that you should shake hands:
+wouldn't it?  Should anything happen to him, I think you
+would never forgive yourself if you hadn't parted in
+charity."
+
+As he said this, poor William Dobbin blushed crimson,
+and felt and owned that he himself was a traitor.  But
+for him, perhaps, this severance need never have taken
+place.  Why had not George's marriage been delayed?
+What call was there to press it on so eagerly?  He felt that
+George would have parted from Amelia at any rate without
+a mortal pang.  Amelia, too, MIGHT have recovered the
+shock of losing him.  It was his counsel had brought
+about this marriage, and all that was to ensue from it.
+And why was it?  Because he loved her so much that he
+could not bear to see her unhappy:  or because his own
+sufferings of suspense were so unendurable that he was
+glad to crush them at once--as we hasten a funeral
+after a death, or, when a separation from those we love
+is imminent, cannot rest until the parting be over.
+
+"You are a good fellow, William," said Mr. Osborne in
+a softened voice; "and me and George shouldn't part in
+anger, that is true.  Look here.  I've done for him as
+much as any father ever did.  He's had three times as
+much money from me, as I warrant your father ever
+gave you.  But I don't brag about that.  How I've toiled
+for him, and worked and employed my talents and energy,
+I won't say.  Ask Chopper.  Ask himself.  Ask the City of
+London.  Well, I propose to him such a marriage as any
+nobleman in the land might be proud of--the only thing
+in life I ever asked him--and he refuses me.  Am I wrong?
+Is the quarrel of MY making?  What do I seek but his
+good, for which I've been toiling like a convict ever since
+he was born?  Nobody can say there's anything selfish in
+me.  Let him come back.  I say, here's my hand.  I say,
+forget and forgive.  As for marrying now, it's out of the
+question.  Let him and Miss S. make it up, and make out the
+marriage afterwards, when he comes back a Colonel;
+for he shall be a Colonel, by G-- he shall, if money
+can do it.  I'm glad you've brought him round.  I know it's
+you, Dobbin.  You've took him out of many a scrape
+before.  Let him come.  I shan't be hard.  Come along, and
+dine in Russell Square to-day: both of you.  The old shop,
+the old hour.  You'll find a neck of venison, and no
+questions asked."
+
+This praise and confidence smote Dobbin's heart very
+keenly.  Every moment the colloquy continued in this
+tone, he felt more and more guilty.  "Sir," said he, "I
+fear you deceive yourself.  I am sure you do.  George is
+much too high-minded a man ever to marry for money.  A
+threat on your part that you would disinherit him in
+case of disobedience would only be followed by resistance
+on his."
+
+"Why, hang it, man, you don't call offering him eight
+or ten thousand a year threatening him?'' Mr. Osborne
+said, with still provoking good humour.  "'Gad, if Miss
+S. will have me, I'm her man.  I ain't particular about a
+shade or so of tawny." And the old gentleman gave his
+knowing grin and coarse laugh.
+
+"You forget, sir, previous engagements into which
+Captain Osborne had entered," the ambassador said, gravely.
+
+"What engagements? What the devil do you mean?
+You don't mean," Mr. Osborne continued, gathering
+wrath and astonishment as the thought now first came
+upon him; "you don't mean that he's such a d-- fool
+as to be still hankering after that swindling old bankrupt's
+daughter?  You've not come here for to make me
+suppose that he wants to marry HER?  Marry HER, that IS
+a good one.  My son and heir marry a beggar's girl out of
+a gutter.  D-- him, if he does, let him buy a broom
+and sweep a crossing.  She was always dangling and ogling
+after him, I recollect now; and I've no doubt she was
+put on by her old sharper of a father."
+
+"Mr. Sedley was your very good friend, sir," Dobbin
+interposed, almost pleased at finding himself growing
+angry.  "Time was you called him better names than
+rogue and swindler.  The match was of your making.
+George had no right to play fast and loose--"
+
+"Fast and loose!" howled out old Osborne.  "Fast and
+loose!  Why, hang me, those are the very words my
+gentleman used himself when he gave himself airs, last
+Thursday was a fortnight, and talked about the British army
+to his father who made him.  What, it's you who have
+been a setting of him up--is it? and my service to you,
+CAPTAIN.  It's you who want to introduce beggars into my
+family.  Thank you for nothing, Captain.  Marry HER indeed
+--he, he! why should he?  I warrant you she'd go to him
+fast enough without."
+
+"Sir," said Dobbin, starting up in undisguised anger;
+"no man shall abuse that lady in my hearing, and you
+least of all."
+
+"O, you're a-going to call me out, are you?  Stop, let me
+ring the bell for pistols for two.  Mr. George sent you
+here to insult his father, did he?" Osborne said, pulling
+at the bell-cord.
+
+"Mr. Osborne," said Dobbin, with a faltering voice,
+"it's you who are insulting the best creature in the world.
+You had best spare her, sir, for she's your son's wife."
+
+And with this, feeling that he could say no more, Dobbin
+went away, Osborne sinking back in his chair, and
+looking wildly after him.  A clerk came in, obedient to the
+bell; and the Captain was scarcely out of the court where
+Mr. Osborne's offices were, when Mr. Chopper the chief
+clerk came rushing hatless after him.
+
+"For God's sake, what is it?" Mr. Chopper said, catching
+the Captain by the skirt.  "The governor's in a fit.
+What has Mr. George been doing?"
+
+"He married Miss Sedley five days ago," Dobbin replied.
+"I was his groomsman, Mr. Chopper, and you must
+stand his friend."
+
+The old clerk shook his head.  "If that's your news,
+Captain, it's bad.  The governor will never forgive him."
+
+Dobbin begged Chopper to report progress to him at
+the hotel where he was stopping, and walked off moodily
+westwards, greatly perturbed as to the past and the
+future.
+
+When the Russell Square family came to dinner that
+evening, they found the father of the house seated in his
+usual place, but with that air of gloom on his face, which,
+whenever it appeared there, kept the whole circle silent.
+The ladies, and Mr. Bullock who dined with them, felt
+that the news had been communicated to Mr. Osborne.
+His dark looks affected Mr. Bullock so far as to render
+him still and quiet: but he was unusually bland and
+attentive to Miss Maria, by whom he sat, and to her sister
+presiding at the head of the table.
+
+Miss Wirt, by consequence, was alone on her side of
+the board, a gap being left between her and Miss Jane
+Osborne.  Now this was George's place when he dined at
+home; and his cover, as we said, was laid for him in
+expectation of that truant's return.  Nothing occurred
+during dinner-time except smiling Mr. Frederick's flagging
+confidential whispers, and the clinking of plate and china,
+to interrupt the silence of the repast.  The servants went
+about stealthily doing their duty.  Mutes at funerals could
+not look more glum than the domestics of Mr. Osborne
+The neck of venison of which he had invited Dobbin to
+partake, was carved by him in perfect silence; but his
+own share went away almost untasted, though he drank
+much, and the butler assiduously filled his glass.
+
+At last, just at the end of the dinner, his eyes, which
+had been staring at everybody in turn, fixed themselves
+for a while upon the plate laid for George.  He pointed
+to it presently with his left hand.  His daughters looked at
+him and did not comprehend, or choose to comprehend,
+the signal; nor did the servants at first understand it.
+
+"Take that plate away," at last he said, getting up with
+an oath--and with this pushing his chair back, he walked
+into his own room.
+
+Behind Mr. Osborne's dining-room was the usual
+apartment which went in his house by the name of the
+study; and was sacred to the master of the house.  Hither
+Mr. Osborne would retire of a Sunday forenoon when
+not minded to go to church; and here pass the morning
+in his crimson leather chair, reading the paper.  A couple
+of glazed book-cases were here, containing standard
+works in stout gilt bindings.  The "Annual Register," the
+"Gentleman's Magazine," "Blair's Sermons," and "Hume
+and Smollett." From year's end to year's end he never
+took one of these volumes from the shelf; but there was
+no member of the family that would dare for his life to
+touch one of the books, except upon those rare Sunday
+evenings when there was no dinner-party, and when the
+great scarlet Bible and Prayer-book were taken out from
+the corner where they stood beside his copy of the Peerage,
+and the servants being rung up to the dining parlour,
+Osborne read the evening service to his family in a
+loud grating pompous voice.  No member of the household,
+child, or domestic, ever entered that room without
+a certain terror.  Here he checked the housekeeper's accounts,
+and overhauled the butler's cellar-book.  Hence he
+could command, across the clean gravel court-yard, the
+back entrance of the stables with which one of his bells
+communicated, and into this yard the coachman issued
+from his premises as into a dock, and Osborne swore at
+him from the study window.  Four times a year Miss
+Wirt entered this apartment to get her salary; and his
+daughters to receive their quarterly allowance.  George
+as a boy had been horsewhipped in this room many
+times; his mother sitting sick on the stair listening to the
+cuts of the whip.  The boy was scarcely ever known to
+cry under the punishment; the poor woman used to
+fondle and kiss him secretly, and give him money to
+soothe him when he came out.
+
+There was a picture of the family over the mantelpiece,
+removed thither from the front room after Mrs. Osborne's
+death--George was on a pony, the elder sister
+holding him up a bunch of flowers; the younger led by
+her mother's hand; all with red cheeks and large red
+mouths, simpering on each other in the approved family-
+portrait manner.  The mother lay underground now, long
+since forgotten--the sisters and brother had a hundred
+different interests of their own, and, familiar still, were
+utterly estranged from each other.  Some few score of
+years afterwards, when all the parties represented are
+grown old, what bitter satire there is in those flaunting
+childish family-portraits, with their farce of sentiment and
+smiling lies, and innocence so self-conscious and self-
+satisfied.  Osborne's own state portrait, with that of his
+great silver inkstand and arm-chair, had taken the place
+of honour in the dining-room, vacated by the family-
+piece.
+
+To this study old Osborne retired then, greatly to the
+relief of the small party whom he left.  When the
+servants had withdrawn, they began to talk for a while
+volubly but very low; then they went upstairs quietly,
+Mr. Bullock accompanying them stealthily on his creaking
+shoes.  He had no heart to sit alone drinking wine,
+and so close to the terrible old gentleman in the study
+hard at hand.
+
+An hour at least after dark, the butler, not having
+received any summons, ventured to tap at his door and
+take him in wax candles and tea.  The master of the
+house sate in his chair, pretending to read the paper,
+and when the servant, placing the lights and refreshment
+on the table by him, retired, Mr. Osborne got up and
+locked the door after him.  This time there was no mistaking
+the matter; all the household knew that some great
+catastrophe was going to happen which was likely direly
+to affect Master George.
+
+In the large shining mahogany escritoire Mr. Osborne
+had a drawer especially devoted to his son's affairs and
+papers.  Here he kept all the documents relating to him
+ever since he had been a boy: here were his prize copy-
+books and drawing-books, all bearing George's hand,
+and that of the master:  here were his first letters in large
+round-hand sending his love to papa and mamma, and
+conveying his petitions for a cake.  His dear godpapa
+Sedley was more than once mentioned in them.  Curses
+quivered on old Osborne's livid lips, and horrid hatred
+and disappointment writhed in his heart, as looking
+through some of these papers he came on that name.
+They were all marked and docketed, and tied with red tape.
+It was--From Georgy, requesting 5s., April 23, 18--;
+answered, April 25"--or "Georgy about a pony, October
+13"--and so forth. In another packet were "Dr. S.'s accounts"
+--"G.'s tailor's bills and outfits, drafts on me by
+G. Osborne, jun.," &c.--his letters from the West Indies
+--his agent's letters, and the newspapers containing his
+commissions: here was a whip he had when a boy, and in
+a paper a locket containing his hair, which his mother
+used to wear.
+
+Turning one over after another, and musing over these
+memorials, the unhappy man passed many hours.  His
+dearest vanities, ambitious hopes, had all been here.  What
+pride he had in his boy!  He was the handsomest child
+ever seen.  Everybody said he was like a nobleman's
+son.  A royal princess had remarked him, and kissed
+him, and asked his name in Kew Gardens.  What City
+man could show such another?  Could a prince have been
+better cared for?  Anything that money could buy had
+been his son's.  He used to go down on speech-days with
+four horses and new liveries, and scatter new shillings
+among the boys at the school where George was:  when
+he went with George to the depot of his regiment, before
+the boy embarked for Canada, he gave the officers
+such a dinner as the Duke of York might have sat down
+to.  Had he ever refused a bill when George drew one?
+There they were--paid without a word.  Many a general
+in the army couldn't ride the horses he had!  He had the
+child before his eyes, on a hundred different days when
+he remembered George after dinner, when he used
+to come in as bold as a lord and drink off his glass by
+his father's side, at the head of the table--on the pony
+at Brighton, when he cleared the hedge and kept up with
+the huntsman--on the day when he was presented to
+the Prince Regent at the levee, when all Saint James's
+couldn't produce a finer young fellow.  And this, this was
+the end of all!--to marry a bankrupt and fly in the face
+of duty and fortune!  What humiliation and fury:  what
+pangs of sickening rage, balked ambition and love; what
+wounds of outraged vanity, tenderness even, had this
+old worldling now to suffer under!
+
+Having examined these papers, and pondered over this
+one and the other, in that bitterest of all helpless woe,
+with which miserable men think of happy past times--
+George's father took the whole of the documents out of
+the drawer in which he had kept them so long, and locked
+them into a writing-box, which he tied, and sealed with
+his seal.  Then he opened the book-case, and took down
+the great red Bible we have spoken of a pompous
+book, seldom looked at, and shining all over with gold.
+There was a frontispiece to the volume, representing
+Abraham sacrificing Isaac.  Here, according to custom,
+Osborne had recorded on the fly-leaf, and in his large
+clerk-like hand, the dates of his marriage and his wife's
+death, and the births and Christian names of his children.
+Jane came first, then George Sedley Osborne, then Maria
+Frances, and the days of the christening of each.  Taking
+a pen, he carefully obliterated George's names from
+the page; and when the leaf was quite dry, restored the
+volume to the place from which he had moved it.  Then
+he took a document out of another drawer, where his
+own private papers were kept; and having read it, crumpled
+it up and lighted it at one of the candles, and saw it
+burn entirely away in the grate.  It was his will; which
+being burned, he sate down and wrote off a letter, and
+rang for his servant, whom he charged to deliver it in the
+morning.  It was morning already: as he went up to bed,
+the whole house was alight with the sunshine; and the
+birds were singing among the fresh green leaves in
+Russell Square.
+
+Anxious to keep all Mr. Osborne's family and dependants
+in good humour, and to make as many friends as
+possible for George in his hour of adversity, William Dobbin,
+who knew the effect which good dinners and good
+wines have upon the soul of man, wrote off immediately
+on his return to his inn the most hospitable of invitations
+to Thomas Chopper, Esquire, begging that gentleman to
+dine with him at the Slaughters' next day.  The note
+reached Mr. Chopper before he left the City, and the
+instant reply was, that "Mr. Chopper presents his
+respectful compliments, and will have the honour and
+pleasure of waiting on Captain D."  The invitation and the
+rough draft of the answer were shown to Mrs. Chopper
+and her daughters on his return to Somers' Town that
+evening, and they talked about military gents and West
+End men with great exultation as the family sate and
+partook of tea.  When the girls had gone to rest, Mr. and
+Mrs. C. discoursed upon the strange events which were
+occurring in the governor's family.  Never had the clerk
+seen his principal so moved.  When he went in to Mr.
+Osborne, after Captain Dobbin's departure, Mr. Chopper
+found his chief black in the face, and all but in a fit:
+some dreadful quarrel, he was certain, had occurred
+between Mr. O. and the young Captain.  Chopper had been
+instructed to make out an account of all sums paid to
+Captain Osborne within the last three years.  "And a
+precious lot of money he has had too," the chief clerk said,
+and respected his old and young master the more, for
+the liberal way in which the guineas had been flung about.
+The dispute was something about Miss Sedley.  Mrs.
+Chopper vowed and declared she pitied that poor young
+lady to lose such a handsome young fellow as the Capting.
+As the daughter of an unlucky speculator, who had paid a
+very shabby dividend, Mr. Chopper had no great regard
+for Miss Sedley.  He respected the house of Osborne
+before all others in the City of London: and his hope and
+wish was that Captain George should marry a nobleman's
+daughter.  The clerk slept a great deal sounder than
+his principal that night; and, cuddling his children after
+breakfast (of which he partook with a very hearty
+appetite, though his modest cup of life was only
+sweetened with brown sugar), he set off in his best Sunday
+suit and frilled shirt for business, promising his admiring
+wife not to punish Captain D.'s port too severely that
+evening.
+
+Mr. Osborne's countenance, when he arrived in the
+City at his usual time, struck those dependants who were
+accustomed, for good reasons, to watch its expression,
+as peculiarly ghastly and worn.  At twelve o'clock Mr.
+Higgs (of the firm of Higgs & Blatherwick, solicitors,
+Bedford Row) called by appointment, and was ushered
+into the governor's private room, and closeted there for
+more than an hour.  At about one Mr. Chopper
+received a note brought by Captain Dobbin's man, and
+containing an inclosure for Mr. Osborne, which the clerk
+went in and delivered.  A short time afterwards Mr.
+Chopper and Mr. Birch, the next clerk, were summoned, and
+requested to witness a paper.  "I've been making a new
+will," Mr. Osborne said, to which these gentlemen
+appended their names accordingly.  No conversation
+passed.  Mr. Higgs looked exceedingly grave as he came
+into the outer rooms, and very hard in Mr. Chopper's
+face; but there were not any explanations.  It was
+remarked that Mr. Osborne was particularly quiet and
+gentle all day, to the surprise of those who had augured ill
+from his darkling demeanour.  He called no man names
+that day, and was not heard to swear once.  He left business
+early; and before going away, summoned his chief
+clerk once more, and having given him general instructions,
+asked him, after some seeming hesitation and reluctance
+to speak, if he knew whether Captain Dobbin was in town?
+
+Chopper said he believed he was.  Indeed both of them
+knew the fact perfectly.
+
+Osborne took a letter directed to that officer, and
+giving it to the clerk, requested the latter to deliver it
+into Dobbin's own hands immediately.
+
+"And now, Chopper," says he, taking his hat, and with
+a strange look, "my mind will be easy."  Exactly as the
+clock struck two (there was no doubt an appointment
+between the pair) Mr. Frederick Bullock called, and he
+and Mr. Osborne walked away together.
+
+
+The Colonel of the --th regiment, in which Messieurs
+Dobbin and Osborne had companies, was an old General
+who had made his first campaign under Wolfe at Quebec,
+and was long since quite too old and feeble for command;
+but he took some interest in the regiment of which
+he was the nominal head, and made certain of his young
+officers welcome at his table, a kind of hospitality
+which I believe is not now common amongst his
+brethren.  Captain Dobbin was an especial favourite
+of this old General.  Dobbin was versed in the literature
+of his profession, and could talk about the great Frederick,
+and the Empress Queen, and their wars, almost as well
+as the General himself, who was indifferent to the triumphs
+of the present day, and whose heart was with the
+tacticians of fifty years back.  This officer sent a summons
+to Dobbin to come and breakfast with him, on the
+morning when Mr. Osborne altered his will and Mr. Chopper
+put on his best shirt frill, and then informed his young
+favourite, a couple of days in advance, of that which they
+were all expecting--a marching order to go to Belgium.
+The order for the regiment to hold itself in readiness
+would leave the Horse Guards in a day or two; and as
+transports were in plenty, they would get their route
+before the week was over.  Recruits had come in during
+the stay of the regiment at Chatham; and the old General
+hoped that the regiment which had helped to beat
+Montcalm in Canada, and to rout Mr. Washington on
+Long Island, would prove itself worthy of its historical
+reputation on the oft-trodden battle-grounds of the Low
+Countries.  "And so, my good friend, if you have any
+affaire la, said the old General, taking a pinch of snuff
+with his trembling white old hand, and then pointing to
+the spot of his robe de chambre under which his heart
+was still feebly beating, "if you have any Phillis to console,
+or to bid farewell to papa and mamma, or any will
+to make, I recommend you to set about your business
+without delay." With which the General gave his young
+friend a finger to shake, and a good-natured nod of his
+powdered and pigtailed head; and the door being closed
+upon Dobbin, sate down to pen a poulet (he was
+exceedingly vain of his French) to Mademoiselle
+Amenaide of His Majesty's Theatre.
+
+This news made Dobbin grave, and he thought of our
+friends at Brighton, and then he was ashamed of himself
+that Amelia was always the first thing in his thoughts
+(always before anybody--before father and mother,
+sisters and duty--always at waking and sleeping indeed,
+and all day long); and returning to his hotel, he sent off a
+brief note to Mr. Osborne acquainting him with the
+information which he had received, and which might tend
+farther, he hoped, to bring about a reconciliation with
+George.
+
+This note, despatched by the same messenger who had
+carried the invitation to Chopper on the previous day,
+alarmed the worthy clerk not a little.  It was inclosed to
+him, and as he opened the letter he trembled lest the
+dinner should be put off on which he was calculating.  His
+mind was inexpressibly relieved when he found that the
+envelope was only a reminder for himself.  ("I shall
+expect you at half-past five," Captain Dobbin wrote.) He was
+very much interested about his employer's family; but,
+que voulez-vous? a grand dinner was of more concern to
+him than the affairs of any other mortal.
+
+Dobbin was quite justified in repeating the General's
+information to any officers of the regiment whom he
+should see in the course of his peregrinations; accordingly
+he imparted it to Ensign Stubble, whom he met at the
+agent's, and who--such was his military ardour--went
+off instantly to purchase a new sword at the
+accoutrement-maker's.  Here this young fellow, who,
+though only seventeen years of age, and about sixty-five
+inches high, with a constitution naturally rickety and
+much impaired by premature brandy and water, had an
+undoubted courage and a lion's heart, poised, tried, bent,
+and balanced a weapon such as he thought would do execution amongst Frenchmen.  Shouting "Ha, ha!" and stamping his little
+feet with tremendous energy, he delivered the point twice
+or thrice at Captain Dobbin, who parried the thrust
+laughingly with his bamboo walking-stick.
+
+Mr. Stubble, as may be supposed from his size and
+slenderness, was of the Light Bobs.  Ensign Spooney, on
+the contrary, was a tall youth, and belonged to (Captain
+Dobbin's) the Grenadier Company, and he tried on a new
+bearskin cap, under which he looked savage beyond his
+years.  Then these two lads went off to the Slaughters', and
+having ordered a famous dinner, sate down and wrote off
+letters to the kind anxious parents at home--letters full of
+love and heartiness, and pluck and bad spelling.  Ah! there
+were many anxious hearts beating through England at
+that time; and mothers' prayers and tears flowing in many
+homesteads.
+
+Seeing young Stubble engaged in composition at one of
+the coffee-room tables at the Slaughters', and the tears
+trickling down his nose on to the paper (for the youngster
+was thinking of his mamma, and that he might never see
+her again), Dobbin, who was going to write off a letter to
+George Osborne, relented, and locked up his desk.  "Why
+should I?" said he.  "Let her have this night happy.  I'll go
+and see my parents early in the morning, and go down to
+Brighton myself to-morrow."
+
+So he went up and laid his big hand on young Stubble's
+shoulder, and backed up that young champion, and told
+him if he would leave off brandy and water he would
+be a good soldier, as he always was a gentlemanly good-
+hearted fellow.  Young Stubble's eyes brightened up at this,
+for Dobbin was greatly respected in the regiment, as the
+best officer and the cleverest man in it.
+
+"Thank you, Dobbin," he said, rubbing his eyes with
+his knuckles, "I was just--just telling her I would.  And,
+O Sir, she's so dam kind to me." The water pumps were
+at work again, and I am not sure that the soft-hearted
+Captain's eyes did not also twinkle.
+
+The two ensigns, the Captain, and Mr. Chopper, dined
+together in the same box.  Chopper brought the letter from
+Mr. Osborne, in which the latter briefly presented his
+compliments to Captain Dobbin, and requested him to
+forward the inclosed to Captain George Osborne.  Chopper
+knew nothing further; he described Mr. Osborne's appearance,
+it is true, and his interview with his lawyer, wondered
+how the governor had sworn at nobody, and--especially
+as the wine circled round--abounded in speculations
+and conjectures.  But these grew more vague with
+every glass, and at length became perfectly unintelligible.
+At a late hour Captain Dobbin put his guest into a hackney
+coach, in a hiccupping state, and swearing that he would
+be the kick--the kick--Captain's friend for ever and ever.
+
+When Captain Dobbin took leave of Miss Osborne we
+have said that he asked leave to come and pay her
+another visit, and the spinster expected him for some hours
+the next day, when, perhaps, had he come, and had he
+asked her that question which she was prepared to answer,
+she would have declared herself as her brother's
+friend, and a reconciliation might have been effected
+between George and his angry father.  But though she waited
+at home the Captain never came.  He had his own affairs
+to pursue; his own parents to visit and console; and at an
+early hour of the day to take his place on the Lightning
+coach, and go down to his friends at Brighton.  In the
+course of the day Miss Osborne heard her father give
+orders that that meddling scoundrel, Captain Dobbin,
+should never be admitted within his doors again, and any
+hopes in which she may have indulged privately were thus
+abruptly brought to an end.  Mr. Frederick Bullock came,
+and was particularly affectionate to Maria, and attentive
+to the broken-spirited old gentleman.  For though he said
+his mind would be easy, the means which he had taken to
+secure quiet did not seem to have succeeded as yet, and
+the events of the past two days had visibly shattered him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+
+
+In Which All the Principal Personages Think Fit
+to Leave Brighton
+
+Conducted to the ladies, at the Ship Inn, Dobbin assumed
+a jovial and rattling manner, which proved that this
+young officer was becoming a more consummate hypocrite
+every day of his life.  He was trying to hide his own
+private feelings, first upon seeing Mrs. George Osborne
+in her new condition, and secondly to mask the
+apprehensions he entertained as to the effect which
+the dismal news brought down by him would certainly
+have upon her.
+
+"It is my opinion, George," he said, "that the French
+Emperor will be upon us, horse and foot, before three
+weeks are over, and will give the Duke such a dance as
+shall make the Peninsula appear mere child's play.  But
+you need not say that to Mrs. Osborne, you know.  There
+mayn't be any fighting on our side after all, and our
+business in Belgium may turn out to be a mere military
+occupation.  Many persons think so; and Brussels is full
+of fine people and ladies of fashion." So it was agreed to
+represent the duty of the British army in Belgium in this
+harmless light to Amelia.
+
+This plot being arranged, the hypocritical Dobbin saluted
+Mrs. George Osborne quite gaily, tried to pay her
+one or two compliments relative to her new position as a
+bride (which compliments, it must be confessed, were
+exceedingly clumsy and hung fire woefully), and then fell
+to talking about Brighton, and the sea-air, and the gaieties
+of the place, and the beauties of the road and the merits
+of the Lightning coach and horses--all in a manner
+quite incomprehensible to Amelia, and very amusing to
+Rebecca, who was watching the Captain, as indeed she
+watched every one near whom she came.
+
+Little Amelia, it must be owned, had rather a mean
+opinion of her husband's friend, Captain Dobbin.  He lisped
+--he was very plain and homely-looking: and exceedingly
+awkward and ungainly.  She liked him for his attachment
+to her husband (to be sure there was very little merit in
+that), and she thought George was most generous and
+kind in extending his friendship to his brother officer.
+George had mimicked Dobbin's lisp and queer manners
+many times to her, though to do him justice, he always
+spoke most highly of his friend's good qualities.  In her
+little day of triumph, and not knowing him intimately as
+yet, she made light of honest William--and he knew her
+opinions of him quite well, and acquiesced in them very
+humbly.  A time came when she knew him better, and
+changed her notions regarding him; but that was distant as
+yet.
+
+As for Rebecca, Captain Dobbin had not been two hours
+in the ladies' company before she understood his secret
+perfectly.  She did not like him, and feared him privately;
+nor was he very much prepossessed in her favour.  He
+was so honest, that her arts and cajoleries did not affect
+him, and he shrank from her with instinctive repulsion.
+And, as she was by no means so far superior to her sex as
+to be above jealousy, she disliked him the more for his
+adoration of Amelia.  Nevertheless, she was very respectful
+and cordial in her manner towards him.  A friend to
+the Osbornes! a friend to her dearest benefactors!  She
+vowed she should always love him sincerely: she remembered
+him quite well on the Vauxhall night, as she told
+Amelia archly, and she made a little fun of him when the
+two ladies went to dress for dinner.  Rawdon Crawley paid
+scarcely any attention to Dobbin, looking upon him as a
+good-natured nincompoop and under-bred City man.  Jos
+patronised him with much dignity.
+
+When George and Dobbin were alone in the latter's
+room, to which George had followed him, Dobbin took
+from his desk the letter which he had been charged by
+Mr. Osborne to deliver to his son.  "It's not in my father's
+handwriting," said George, looking rather alarmed; nor
+was it: the letter was from Mr. Osborne's lawyer, and to
+the following effect:
+
+Bedford Row, May 7, 1815.
+    
+SIR,
+
+I am commissioned by Mr. Osborne to inform you,
+that he abides by the determination which he before
+expressed to you, and that in consequence of the marriage
+which you have been pleased to contract, he ceases to
+consider you henceforth as a member of his family.
+This determination is final and irrevocable.
+
+Although the monies expended upon you in your
+minority, and the bills which you have drawn upon
+him so unsparingly of late years, far exceed in amount
+the sum to which you are entitled in your own right
+(being the third part of the fortune of your mother,
+the late Mrs. Osborne and which reverted to you at her
+decease, and to Miss Jane Osborne and Miss Maria
+Frances Osborne); yet I am instructed by Mr. Osborne
+to say, that he waives all claim upon your estate, and
+that the sum of 2,0001., 4 per cent. annuities, at the
+value of the day (being your one-third share of the sum
+of 6,0001.), shall be paid over to yourself or your agents
+upon your receipt for the same, by
+
+Your obedient Servt.,
+
+S. HIGGS.
+
+P.S.--Mr. Osborne desires me to say, once for all,
+that he declines to receive any messages, letters, or
+communications from you on this or any other subject.
+
+"A pretty way you have managed the affair," said
+George, looking savagely at William Dobbin.  "Look there,
+Dobbin," and he flung over to the latter his parent's letter.
+"A beggar, by Jove, and all in consequence of my d--d
+sentimentality.  Why couldn't we have waited?  A ball might
+have done for me in the course of the war, and may still,
+and how will Emmy be bettered by being left a beggar's
+widow?  It was all your doing.  You were never easy until
+you had got me married and ruined.  What the deuce am
+I to do with two thousand pounds?  Such a sum won't
+last two years.  I've lost a hundred and forty to Crawley at
+cards and billiards since I've been down here.  A pretty
+manager of a man's matters YOU are, forsooth."
+
+"There's no denying that the position is a hard one,"
+Dobbin replied, after reading over the letter with a blank
+countenance; "and as you say, it is partly of my making.
+There are some men who wouldn't mind changing with
+you," he added, with a bitter smile.  "How many captains
+in the regiment have two thousand pounds to the fore,
+think you?  You must live on your pay till your father
+relents, and if you die, you leave your wife a hundred a
+year."
+
+"Do you suppose a man of my habits call live on his
+pay and a hundred a year?" George cried out in great
+anger.  "You must be a fool to talk so, Dobbin.  How the
+deuce am I to keep up my position in the world upon
+such a pitiful pittance?  I can't change my habits.  I must
+have my comforts.  I wasn't brought up on porridge, like
+MacWhirter, or on potatoes, like old O'Dowd.  Do you
+expect my wife to take in soldiers' washing, or ride after
+the regiment in a baggage waggon?"
+
+"Well, well," said Dobbin, still good-naturedly, "we'll
+get her a better conveyance.  But try and remember that
+you are only a dethroned prince now, George, my boy;
+and be quiet whilst the tempest lasts.  It won't be for
+long.  Let your name be mentioned in the Gazette, and
+I'll engage the old father relents towards you:"
+
+"Mentioned in the Gazette!" George answered.  "And in
+what part of it?  Among the killed and wounded returns,
+and at the top of the list, very likely."
+
+"Psha!  It will be time enough to cry out when we are
+hurt," Dobbin said.  "And if anything happens, you know,
+George, I have got a little, and I am not a marrying
+man, and I shall not forget my godson in my will," he
+added, with a smile.  Whereupon the dispute ended--as
+many scores of  such conversations between Osborne
+and his friend had concluded previously--by the former
+declaring there was no possibility of being angry with
+Dobbin long, and forgiving him very generously after
+abusing him without cause.
+
+"I say, Becky," cried Rawdon Crawley out of his
+dressing-room, to his lady, who was attiring herself for
+dinner in her own chamber.
+
+"What?" said Becky's shrill voice.  She was looking
+over her shoulder in the glass.  She had put on the neatest
+and freshest white frock imaginable, and with bare
+shoulders and a little necklace, and a light blue sash, she
+looked the image of youthful innocence and girlish
+happiness.
+
+"I say, what'll Mrs. O. do, when 0. goes out with the
+regiment?" Crawley said coming into the room, performing
+a duet on his head with two huge hair-brushes, and
+looking out from under his hair with admiration on his
+pretty little wife.
+
+"I suppose she'll cry her eyes out," Becky answered.
+"She has been whimpering half a dozen times, at the
+very notion of it, already to me."
+
+"YOU don't care, I suppose?" Rawdon said, half angry
+at his wife's want of feeling.
+
+"You wretch! don't you know that I intend to go with
+you," Becky replied.  "Besides, you're different.  You go
+as General Tufto's aide-de-camp.  We don't belong to the
+line," Mrs. Crawley said, throwing up her head with an
+air that so enchanted her husband that he stooped down
+and kissed it.
+
+"Rawdon dear--don't you think--you'd better get that
+--money from Cupid, before he goes?" Becky continued,
+fixing on a killing bow.  She called George Osborne,
+Cupid.  She had flattered him about his good looks a
+score of times already.  She watched over him kindly at
+ecarte of a night when he would drop in to Rawdon's
+quarters for a half-hour before bed-time.
+
+She had often called him a horrid dissipated wretch,
+and threatened to tell Emmy of his wicked ways and
+naughty extravagant habits.  She brought his cigar and
+lighted it for him; she knew the effect of that manoeuvre,
+having practised it in former days upon Rawdon Crawley.
+He thought her gay, brisk, arch, distinguee, delightful.
+In their little drives and dinners, Becky, of course,
+quite outshone poor Emmy, who remained very mute
+and timid while Mrs. Crawley and her husband rattled
+away together, and Captain Crawley (and Jos after he
+joined the young married people) gobbled in silence.
+
+Emmy's mind somehow misgave her about her friend.
+Rebecca's wit, spirits, and accomplishments troubled her
+with a rueful disquiet.  They were only a week married,
+and here was George already suffering ennui, and eager
+for others' society!  She trembled for the future.  How
+shall I be a companion for him, she thought--so clever
+and so brilliant, and I such a humble foolish creature?
+How noble it was of him to marry me--to give up everything
+and stoop down to me!  I ought to have refused
+him, only I had not the heart.  I ought to have stopped at
+home and taken care of poor Papa.  And her neglect of
+her parents (and indeed there was some foundation for
+this charge which the poor child's uneasy conscience
+brought against her) was now remembered for the first
+time, and caused her to blush with humiliation.  Oh!
+thought she, I have been very wicked and selfish--selfish
+in forgetting them in their sorrows--selfish in forcing
+George to marry me.  I know I'm not worthy of him--I
+know he would have been happy without me--and yet--
+I tried, I tried to give him up.
+
+It is hard when, before seven days of marriage are
+over, such thoughts and confessions as these force
+themselves on a little bride's mind.  But so it was, and the
+night before Dobbin came to join these young people--
+on a fine brilliant moonlight night of May--so warm
+and balmy that the windows were flung open to the balcony,
+from which George and Mrs. Crawley were gazing upon
+the calm ocean spread shining before them,
+while Rawdon and Jos were engaged at backgammon
+within--Amelia couched in a great chair quite neglected, and
+watching both these parties, felt a despair and remorse
+such as were bitter companions for that tender lonely
+soul.  Scarce a week was past, and it was come to this!
+The future, had she regarded it, offered a dismal prospect;
+but Emmy was too shy, so to speak, to look to that,
+and embark alone on that wide sea, and unfit to navigate
+it without a guide and protector.  I know Miss Smith has
+a mean opinion of her.  But how many, my dear Madam,
+are endowed with your prodigious strength of mind?
+
+"Gad, what a fine night, and how bright the moon is!"
+George said, with a puff of his cigar, which went soaring
+up skywards.
+
+"How delicious they smell in the open air!  I adore
+them.  Who'd think the moon was two hundred and thirty-
+six thousand eight hundred and forty-seven miles off?"
+Becky added, gazing at that orb with a smile.  "Isn't it
+clever of me to remember that?  Pooh!  we learned it all
+at Miss Pinkerton's!  How calm the sea is, and how clear
+everything.  I declare I can almost see the coast of
+France!" and her bright green eyes streamed out, and
+shot into the night as if they could see through it.
+
+"Do you know what I intend to do one morning?" she
+said; "I find I can swim beautifully, and some day, when
+my Aunt Crawley's companion--old Briggs, you know
+--you remember her--that hook-nosed woman, with the
+long wisps of hair--when Briggs goes out to bathe, I
+intend to dive under her awning, and insist on a
+reconciliation in the water.  Isn't that a stratagem?"
+
+George burst out laughing at the idea of this aquatic
+meeting.  "What's the row there, you two?" Rawdon
+shouted out, rattling the box.  Amelia was making a fool
+of herself in an absurd hysterical manner, and retired
+to her own room to whimper in private.
+
+Our history is destined in this chapter to go backwards
+and forwards in a very irresolute manner seemingly, and
+having conducted our story to to-morrow presently, we
+shall immediately again have occasion to step back to
+yesterday, so that the whole of the tale may get a hearing.
+As you behold at her Majesty's drawing-room, the
+ambassadors' and high dignitaries' carriages whisk off
+from a private door, while Captain Jones's ladies are waiting
+for their fly: as you see in the Secretary of the Treasury's antechamber, a half-dozen of petitioners waiting
+patiently for their audience, and called out one by one,
+when suddenly an Irish member or some eminent personage
+enters the apartment, and instantly walks into Mr.
+Under-Secretary over the heads of all the people present:
+so in the conduct of a tale, the romancer is obliged to
+exercise this most partial sort of justice.  Although all the
+little incidents must be heard, yet they must be put off
+when the great events make their appearance; and surely
+such a circumstance as that which brought Dobbin to
+Brighton, viz., the ordering out of the Guards and the line
+to Belgium, and the mustering of the allied armies in that
+country under the command of his Grace the Duke of
+Wellington--such a dignified circumstance as that, I say,
+was entitled to the pas over all minor occurrences whereof
+this history is composed mainly, and hence a little
+trifling disarrangement and disorder was excusable and
+becoming.  We have only now advanced in time so far
+beyond Chapter XXII as to have got our various characters
+up into their dressing-rooms before the dinner,
+which took place as usual on the day of Dobbin's arrival.
+
+George was too humane or too much occupied with the
+tie of his neckcloth to convey at once all the news to
+Amelia which his comrade had brought with him from
+London.  He came into her room, however, holding the
+attorney's letter in his hand, and with so solemn and
+important an air that his wife, always ingeniously on
+the watch for calamity, thought the worst was about to
+befall, and running up to her husband, besought her
+dearest George to tell her everything--he was ordered
+abroad; there would be a battle next week--she knew
+there would.
+
+Dearest George parried the question about foreign
+service, and with a melancholy shake of the head said,
+"No, Emmy; it isn't that:  it's not myself I care about:
+it's you.  I have had bad news from my father.  He refuses
+any communication with me; he has flung us off; and
+leaves us to poverty.  I can rough it well enough; but
+you, my dear, how will you bear it? read here." And he
+handed her over the letter.
+
+Amelia, with a look of tender alarm in her eyes,
+listened to her noble hero as he uttered the above generous
+sentiments, and sitting down on the bed, read the letter
+which George gave her with such a pompous martyr-like
+air.  Her face cleared up as she read the document, however.
+The idea of sharing poverty and privation in company
+with the beloved object is, as we have before said,
+far from being disagreeable to a warm-hearted woman.
+The notion was actually pleasant to little Amelia.  Then,
+as usual, she was ashamed of herself for feeling happy at
+such an indecorous moment, and checked her pleasure,
+saying demurely, "O, George, how your poor heart must
+bleed at the idea of being separated from your papa!"
+
+"It does," said George, with an agonised countenance.
+
+"But he can't be angry with you long," she continued.
+"Nobody could, I'm sure.  He must forgive you, my
+dearest, kindest husband.  O, I shall never forgive myself
+if he does not."
+
+"What vexes me, my poor Emmy, is not my misfortune,
+but yours," George said.  "I don't care for a little
+poverty; and I think, without vanity, I've talents enough
+to make my own way."
+
+"That you have," interposed his wife, who thought that
+war should cease, and her husband should be made a
+general instantly.
+
+"Yes, I shall make my way as well as another," Osborne
+went on; "but you, my dear girl, how can I bear
+your being deprived of the comforts and station in
+society which my wife had a right to expect?  My dearest
+girl in barracks; the wife of a soldier in a marching
+regiment; subject to all sorts of annoyance and privation!
+It makes me miserable."
+
+Emmy, quite at ease, as this was her husband's only
+cause of disquiet, took his hand, and with a radiant face
+and smile began to warble that stanza from the favourite
+song of "Wapping Old Stairs," in which the heroine, after
+rebuking her Tom for inattention, promises "his trousers
+to mend, and his grog too to make," if he will be constant
+and kind, and not forsake her.  "Besides," she said,
+after a pause, during which she looked as pretty and
+happy as any young woman need, "isn't two thousand
+pounds an immense deal of money, George?"
+
+George laughed at her naivete; and finally they went
+down to dinner, Amelia clinging to George's arm, still
+warbling the tune of "Wapping Old Stairs," and more
+pleased and light of mind than she had been for some
+days past.
+
+Thus the repast, which at length came off, instead of
+being dismal, was an exceedingly brisk and merry one.
+The excitement of the campaign counteracted in George's
+mind the depression occasioned by the disinheriting letter.
+Dobbin still kept up his character of rattle.  He amused
+the company with accounts of the army in Belgium;
+where nothing but fetes and gaiety and fashion were
+going on.  Then, having a particular end in view, this
+dexterous captain proceeded to describe Mrs. Major
+O'Dowd packing her own and her Major's wardrobe, and
+how his best epaulets had been stowed into a tea canister,
+whilst her own famous yellow turban, with the bird of
+paradise wrapped in brown paper, was locked up in the
+Major's tin cocked-hat case, and wondered what effect
+it would have at the French king's court at Ghent, or the
+great military balls at Brussels.
+
+"Ghent! Brussels!" cried out Amelia with a sudden
+shock and start.  "Is the regiment ordered away, George
+--is it ordered away?" A look of terror came over the
+sweet smiling face, and she clung to George as by an
+instinct.
+
+"Don't be afraid, dear," he said good-naturedly; "it
+is but a twelve hours' passage.  It won't hurt you.  You
+shall go, too, Emmy."
+
+"I intend to go," said Becky.  "I'm on the staff.  General
+Tufto is a great flirt of mine.  Isn't he, Rawdon?"
+Rawdon laughed out with his usual roar.  William
+Dobbin flushed up quite red.  "She can't go," he said; "think
+of the--of the danger," he was going to add; but had
+not all his conversation during dinner-time tended to
+prove there was none?  He became very confused and
+silent.
+
+"I must and will go," Amelia cried with the greatest
+spirit; and George, applauding her resolution, patted her
+under the chin, and asked all the persons present if
+they ever saw such a termagant of a wife, and agreed
+that the lady should bear him company.  "We'll have
+Mrs. O'Dowd to chaperon you," he said.  What cared she
+so long as her husband was near her?  Thus somehow
+the bitterness of a parting was juggled away.  Though war
+and danger were in store, war and danger might not
+befall for months to come.  There was a respite at any rate,
+which made the timid little Amelia almost as happy as
+a full reprieve would have done, and which even Dobbin
+owned in his heart was very welcome.  For, to be permitted
+to see her was now the greatest privilege and hope
+of his life, and he thought with himself secretly how he
+would watch and protect her.  I wouldn't have let her go
+if I had been married to her, he thought.  But George was
+the master, and his friend did not think fit to remonstrate.
+
+Putting her arm round her friend's waist, Rebecca at
+length carried Amelia off from the dinner-table where so
+much business of importance had been discussed, and
+left the gentlemen in a highly exhilarated state, drinking
+and talking very gaily.
+
+In the course of the evening Rawdon got a little family-
+note from his wife, which, although he crumpled it up
+and burnt it instantly in the candle, we had the good
+luck to read over Rebecca's shoulder.  "Great news," she
+wrote.  "Mrs. Bute is gone.  Get the money from Cupid tonight,
+as he'll be off to-morrow most likely.  Mind this.
+--R." So when the little company was about adjourning
+to coffee in the women's apartment, Rawdon touched
+Osborne on the elbow, and said gracefully, "I say, Osborne,
+my boy, if quite convenient, I'll trouble you for
+that 'ere small trifle." It was not quite convenient, but
+nevertheless George gave him a considerable present
+instalment in bank-notes from his pocket-book, and a bill
+on his agents at a week's date, for the remaining sum.
+
+This matter arranged, George, and Jos, and Dobbin,
+held a council of war over their cigars, and agreed that a
+general move should be made for London in Jos's open
+carriage the next day.  Jos, I think, would have preferred
+staying until Rawdon Crawley quitted Brighton, but Dobbin
+and George overruled him, and he agreed to carry
+the party to town, and ordered four horses, as became his
+dignity.  With these they set off in state, after breakfast,
+the next day.  Amelia had risen very early in the morning,
+and packed her little trunks with the greatest alacrity,
+while Osborne lay in bed deploring that she had not a
+maid to help her.  She was only too glad, however, to
+perform this office for herself.  A dim uneasy sentiment
+about Rebecca filled her mind already; and although they
+kissed each other most tenderly at parting, yet we know
+what jealousy is; and Mrs. Amelia possessed that among
+other virtues of her sex.
+
+Besides these characters who are coming and going
+away, we must remember that there were some other old
+friends of ours at Brighton; Miss Crawley, namely, and
+the suite in attendance upon her.  Now, although Rebecca
+and her husband were but at a few stones' throw of the
+lodgings which the invalid Miss Crawley occupied, the
+old lady's door remained as pitilessly closed to them as it
+had been heretofore in London.  As long as she remained
+by the side of her sister-in-law, Mrs. Bute Crawley took
+care that her beloved Matilda should not be agitated by a
+meeting with her nephew.  When the spinster took her
+drive, the faithful Mrs. Bute sate beside her in the carriage.
+When Miss Crawley took the air in a chair, Mrs.
+Bute marched on one side of the vehicle, whilst honest
+Briggs occupied the other wing.  And if they met Rawdon
+and his wife by chance--although the former constantly
+and obsequiously took off his hat, the Miss-Crawley party
+passed him by with such a frigid and killing indifference,
+that Rawdon began to despair.
+
+"We might as well be in London as here," Captain
+Rawdon often said, with a downcast air.
+
+"A comfortable inn in Brighton is better than a
+spunging-house in Chancery Lane," his wife answered, who was
+of a more cheerful temperament.  "Think of those two
+aides-de-camp of Mr. Moses, the sheriff's-officer, who
+watched our lodging for a week.  Our friends here are
+very stupid, but Mr. Jos and Captain Cupid are better
+companions than Mr. Moses's men, Rawdon, my love."
+
+"I wonder the writs haven't followed me down here,"
+Rawdon continued, still desponding.
+
+"When they do, we'll find means to give them the slip,"
+said dauntless little Becky, and further pointed out to her
+husband the great comfort and advantage of meeting
+Jos and Osborne, whose acquaintance had brought to
+Rawdon Crawley a most timely little supply of ready
+money.
+
+"It will hardly be enough to pay the inn bill," grumbled
+the Guardsman.
+
+"Why need we pay it?" said the lady, who had an answer
+for everything.
+
+Through Rawdon's valet, who still kept up a trifling
+acquaintance with the male inhabitants of Miss Crawley's
+servants' hall, and was instructed to treat the coachman
+to drink whenever they met, old Miss Crawley's movements
+were pretty well known by our young couple; and
+Rebecca luckily bethought herself of being unwell, and of
+calling in the same apothecary who was in attendance
+upon the spinster, so that their information was on the
+whole tolerably complete.  Nor was Miss Briggs, although
+forced to adopt a hostile attitude, secretly inimical to
+Rawdon and his wife.  She was naturally of a kindly and
+forgiving disposition.  Now that the cause of jealousy was
+removed, her dislike for Rebecca disappeared also, and
+she remembered the latter's invariable good words
+and good humour.  And, indeed, she and Mrs.
+Firkin, the lady's-maid, and the whole of Miss Crawley's
+household, groaned under the tyranny of the
+triumphant Mrs. Bute.
+
+As often will be the case, that good but imperious
+woman pushed her advantages too far, and her successes
+quite unmercifully.  She had in the course of a few weeks
+brought the invalid to such a state of helpless docility,
+that the poor soul yielded herself entirely to her sister's
+orders, and did not even dare to complain of her slavery
+to Briggs or Firkin.  Mrs. Bute measured out the glasses
+of wine which Miss Crawley was daily allowed to take,
+with irresistible accuracy, greatly to the annoyance of
+Firkin and the butler, who found themselves deprived of
+control over even the sherry-bottle.  She apportioned the
+sweetbreads, jellies, chickens; their quantity and order.
+Night and noon and morning she brought the abominable
+drinks ordained by the Doctor, and made her patient
+swallow them with so affecting an obedience that Firkin
+said "my poor Missus du take her physic like a lamb." She
+prescribed the drive in the carriage or the ride in the
+chair, and, in a word, ground down the old lady in her
+convalescence in such a way as only belongs to your
+proper-managing, motherly moral woman.  If ever the
+patient faintly resisted, and pleaded for a little bit more
+dinner or a little drop less medicine, the nurse threatened
+her with instantaneous death, when Miss Crawley
+instantly gave in.  "She's no spirit left in her," Firkin
+remarked to Briggs; "she ain't ave called me a fool these
+three weeks." Finally, Mrs. Bute had made up her mind
+to dismiss the aforesaid honest lady's-maid, Mr. Bowls
+the large confidential man, and Briggs herself, and to
+send for her daughters from the Rectory, previous to
+removing the dear invalid bodily to Queen's Crawley, when
+an odious accident happened which called her away from
+duties so pleasing.  The Reverend Bute Crawley, her
+husband, riding home one night, fell with his horse and
+broke his collar-bone.  Fever and inflammatory symptoms
+set in, and Mrs. Bute was forced to leave Sussex for
+Hampshire.  As soon as ever Bute was restored, she
+promised to return to her dearest friend, and departed,
+leaving the strongest injunctions with the household
+regarding their behaviour to their mistress; and as soon as
+she got into the Southampton coach, there was such a
+jubilee and sense of relief in all Miss Crawley's house,
+as the company of persons assembled there had not
+experienced for many a week before.  That very day Miss
+Crawley left off her afternoon dose of medicine:  that
+afternoon Bowls opened an independent bottle of sherry
+for himself and Mrs. Firkin:  that night Miss Crawley
+and Miss Briggs indulged in a game of piquet instead
+of one of Porteus's sermons.  It was as in the old nursery-
+story, when the stick forgot to beat the dog, and the
+whole course of events underwent a peaceful and happy
+revolution.
+
+At a very early hour in the morning, twice or thrice a
+week, Miss Briggs used to betake herself to a bathing-
+machine, and disport in the water in a flannel gown and
+an oilskin cap.  Rebecca, as we have seen, was aware of
+this circumstance, and though she did not attempt to
+storm Briggs as she had threatened, and actually dive
+into that lady's presence and surprise her under the
+sacredness of the awning, Mrs. Rawdon determined to
+attack Briggs as she came away from her bath, refreshed
+and invigorated by her dip, and likely to be in good
+humour.
+
+So getting up very early the next morning, Becky
+brought the telescope in their sitting-room, which faced
+the sea, to bear upon the bathing-machines on the beach;
+saw Briggs arrive, enter her box; and put out to sea;
+and was on the shore just as the nymph of whom she
+came in quest stepped out of the little caravan on to the
+shingles.  It was a pretty picture:  the beach; the bathing-
+women's faces; the long line of rocks and building were
+blushing and bright in the sunshine.  Rebecca wore a kind,
+tender smile on her face, and was holding out her pretty
+white hand as Briggs emerged from the box.  What could
+Briggs do but accept the salutation?
+
+"Miss Sh--Mrs. Crawley," she said.
+
+Mrs. Crawley seized her hand, pressed it to her heart,
+and with a sudden impulse, flinging her arms round
+Briggs, kissed her affectionately.  "Dear, dear friend!" she
+said, with a touch of such natural feeling, that Miss
+Briggs of course at once began to melt, and even the
+bathing-woman was mollified.
+
+Rebecca found no difficulty in engaging Briggs in a long,
+intimate, and delightful conversation.  Everything that had
+passed since the morning of Becky's sudden departure
+from Miss Crawley's house in Park Lane up to the present
+day, and Mrs. Bute's happy retreat, was discussed and
+described by Briggs.  All Miss Crawley's symptoms, and
+the particulars of her illness and medical treatment, were
+narrated by the confidante with that fulness and
+accuracy which women delight in.  About their complaints
+and their doctors do ladies ever tire of talking to each
+other?  Briggs did not on this occasion; nor did Rebecca
+weary of listening.  She was thankful, truly thankful, that
+the dear kind Briggs, that the faithful, the invaluable
+Firkin, had been permitted to remain with their benefactress
+through her illness.  Heaven bless her! though she,
+Rebecca, had seemed to act undutifully towards Miss
+Crawley; yet was not her fault a natural and excusable one?
+Could she help giving her hand to the man who had won
+her heart?  Briggs, the sentimental, could only turn up
+her eyes to heaven at this appeal, and heave a
+sympathetic sigh, and think that she, too, had given
+away her affections long years ago, and own that Rebecca
+was no very great criminal.
+
+"Can I ever forget her who so befriended the friendless
+orphan?  No, though she has cast me off," the latter
+said, "I shall never cease to love her, and I would devote
+my life to her service.  As my own benefactress, as my
+beloved Rawdon's adored relative, I love and admire Miss
+Crawley, dear Miss Briggs, beyond any woman in the
+world, and next to her I love all those who are faithful
+to her.  I would never have treated Miss Crawley's
+faithful friends as that odious designing Mrs. Bute has
+done.  Rawdon, who was all heart," Rebecca continued,
+"although his outward manners might seem rough and
+careless, had said a hundred times, with tears in his eyes,
+that he blessed Heaven for sending his dearest Aunty two
+such admirable nurses as her attached Firkin and her
+admirable Miss Briggs.  Should the machinations of the
+horrible Mrs. Bute end, as she too much feared they would,
+in banishing everybody that Miss Crawley loved from her
+side, and leaving that poor lady a victim to those harpies
+at the Rectory, Rebecca besought her (Miss Briggs) to
+remember that her own home, humble as it was, was
+always open to receive Briggs.  Dear friend," she
+exclaimed, in a transport of enthusiasm, "some hearts
+can never forget benefits; all women are not Bute
+Crawleys!  Though why should I complain of her," Rebecca
+added; "though I have been her tool and the victim to her
+arts, do I not owe my dearest Rawdon to her?"  And
+Rebecca unfolded to Briggs all Mrs. Bute's conduct at
+Queen's Crawley, which, though unintelligible to her then,
+was clearly enough explained by the events now--now
+that the attachment had sprung up which Mrs. Bute had
+encouraged by a thousand artifices--now that two
+innocent people had fallen into the snares which she had
+laid for them, and loved and married and been ruined
+through her schemes.
+
+It was all very true.  Briggs saw the stratagems as
+clearly as possible.  Mrs. Bute had made the match
+between Rawdon and Rebecca.  Yet, though the latter was a
+perfectly innocent victim, Miss Briggs could not disguise
+from her friend her fear that Miss Crawley's affections
+were hopelessly estranged from Rebecca, and that the old
+lady would never forgive her nephew for making so
+imprudent a marriage.
+
+On this point Rebecca had her own opinion, and
+still kept up a good heart.  If Miss Crawley did not
+forgive them at present, she might at least relent on a
+future day.  Even now, there was only that puling, sickly
+Pitt Crawley between Rawdon and a baronetcy; and should
+anything happen to the former, all would be well.  At all
+events, to have Mrs. Bute's designs exposed, and herself
+well abused, was a satisfaction, and might be advantageous
+to Rawdon's interest; and Rebecca, after an hour's
+chat with her recovered friend, left her with the most
+tender demonstrations of regard, and quite assured that
+the conversation they had had together would be
+reported to Miss Crawley before many hours were over.
+
+This interview ended, it became full time for Rebecca
+to return to her inn, where all the party of the previous
+day were assembled at a farewell breakfast.  Rebecca took
+such a tender leave of Amelia as became two women who
+loved each other as sisters; and having used her handkerchief plentifully, and hung on her friend's neck as if they
+were parting for ever, and waved the handkerchief
+(which was quite dry, by the way) out of window, as the
+carriage drove off, she came back to the breakfast table,
+and ate some prawns with a good deal of appetite,
+considering her emotion; and while she was munching these
+delicacies, explained to Rawdon what had occurred in her
+morning walk between herself and Briggs.  Her hopes
+were very high:  she made her husband share them.  She
+generally succeeded in making her husband share all her
+opinions, whether melancholy or cheerful.
+
+"You will now, if you please, my dear, sit down at the
+writing-table and pen me a pretty little letter to Miss
+Crawley, in which you'll say that you are a good boy,
+and that sort of thing."  So Rawdon sate down, and wrote
+off, "Brighton, Thursday," and "My dear Aunt," with
+great rapidity: but there the gallant officer's imagination
+failed him.  He mumbled the end of his pen, and looked
+up in his wife's face.  She could not help laughing at his
+rueful countenance, and marching up and down the room
+with her hands behind her, the little woman began to
+dictate a letter, which he took down.
+
+"Before quitting the country and commencing a campaign,
+which very possibly may be fatal."
+
+"What?" said Rawdon, rather surprised, but took the
+humour of the phrase, and presently wrote it down with
+a grin.
+
+"Which very possibly may be fatal, I have come
+hither--"
+
+"Why not say come here, Becky?  Come here's grammar,"
+the dragoon interposed.
+
+"I have come hither," Rebecca insisted, with a stamp
+of her foot, "to say farewell to my dearest and earliest
+friend.  I beseech you before I go, not perhaps to
+return, once more to let me press the hand from which
+I have received nothing but kindnesses all my life."
+
+"Kindnesses all my life," echoed Rawdon, scratching
+down the words, and quite amazed at his own facility of
+composition.
+
+"I ask nothing from you but that we should part not in
+anger.  I have the pride of my family on some points,
+though not on all.  I married a painter's daughter, and am
+not ashamed of the union."
+
+"No, run me through the body if I am!" Rawdon ejaculated.
+
+"You old booby," Rebecca said, pinching his ear and
+looking over to see that he made no mistakes in spelling
+--"beseech is not spelt with an a, and earliest is."  So he
+altered these words, bowing to the superior knowledge of
+his little Missis.
+
+"I thought that you were aware of the progress of my
+attachment," Rebecca continued:  "I knew that Mrs. Bute
+Crawley confirmed and encouraged it.  But I make no
+reproaches.  I married a poor woman, and am content to
+abide by what I have done.  Leave your property, dear
+Aunt, as you will.  I shall never complain of the way in
+which you dispose of it.  I would have you believe that I
+love you for yourself, and not for money's sake.  I want to
+be reconciled to you ere I leave England.  Let me, let
+me see you before I go.  A few weeks or months hence it
+may be too late, and I cannot bear the notion of quitting
+the country without a kind word of farewell from you."
+
+"She won't recognise my style in that," said Becky.  "I
+made the sentences short and brisk on purpose." And
+this authentic missive was despatched under cover to Miss
+Briggs.
+
+Old Miss Crawley laughed when Briggs, with great
+mystery, handed her over this candid and simple
+statement.  "We may read it now Mrs. Bute is away,"
+she said.  "Read it to me, Briggs."
+
+When Briggs had read the epistle out, her patroness
+laughed more.  "Don't you see, you goose," she said to
+Briggs, who professed to be much touched by the honest
+affection which pervaded the composition, "don't you
+see that Rawdon never wrote a word of it.  He never
+wrote to me without asking for money in his life, and all
+his letters are full of bad spelling, and dashes, and bad
+grammar.  It is that little serpent of a governess who rules
+him." They are all alike, Miss Crawley thought in her
+heart.  They all want me dead, and are hankering for my
+money.
+
+"I don't mind seeing Rawdon," she added, after a
+pause, and in a tone of perfect indifference.  "I had just
+as soon shake hands with him as not.  Provided there is
+no scene, why shouldn't we meet?  I don't mind.  But
+human patience has its limits; and mind, my dear, I
+respectfully decline to receive Mrs. Rawdon--I can't
+support that quite"--and Miss Briggs was fain to be content
+with this half-message of conciliation; and thought that
+the best method of bringing the old lady and her nephew
+together, was to warn Rawdon to be in waiting on the
+Cliff, when Miss Crawley went out for her air in her
+chair.
+
+There they met.  I don't know whether Miss Crawley
+had any private feeling of regard or emotion upon seeing
+her old favourite; but she held out a couple of fingers
+to him with as smiling and good-humoured an air, as if
+they had met only the day before.  And as for Rawdon,
+he turned as red as scarlet, and wrung off Briggs's hand,
+so great was his rapture and his confusion at the meeting.
+Perhaps it was interest that moved him:  or perhaps
+affection:  perhaps he was touched by the change which
+the illness of the last weeks had wrought in his aunt.
+
+"The old girl has always acted like a trump to me," he
+said to his wife, as he narrated the interview, "and I felt,
+you know, rather queer, and that sort of thing.  I walked
+by the side of the what-dy'e-call-'em, you know, and to
+her own door, where Bowls came to help her in.  And I
+wanted to go in very much, only--"
+
+"YOU DIDN'T GO IN, Rawdon!" screamed his wife.
+
+"No, my dear; I'm hanged if I wasn't afraid when it
+came to the point."
+
+"You fool! you ought to have gone in, and never come
+out again," Rebecca said.
+
+"Don't call me names," said the big Guardsman, sulkily.
+"Perhaps I WAS a fool, Becky, but you shouldn't say
+so"; and he gave his wife a look, such as his countenance
+could wear when angered, and such as was not pleasant
+to face.
+
+"Well, dearest, to-morrow you must be on the look-out,
+and go and see her, mind, whether she asks you or no,"
+Rebecca said, trying to soothe her angry yoke-mate.  On
+which he replied, that he would do exactly as he liked,
+and would just thank her to keep a civil tongue in her
+head--and the wounded husband went away, and passed
+the forenoon at the billiard-room, sulky, silent, and
+suspicious.
+
+But before the night was over he was compelled to
+give in, and own, as usual, to his wife's superior prudence
+and foresight, by the most melancholy confirmation of the
+presentiments which she had regarding the consequences
+of the mistake which he had made.  Miss Crawley must
+have had some emotion upon seeing him and shaking
+hands with him after so long a rupture.  She mused upon
+the meeting a considerable time.  "Rawdon is getting very
+fat and old, Briggs," she said to her companion.  "His
+nose has become red, and he is exceedingly coarse in
+appearance.  His marriage to that woman has hopelessly
+vulgarised him.  Mrs. Bute always said they drank together;
+and I have no doubt they do.  Yes:  he smelt of gin
+abominably.  I remarked it.  Didn't you?"
+
+In vain Briggs interposed that Mrs. Bute spoke ill of
+everybody: and, as far as a person in her humble position
+could judge, was an--
+
+"An artful designing woman?  Yes, so she is, and she
+does speak ill of every one--but I am certain that woman
+has made Rawdon drink.  All those low people do--"
+
+"He was very much affected at seeing you, ma'am," the
+companion said; "and I am sure, when you remember that
+he is going to the field of danger--"
+
+"How much money has he promised you, Briggs?" the
+old spinster cried out, working herself into a nervous
+rage--"there now, of course you begin to cry.  I hate
+scenes.  Why am I always to be worried?  Go and cry up in
+your own room, and send Firkin to me-- no, stop, sit
+down and blow your nose, and leave off crying, and write
+a letter to Captain Crawley." Poor Briggs went and
+placed herself obediently at the writing-book.  Its leaves
+were blotted all over with relics of the firm, strong, rapid
+handwriting of the spinster's late amanuensis, Mrs. Bute
+Crawley.
+
+"Begin 'My dear sir,' or 'Dear sir,' that will be better,
+and say you are desired by Miss Crawley--no, by Miss
+Crawley's medical man, by Mr. Creamer, to state that
+my health is such that all strong emotions would be
+dangerous in my present delicate condition--and that I must
+decline any family discussions or interviews whatever.
+And thank him for coming to Brighton, and so forth, and
+beg him not to stay any longer on my account.  And, Miss
+Briggs, you may add that I wish him a bon voyage, and
+that if he will take the trouble to call upon my lawyer's
+in Gray's Inn Square, he will find there a communication
+for him.  Yes, that will do; and that will make him leave
+Brighton." The benevolent Briggs penned this sentence
+with the utmost satisfaction.
+
+"To seize upon me the very day after Mrs. Bute was
+gone," the old lady prattled on; "it was too indecent.
+Briggs, my dear, write to Mrs. Crawley, and say SHE
+needn't come back.  No--she needn't--and she shan't--
+and I won't be a slave in my own house--and I won't be
+starved and choked with poison.  They all want to kill me
+--all--all"--and with this the lonely old woman burst
+into a scream of hysterical tears.
+
+The last scene of her dismal Vanity Fair comedy was
+fast approaching; the tawdry lamps were going out one
+by one; and the dark curtain was almost ready to
+descend.
+
+That final paragraph, which referred Rawdon to Miss
+Crawley's solicitor in London, and which Briggs had
+written so good-naturedly, consoled the dragoon and his
+wife somewhat, after their first blank disappointment, on
+reading the spinster's refusal of a reconciliation.  And it
+effected the purpose for which the old lady had caused it
+to be written, by making Rawdon very eager to get to
+London.
+
+Out of Jos's losings and George Osborne's bank-notes,
+he paid his bill at the inn, the landlord whereof does not
+probably know to this day how doubtfully his account
+once stood.  For, as a general sends his baggage to the
+rear before an action, Rebecca had wisely packed up all
+their chief valuables and sent them off under care of
+George's servant, who went in charge of the trunks on
+the coach back to London.  Rawdon and his wife
+returned by the same conveyance next day.
+
+"I should have liked to see the old girl before we went,"
+Rawdon said.  "She looks so cut up and altered that I'm
+sure she can't last long.  I wonder what sort of a cheque
+I shall have at Waxy's.  Two hundred--it can't be less
+than two hundred--hey, Becky?"
+
+In consequence of the repeated visits of the aides-de-
+camp of the Sheriff of Middlesex, Rawdon and his wife
+did not go back to their lodgings at Brompton, but put
+up at an inn.  Early the next morning, Rebecca had an
+opportunity of seeing them as she skirted that suburb
+on her road to old Mrs. Sedley's house at Fulham, whither
+she went to look for her dear Amelia and her Brighton
+friends.  They were all off to Chatham, thence to Harwich,
+to take shipping for Belgium with the regiment--
+kind old Mrs. Sedley very much depressed and tearful,
+solitary.  Returning from this visit, Rebecca found her
+husband, who had been off to Gray's Inn, and learnt his
+fate.  He came back furious.
+
+"By Jove, Becky," says he, "she's only given me twenty
+pound!"
+
+Though it told against themselves, the joke was too
+good, and Becky burst out laughing at Rawdon's
+discomfiture.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+
+
+Between London and Chatham
+
+On quitting Brighton, our friend George, as became a
+person of rank and fashion travelling in a barouche with
+four horses, drove in state to a fine hotel in Cavendish
+Square, where a suite of splendid rooms, and a table
+magnificently furnished with plate and surrounded by a
+half-dozen of black and silent waiters, was ready to
+receive the young gentleman and his bride.  George did the
+honours of the place with a princely air to Jos and
+Dobbin; and Amelia, for the first time, and with exceeding
+shyness and timidity, presided at what George called her
+own table.
+
+George pooh-poohed the wine and bullied the waiters
+royally, and Jos gobbled the turtle with immense satisfaction.
+Dobbin helped him to it; for the lady of the house,
+before whom the tureen was placed, was so ignorant of
+the contents, that she was going to help Mr. Sedley without bestowing upon him either calipash or calipee.
+
+The splendour of the entertainment, and the apartments
+in which it was given, alarmed Mr. Dobbin, who
+remonstrated after dinner, when Jos was asleep in the great
+chair.  But in vain he cried out against the enormity of
+turtle and champagne that was fit for an archbishop.
+"I've always been accustomed to travel like a gentleman,"
+George said, "and, damme, my wife shall travel like a
+lady.  As long as there's a shot in the locker, she shall
+want for nothing," said the generous fellow, quite pleased
+with himself for his magnificence of spirit.  Nor did
+Dobbin try and convince him that Amelia's happiness was not
+centred in turtle-soup.
+
+A while after dinner, Amelia timidly expressed a wish
+to go and see her mamma, at Fulham: which permission
+George granted her with some grumbling.  And she tripped
+away to her enormous bedroom, in the centre of which
+stood the enormous funereal bed, "that the Emperor
+Halixander's sister slep in when the allied sufferings was
+here," and put on her little bonnet and shawl with the
+utmost eagerness and pleasure.  George was still drinking
+claret when she returned to the dining-room, and made
+no signs of moving.  "Ar'n't you coming with me, dearest?"
+she asked him.  No; the "dearest" had "business"
+that night.  His man should get her a coach and go with
+her.  And the coach being at the door of the hotel, Amelia
+made George a little disappointed curtsey after looking
+vainly into his face once or twice, and went sadly down
+the great staircase, Captain Dobbin after, who handed her
+into the vehicle, and saw it drive away to its destination.
+The very valet was ashamed of mentioning the address to
+the hackney-coachman before the hotel waiters, and
+promised to instruct him when they got further on.
+
+Dobbin walked home to his old quarters and the
+Slaughters', thinking very likely that it would be delightful
+to be in that hackney-coach, along with Mrs. Osborne.
+George was evidently of quite a different taste; for when
+he had taken wine enough, he went off to half-price at
+the play, to see Mr. Kean perform in Shylock.  Captain
+Osborne was a great lover of the drama, and had himself
+performed high-comedy characters with great distinction
+in several garrison theatrical entertainments.  Jos slept on
+until long after dark, when he woke up with a start at
+the motions of his servant, who was removing and
+emptying the decanters on the table; and the hackney-coach
+stand was again put into requisition for a carriage to
+convey this stout hero to his lodgings and bed.
+
+Mrs. Sedley, you may be sure, clasped her daughter to
+her heart with all maternal eagerness and affection,
+running out of the door as the carriage drew up before the
+little garden-gate, to welcome the weeping, trembling,
+young bride.  Old Mr. Clapp, who was in his shirt-sleeves,
+trimming the garden-plot, shrank back alarmed.  The Irish
+servant-lass rushed up from the kitchen and smiled a
+"God bless you."  Amelia could hardly walk along the
+flags and up the steps into the parlour.
+
+How the floodgates were opened, and mother and
+daughter wept, when they were together embracing each
+other in this sanctuary, may readily be imagined by every
+reader who possesses the least sentimental turn.  When
+don't ladies weep?  At what occasion of joy, sorrow, or
+other business of life, and, after such an event as a
+marriage, mother and daughter were surely at liberty to give
+way to a sensibility which is as tender as it is refreshing.
+About a question of marriage I have seen women
+who hate each other kiss and cry together quite fondly.
+How much more do they feel when they love!  Good mothers
+are married over again at their daughters' weddings:
+and as for subsequent events, who does not know how
+ultra-maternal grandmothers are?--in fact a woman, until
+she is a grandmother, does not often really know what to
+be a mother is.  Let us respect Amelia and her mamma
+whispering and whimpering and laughing and crying in
+the parlour and the twilight.  Old Mr. Sedley did.  HE had
+not divined who was in the carriage when it drove up.  He
+had not flown out to meet his daughter, though he kissed
+her very warmly when she entered the room (where he
+was occupied, as usual, with his papers and tapes and
+statements of accounts), and after sitting with the mother
+and daughter for a short time, he very wisely left the
+little apartment in their possession.
+
+George's valet was looking on in a very supercilious
+manner at Mr. Clapp in his shirt-sleeves, watering his
+rose-bushes.  He took off his hat, however, with much
+condescension to Mr. Sedley, who asked news about
+his son-in-law, and about Jos's carriage, and whether his
+horses had been down to Brighton, and about that
+infernal traitor Bonaparty, and the war; until the Irish
+maid-servant came with a plate and a bottle of wine,
+from which the old gentleman insisted upon helping the
+valet.  He gave him a half-guinea too, which the servant
+pocketed with a mixture of wonder and contempt.  "To
+the health of your master and mistress, Trotter," Mr.
+Sedley said, "and here's something to drink your health
+when you get home, Trotter."
+
+There were but nine days past since Amelia had left
+that little cottage and home--and yet how far off the
+time seemed since she had bidden it farewell.  What a
+gulf lay between her and that past life.  She could look
+back to it from her present standing-place, and contemplate,
+almost as another being, the young unmarried girl
+absorbed in her love, having no eyes but for one special
+object, receiving parental affection if not ungratefully,
+at least indifferently, and as if it were her due--her
+whole heart and thoughts bent on the accomplishment of
+one desire.  The review of those days, so lately gone yet
+so far away, touched her with shame; and the aspect of
+the kind parents filled her with tender remorse.  Was the
+prize gained--the heaven of life--and the winner still
+doubtful and unsatisfied?  As his hero and heroine pass
+the matrimonial barrier, the novelist generally drops the
+curtain, as if the drama were over then:  the doubts and
+struggles of life ended:  as if, once landed in the marriage
+country, all were green and pleasant there:  and wife
+and husband had nothing to do but to link each other's
+arms together, and wander gently downwards towards
+old age in happy and perfect fruition.  But our little
+Amelia was just on the bank of her new country, and was
+already looking anxiously back towards the sad friendly
+figures waving farewell to her across the stream, from the
+other distant shore.
+
+In honour of the young bride's arrival, her mother
+thought it necessary to prepare I don't know what festive
+entertainment, and after the first ebullition of talk, took
+leave of Mrs. George Osborne for a while, and dived
+down to the lower regions of the house to a sort of
+kitchen-parlour (occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Clapp, and
+in the evening, when her dishes were washed and her
+curl-papers removed, by Miss Flannigan, the Irish servant),
+there to take measures for the preparing of a magnificent ornamented tea.  All people have their ways of
+expressing kindness, and it seemed to Mrs. Sedley that a
+muffin and a quantity of orange marmalade spread out
+in a little cut-glass saucer would be peculiarly agreeable
+refreshments to Amelia in her most interesting situation.
+
+While these delicacies were being transacted below,
+Amelia, leaving the drawing-room, walked upstairs and
+found herself, she scarce knew how, in the little room
+which she had occupied before her marriage, and in that
+very chair in which she had passed so many bitter hours.
+She sank back in its arms as if it were an old friend;
+and fell to thinking over the past week, and the life
+beyond it.  Already to be looking sadly and vaguely back:
+always to be pining for something which, when obtained,
+brought doubt and sadness rather than pleasure; here
+was the lot of our poor little creature and harmless lost
+wanderer in the great struggling crowds of Vanity Fair.
+
+Here she sate, and recalled to herself fondly that image
+of George to which she had knelt before marriage.  Did
+she own to herself how different the real man was from
+that superb young hero whom she had worshipped?  It
+requires many, many years--and a man must be very bad
+indeed--before a woman's pride and vanity will let her
+own to such a confession.  Then Rebecca's twinkling
+green eyes and baleful smile lighted upon her, and filled
+her with dismay.  And so she sate for awhile indulging
+in her usual mood of selfish brooding, in that very
+listless melancholy attitude in which the honest maid-servant
+had found her, on the day when she brought up the
+letter in which George renewed his offer of marriage.
+
+She looked at the little white bed, which had been hers
+a few days before, and thought she would like to sleep
+in it that night, and wake, as formerly, with her mother
+smiling over her in the morning:  Then she thought with
+terror of the great funereal damask pavilion in the vast
+and dingy state bedroom, which was awaiting her at the
+grand hotel in Cavendish Square.  Dear little white bed!
+how many a long night had she wept on its pillow!
+How she had despaired and hoped to die there; and now
+were not all her wishes accomplished, and the lover of
+whom she had despaired her own for ever?  Kind mother!
+how patiently and tenderly she had watched round that
+bed!  She went and knelt down by the bedside; and there
+this wounded and timorous, but gentle and loving soul,
+sought for consolation, where as yet, it must be owned,
+our little girl had but seldom looked for it.  Love had
+been her faith hitherto; and the sad, bleeding disappointed
+heart began to feel the want of another consoler.
+
+Have we a right to repeat or to overhear her prayers?
+These, brother, are secrets, and out of the domain of
+Vanity Fair, in which our story lies.
+
+But this may be said, that when the tea was finally
+announced, our young lady came downstairs a great deal
+more cheerful; that she did not despond, or deplore her
+fate, or think about George's coldness, or Rebecca's eyes,
+as she had been wont to do of late.  She went downstairs,
+and kissed her father and mother, and talked to
+the old gentleman, and made him more merry than he
+had been for many a day.  She sate down at the piano
+which Dobbin had bought for her, and sang over all her
+father's favourite old songs.  She pronounced the tea to
+be excellent, and praised the exquisite taste in which
+the marmalade was arranged in the saucers.  And in
+determining to make everybody else happy, she found
+herself so; and was sound asleep in the great funereal
+pavilion, and only woke up with a smile when George
+arrived from the theatre.
+
+For the next day, George had more important "business"
+to transact than that which took him to see Mr.
+Kean in Shylock.  Immediately on his arrival in London
+he had written off to his father's solicitors, signifying his
+royal pleasure that an interview should take place between
+them on the morrow.  His hotel bill, losses at
+billiards and cards to Captain Crawley had almost drained
+the young man's purse, which wanted replenishing before
+he set out on his travels, and he had no resource but
+to infringe upon the two thousand pounds which the
+attorneys were commissioned to pay over to him.  He
+had a perfect belief in his own mind that his father
+would relent before very long.  How could any parent
+be obdurate for a length of time against such a
+paragon as he was?  If his mere past and personal merits did
+not succeed in mollifying his father, George determined
+that he would distinguish himself so prodigiously in the
+ensuing campaign that the old gentleman must give in to
+him.  And if not?  Bah! the world was before him.  His
+luck might change at cards, and there was a deal of
+spending in two thousand pounds.
+
+So he sent off Amelia once more in a carriage to her
+mamma, with strict orders and carte blanche to the two
+ladies to purchase everything requisite for a lady of Mrs.
+George Osborne's fashion, who was going on a foreign
+tour.  They had but one day to complete the outfit, and
+it may be imagined that their business therefore occupied
+them pretty fully.  In a carriage once more, bustling
+about from milliner to linen-draper, escorted back to the
+carriage by obsequious shopmen or polite owners, Mrs.
+Sedley was herself again almost, and sincerely happy for
+the first time since their misfortunes.  Nor was Mrs.
+Amelia at all above the pleasure of shopping, and
+bargaining, and seeing and buying pretty things.  (Would
+any man, the most philosophic, give twopence for a
+woman who was?)  She gave herself a little treat,
+obedient to her husband's orders, and purchased a
+quantity of lady's gear, showing a great deal of taste and
+elegant discernment, as all the shopfolks said.
+
+And about the war that was ensuing, Mrs. Osborne
+was not much alarmed; Bonaparty was to be crushed
+almost without a struggle.  Margate packets were sailing
+every day, filled with men of fashion and ladies of note,
+on their way to Brussels and Ghent.  People were going
+not so much to a war as to a fashionable tour.  The
+newspapers laughed the wretched upstart and swindler to
+scorn.  Such a Corsican wretch as that withstand the
+armies of Europe and the genius of the immortal
+Wellington!  Amelia held him in utter contempt; for it needs
+not to be said that this soft and gentle creature took her
+opinions from those people who surrounded her, such
+fidelity being much too humble-minded to think for itself.
+Well, in a word, she and her mother performed a
+great day's shopping, and she acquitted herself with
+considerable liveliness and credit on this her first
+appearance in the genteel world of London.
+
+George meanwhile, with his hat on one side, his elbows
+squared, and his swaggering martial air, made for
+Bedford Row, and stalked into the attorney's offices as if
+he was lord of every pale-faced clerk who was scribbling
+there.  He ordered somebody to inform Mr. Higgs that
+Captain Osborne was waiting, in a fierce and patronizing
+way, as if the pekin of an attorney, who had thrice his
+brains, fifty times his money, and a thousand times his
+experience, was a wretched underling who should
+instantly leave all his business in life to attend on the
+Captain's pleasure.  He did not see the sneer of contempt
+which passed all round the room, from the first
+clerk to the articled gents, from the articled gents to the
+ragged writers and white-faced runners, in clothes too
+tight for them, as he sate there tapping his boot with his
+cane, and thinking what a parcel of miserable poor devils
+these were.  The miserable poor devils knew all about his
+affairs.  They talked about them over their pints of beer
+at their public-house clubs to other clerks of a night.
+Ye gods, what do not attorneys and attorneys' clerks
+know in London!  Nothing is hidden from their
+inquisition, and their families mutely rule our city.
+
+Perhaps George expected, when he entered Mr. Higgs's
+apartment, to find that gentleman commissioned to give
+him some message of compromise or conciliation from
+his father; perhaps his haughty and cold demeanour
+was adopted as a sign of his spirit and resolution:  but if
+so, his fierceness was met by a chilling coolness and
+indifference on the attorney's part, that rendered
+swaggering absurd.  He pretended to be writing at a paper,
+when the Captain entered.  "Pray, sit down, sir," said he,
+"and I will attend to your little affair in a moment.  Mr.
+Poe, get the release papers, if you please"; and then he
+fell to writing again.
+
+Poe having produced those papers, his chief calculated
+the amount of two thousand pounds stock at the rate of
+the day; and asked Captain Osborne whether he would
+take the sum in a cheque upon the bankers, or whether
+he should direct the latter to purchase stock to that
+amount.  "One of the late Mrs. Osborne's trustees is out
+of town," he said indifferently, "but my client wishes to
+meet your wishes, and have done with the business as
+quick as possible."
+
+"Give me a cheque, sir," said the Captain very surlily.
+"Damn the shillings and halfpence, sir," he added, as the
+lawyer was making out the amount of the draft; and,
+flattering himself that by this stroke of magnanimity he
+had put the old quiz to the blush, he stalked out of
+the office with the paper in his pocket.
+
+"That chap will be in gaol in two years," Mr. Higgs said
+to Mr. Poe.
+
+"Won't O. come round, sir, don't you think?"
+
+"Won't the monument come round," Mr. Higgs replied.
+
+"He's going it pretty fast," said the clerk.  "He's only
+married a week, and I saw him and some other military
+chaps handing Mrs. Highflyer to her carriage after the
+play." And then another case was called, and Mr. George
+Osborne thenceforth dismissed from these worthy
+gentlemen's memory.
+
+The draft was upon our friends Hulker and Bullock of
+Lombard Street, to whose house, still thinking he was
+doing business, George bent his way, and from whom he
+received his money.  Frederick Bullock, Esq., whose
+yellow face was over a ledger, at which sate a demure clerk,
+happened to be in the banking-room when George entered.
+His yellow face turned to a more deadly colour
+when he saw the Captain, and he slunk back guiltily into
+the inmost parlour.  George was too busy gloating over
+the money (for he had never had such a sum before), to
+mark the countenance or flight of the cadaverous suitor
+of his sister.
+
+Fred Bullock told old Osborne of his son's appearance
+and conduct.  "He came in as bold as brass," said
+Frederick.  "He has drawn out every shilling.  How long
+will a few hundred pounds last such a chap as that?" 
+Osborne swore with a great oath that he little cared when or
+how soon he spent it.  Fred dined every day in Russell
+Square now.  But altogether, George was highly pleased
+with his day's business.  All his own baggage and outfit
+was put into a state of speedy preparation, and he paid
+Amelia's purchases with cheques on his agents, and with
+the splendour of a lord.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+
+In Which Amelia Joins Her Regiment
+
+When Jos's fine carriage drove up to the inn door at
+Chatham, the first face which Amelia recognized was the
+friendly countenance of Captain Dobbin, who had been
+pacing the street for an hour past in expectation of his
+friends' arrival.  The Captain, with shells on his frockcoat,
+and a crimson sash and sabre, presented a military
+appearance, which made Jos quite proud to be able to
+claim such an acquaintance, and the stout civilian hailed
+him with a cordiality very different from the reception
+which Jos vouchsafed to his friend in Brighton and Bond
+Street.
+
+Along with the Captain was Ensign Stubble; who, as
+the barouche neared the inn, burst out with an exclamation
+of "By Jove! what a pretty girl"; highly applauding
+Osborne's choice.  Indeed, Amelia dressed in her wedding-
+pelisse and pink ribbons, with a flush in her face,
+occasioned by rapid travel through the open air, looked so
+fresh and pretty, as fully to justify the Ensign's compliment.
+Dobbin liked him for making it.  As he stepped forward
+to help the lady out of the carriage, Stubble saw
+what a pretty little hand she gave him, and what a sweet
+pretty little foot came tripping down the step.  He blushed
+profusely, and made the very best bow of which he was
+capable; to which Amelia, seeing the number of the the
+regiment embroidered on the Ensign's cap, replied with a
+blushing smile, and a curtsey on her part; which finished
+the young Ensign on the spot.  Dobbin took most kindly to
+Mr. Stubble from that day, and encouraged him to talk
+about Amelia in their private walks, and at each other's
+quarters.  It became the fashion, indeed, among all the
+honest young fellows of the --th to adore and admire
+Mrs. Osborne.  Her simple artless behaviour, and
+modest kindness of demeanour, won all their unsophisticated
+hearts; all which simplicity and sweetness are quite
+impossible to describe in print.  But who has not beheld
+these among women, and recognised the presence of all
+sorts of qualities in them, even though they say no more
+to you than that they are engaged to dance the next
+quadrille, or that it is very hot weather?  George, always the
+champion of his regiment, rose immensely in the opinion
+of the youth of the corps, by his gallantry in marrying this
+portionless young creature, and by his choice of such a
+pretty kind partner.
+
+In the sitting-room which was awaiting the travellers,
+Amelia, to her surprise, found a letter addressed to Mrs.
+Captain Osborne.  It was a triangular billet, on pink paper,
+and sealed with a dove and an olive branch, and a
+profusion of light blue sealing wax, and it was written in
+a very large, though undecided female hand.
+
+"It's Peggy O'Dowd's fist," said George, laughing.  "I
+know it by the kisses on the seal." And in fact, it was a
+note from Mrs. Major O'Dowd, requesting the pleasure
+of Mrs. Osborne's company that very evening to a small
+friendly party.  "You must go," George said.  "You will
+make acquaintance with the regiment there.  O'Dowd goes
+in command of the regiment, and Peggy goes in command
+
+But they had not been for many minutes in the enjoyment
+of Mrs. O'Dowd's letter, when the door was flung
+open, and a stout jolly lady, in a riding-habit, followed by
+a couple of officers of Ours, entered the room.
+
+"Sure, I couldn't stop till tay-time.  Present me, Garge,
+my dear fellow, to your lady.  Madam, I'm deloighted to
+see ye; and to present to you me husband, Meejor
+O'Dowd"; and with this, the jolly lady in the riding-habit
+grasped Amelia's hand very warmly, and the latter knew
+at once that the lady was before her whom her husband
+had so often laughed at.  "You've often heard of me from
+that husband of yours," said the lady, with great vivacity.
+
+"You've often heard of her," echoed her husband, the
+Major.
+
+Amelia answered, smiling, "that she had."
+
+"And small good he's told you of me," Mrs. O'Dowd
+replied; adding that "George was a wicked divvle."
+
+"That I'll go bail for," said the Major, trying to look
+knowing, at which George laughed; and Mrs. O'Dowd,
+with a tap of her whip, told the Major to be quiet; and
+then requested to be presented in form to Mrs. Captain
+Osborne.
+
+"This, my dear," said George with great gravity, "is my
+very good, kind, and excellent friend, Auralia Margaretta,
+otherwise called Peggy."
+
+"Faith, you're right," interposed the Major.
+
+"Otherwise called Peggy, lady of Major Michael
+O'Dowd, of our regiment, and daughter of Fitzjurld
+Ber'sford de Burgo Malony of Glenmalony, County Kildare."
+
+"And Muryan Squeer, Doblin," said the lady with calm
+superiority.
+
+"And Muryan Square, sure enough," the Major
+whispered.
+
+"'Twas there ye coorted me, Meejor dear," the lady
+said; and the Major assented to this as to every other
+proposition which was made generally in company.
+
+Major O'Dowd, who had served his sovereign in every
+quarter of the world, and had paid for every step in his
+profession by some more than equivalent act of daring
+and gallantry, was the most modest, silent, sheep-faced
+and meek of little men, and as obedient to his wife as if
+he had been her tay-boy.  At the mess-table he sat silently,
+and drank a great deal.  When full of liquor, he
+reeled silently home.  When he spoke, it was to agree with
+everybody on every conceivable point; and he passed
+through life in perfect ease and good-humour.  The
+hottest suns of India never heated his temper; and the
+Walcheren ague never shook it.  He walked up to a battery
+with just as much indifference as to a dinner-table; had
+dined on horse-flesh and turtle with equal relish and
+appetite; and had an old mother, Mrs. O'Dowd of
+O'Dowdstown indeed, whom he had never disobeyed
+but when he ran away and enlisted, and when he persisted
+in marrying that odious Peggy Malony.
+
+Peggy was one of five sisters, and eleven children of the
+noble house of Glenmalony; but her husband, though her
+own cousin, was of the mother's side, and so had not the
+inestimable advantage of being allied to the Malonys,
+whom she believed to be the most famous family in the
+world.  Having tried nine seasons at Dublin and two at
+Bath and Cheltenham, and not finding a partner for life,
+Miss Malony ordered her cousin Mick to marry her when
+she was about thirty-three years of age; and the honest
+fellow obeying, carried her off to the West Indies, to
+preside over the ladies of the --th regiment, into which he
+had just exchanged.
+
+Before Mrs. O'Dowd was half an hour in Amelia's (or
+indeed in anybody else's) company, this amiable lady told
+all her birth and pedigree to her new friend.  "My dear,"
+said she, good-naturedly, "it was my intention that Garge
+should be a brother of my own, and my sister Glorvina
+would have suited him entirely.  But as bygones are
+bygones, and he was engaged to yourself, why, I'm
+determined to take you as a sister instead, and to look upon
+you as such, and to love you as one of the family.  Faith,
+you've got such a nice good-natured face and way widg
+you, that I'm sure we'll agree; and that you'll be an
+addition to our family anyway."
+
+"'Deed and she will," said O'Dowd, with an approving
+air, and Amelia felt herself not a little amused and
+grateful to be thus suddenly introduced to so large a
+party of relations.
+
+"We're all good fellows here," the Major's lady continued.
+"There's not a regiment in the service where you'll
+find a more united society nor a more agreeable mess-
+room.  There's no quarrelling, bickering, slandthering, nor
+small talk amongst us.  We all love each other."
+
+"Especially Mrs. Magenis," said George, laughing.
+
+"Mrs. Captain Magenis and me has made up, though
+her treatment of me would bring me gray hairs with
+sorrow to the grave."
+
+"And you with such a beautiful front of black, Peggy,
+my dear," the Major cried.
+
+"Hould your tongue, Mick, you booby.  Them husbands
+are always in the way, Mrs. Osborne, my dear; and as
+for my Mick, I often tell him he should never open his
+mouth but to give the word of command, or to put meat
+and drink into it.  I'll tell you about the regiment, and
+warn you when we're alone.  Introduce me to your brother
+now; sure he's a mighty fine man, and reminds me of me
+cousin, Dan Malony (Malony of Ballymalony, my dear,
+you know who mar'ied Ophalia Scully, of Oystherstown,
+own cousin to Lord Poldoody).  Mr. Sedley, sir, I'm
+deloighted to be made known te ye.  I suppose you'll dine
+at the mess to-day.  (Mind that divvle of a docther, Mick,
+and whatever ye du, keep yourself sober for me party
+this evening.)"
+
+"It's the 150th gives us a farewell dinner, my love,"
+interposed the Major, "but we'll easy get a card for Mr.
+Sedley."
+
+"Run Simple (Ensign Simple, of Ours, my dear Amelia.
+I forgot to introjuice him to ye).  Run in a hurry, with
+Mrs. Major O'Dowd's compliments to Colonel Tavish,
+and Captain Osborne has brought his brothernlaw down,
+and will bring him to the 150th mess at five o'clock sharp
+--when you and I, my dear, will take a snack here, if you
+like."  Before Mrs. O'Dowd's speech was concluded, the
+young Ensign was trotting downstairs on his commission.
+
+"Obedience is the soul of the army.  We will go to our
+duty while Mrs. O'Dowd will stay and enlighten you,
+Emmy," Captain Osborne said; and the two gentlemen,
+taking each a wing of the Major, walked out with that
+officer, grinning at each other over his head.
+
+And, now having her new friend to herself, the impetuous
+Mrs: O'Dowd proceeded to pour out such a
+quantity of information as no poor little woman's memory
+could ever tax itself to bear.  She told Amelia a thousand
+particulars relative to the very numerous family of which
+the amazed young lady found herself a member.  "Mrs.
+Heavytop, the Colonel's wife, died in Jamaica of the
+yellow faver and a broken heart comboined, for the horrud
+old Colonel, with a head as bald as a cannon-ball, was
+making sheep's eyes at a half-caste girl there.  Mrs.
+Magenis, though without education, was a good woman,
+but she had the divvle's tongue, and would cheat her own
+mother at whist.  Mrs. Captain Kirk must turn up her
+lobster eyes forsooth at the idea of an honest round game
+(wherein me fawther, as pious a man as ever went to
+church, me uncle Dane Malony, and our cousin the
+Bishop, took a hand at loo, or whist, every night of their
+lives).  Nayther of 'em's goin' with the regiment this time,"
+Mrs. O'Dowd added.  "Fanny Magenis stops with her
+mother, who sells small coal and potatoes, most likely,
+in Islington-town, hard by London, though she's always
+bragging of her father's ships, and pointing them out to us
+as they go up the river:  and Mrs. Kirk and her children
+will stop here in Bethesda Place, to be nigh to her favourite
+preacher, Dr. Ramshorn.  Mrs. Bunny's in an interesting
+situation--faith, and she always is, then--and has
+given the Lieutenant seven already.  And Ensign Posky's
+wife, who joined two months before you, my dear, has
+quarl'd with Tom Posky a score of times, till you can
+hear'm all over the bar'ck (they say they're come to
+broken pleets, and Tom never accounted for his black oi),
+and she'll go back to her mother, who keeps a ladies'
+siminary at Richmond--bad luck to her for running away
+from it!  Where did ye get your finishing, my dear?  I had
+moin, and no expince spared, at Madame Flanahan's, at
+Ilyssus Grove, Booterstown, near Dublin, wid a Marchioness
+to teach us the true Parisian pronunciation, and a retired
+Mejor-General of the French service to put us
+through the exercise."
+
+Of this incongruous family our astonished Amelia found
+herself all of a sudden a member:  with Mrs. O'Dowd as
+an elder sister.  She was presented to her other female
+relations at tea-time, on whom, as she was quiet, good-
+natured, and not too handsome, she made rather an
+agreeable impression until the arrival of the gentlemen from
+the mess of the 150th, who all admired her so, that her
+sisters began, of course, to find fault with her.
+
+"I hope Osborne has sown his wild oats," said Mrs.
+Magenis to Mrs. Bunny.  "If a reformed rake makes a
+good husband, sure it's she will have the fine chance with
+Garge," Mrs. O'Dowd remarked to Posky, who had lost
+her position as bride in the regiment, and was quite angry
+with the usurper.  And as for Mrs. Kirk:  that disciple of
+Dr. Ramshorn put one or two leading professional
+questions to Amelia, to see whether she was awakened,
+whether she was a professing Christian and so forth, and
+finding from the simplicity of Mrs. Osborne's replies that
+she was yet in utter darkness, put into her hands three
+little penny books with pictures, viz., the "Howling
+Wilderness," the "Washerwoman of Wandsworth Common,"
+and the "British Soldier's best Bayonet," which, bent upon
+awakening her before she slept, Mrs. Kirk begged Amelia
+to read that night ere she went to bed.
+
+But all the men, like good fellows as they were, rallied
+round their comrade's pretty wife, and paid her their
+court with soldierly gallantry.  She had a little triumph,
+which flushed her spirits and made her eyes sparkle.
+George was proud of her popularity, and pleased with the
+manner (which was very gay and graceful, though naive
+and a little timid) with which she received the gentlemen's attentions, and answered their compliments.  And
+he in his uniform--how much handsomer he was than
+any man in the room!  She felt that he was affectionately
+watching her, and glowed with pleasure at his kindness.  "I
+will make all his friends welcome," she resolved in her
+heart.  "I will love all as I love him.  I will always try and
+be gay and good-humoured and make his home happy."
+
+The regiment indeed adopted her with acclamation.
+The Captains approved, the Lieutenants applauded, the
+Ensigns admired.  Old Cutler, the Doctor, made one or
+two jokes, which, being professional, need not be repeated;
+and Cackle, the Assistant M.D. of Edinburgh, condescended
+to examine her upon leeterature, and tried her
+with his three best French quotations.  Young Stubble went
+about from man to man whispering, "Jove, isn't she a
+pretty gal?" and never took his eyes off her except when
+the negus came in.
+
+As for Captain Dobbin, he never so much as spoke to
+her during the whole evening.  But he and Captain Porter
+of the l50th took home Jos to the hotel, who was in a
+very maudlin state, and had told his tiger-hunt story with
+great effect, both at the mess-table and at the soiree, to
+Mrs. O'Dowd in her turban and bird of paradise.  Having
+put the Collector into the hands of his servant, Dobbin
+loitered about, smoking his cigar before the inn door.
+George had meanwhile very carefully shawled his wife,
+and brought her away from Mrs. O'Dowd's after a general
+handshaking from the young officers, who accompanied
+her to the fly, and cheered that vehicle as it drove off.  So
+Amelia gave Dobbin her little hand as she got out of the
+carriage, and rebuked him smilingly for not having taken
+any notice of her all night.
+
+The Captain continued that deleterious amusement of
+smoking, long after the inn and the street were gone to
+bed.  He watched the lights vanish from George's sitting-
+room windows, and shine out in the bedroom close at
+hand.  It was almost morning when he returned to his own
+quarters.  He could hear the cheering from the ships in
+the river, where the transports were already taking in
+their cargoes preparatory to dropping down the Thames.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+In Which Amelia Invades the Low Countries
+
+The regiment with its officers was to be transported in
+ships provided by His Majesty's government for the
+occasion:  and in two days after the festive assembly at Mrs.
+O'Dowd's apartments, in the midst of cheering from all
+the East India ships in the river, and the military on shore,
+the band playing "God Save the King," the officers waving
+their hats, and the crews hurrahing gallantly, the transports
+went down the river and proceeded under convoy to
+Ostend.  Meanwhile the gallant Jos had agreed to escort
+his sister and the Major's wife, the bulk of whose goods
+and chattels, including the famous bird of paradise and
+turban, were with the regimental baggage: so that our
+two heroines drove pretty much unencumbered to
+Ramsgate, where there were plenty of packets plying, in
+one of which they had a speedy passage to Ostend.
+
+That period of Jos's life which now ensued was so full
+of incident, that it served him for conversation for
+many years after, and even the tiger-hunt story was put
+aside for more stirring narratives which he had to tell
+about the great campaign of Waterloo.  As soon as he
+had agreed to escort his sister abroad, it was remarked
+that he ceased shaving his upper lip.  At Chatham he
+followed the parades and drills with great assiduity.  He
+listened with the utmost attention to the conversation of
+his brother officers (as he called them in after days
+sometimes), and learned as many military names as he could.
+In these studies the excellent Mrs. O'Dowd was of great
+assistance to him; and on the day finally when they
+embarked on board the Lovely Rose, which was to carry
+them to their destination, he made his appearance in a
+braided frock-coat and duck trousers, with a foraging
+cap ornamented with a smart gold band.  Having his
+carriage with him, and informing everybody on board
+confidentially that he was going to join the Duke of
+Wellington's army, folks mistook him for a great personage, a
+commissary-general, or a government courier at the very
+least.
+
+He suffered hugely on the voyage, during which the
+ladies were likewise prostrate; but Amelia was brought to
+life again as the packet made Ostend, by the sight of
+the transports conveying her regiment, which entered the
+harbour almost at the same time with the Lovely Rose.
+Jos went in a collapsed state to an inn, while Captain
+Dobbin escorted the ladies, and then busied himself in
+freeing Jos's carriage and luggage from the ship and the
+custom-house, for Mr. Jos was at present without a
+servant, Osborne's man and his own pampered menial
+having conspired together at Chatham, and refused point-
+blank to cross the water.  This revolt, which came very
+suddenly, and on the last day, so alarmed Mr. Sedley,
+junior, that he was on the point of giving up the expedition,
+but Captain Dobbin (who made himself immensely
+officious in the business, Jos said), rated him and
+laughed at him soundly:  the mustachios were grown in
+advance, and Jos finally was persuaded to embark.  In
+place of the well-bred and well-fed London domestics,
+who could only speak English, Dobbin procured for Jos's
+party a swarthy little Belgian servant who could speak
+no language at all; but who, by his bustling behaviour,
+and by invariably addressing Mr. Sedley as "My lord,"
+speedily acquired that gentleman's favour.  Times are
+altered at Ostend now; of the Britons who go thither,
+very few look like lords, or act like those members of
+our hereditary aristocracy.  They seem for the most part
+shabby in attire, dingy of linen, lovers of billiards and
+brandy, and cigars and greasy ordinaries.
+
+But it may be said as a rule, that every Englishman
+in the Duke of Wellington's army paid his way.  The
+remembrance of such a fact surely becomes a nation of
+shopkeepers.  It was a blessing for a commerce-loving
+country to be overrun by such an army of customers:
+and to have such creditable warriors to feed.  And the
+country which they came to protect is not military.  For
+a long period of history they have let other people fight
+there.  When the present writer went to survey with eagle
+glance the field of Waterloo, we asked the conductor of
+the diligence, a portly warlike-looking veteran, whether
+he had been at the battle.  "Pas si bete"--such an
+answer and sentiment as no Frenchman would own to--
+was his reply.  But, on the other hand, the postilion
+who drove us was a Viscount, a son of some bankrupt
+Imperial General, who accepted a pennyworth of beer
+on the road.  The moral is surely a good one.
+
+This flat, flourishing, easy country never could have
+looked more rich and prosperous than in that opening
+summer of 1815, when its green fields and quiet cities
+were enlivened by multiplied red-coats: when its wide
+chaussees swarmed with brilliant English equipages:
+when its great canal-boats, gliding by rich pastures and
+pleasant quaint old villages, by old chateaux lying
+amongst old trees, were all crowded with well-to-do English travellers: when the soldier who drank at the village
+inn, not only drank, but paid his score; and Donald,
+the Highlander, billeted in the Flemish farm-house,
+rocked the baby's cradle, while Jean and Jeannette were
+out getting in the hay.  As our painters are bent on military
+subjects just now, I throw out this as a good subject
+for the pencil, to illustrate the principle of an honest
+English war.  All looked as brilliant and harmless as a
+Hyde Park review.  Meanwhile, Napoleon screened behind
+his curtain of frontier-fortresses, was preparing for
+the outbreak which was to drive all these orderly people
+into fury and blood; and lay so many of them low.
+
+Everybody had such a perfect feeling of confidence
+in the leader (for the resolute faith which the Duke of
+Wellington had inspired in the whole English nation was
+as intense as that more frantic enthusiasm with which
+at one time the French regarded Napoleon), the country
+seemed in so perfect a state of orderly defence, and the
+help at hand in case of need so near and overwhelming,
+that alarm was unknown, and our travellers, among
+whom two were naturally of a very timid sort, were,
+like all the other multiplied English tourists, entirely at
+ease.  The famous regiment, with so many of whose
+officers we have made acquaintance, was drafted in canal
+boats to Bruges and Ghent, thence to march to Brussels.
+Jos accompanied the ladies in the public boats; the which
+all old travellers in Flanders must remember for the
+luxury and accommodation they afforded.  So prodigiously
+good was the eating and drinking on board these
+sluggish but most comfortable vessels, that there are legends
+extant of an English traveller, who, coming to Belgium
+for a week, and travelling in one of these boats, was so
+delighted with the fare there that he went backwards
+and forwards from Ghent to Bruges perpetually until the
+railroads were invented, when he drowned himself on the
+last trip of the passage-boat.  Jos's death was not to be
+of this sort, but his comfort was exceeding, and Mrs.
+O'Dowd insisted that he only wanted her sister Glorvina
+to make his happiness complete.  He sate on the roof
+of the cabin all day drinking Flemish beer, shouting for
+Isidor, his servant, and talking gallantly to the ladies.
+
+His courage was prodigious.  "Boney attack us!" he
+cried.  "My dear creature, my poor Emmy, don't be
+frightened.  There's no danger.  The allies will be in Paris
+in two months, I tell you; when I'll take you to dine
+in the Palais Royal, by Jove!  There are three hundred
+thousand Rooshians, I tell you, now entering France by
+Mayence and the Rhine--three hundred thousand under
+Wittgenstein and Barclay de Tolly, my poor love.  You
+don't know military affairs, my dear.  I do, and I tell
+you there's no infantry in France can stand against
+Rooshian infantry, and no general of Boney's that's fit
+to hold a candle to Wittgenstein.  Then there are the
+Austrians, they are five hundred thousand if a man, and
+they are within ten marches of the frontier by this time,
+under Schwartzenberg and Prince Charles.  Then there are
+the Prooshians under the gallant Prince Marshal.  Show
+me a cavalry chief like him now that Murat is gone.
+Hey, Mrs. O'Dowd?  Do you think our little girl here
+need be afraid?  Is there any cause for fear, Isidor?  Hey,
+sir?  Get some more beer."
+
+Mrs. O'Dowd said that her "Glorvina was not afraid
+of any man alive, let alone a Frenchman," and tossed
+off a glass of beer with a wink which expressed her
+liking for the beverage.
+
+Having frequently been in presence of the enemy, or,
+in other words, faced the ladies at Cheltenham and Bath,
+our friend, the Collector, had lost a great deal of his
+pristine timidity, and was now, especially when fortified
+with liquor, as talkative as might be.  He was rather a
+favourite with the regiment, treating the young officers
+with sumptuosity, and amusing them by his military airs.
+And as there is one well-known regiment of the army
+which travels with a goat heading the column, whilst
+another is led by a deer, George said with respect to his
+brother-in-law, that his regiment marched with an
+elephant.
+
+Since Amelia's introduction to the regiment, George
+began to be rather ashamed of some of the company to
+which he had been forced to present her; and determined,
+as he told Dobbin (with what satisfaction to the latter
+it need not be said), to exchange into some better regiment
+soon, and to get his wife away from those damned
+vulgar women.  But this vulgarity of being ashamed of
+one's society is much more common among men than
+women (except very great ladies of fashion, who, to be
+sure, indulge in it); and Mrs. Amelia, a natural and
+unaffected person, had none of that artificial shamefacedness
+which her husband mistook for delicacy on his own
+part.  Thus Mrs. O'Dowd had a cock's plume in her hat,
+and a very large "repayther" on her stomach, which she
+used to ring on all occasions, narrating how it had been
+presented to her by her fawther, as she stipt into the
+car'ge after her mar'ge; and these ornaments, with other
+outward peculiarities of the Major's wife, gave excruciating
+agonies to Captain Osborne, when his wife and the
+Major's came in contact; whereas Amelia was only
+amused by the honest lady's eccentricities, and not in
+the least ashamed of her company.
+
+As they made that well-known journey, which almost
+every Englishman of middle rank has travelled since,
+there might have been more instructive, but few more
+entertaining, companions than Mrs. Major O'Dowd.  "Talk
+about kenal boats; my dear!  Ye should see the kenal
+boats between Dublin and Ballinasloe.  It's there the rapid
+travelling is; and the beautiful cattle.  Sure me fawther
+got a goold medal (and his Excellency himself eat a slice
+of it, and said never was finer mate in his loif) for a
+four-year-old heifer, the like of which ye never saw in
+this country any day." And Jos owned with a sigh, "that
+for good streaky beef, really mingled with fat and lean,
+there was no country like England."
+
+"Except Ireland, where all your best mate comes from,"
+said the Major's lady; proceeding, as is not unusual with
+patriots of her nation, to make comparisons greatly in
+favour of her own country.  The idea of comparing the
+market at Bruges with those of Dublin, although she had
+suggested it herself, caused immense scorn and derision
+on her part.  "I'll thank ye tell me what they mean by
+that old gazabo on the top of the market-place," said
+she, in a burst of ridicule fit to have brought the old
+tower down.  The place was full of English soldiery as
+they passed.  English bugles woke them in the morning;
+at nightfall they went to bed to the note of the British
+fife and drum:  all the country and Europe was in arms,
+and the greatest event of history pending:  and honest
+Peggy O'Dowd, whom it concerned as well as another,
+went on prattling about Ballinafad, and the horses in the
+stables at Glenmalony, and the clar't drunk there; and
+Jos Sedley interposed about curry and rice at Dumdum;
+and Amelia thought about her husband, and how best
+she should show her love for him; as if these were
+the great topics of the world.
+
+Those who like to lay down the History-book, and to
+speculate upon what MIGHT have happened in the world,
+but for the fatal occurrence of what actually did take
+place (a most puzzling, amusing, ingenious, and profitable
+kind of meditation), have no doubt often thought to
+themselves what a specially bad time Napoleon took to
+come back from Elba, and to let loose his eagle from
+Gulf San Juan to Notre Dame.  The historians on our
+side tell us that the armies of the allied powers were
+all providentially on a war-footing, and ready to bear
+down at a moment's notice upon the Elban Emperor.
+The august jobbers assembled at Vienna, and carving
+out the kingdoms of Europe according to their wisdom,
+had such causes of quarrel among themselves as might
+have set the armies which had overcome Napoleon to
+fight against each other, but for the return of the object
+of unanimous hatred and fear.  This monarch had an army
+in full force because he had jobbed to himself Poland,
+and was determined to keep it:  another had robbed half
+Saxony, and was bent upon maintaining his acquisition:
+Italy was the object of a third's solicitude.  Each was
+protesting against the rapacity of the other; and could the
+Corsican but have waited in prison until all these parties
+were by the ears, he might have returned and reigned
+unmolested.  But what would have become of our story
+and all our friends, then?  If all the drops in it were dried
+up, what would become of the sea?
+
+In the meanwhile the business of life and living, and
+the pursuits of pleasure, especially, went on as if no end
+were to be expected to them, and no enemy in front.
+When our travellers arrived at Brussels, in which their
+regiment was quartered, a great piece of good fortune,
+as all said, they found themselves in one of the gayest
+and most brilliant little capitals in Europe, and where
+all the Vanity Fair booths were laid out with the most
+tempting liveliness and splendour.  Gambling was here in
+profusion, and dancing in plenty:  feasting was there to
+fill with delight that great gourmand of a Jos:  there
+was a theatre where a miraculous Catalani was delighting
+all hearers:  beautiful rides, all enlivened with martial
+splendour; a rare old city, with strange costumes and
+wonderful architecture, to delight the eyes of little Amelia,
+who had never before seen a foreign country, and fill
+her with charming surprises: so that now and for a few
+weeks' space in a fine handsome lodging, whereof the
+expenses were borne by Jos and Osborne, who was flush
+of money and full of kind attentions to his wife--for
+about a fortnight, I say, during which her honeymoon
+ended, Mrs. Amelia was as pleased and happy as any
+little bride out of England.
+
+Every day during this happy time there was novelty
+and amusement for all parties.  There was a church to
+see, or a picture-gallery--there was a ride, or an opera.
+The bands of the regiments were making music at all
+hours.  The greatest folks of England walked in the Park
+--there was a perpetual military festival.  George, taking
+out his wife to a new jaunt or junket every night, was
+quite pleased with himself as usual, and swore he was
+becoming quite a domestic character.  And a jaunt or
+a junket with HIM!  Was it not enough to set this little
+heart beating with joy?  Her letters home to her mother
+were filled with delight and gratitude at this season.  Her
+husband bade her buy laces, millinery, jewels, and
+gimcracks of all sorts.  Oh, he was the kindest, best, and
+most generous of men!
+
+The sight of the very great company of lords and ladies
+and fashionable persons who thronged the town, and
+appeared in every public place, filled George's truly British
+soul with intense delight.  They flung off that happy
+frigidity and insolence of demeanour which occasionally
+characterises the great at home, and appearing in
+numberless public places, condescended to mingle with the
+rest of the company whom they met there.  One night
+at a party given by the general of the division to which
+George's regiment belonged, he had the honour of dancing
+with Lady Blanche Thistlewood, Lord Bareacres'
+daughter; he bustled for ices and refreshments for the
+two noble ladies; he pushed and squeezed for Lady
+Bareacres' carriage; he bragged about the Countess when
+he got home, in a way which his own father could not
+have surpassed.  He called upon the ladies the next day;
+he rode by their side in the Park; he asked their party
+to a great dinner at a restaurateur's, and was quite
+wild with exultation when they agreed to come.  Old
+Bareacres, who had not much pride and a large appetite,
+would go for a dinner anywhere.
+
+"I.hope there will be no women besides our own
+party," Lady Bareacres said, after reflecting upon the
+invitation which had been made, and accepted with too
+much precipitancy.
+
+"Gracious Heaven, Mamma--you don't suppose the
+man would bring his wife," shrieked Lady Blanche, who
+had been languishing in George's arms in the newly
+imported waltz for hours the night before.  "The men are
+bearable, but their women--"
+
+"Wife, just married, dev'lish pretty woman, I hear,"
+the old Earl said.
+
+"Well, my dear Blanche," said the mother, "I suppose,
+as Papa wants to go, we must go; but we needn't know
+them in England, you know." And so, determined to cut
+their new acquaintance in Bond Street, these great folks
+went to eat his dinner at Brussels, and condescending to
+make him pay for their pleasure, showed their dignity
+by making his wife uncomfortable, and carefully excluding
+her from the conversation.  This is a species of dignity
+in which the high-bred British female reigns supreme.  To
+watch the behaviour of a fine lady to other and humbler
+women, is a very good sport for a philosophical frequenter
+of Vanity Fair.
+
+This festival, on which honest George spent a great
+deal of money, was the very dismallest of all the
+entertainments which Amelia had in her honeymoon.  She
+wrote the most piteous accounts of the feast home to
+her mamma:  how the Countess of Bareacres would not
+answer when spoken to; how Lady Blanche stared at her
+with her eye-glass; and what a rage Captain Dobbin was
+in at their behaviour; and how my lord, as they came
+away from the feast, asked to see the bill, and pronounced
+it a d-- bad dinner, and d-- dear.  But though Amelia
+told all these stories, and wrote home regarding
+her guests' rudeness, and her own discomfiture,
+old Mrs. Sedley was mightily pleased nevertheless,
+and talked about Emmy's friend, the Countess of
+Bareacres, with such assiduity that the news how his son
+was entertaining peers and peeresses actually came to
+Osborne's ears in the City.
+
+Those who know the present Lieutenant-General Sir
+George Tufto, K.C.B., and have seen him, as they may
+on most days in the season, padded and in stays, strutting
+down Pall Mall with a rickety swagger on his high-heeled
+lacquered boots, leering under the bonnets of passers-
+by, or riding a showy chestnut, and ogling broughams in
+the Parks--those who know the present Sir George Tufto
+would hardly recognise the daring Peninsular and Waterloo
+officer.  He has thick curling brown hair and black
+eyebrows now, and his whiskers are of the deepest
+purple.  He was light-haired and bald in 1815, and stouter
+in the person and in the limbs, which especially have
+shrunk very much of late.  When he was about seventy
+years of age (he is now nearly eighty), his hair, which
+was very scarce and quite white, suddenly grew thick,
+and brown, and curly, and his whiskers and eyebrows
+took their present colour.  Ill-natured people say that
+his chest is all wool, and that his hair, because it never
+grows, is a wig.  Tom Tufto, with whose father he quarrelled
+ever so many years ago, declares that Mademoiselle
+de Jaisey, of the French theatre, pulled his
+grandpapa's hair off in the green-room; but Tom is
+notoriously spiteful and jealous; and the General's wig has
+nothing to do with our story.
+
+One day, as some of our friends of the --th were
+sauntering in the flower-market of Brussels, having been
+to see the Hotel de Ville, which Mrs. Major O'Dowd
+declared was not near so large or handsome as her
+fawther's mansion of Glenmalony, an officer of rank, with
+an orderly behind him, rode up to the market, and
+descending from his horse, came amongst the flowers, and
+selected the very finest bouquet which money could buy.
+The beautiful bundle being tied up in a paper, the officer
+remounted, giving the nosegay into the charge of his
+military groom, who carried it with a grin, following his
+chief, who rode away in great state and self-satisfaction.
+
+"You should see the flowers at Glenmalony," Mrs.
+O'Dowd was remarking.  "Me fawther has three Scotch
+garners with nine helpers.  We have an acre of hot-houses,
+and pines as common as pays in the sayson.  Our greeps
+weighs six pounds every bunch of 'em, and upon me
+honour and conscience I think our magnolias is as big
+as taykettles."
+
+Dobbin, who never used to "draw out" Mrs. O'Dowd
+as that wicked Osborne delighted in doing (much to
+Amelia's terror, who implored him to spare her), fell
+back in the crowd, crowing and sputtering until he
+reached a safe distance, when he exploded amongst the
+astonished market-people with shrieks of yelling laughter.
+
+"Hwhat's that gawky guggling about?" said Mrs.
+O'Dowd.  "Is it his nose bleedn?  He always used to say
+'twas his nose bleedn, till he must have pomped all the
+blood out of 'um.  An't the magnolias at Glenmalony
+as big as taykettles, O'Dowd?"
+
+"'Deed then they are, and bigger, Peggy," the Major
+said.  When the conversation was interrupted in the
+manner stated by the arrival of the officer who purchased
+the bouquet.
+
+"Devlish fine horse--who is it?" George asked.
+
+"You should see me brother Molloy Malony's horse,
+Molasses, that won the cop at the Curragh," the Major's
+wife was exclaiming, and was continuing the family
+history, when her husband interrupted her by saying--
+
+"It's General Tufto, who commands the ---- cavalry
+division"; adding quietly, "he and I were both shot in
+the same leg at Talavera."
+
+"Where you got your step," said George with a laugh.
+"General Tufto! Then, my dear, the Crawleys are come."
+
+Amelia's heart fell--she knew not why.  The sun did
+not seem to shine so bright.  The tall old roofs and
+gables looked less picturesque all of a sudden, though
+it was a brilliant sunset, and one of the brightest and
+most beautiful days at the end of May.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+
+Brussels
+
+Mr. Jos had hired a pair of horses for his open carriage,
+with which cattle, and the smart London vehicle, he made
+a very tolerable figure in the drives about Brussels.
+George purchased a horse for his private riding, and
+he and Captain Dobbin would often accompany the
+carriage in which Jos and his sister took daily excursions
+of pleasure.  They went out that day in the park for their
+accustomed diversion, and there, sure enough, George's
+remark with regard to the arrival of Rawdon Crawley and
+his wife proved to be correct.  In the midst of a little
+troop of horsemen, consisting of some of the very greatest
+persons in Brussels, Rebecca was seen in the prettiest
+and tightest of riding-habits, mounted on a beautiful
+little Arab, which she rode to perfection (having acquired
+the art at Queen's Crawley, where the Baronet, Mr.
+Pitt, and Rawdon himself had given her many lessons),
+and by the side of the gallant General Tufto.
+
+"Sure it's the Juke himself," cried Mrs. Major O'Dowd
+to Jos, who began to blush violently; "and that's Lord
+Uxbridge on the bay.  How elegant he looks!  Me brother,
+Molloy Malony, is as like him as two pays."
+
+Rebecca did not make for the carriage; but as soon
+as she perceived her old acquaintance Amelia seated in
+it, acknowledged her presence by a gracious nod and
+smile, and by kissing and shaking her fingers playfully
+in the direction of the vehicle.  Then she resumed her
+conversation with General Tufto, who asked "who the
+fat officer was in the gold-laced cap?" on which Becky
+replied, "that he was an officer in the East Indian service."
+But Rawdon Crawley rode out of the ranks of his
+company, and came up and shook hands heartily with
+Amelia, and said to Jos, "Well, old boy, how are you?"
+and stared in Mrs. O'Dowd's face and at.the black cock's
+feathers until she began to think she had made a
+conquest of him.
+
+George, who had been delayed behind, rode up almost
+immediately with Dobbin, and they touched their caps to
+the august personages, among whom Osborne at once
+perceived Mrs. Crawley.  He was delighted to see Rawdon
+leaning over his carriage familiarly and talking to Amelia,
+and met the aide-de-camp's cordial greeting with more
+than corresponding warmth.  The nods between Rawdon
+and Dobbin were of the very faintest specimens of
+politeness.
+
+Crawley told George where they were stopping with
+General Tufto at the Hotel du Parc, and George made
+his friend promise to come speedily to Osborne's own
+residence.  "Sorry I hadn't seen you three days ago,"
+George said.  "Had a dinner at the Restaurateur's--rather a
+nice thing.  Lord Bareacres, and the Countess, and Lady
+Blanche, were good enough to dine with us--wish we'd
+had you." Having thus let his friend know his claims to be
+a man of fashion, Osborne parted from Rawdon, who
+followed the august squadron down an alley into which
+they cantered, while George and Dobbin resumed their
+places, one on each side of Amelia's carriage.
+
+"How well the Juke looked," Mrs. O'Dowd remarked.
+"The Wellesleys and Malonys are related; but, of course,
+poor I would never dream of introjuicing myself unless
+his Grace thought proper to remember our family-tie."
+
+"He's a great soldier," Jos said, much more at ease
+now the great man was gone.  "Was there ever a battle
+won like Salamanca?  Hey, Dobbin?  But where was it he
+learnt his art?  In India, my boy!  The jungle's the school
+for a general, mark me that.  I knew him myself, too,
+Mrs. O'Dowd:  we both of us danced the same evening
+with Miss Cutler, daughter of Cutler of the Artillery, and
+a devilish fine girl, at Dumdum."
+
+The apparition of the great personages held them
+all in talk during the drive; and at dinner; and until the
+hour came when they were all to go to the Opera.
+
+It was almost like Old England.  The house was filled
+with familiar British faces, and those toilettes for which
+the British female has long been celebrated.  Mrs.
+O'Dowd's was not the least splendid amongst these, and
+she had a curl on her forehead, and a set of Irish diamonds
+and Cairngorms, which outshone all the decorations
+in the house, in her notion.  Her presence used to
+excruciate Osborne; but go she would upon all parties of
+pleasure on which she heard her young friends were bent.
+It never entered into her thought but that they must be
+charmed with her company.
+
+"She's been useful to you, my dear," George said to
+his wife, whom he could leave alone with less scruple
+when she had this society.  "But what a comfort it is that
+Rebecca's come:  you will have her for a friend, and we
+may get rid now of this damn'd Irishwoman."  To this
+Amelia did not answer, yes or no:  and how do we know
+what her thoughts were?
+
+The coup d'oeil of the Brussels opera-house did not
+strike Mrs. O'Dowd as being so fine as the theatre in
+Fishamble Street, Dublin, nor was French music at all
+equal, in her opinion, to the melodies of her native country.
+She favoured her friends with these and other opinions
+in a very loud tone of voice, and tossed about a
+great clattering fan she sported, with the most splendid
+complacency.
+
+"Who is that wonderful woman with Amelia, Rawdon,
+love?" said a lady in an opposite box (who, almost always
+civil to her husband in private, was more fond than
+ever of him in company).
+
+"Don't you see that creature with a yellow thing in
+her turban, and a red satin gown, and a great watch?"
+
+"Near the pretty little woman in white?" asked a
+middle-aged gentleman seated by the querist's side, with
+orders in his button, and several under-waistcoats, and
+a great, choky, white stock.
+
+"That pretty woman in white is Amelia, General:  you
+are remarking all the pretty women, you naughty man."
+
+"Only one, begad, in the world!" said the General, delighted,
+and the lady gave him a tap with a large bouquet
+which she had.
+
+"Bedad it's him," said Mrs. O'Dowd; "and that's the
+very bokay he bought in the Marshy aux Flures!" and
+when Rebecca, having caught her friend's eye, performed
+the little hand-kissing operation once more, Mrs. Major
+O'D., taking the compliment to herself, returned the salute
+with a gracious smile, which sent that unfortunate
+Dobbin shrieking out of the box again.
+
+At the end of the act, George was out of the box in a
+moment, and he was even going to pay his respects to
+Rebecca in her loge.  He met Crawley in the lobby, however,
+where they exchanged a few sentences upon the
+occurrences of the last fortnight.
+
+"You found my cheque all right at the agent's?
+George said, with a knowing air.
+
+"All right, my boy," Rawdon answered.  "Happy to give
+you your revenge.  Governor come round?"
+
+"Not yet," said George, "but he will; and you know I've
+some private fortune through my mother.  Has Aunty
+relented?"
+
+"Sent me twenty pound, damned old screw.  When shall
+we have a meet?  The General dines out on Tuesday.
+Can't you come Tuesday?  I say, make Sedley cut off his
+moustache.  What the devil does a civilian mean with a
+moustache and those infernal frogs to his coat!  By-bye.
+Try and come on Tuesday"; and Rawdon was going-off
+with two brilliant young gentlemen of fashion, who were,
+like himself, on the staff of a general officer.
+
+George was only half pleased to be asked to dinner on
+that particular day when the General was not to dine.  "I
+will go in and pay my respects to your wife," said he; at
+which Rawdon said, "Hm, as you please," looking very
+glum, and at which the two young officers exchanged
+knowing glances.  George parted from them and strutted
+down the lobby to the General's box, the number of which
+he had carefully counted.
+
+"Entrez," said a clear little voice, and our friend found
+himself in Rebecca's presence; who jumped up, clapped
+her hands together, and held out both of them to George,
+so charmed was she to see him.  The General, with the
+orders in his button, stared at the newcomer with a sulky
+scowl, as much as to say, who the devil are you?
+
+"My dear Captain George!" cried little Rebecca in an
+ecstasy.  "How good of you to come.  The General and I
+were moping together tete-a-tete.  General, this is my
+Captain George of whom you heard me talk."
+
+"Indeed," said the General, with a very small bow; "of
+what regiment is Captain George?"
+
+George mentioned the --th:  how he wished he could
+have said it was a crack cavalry corps.
+
+"Come home lately from the West Indies, I believe.
+Not seen much service in the late war.  Quartered here,
+Captain George?"--the General went on with killing
+haughtiness.
+
+"Not Captain George, you stupid man; Captain Osborne,"
+Rebecca said.  The General all the while was looking
+savagely from one to the other.
+
+"Captain Osborne, indeed! Any relation to the L--
+Osbornes?"
+
+"We bear the same arms," George said, as indeed was
+the fact; Mr. Osborne having consulted with a herald in
+Long Acre, and picked the L-- arms out of the peerage,
+when he set up his carriage fifteen years before.  The
+General made no reply to this announcement; but took
+up his opera-glass--the double-barrelled lorgnon was not
+invented in those days--and pretended to examine the
+house; but Rebecca saw that his disengaged eye was
+working round in her direction, and shooting out
+bloodshot glances at her and George.
+
+She redoubled in cordiality.  "How is dearest Amelia?
+But I needn't ask: how pretty she looks!  And who is that
+nice good-natured looking creature with her--a flame of
+yours?  O, you wicked men!  And there is Mr. Sedley
+eating ice, I declare: how he seems to enjoy it!  General, why
+have we not had any ices?"
+
+"Shall I go and fetch you some?" said the General,
+bursting with wrath.
+
+"Let ME go, I entreat you," George said.
+
+"No, I will go to Amelia's box.  Dear, sweet girl!  Give
+me your arm, Captain George"; and so saying, and with a
+nod to the General, she tripped into the lobby.  She gave
+George the queerest, knowingest look, when they were
+together, a look which might have been interpreted,
+"Don't you see the state of affairs, and what a fool I'm
+making of him?"  But he did not perceive it.  He was
+thinking of his own plans, and lost in pompous admiration
+of his own irresistible powers of pleasing.
+
+The curses to which the General gave a low utterance,
+as soon as Rebecca and her conqueror had quitted him,
+were so deep, that I am sure no compositor would
+venture to print them were they written down.  They came
+from the General's heart; and a wonderful thing it is to
+think that the human heart is capable of generating such
+produce, and can throw out, as occasion demands, such
+a supply of lust and fury, rage and hatred.
+
+Amelia's gentle eyes, too, had been fixed anxiously on
+the pair, whose conduct had so chafed the jealous General;
+but when Rebecca entered her box, she flew to her
+friend with an affectionate rapture which showed itself, in
+spite of the publicity of the place; for she embraced her
+dearest friend in the presence of the whole house, at least
+in full view of the General's glass, now brought to bear
+upon the Osborne party.  Mrs. Rawdon saluted Jos, too,
+with the kindliest greeting: she admired Mrs. O'Dowd's
+large Cairngorm brooch and superb Irish diamonds, and
+wouldn't believe that they were not from Golconda direct.
+She bustled, she chattered, she turned and twisted,
+and smiled upon one, and smirked on another, all in full
+view of the jealous opera-glass opposite.  And when the
+time for the ballet came (in which there was no dancer
+that went through her grimaces or performed her comedy
+of action better), she skipped back to her own box, leaning
+on Captain Dobbin's arm this time.  No, she would
+not have George's: he must stay and talk to his dearest,
+best, little Amelia.
+
+"What a humbug that woman is!" honest old Dobbin
+mumbled to George, when he came back from Rebecca's
+box, whither he had conducted her in perfect silence, and
+with a countenance as glum as an undertaker's.  "She
+writhes and twists about like a snake.  All the time she
+was here, didn't you see, George, how she was acting at
+the General over the way?"
+
+"Humbug--acting!  Hang it, she's the nicest little
+woman in England," George replied, showing his white
+teeth, and giving his ambrosial whiskers a twirl.  "You
+ain't a man of the world, Dobbin.  Dammy, look at her
+now, she's talked over Tufto in no time.  Look how he's
+laughing!  Gad, what a shoulder she has!  Emmy, why
+didn't you have a bouquet?  Everybody has a bouquet."
+
+"Faith, then, why didn't you BOY one?" Mrs. O'Dowd
+said; and both Amelia and William Dobbin thanked her
+for this timely observation.  But beyond this neither of
+the ladies rallied.  Amelia was overpowered by the flash
+and the dazzle and the fashionable talk of her worldly rival.
+Even the O'Dowd was silent and subdued after Becky's
+brilliant apparition, and scarcely said a word more about
+Glenmalony all the evening.
+
+"When do you intend to give up play, George, as you
+have promised me, any time these hundred years?" Dobbin
+said to his friend a few days after the night at the
+Opera.  "When do you intend to give up sermonising?"
+was the other's reply.  "What the deuce, man, are you
+alarmed about?  We play low; I won last night.  You
+don't suppose Crawley cheats?  With fair play it comes
+to pretty much the same thing at the year's end."
+
+"But I don't think he could pay if he lost," Dobbin
+said; and his advice met with the success which advice
+usually commands.  Osborne and Crawley were repeatedly
+together now.  General Tufto dined abroad almost constantly.
+George was always welcome in the apartments
+(very close indeed to those of the General) which the
+aide-de-camp and his wife occupied in the hotel.
+
+Amelia's manners were such when she and George visited
+Crawley and his wife at these quarters, that they had
+very nearly come to their first quarrel; that is, George
+scolded his wife violently for her evident unwillingness to
+go, and the high and mighty manner in which she comported
+herself towards Mrs. Crawley, her old friend; and
+Amelia did not say one single word in reply; but with her
+husband's eye upon her, and Rebecca scanning her as she
+felt, was, if possible, more bashful and awkward on the
+second visit which she paid to Mrs. Rawdon, than on her
+first call.
+
+Rebecca was doubly affectionate, of course, and would
+not take notice, in the least, of her friend's coolness.  "I
+think Emmy has become prouder since her father's name
+was in the--since Mr. Sedley's MISFORTUNES," Rebecca
+said, softening the phrase charitably for George's ear.
+
+"Upon my word, I thought when we were at Brighton
+she was doing me the honour to be jealous of me; and
+now I suppose she is scandalised because Rawdon, and I,
+and the General live together.  Why, my dear creature,
+how could we, with our means, live at all, but for a friend
+to share expenses?  And do you suppose that Rawdon is
+not big enough to take care of my honour?  But I'm very
+much obliged to Emmy, very," Mrs. Rawdon said.
+
+"Pooh, jealousy!" answered George, "all women are
+jealous."
+
+"And all men too.  Weren't you jealous of General
+Tufto, and the General of you, on the night of the Opera?
+Why, he was ready to eat me for going with you to visit
+that foolish little wife of yours; as if I care a pin for
+either of you," Crawley's wife said, with a pert toss of
+her head.  "Will you dine here?  The dragon dines with the
+Commander-in-Chief.  Great news is stirring.  They say
+the French have crossed the frontier.  We shall have a
+quiet dinner."
+
+George accepted the invitation, although his wife was a
+little ailing.  They were now not quite six weeks married.
+Another woman was laughing or sneering at her expense,
+and he not angry.  He was not even angry with himself,
+this good-natured fellow.  It is a shame, he owned to himself;
+but hang it, if a pretty woman WILL throw herself in
+your way, why, what can a fellow do, you know?  I AM
+rather free about women, he had often said, smiling and
+nodding knowingly to Stubble and Spooney, and other
+comrades of the mess-table; and they rather respected
+him than otherwise for this prowess.  Next to conquering
+in war, conquering in love has been a source of pride,
+time out of mind, amongst men in Vanity Fair, or how
+should schoolboys brag of their amours, or Don Juan be
+popular?
+
+So Mr. Osborne, having a firm conviction in his own
+mind that he was a woman-killer and destined to conquer,
+did not run counter to his fate, but yielded himself
+up to it quite complacently.  And as Emmy did not say
+much or plague him with her jealousy, but merely became
+unhappy and pined over it miserably in secret, he chose
+to fancy that she was not suspicious of what all his
+acquaintance were perfectly aware--namely, that he was
+carrying on a desperate flirtation with Mrs. Crawley.  He
+rode with her whenever she was free.  He pretended
+regimental business to Amelia (by which falsehood she was
+not in the least deceived), and consigning his wife to
+solitude or her brother's society, passed his evenings in
+the Crawleys' company; losing money to the husband and
+flattering himself that the wife was dying of love for him.
+It is very likely that this worthy couple never absolutely
+conspired and agreed together in so many words:  the one
+to cajole the young gentleman, whilst the other won his
+money at cards: but they understood each other perfectly
+well, and Rawdon let Osborne come and go with entire
+good humour.
+
+George was so occupied with his new acquaintances
+that he and William Dobbin were by no means so much
+together as formerly.  George avoided him in public and
+in the regiment, and, as we see, did not like those
+sermons which his senior was disposed to inflict upon him.
+If some parts of his conduct made Captain Dobbin
+exceedingly grave and cool; of what use was it to tell George
+that, though his whiskers were large, and his own
+opinion of his knowingness great, he was as green as a
+schoolboy? that Rawdon was making a victim of him as he had
+done of many before, and as soon as he had used him
+would fling him off with scorn?  He would not listen:  and
+so, as Dobbin, upon those days when he visited the
+0sborne house, seldom had the advantage of meeting his
+old friend, much painful and unavailing talk between
+them was spared.  Our friend George was in the full career
+of the pleasures of Vanity Fair.
+
+There never was, since the days of Darius, such a brilliant
+train of camp-followers as hung round the Duke of
+Wellington's army in the Low Countries, in 1815; and
+led it dancing and feasting, as it were, up to the very
+brink of battle.  A certain ball which a noble Duchess
+gave at Brussels on the 15th of June in the above-named
+year is historical.  All Brussels had been in a state of
+excitement about it, and I have heard from ladies who
+were in that town at the period, that the talk and interest
+of persons of their own sex regarding the ball was much
+greater even than in respect of the enemy in their front.
+The struggles, intrigues, and prayers to get tickets were
+such as only English ladies will employ, in order to gain
+admission to the society of the great of their own nation.
+
+Jos and Mrs. O'Dowd, who were panting to be asked,
+strove in vain to procure tickets; but others of our friends
+were more lucky.  For instance, through the interest of
+my Lord Bareacres, and as a set-off for the dinner at the
+restaurateur's, George got a card for Captain and Mrs.
+Osborne; which circumstance greatly elated him.  Dobbin,
+who was a friend of the General commanding the division
+in which their regiment was, came laughing one
+day to Mrs. Osborne, and displayed a similar invitation,
+which made Jos envious, and George wonder how the
+deuce he should be getting into society.  Mr. and Mrs.
+Rawdon, finally, were of course invited; as became the
+friends of a General commanding a cavalry brigade.
+
+On the appointed night, George, having commanded
+new dresses and ornaments of all sorts for Amelia, drove
+to the famous ball, where his wife did not know a single
+soul.  After looking about for Lady Bareacres, who cut
+him, thinking the card was quite enough--and after
+placing Amelia on a bench, he left her to her own
+cogitations there, thinking, on his own part, that he had
+behaved very handsomely in getting her new clothes, and
+bringing her to the ball, where she was free to amuse
+herself as she liked.  Her thoughts were not of the
+pleasantest, and nobody except honest Dobbin came to
+disturb them.
+
+Whilst her appearance was an utter failure (as her
+husband felt with a sort of rage), Mrs. Rawdon Crawley's
+debut was, on the contrary, very brilliant.  She arrived
+very late.  Her face was radiant; her dress perfection.  In
+the midst of the great persons assembled, and the eye-
+glasses directed to her, Rebecca seemed to be as cool
+and collected as when she used to marshal Miss Pinkerton's
+little girls to church.  Numbers of the men she knew
+already, and the dandies thronged round her.  As for the
+ladies, it was whispered among them that Rawdon had
+run away with her from out of a convent, and that she
+was a relation of the Montmorency family.  She spoke
+French so perfectly that there might be some truth in
+this report, and it was agreed that her manners were
+fine, and her air distingue.  Fifty would-be partners
+thronged round her at once, and pressed to have the
+honour to dance with her.  But she said she was engaged,
+and only going to dance very little; and made her way at
+once to the place where Emmy sate quite unnoticed, and
+dismally unhappy.  And so, to finish the poor child at
+once, Mrs. Rawdon ran and greeted affectionately her
+dearest Amelia, and began forthwith to patronise her.
+She found fault with her friend's dress, and her
+hairdresser, and wondered how she could be so chaussee,
+and vowed that she must send her corsetiere the next
+morning.  She vowed that it was a delightful ball; that
+there was everybody that every one knew, and only a
+VERY few nobodies in the whole room.  It is a fact, that
+in a fortnight, and after three dinners in general society,
+this young woman had got up the genteel jargon so well,
+that a native could not speak it better; and it was only
+from her French being so good, that you could know she
+was not a born woman of fashion.
+
+George, who had left Emmy on her bench on entering
+the ball-room, very soon found his way back when
+Rebecca was by her dear friend's side.  Becky was just
+lecturing Mrs. Osborne upon the follies which her
+husband was committing.  "For God's sake, stop him from
+gambling, my dear," she said, "or he will ruin himself.
+He and Rawdon are playing at cards every night, and you
+know he is very poor, and Rawdon will win every shilling
+from him if he does not take care.  Why don't you prevent
+him, you little careless creature?  Why don't you
+come to us of an evening, instead of moping at home
+with that Captain Dobbin?  I dare say he is tres aimable;
+but how could one love a man with feet of such size?
+Your husband's feet are darlings--Here he comes.  Where
+have you been, wretch?  Here is Emmy crying her eyes
+out for you.  Are you coming to fetch me for the quadrille?"
+And she left her bouquet and shawl by Amelia's
+side, and tripped off with George to dance.  Women only
+know how to wound so.  There is a poison on the tips of
+their little shafts, which stings a thousand times more
+than a man's blunter weapon.  Our poor Emmy, who had
+never hated, never sneered all her life, was powerless in
+the hands of her remorseless little enemy.
+
+George danced with Rebecca twice or thrice--how many
+times Amelia scarcely knew.  She sat quite unnoticed in
+her corner, except when Rawdon came up with some
+words of clumsy conversation:  and later in the evening,
+when Captain Dobbin made so bold as to bring her
+refreshments and sit beside her.  He did not like to ask her
+why she was so sad; but as a pretext for the tears which
+were filling in her eyes, she told him that Mrs. Crawley
+had alarmed her by telling her that George would go on
+playing.
+
+"It is curious, when a man is bent upon play, by what
+clumsy rogues he will allow himself to be cheated,"
+Dobbin said; and Emmy said, "Indeed." She was thinking of
+something else.  It was not the loss of the money that
+grieved her.
+
+At last George came back for Rebecca's shawl and
+flowers.  She was going away.  She did not even
+condescend to come back and say good-bye to Amelia.  The
+poor girl let her husband come and go without saying a
+word, and her head fell on her breast.  Dobbin had been
+called away, and was whispering deep in conversation
+with the General of the division, his friend, and had not
+seen this last parting.  George went away then with the
+bouquet; but when he gave it to the owner, there lay a
+note, coiled like a snake among the flowers.  Rebecca's
+eye caught it at once.  She had been used to deal with
+notes in early life.  She put out her hand and took the
+nosegay.  He saw by her eyes as they met, that she was
+aware what she should find there.  Her husband hurried her
+away, still too intent upon his own thoughts, seemingly,
+to take note of any marks of recognition which might
+pass between his friend and his wife.  These were,
+however, but trifling.  Rebecca gave George her hand with one
+of her usual quick knowing glances, and made a curtsey
+and walked away.  George bowed over the hand, said
+nothing in reply to a remark of Crawley's, did not hear it
+even, his brain was so throbbing with triumph and
+excitement, and allowed them to go away without a word.
+
+His wife saw the one part at least of the bouquet-scene.
+It was quite natural that George should come at Rebecca's
+request to get her her scarf and flowers:  it was no
+more than he had done twenty times before in the course
+of the last few days; but now it was too much for her.
+"William," she said, suddenly clinging to Dobbin, who was
+near her, "you've always been very kind to me--I'm--
+I'm not well.  Take me home."  She did not know she called
+him by his Christian name, as George was accustomed to
+do.  He went away with her quickly.  Her lodgings were
+hard by; and they threaded through the crowd without,
+where everything seemed to be more astir than even in the
+ball-room within.
+
+George had been angry twice or thrice at finding his
+wife up on his return from the parties which he
+frequented:  so she went straight to bed now; but although
+she did not sleep, and although the din and clatter, and
+the galloping of horsemen were incessant, she never heard
+any of these noises, having quite other disturbances to
+keep her awake.
+
+Osborne meanwhile, wild with elation, went off to a
+play-table, and began to bet frantically.  He won repeatedly. "Everything succeeds with me to-night," he said.
+But his luck at play even did not cure him of his restlessness,
+and he started up after awhile, pocketing his winnings,
+and went to a buffet, where he drank off many
+bumpers of wine.
+
+Here, as he was rattling away to the people around,
+laughing loudly and wild with spirits, Dobbin found him.
+He had been to the card-tables to look there for his
+friend.  Dobbin looked as pale and grave as his comrade
+was flushed and jovial.
+
+''Hullo, Dob!  Come and drink, old Dob!  The Duke's
+wine is famous.  Give me some more, you sir"; and he
+held out a trembling glass for the liquor.
+
+"Come out, George," said Dobbin, still gravely; "don't
+drink."
+
+"Drink!  there's nothing like it.  Drink yourself, and
+light up your lantern jaws, old boy.  Here's to you."
+
+Dobbin went up and whispered something to him, at
+which George, giving a start and a wild hurray, tossed off
+his glass, clapped it on the table, and walked away
+speedily on his friend's arm.  "The enemy has passed the
+Sambre," William said, "and our left is already engaged.
+Come away.  We are to march in three hours."
+
+Away went George, his nerves quivering with excitement
+at the news so long looked for, so sudden when it
+came.  What were love and intrigue now?  He thought
+about a thousand things but these in his rapid walk to his
+quarters--his past life and future chances--the fate which
+might be before him--the wife, the child perhaps, from
+whom unseen he might be about to part.  Oh, how he
+wished that night's work undone!  and that with a clear
+conscience at least he might say farewell to the tender
+and guileless being by whose love he had set such little
+store!
+
+He thought over his brief married life.  In those few
+weeks he had frightfully dissipated his little capital.  How
+wild and reckless he had been!  Should any mischance
+befall him:  what was then left for her?  How unworthy he
+was of her.  Why had he married her?  He was not fit for
+marriage.  Why had he disobeyed his father, who had been
+always so generous to him?  Hope, remorse, ambition,
+tenderness, and selfish regret filled his heart.  He sate
+down and wrote to his father, remembering what he had
+said once before, when he was engaged to fight a duel.
+Dawn faintly streaked the sky as he closed this farewell
+letter.  He sealed it, and kissed the superscription.  He
+thought how he had deserted that generous father, and of
+the thousand kindnesses which the stern old man had
+done him.
+
+He had looked into Amelia's bedroom when he entered;
+she lay quiet, and her eyes seemed closed, and he
+was glad that she was asleep.  On arriving at his quarters
+from the ball, he had found his regimental servant already
+making preparations for his departure:  the man
+had understood his signal to be still, and these arrangements
+were very quickly and silently made.  Should he go
+in and wake Amelia, he thought, or leave a note for her
+brother to break the news of departure to her?  He went
+in to look at her once again.
+
+She had been awake when he first entered her room,
+but had kept her eyes closed, so that even her wakefulness
+should not seem to reproach him.  But when he had
+returned, so soon after herself, too, this timid little heart
+had felt more at ease, and turning towards him as he
+stept softly out of the room, she had fallen into a light
+sleep.  George came in and looked at her again, entering
+still more softly.  By the pale night-lamp he could see her
+sweet, pale face--the purple eyelids were fringed and
+closed, and one round arm, smooth and white, lay outside
+of the coverlet.  Good God!  how pure she was; how
+gentle, how tender, and how friendless!  and he, how
+selfish, brutal, and black with crime!  Heart-stained, and
+shame-stricken, he stood at the bed's foot, and looked at
+the sleeping girl.  How dared he--who was he, to pray for
+one so spotless!  God bless her!  God bless her!  He came to
+the bedside, and looked at the hand, the little soft hand,
+lying asleep; and he bent over the pillow noiselessly
+towards the gentle pale face.
+
+Two fair arms closed tenderly round his neck as he
+stooped down.  "I am awake, George," the poor child said,
+with a sob fit to break the little heart that nestled so
+closely by his own.  She was awake, poor soul, and to
+what?  At that moment a bugle from the Place of Arms
+began sounding clearly, and was taken up through the
+town; and amidst the drums of the infantry, and the
+shrill pipes of the Scotch, the whole city awoke.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+
+
+"The Girl I Left Behind Me"
+
+We do not claim to rank among the military novelists.
+Our place is with the non-combatants.  When the decks
+are cleared for action we go below and wait meekly.  We
+should only be in the way of the manoeuvres that the
+gallant fellows are performing overhead.  We shall go no
+farther with the --th than to the city gate:  and leaving
+Major O'Dowd to his duty, come back to the Major's
+wife, and the ladies and the baggage.
+
+Now the Major and his lady, who had not been invited
+to the ball at which in our last chapter other of our
+friends figured, had much more time to take their
+wholesome natural rest in bed, than was accorded to people
+who wished to enjoy pleasure as well as to do duty.  "It's
+my belief, Peggy, my dear," said he, as he placidly pulled
+his nightcap over his ears, "that there will be such a ball
+danced in a day or two as some of 'em has never heard
+the chune of"; and he was much more happy to retire to
+rest after partaking of a quiet tumbler, than to figure at
+any other sort of amusement.  Peggy, for her part, would
+have liked to have shown her turban and bird of
+paradise at the ball, but for the information which her
+husband had given her, and which made her very grave.
+
+"I'd like ye wake me about half an hour before the assembly
+beats," the Major said to his lady.  "Call me at half-
+past one, Peggy dear, and see me things is ready.  May be
+I'll not come back to breakfast, Mrs. O'D."  With which
+words, which signified his opinion that the regiment would
+march the next morning, the Major ceased talking, and
+fell asleep.
+
+Mrs. O'Dowd, the good housewife, arrayed in curl
+papers and a camisole, felt that her duty was to act, and
+not to sleep, at this juncture.  "Time enough for that," she
+said, "when Mick's gone"; and so she packed his travelling
+valise ready for the march, brushed his cloak, his cap, and
+other warlike habiliments, set them out in order for him;
+and stowed away in the cloak pockets a light package of
+portable refreshments, and a wicker-covered flask or
+pocket-pistol, containing near a pint of a remarkably
+sound Cognac brandy, of which she and the Major approved
+very much; and as soon as the hands of the
+"repayther" pointed to half-past one, and its interior
+arrangements (it had a tone quite equal to a cathaydral, its
+fair owner considered) knelled forth that fatal hour, Mrs.
+O'Dowd woke up her Major, and had as comfortable a
+cup of coffee prepared for him as any made that morning
+in Brussels.  And who is there will deny that this worthy
+lady's preparations betokened affection as much as the
+fits of tears and hysterics by which more sensitive females
+exhibited their love, and that their partaking of this coffee,
+which they drank together while the bugles were sounding
+the turn-out and the drums beating in the various quarters
+of the town, was not more useful and to the purpose than
+the outpouring of any mere sentiment could be?  The
+consequence was, that the Major appeared on parade quite
+trim, fresh, and alert, his well-shaved rosy countenance,
+as he sate on horseback, giving cheerfulness and confidence
+to the whole corps.  All the officers saluted her
+when the regiment marched by the balcony on which this
+brave woman stood, and waved them a cheer as they
+passed; and I daresay it was not from want of courage,
+but from a sense of female delicacy and propriety, that
+she refrained from leading the gallant --th personally
+into action.
+
+On Sundays, and at periods of a solemn nature, Mrs.
+O'Dowd used to read with great gravity out of a large
+volume of her uncle the Dean's sermons.  It had been of
+great comfort to her on board the transport as they were
+coming home, and were very nearly wrecked, on their
+return from the West Indies.  After the regiment's
+departure she betook herself to this volume for meditation;
+perhaps she did not understand much of what she was
+reading, and her thoughts were elsewhere:  but the sleep
+project, with poor Mick's nightcap there on the pillow,
+was quite a vain one.  So it is in the world.  Jack or Donald
+marches away to glory with his knapsack on his shoulder,
+stepping out briskly to the tune of "The Girl I Left Behind
+Me." It is she who remains and suffers--and has the
+leisure to think, and brood, and remember.
+
+Knowing how useless regrets are, and how the indulgence
+of sentiment only serves to make people more miserable,
+Mrs. Rebecca wisely determined to give way to no
+vain feelings of sorrow, and bore the parting from her
+husband with quite a Spartan equanimity.  Indeed Captain
+Rawdon himself was much more affected at the leave-
+taking than the resolute little woman to whom he bade
+farewell.  She had mastered this rude coarse nature;
+and he loved and worshipped her with all his faculties of
+regard and admiration.  In all his life he had never been so
+happy, as, during the past few months, his wife had made
+him.  All former delights of turf, mess, hunting-field, and
+gambling-table; all previous loves and courtships of
+milliners, opera-dancers, and the like easy triumphs of the
+clumsy military Adonis, were quite insipid when
+compared to the lawful matrimonial pleasures which of late he
+had enjoyed.  She had known perpetually how to divert
+him; and he had found his house and her society a
+thousand times more pleasant than any place or company
+which he had ever frequented from his childhood until
+now.  And he cursed his past follies and extravagances,
+and bemoaned his vast outlying debts above all, which
+must remain for ever as obstacles to prevent his wife's
+advancement in the world.  He had often groaned over
+these in midnight conversations with Rebecca, although as
+a bachelor they had never given him any disquiet.  He
+himself was struck with this phenomenon.  "Hang it,"
+he would say (or perhaps use a still stronger expression
+out of his simple vocabulary), "before I was married I
+didn't care what bills I put my name to, and so long as
+Moses would wait or Levy would renew for three months,
+I kept on never minding.  But since I'm married, except
+renewing, of course, I give you my honour I've not
+touched a bit of stamped paper."
+
+Rebecca always knew how to conjure away these
+moods of melancholy.  "Why, my stupid love," she would
+say, "we have not done with your aunt yet.  If she fails us,
+isn't there what you call the Gazette?  or, stop, when your
+uncle Bute's life drops, I have another scheme.  The living
+has always belonged to the younger brother, and why
+shouldn't you sell out and go into the Church?"  The idea
+of this conversion set Rawdon into roars of laughter:
+you might have heard the explosion through the hotel at
+midnight, and the haw-haws of the great dragoon's voice.
+General Tufto heard him from his quarters on the first
+floor above them; and Rebecca acted the scene with great
+spirit, and preached Rawdon's first sermon, to the
+immense delight of the General at breakfast.
+
+But these were mere by-gone days and talk.  When the
+final news arrived that the campaign was opened, and the
+troops were to march, Rawdon's gravity became such
+that Becky rallied him about it in a manner which rather
+hurt the feelings of the Guardsman.  "You don't suppose
+I'm afraid, Becky, I should think," he said, with a tremor
+in his voice.  "But I'm a pretty good mark for a shot, and
+you see if it brings me down, why I leave one and
+perhaps two behind me whom I should wish to provide for,
+as I brought 'em into the scrape.  It is no laughing matter
+that, Mrs. C., anyways."
+
+Rebecca by a hundred caresses and kind words tried
+to soothe the feelings of the wounded lover.  It was only
+when her vivacity and sense of humour got the better of
+this sprightly creature (as they would do under most
+circumstances of life indeed) that she would break out
+with her satire, but she could soon put on a demure face.
+"Dearest love," she said, "do you suppose I feel nothing?"
+and hastily dashing something from her eyes, she
+looked up in her husband's face with a smile.
+
+"Look here," said he.  "If I drop, let us see what there
+is for you.  I have had a pretty good run of luck here, and
+here's two hundred and thirty pounds.  I have got ten
+Napoleons in my pocket.  That is as much as I shall want;
+for the General pays everything like a prince; and if I'm
+hit, why you know I cost nothing.  Don't cry, little woman;
+I may live to vex you yet.  Well, I shan't take either of my
+horses, but shall ride the General's grey charger:  it's
+cheaper, and I told him mine was lame.  If I'm done, those
+two ought to fetch you something.  Grigg offered ninety
+for the mare yesterday, before this confounded news
+came, and like a fool I wouldn't let her go under the two
+o's.  Bullfinch will fetch his price any day, only you'd
+better sell him in this country, because the dealers have so
+many bills of mine, and so I'd rather he shouldn't go
+back to England.  Your little mare the General gave you
+will fetch something, and there's no d--d livery stable
+bills here as there are in London," Rawdon added, with a
+laugh.  "There's that dressing-case cost me two hundred
+--that is, I owe two for it; and the gold tops and bottles
+must be worth thirty or forty.  Please to put THAT up the
+spout, ma'am, with my pins, and rings, and watch and
+chain, and things.  They cost a precious lot of money.  Miss
+Crawley, I know, paid a hundred down for the chain and
+ticker.  Gold tops and bottles, indeed!  dammy, I'm sorry
+I didn't take more now.  Edwards pressed on me a silver-
+gilt boot-jack, and I might have had a dressing-case fitted
+up with a silver warming-pan, and a service of plate.  But
+we must make the best of what we've got, Becky, you
+know."
+
+And so, making his last dispositions, Captain Crawley,
+who had seldom thought about anything but himself, until
+the last few months of his life, when Love had obtained
+the mastery over the dragoon, went through the various
+items of his little catalogue of effects, striving to see how
+they might be turned into money for his wife's benefit, in
+case any accident should befall him.  He pleased himself
+by noting down with a pencil, in his big schoolboy
+handwriting, the various items of his portable property which
+might be sold for his widow's advantage as, for example,
+"My double-barril by Manton, say 40 guineas; my driving
+cloak, lined with sable fur, 50 pounds; my duelling pistols in
+rosewood case (same which I shot Captain Marker),
+20 pounds; my regulation saddle-holsters and housings; my
+Laurie ditto," and so forth, over all of which articles he
+made Rebecca the mistress.
+
+Faithful to his plan of economy, the Captain dressed
+himself in his oldest and shabbiest uniform and epaulets,
+leaving the newest behind, under his wife's (or it might
+be his widow's) guardianship.  And this famous dandy of
+Windsor and Hyde Park went off on his campaign with a
+kit as modest as that of a sergeant, and with something
+like a prayer on his lips for the woman he was leaving.
+He took her up from the ground, and held her in his
+arms for a minute, tight pressed against his strong-beating
+heart.  His face was purple and his eyes dim, as he put her
+down and left her.  He rode by his General's side, and
+smoked his cigar in silence as they hastened after the
+troops of the General's brigade, which preceded them;
+and it was not until they were some miles on their way
+that he left off twirling his moustache and broke silence.
+
+And Rebecca, as we have said, wisely determined not to
+give way to unavailing sentimentality on her husband's
+departure.  She waved him an adieu from the window, and
+stood there for a moment looking out after he was gone.
+The cathedral towers and the full gables of the quaint old
+houses were just beginning to blush in the sunrise.  There
+had been no rest for her that night.  She was still in her
+pretty ball-dress, her fair hair hanging somewhat out of
+curl on her neck, and the circles round her eyes dark with
+watching.  "What a fright I seem," she said, examining
+herself in the glass, "and how pale this pink makes one
+look!"  So she divested herself of this pink raiment; in
+doing which a note fell out from her corsage, which she
+picked up with a smile, and locked into her dressing-box.
+And then she put her bouquet of the ball into a glass of
+water, and went to bed, and slept very comfortably.
+
+The town was quite quiet when she woke up at ten
+o'clock, and partook of coffee, very requisite and
+comforting after the exhaustion and grief of the morning's
+occurrences.
+
+This meal over, she resumed honest Rawdon's calculations
+of the night previous, and surveyed her position.
+Should the worst befall, all things considered, she was
+pretty well to do.  There were her own trinkets and trousseau,
+in addition to those which her husband had left behind.
+Rawdon's generosity, when they were first married,
+has already been described and lauded.  Besides these,
+and the little mare, the General, her slave and worshipper,
+had made her many very handsome presents, in the shape
+of cashmere shawls bought at the auction of a bankrupt
+French general's lady, and numerous tributes from the
+jewellers' shops, all of which betokened her admirer's
+taste and wealth.  As for "tickers," as poor Rawdon called
+watches, her apartments were alive with their clicking.
+For, happening to mention one night that hers, which
+Rawdon had given to her, was of English workmanship,
+and went ill, on the very next morning there came to her
+a little bijou marked Leroy, with a chain and cover
+charmingly set with turquoises, and another signed Brequet,
+which was covered with pearls, and yet scarcely bigger
+than a half-crown.  General Tufto had bought one, and
+Captain Osborne had gallantly presented the other.  Mrs.
+Osborne had no watch, though, to do George justice, she
+might have had one for the asking, and the Honourable
+Mrs. Tufto in England had an old instrument of her
+mother's that might have served for the plate-warming
+pan which Rawdon talked about.  If Messrs. Howell and
+James were to publish a list of the purchasers of all the
+trinkets which they sell, how surprised would some
+families be: and if all these ornaments went to gentlemen's
+lawful wives and daughters, what a profusion of jewellery
+there would be exhibited in the genteelest homes of
+Vanity Fair!
+
+Every calculation made of these valuables Mrs. Rebecca
+found, not without a pungent feeling of triumph and self-
+satisfaction, that should circumstances occur, she might
+reckon on six or seven hundred pounds at the very least,
+to begin the world with; and she passed the morning
+disposing, ordering, looking out, and locking up her
+properties in the most agreeable manner.  Among the notes
+in Rawdon's pocket-book was a draft for twenty pounds
+on Osborne's banker.  This made her think about Mrs.
+Osborne.  "I will go and get the draft cashed," she said,
+"and pay a visit afterwards to poor little Emmy." If this
+is a novel without a hero, at least let us lay claim to a
+heroine.  No man in the British army which has marched
+away, not the great Duke himself, could be more cool or
+collected in the presence of doubts and difficulties, than
+the indomitable little aide-de-camp's wife.
+
+And there was another of our acquaintances who was
+also to be left behind, a non-combatant, and whose emotions
+and behaviour we have therefore a right to know.
+This was our friend the ex-collector of Boggley Wollah,
+whose rest was broken, like other people's, by the sounding
+of the bugles in the early morning.  Being a great
+sleeper, and fond of his bed, it is possible he would have
+snoozed on until his usual hour of rising in the forenoon,
+in spite of all the drums, bugles, and bagpipes in the
+British army, but for an interruption, which did not come
+from George Osborne, who shared Jos's quarters with
+him, and was as usual occupied too much with his own
+affairs or with grief at parting with his wife, to think of
+taking leave of his slumbering brother-in-law--it was not
+George, we say, who interposed between Jos Sedley and
+sleep, but Captain Dobbin, who came and roused him up,
+insisting on shaking hands with him before his departure.
+
+"Very kind of you," said Jos, yawning, and wishing
+the Captain at the deuce.
+
+"I--I didn't like to go off without saying good-bye, you
+know," Dobbin said in a very incoherent manner; "because
+you know some of us mayn't come back again, and
+I like to see you all well, and--and that sort of thing, you
+know."
+
+"What do you mean?" Jos asked, rubbing his eyes.  The
+Captain did not in the least hear him or look at the stout
+gentleman in the nightcap, about whom he professed to
+have such a tender interest.  The hypocrite was looking
+and listening with all his might in the direction of George's
+apartments, striding about the room, upsetting the chairs,
+beating the tattoo, biting his nails, and showing other
+signs of great inward emotion.
+
+Jos had always had rather a mean opinion of the
+Captain, and now began to think his courage was somewhat
+equivocal.  "What is it I can do for you, Dobbin?" he said,
+in a sarcastic tone.
+
+"I tell you what you can do," the Captain replied, coming
+up to the bed; "we march in a quarter of an hour,
+Sedley, and neither George nor I may ever come back.
+Mind you, you are not to stir from this town until you
+ascertain how things go.  You are to stay here and watch
+over your sister, and comfort her, and see that no harm
+comes to her.  If anything happens to George, remember
+she has no one but you in the world to look to.  If it goes
+wrong with the army, you'll see her safe back to England;
+and you will promise me on your word that you will
+never desert her.  I know you won't:  as far as money goes,
+you were always free enough with that.  Do you want any?
+I mean, have you enough gold to take you back to
+England in case of a misfortune?"
+
+"Sir," said Jos, majestically, "when I want money, I
+know where to ask for it.  And as for my sister, you
+needn't tell me how I ought to behave to her."
+
+"You speak like a man of spirit, Jos," the other answered
+good-naturedly, "and I am glad that George can
+leave her in such good hands.  So I may give him your
+word of honour, may I, that in case of extremity you
+will stand by her?"
+
+"Of course, of course," answered Mr. Jos, whose
+generosity in money matters Dobbin estimated quite
+correctly.
+
+"And you'll see her safe out of Brussels in the event of
+a defeat?"
+
+"A defeat! D-- it, sir, it's impossible.  Don't try and
+frighten ME," the hero cried from his bed; and Dobbin's
+mind was thus perfectly set at ease now that Jos had
+spoken out so resolutely respecting his conduct to his
+sister.  "At least," thought the Captain, "there will be a
+retreat secured for her in case the worst should ensue."
+
+If Captain Dobbin expected to get any personal comfort
+and satisfaction from having one more view of Amelia
+before the regiment marched away, his selfishness was
+punished just as such odious egotism deserved to be.  The
+door of Jos's bedroom opened into the sitting-room which
+was common to the family party, and opposite this door
+was that of Amelia's chamber.  The bugles had wakened
+everybody:  there was no use in concealment now.  George's
+servant was packing in this room:  Osborne coming in
+and out of the contiguous bedroom, flinging to the man
+such articles as he thought fit to carry on the campaign.
+And presently Dobbin had the opportunity which his
+heart coveted, and he got sight of Amelia's face once
+more.  But what a face it was!  So white, so wild and
+despair-stricken, that the remembrance of it haunted him
+afterwards like a crime, and the sight smote him with
+inexpressible pangs of longing and pity.
+
+She was wrapped in a white morning dress, her hair
+falling on her shoulders, and her large eyes fixed and
+without light.  By way of helping on the preparations for
+the departure, and showing that she too could be useful
+at a moment so critical, this poor soul had taken up a
+sash of George's from the drawers whereon it lay, and
+followed him to and fro with the sash in her hand, looking
+on mutely as his packing proceeded.  She came out and
+stood, leaning at the wall, holding this sash against her
+bosom, from which the heavy net of crimson dropped
+like a large stain of blood.  Our gentle-hearted Captain
+felt a guilty shock as he looked at her.  "Good God,"
+thought he, "and is it grief like this I dared to pry into?"
+And there was no help:  no means to soothe and comfort
+this helpless, speechless misery.  He stood for a moment
+and looked at her, powerless and torn with pity, as a
+parent regards an infant in pain.
+
+At last, George took Emmy's hand, and led her back
+into the bedroom, from whence he came out alone.  The
+parting had taken place in that moment, and he was gone.
+
+"Thank Heaven that is over," George thought, bounding
+down the stair, his sword under his arm, as he ran
+swiftly to the alarm ground, where the regiment was
+mustered, and whither trooped men and officers hurrying
+from their billets; his pulse was throbbing and his cheeks
+flushed:  the great game of war was going to be played,
+and he one of the players.  What a fierce excitement of
+doubt, hope, and pleasure!  What tremendous hazards of
+loss or gain!  What were all the games of chance he had
+ever played compared to this one?  Into all contests
+requiring athletic skill and courage, the young man, from
+his boyhood upwards, had flung himself with all his might.
+The champion of his school and his regiment, the bravos
+of his companions had followed him everywhere; from
+the boys' cricket-match to the garrison-races, he had won
+a hundred of triumphs; and wherever he went women
+and men had admired and envied him.  What qualities
+are there for which a man gets so speedy a return of
+applause, as those of bodily superiority, activity, and
+valour?  Time out of mind strength and courage have been
+the theme of bards and romances; and from the story of
+Troy down to to-day, poetry has always chosen a soldier
+for a hero.  I wonder is it because men are cowards in
+heart that they admire bravery so much, and place
+military valour so far beyond every other quality for
+reward and worship?
+
+So, at the sound of that stirring call to battle, George
+jumped away from the gentle arms in which he had been
+dallying; not without a feeling of shame (although his
+wife's hold on him had been but feeble), that he should
+have been detained there so long.  The same feeling of
+eagerness and excitement was amongst all those friends
+of his of whom we have had occasional glimpses, from
+the stout senior Major, who led the regiment into action,
+to little Stubble, the Ensign, who was to bear its colours
+on that day.
+
+The sun was just rising as the march began--it was
+a gallant sight--the band led the column, playing the
+regimental march--then came the Major in command,
+riding upon Pyramus, his stout charger--then marched
+the grenadiers, their Captain at their head; in the centre
+were the colours, borne by the senior and junior Ensigns
+--then George came marching at the head of his company.
+He looked up, and smiled at Amelia, and passed
+on; and even the sound of the music died away.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+
+
+In Which Jos Sedley Takes Care of His Sister
+
+Thus all the superior officers being summoned on duty
+elsewhere, Jos Sedley was left in command of the little
+colony at Brussels, with Amelia invalided, Isidor, his
+Belgian servant, and the bonne, who was maid-of-all-work
+for the establishment, as a garrison under him.  Though
+he was disturbed in spirit, and his rest destroyed by
+Dobbin's interruption and the occurrences of the morning,
+Jos nevertheless remained for many hours in bed,
+wakeful and rolling about there until his usual hour of
+rising had arrived.  The sun was high in the heavens, and
+our gallant friends of the --th miles on their march,
+before the civilian appeared in his flowered dressing-gown
+at breakfast.
+ 
+About George's absence, his brother-in-law was very
+easy in mind.  Perhaps Jos was rather pleased in his heart
+that Osborne was gone, for during George's presence, the
+other had played but a very secondary part in the
+household, and Osborne did not scruple to show his contempt
+for the stout civilian.  But Emmy had always been good
+and attentive to him.  It was she who ministered to his
+comforts, who superintended the dishes that he liked,
+who walked or rode with him (as she had many, too
+many, opportunities of doing, for where was George?)
+and who interposed her sweet face between his anger
+and her husband's scorn.  Many timid remonstrances had
+she uttered to George in behalf of her brother, but the
+former in his trenchant way cut these entreaties short.
+"I'm an honest man," he said, "and if I have a feeling
+I show it, as an honest man will.  How the deuce, my
+dear, would you have me behave respectfully to such a
+fool as your brother?"  So Jos was pleased with George's
+absence.  His plain hat, and gloves on a sideboard, and
+the idea that the owner was away, caused Jos I don't
+know what secret thrill of pleasure.  "HE won't be
+troubling me this morning," Jos thought, "with his
+dandified airs and his impudence."
+ 
+"Put the Captain's hat into the ante-room," he said
+to Isidor, the servant.
+ 
+"Perhaps he won't want it again," replied the lackey,
+looking knowingly at his master.  He hated George too,
+whose insolence towards him was quite of the English
+sort.
+ 
+"And ask if Madame is coming to breakfast," Mr.
+Sedley said with great majesty, ashamed to enter with a
+servant upon the subject of his dislike for George.  The
+truth is, he had abused his brother to the valet a score
+of times before.
+
+Alas!  Madame could not come to breakfast, and cut
+the tartines that Mr. Jos liked.  Madame was a great deal
+too ill, and had been in a frightful state ever since her
+husband's departure, so her bonne said.  Jos showed his
+sympathy by pouring her out a large cup of tea It was
+his way of exhibiting kindness:  and he improved on this;
+he not only sent her breakfast, but he bethought him
+what delicacies she would most like for dinner.
+
+Isidor, the valet, had looked on very sulkily, while
+Osborne's servant was disposing of his master's baggage
+previous to the Captain's departure:  for in the first place
+he hated Mr. Osborne, whose conduct to him, and to
+all inferiors, was generally overbearing (nor does the
+continental domestic like to be treated with insolence as
+our own better-tempered servants do), and secondly, he
+was angry that so many valuables should be removed
+from under his hands, to fall into other people's possession
+when the English discomfiture should arrive.  Of this
+defeat he and a vast number of other persons in Brussels
+and Belgium did not make the slightest doubt.  The almost
+universal belief was, that the Emperor would divide
+the Prussian and English armies, annihilate one after the
+other, and march into Brussels before three days were
+over:  when all the movables of his present masters, who
+would be killed, or fugitives, or prisoners, would lawfully
+become the property of Monsieur Isidor.
+
+As he helped Jos through his toilsome and complicated
+daily toilette, this faithful servant would calculate what
+he should do with the very articles with which he was
+decorating his master's person.  He would make a present
+of the silver essence-bottles and toilet knicknacks to a
+young lady of whom he was fond; and keep the English
+cutlery and the large ruby pin for himself.  It would
+look very smart upon one of the fine frilled shirts, which,
+with the gold-laced cap and the frogged frock coat, that
+might easily be cut down to suit his shape, and the Captain's
+gold-headed cane, and the great double ring with
+the rubies, which he would have made into a pair of
+beautiful earrings, he calculated would make a perfect
+Adonis of himself, and render Mademoiselle Reine an
+easy prey.  "How those sleeve-buttons will suit me!"
+thought he, as he fixed a pair on the fat pudgy wrists of
+Mr. Sedley.  "I long for sleeve-buttons; and the Captain's
+boots with brass spurs, in the next room, corbleu!  what
+an effect they will make in the Allee Verte!" So while
+Monsieur Isidor with bodily fingers was holding on to his
+master's nose, and shaving the lower part of Jos's face,
+his imagination was rambling along the Green Avenue,
+dressed out in a frogged coat and lace, and in company
+with Mademoiselle Reine; he was loitering in spirit on
+the banks, and examining the barges sailing slowly under
+the cool shadows of the trees by the canal, or refreshing
+himself with a mug of Faro at the bench of a beer-house
+on the road to Laeken.
+
+But Mr. Joseph Sedley, luckily for his own peace, no
+more knew what was passing in his domestic's mind than
+the respected reader, and I suspect what John or Mary,
+whose wages we pay, think of ourselves.  What our
+servants think of us!--Did we know what our intimates and
+dear relations thought of us, we should live in a world
+that we should be glad to quit, and in a frame of mind
+and a constant terror, that would be perfectly unbearable.
+So Jos's man was marking his victim down, as you
+see one of Mr. Paynter's assistants in Leadenhall Street
+ornament an unconscious turtle with a placard on which
+is written, "Soup to-morrow."
+
+Amelia's attendant was much less selfishly disposed.
+Few dependents could come near that kind and gentle
+creature without paying their usual tribute of loyalty
+and affection to her sweet and affectionate nature.  And
+it is a fact that Pauline, the cook, consoled her mistress
+more than anybody whom she saw on this wretched
+morning; for when she found how Amelia remained for hours,
+silent, motionless, and haggard, by the windows in which
+she had placed herself to watch the last bayonets of the
+column as it marched away, the honest girl took the
+lady's hand, and said, Tenez, Madame, est-ce qu'il n'est
+pas aussi a l'armee, mon homme a moi?  with which
+she burst into tears, and Amelia falling into her arms,
+did likewise, and so each pitied and soothed the other.
+
+Several times during the forenoon Mr. Jos's Isidor
+went from his lodgings into the town, and to the gates
+of the hotels and lodging-houses round about the Parc,
+where the English were congregated, and there mingled
+with other valets, couriers, and lackeys, gathered such
+news as was abroad, and brought back bulletins for his
+master's information.  Almost all these gentlemen were in
+heart partisans of the Emperor, and had their opinions
+about the speedy end of the campaign.  The Emperor's
+proclamation from Avesnes had been distributed
+everywhere plentifully in Brussels.  "Soldiers!"  it said, "this
+is the anniversary of Marengo and Friedland, by which the
+destinies of Europe were twice decided.  Then, as after
+Austerlitz, as after Wagram, we were too generous.  We
+believed in the oaths and promises of princes whom we
+suffered to remain upon their thrones.  Let us march once
+more to meet them.  We and they, are we not still the
+same men?  Soldiers!  these same Prussians who are so
+arrogant to-day, were three to one against you at Jena,
+and six to one at Montmirail.  Those among you who
+were prisoners in England can tell their comrades what
+frightful torments they suffered on board the English
+hulks.  Madmen!  a moment of prosperity has blinded
+them, and if they enter into France it will be to find a
+grave there!"  But the partisans of the French prophesied
+a more speedy extermination of the Emperor's enemies
+than this; and it was agreed on all hands that Prussians
+and British would never return except as prisoners in the
+rear of the conquering army.
+
+These opinions in the course of the day were brought
+to operate upon Mr. Sedley.  He was told that the Duke
+of Wellington had gone to try and rally his army, the
+advance of which had been utterly crushed the night
+before.
+
+"Crushed, psha!" said Jos, whose heart was pretty
+stout at breakfast-time.  "The Duke has gone to beat the
+Emperor as he has beaten all his generals before."
+
+"His papers are burned, his effects are removed, and his
+quarters are being got ready for the Duke of Dalmatia,"
+Jos's informant replied.  "I had it from his own maitre
+d'hotel.  Milor Duc de Richemont's people are packing
+up everything.  His Grace has fled already, and the
+Duchess is only waiting to see the plate packed to join the
+King of France at Ostend."
+
+"The King of France is at Ghent, fellow," replied Jos,
+affecting incredulity.
+ 
+"He fled last night to Bruges, and embarks today from
+Ostend.  The Duc de Berri is taken prisoner.  Those who
+wish to be safe had better go soon, for the dykes will
+be opened to-morrow, and who can fly when the whole
+country is under water?"
+
+"Nonsense, sir, we are three to one, sir, against any
+force Boney can bring into the field," Mr. Sedley
+objected; "the Austrians and the Russians are on their
+march.  He must, he shall be crushed," Jos said, slapping
+his hand on the table.
+
+"The Prussians were three to one at Jena, and he
+took their army and kingdom in a week.  They were
+six to one at Montmirail, and he scattered them like sheep.
+The Austrian army is coming, but with the Empress and
+the King of Rome at its head; and the Russians, bah!
+the Russians will withdraw.  No quarter is to be given
+to the English, on account of their cruelty to our braves
+on board the infamous pontoons.  Look here, here it is
+in black and white.  Here's the proclamation of his
+Majesty the Emperor and King," said the now declared
+partisan of Napoleon, and taking the document from his
+pocket, Isidor sternly thrust it into his master's face,
+and already looked upon the frogged coat and valuables
+as his own spoil.
+
+Jos was, if not seriously alarmed as yet, at least
+considerably disturbed in mind.  "Give me my coat and cap,
+sir, said he, "and follow me.  I will go myself and learn
+the truth of these reports." Isidor was furious as Jos put
+on the braided frock.  "Milor had better.not wear that
+military coat," said he; "the Frenchmen have sworn not
+to give quarter to a single British soldier."
+
+"Silence, sirrah!" said Jos, with a resolute countenance
+still, and thrust his arm into the sleeve with indomitable
+resolution, in the performance of which heroic act he
+was found by Mrs. Rawdon Crawley, who at this juncture
+came up to visit Amelia, and entered without ringing
+at the antechamber door.
+
+Rebecca was dressed very neatly and smartly, as usual:
+her quiet sleep after Rawdon's departure had refreshed
+her, and her pink smiling cheeks were quite pleasant to
+look at, in a town and on a day when everybody else's
+countenance wore the appearance of the deepest anxiety
+and gloom.  She laughed at the attitude in which Jos was
+discovered, and the struggles and convulsions with which
+the stout gentleman thrust himself into the braided coat.
+
+"Are you preparing to join the army, Mr. Joseph?"
+she said.  "Is there to be nobody left in Brussels to
+protect us poor women?"  Jos succeeded in plunging into
+the coat, and came forward blushing and stuttering out
+excuses to his fair visitor.  "How was she after the events
+of the morning--after the fatigues of the ball the night
+before?"  Monsieur Isidor disappeared into his master's
+adjacent bedroom, bearing off the flowered dressing-gown.
+
+"How good of you to ask," said she, pressing one of
+his hands in both her own.  "How cool and collected you
+look when everybody else is frightened!  How is our dear
+little Emmy?  It must have been an awful, awful parting."
+
+"Tremendous," Jos said.
+
+"You men can bear anything," replied the lady.  "Parting
+or danger are nothing to you.  Own now that you
+were going to join the army and leave us to our fate.
+I know you were--something tells me you were.  I was
+so frightened, when the thought came into my head (for
+I do sometimes think of you when I am alone, Mr.
+Joseph), that I ran off immediately to beg and entreat
+you not to fly from us."
+
+This speech might be interpreted, "My dear sir, should
+an accident befall the army, and a retreat be necessary,
+you have a very comfortable carriage, in which I
+propose to take a seat." I don't know whether Jos
+understood the words in this sense.  But he was profoundly
+mortified by the lady's inattention to him during their
+stay at Brussels.  He had never been presented to any
+of Rawdon Crawley's great acquaintances:  he had scarcely
+been invited to Rebecca's parties; for he was too timid
+to play much, and his presence bored George and Rawdon
+equally, who neither of them, perhaps, liked to have a
+witness of the amusements in which the pair chose to
+indulge.  "Ah!" thought Jos, "now she wants me she
+comes to me.  When there is nobody else in the way she
+can think about old Joseph Sedley!"  But besides these
+doubts he felt flattered at the idea Rebecca expressed
+of his courage.
+
+He blushed a good deal, and put on an air of importance.
+"I should like to see the action," he said.  "Every
+man of any spirit would, you know.  I've seen a little
+service in India, but nothing on this grand scale."
+
+"You men would sacrifice anything for a pleasure,"
+Rebecca answered.  "Captain Crawley left me this morning
+as gay as if he were going to a hunting party.  What
+does he care?  What do any of you care for the agonies
+and tortures of a poor forsaken woman?  (I wonder
+whether he could really have been going to the troops,
+this great lazy gourmand?)  Oh!  dear Mr. Sedley, I have
+come to you for comfort--for consolation.  I have been
+on my knees all the morning.  I tremble at the frightful
+danger into which our husbands, our friends, our brave
+troops and allies, are rushing.  And I come here for shelter,
+and find another of my friends--the last remaining to
+me--bent upon plunging into the dreadful scene!"
+
+"My dear madam," Jos replied, now beginning to be
+quite soothed, "don't be alarmed.  I only said I should
+like to go--what Briton would not?  But my duty keeps
+me here:  I can't leave that poor creature in the next
+room." And he pointed with his finger to the door of
+the chamber in which Amelia was.
+
+"Good noble brother!" Rebecca said, putting her
+handkerchief to her eyes, and smelling the eau-de-cologne
+with which it was scented.  "I have done you injustice:
+you have got a heart.  I thought you had not."
+
+"O, upon my honour!" Jos said, making a motion as
+if he would lay his hand upon the spot in question.  "You
+do me injustice, indeed you do--my dear Mrs. Crawley."
+
+"I do, now your heart is true to your sister.  But I
+remember two years ago--when it was false to me!"
+Rebecca said, fixing her eyes upon him for an instant, and
+then turning away into the window.
+
+Jos blushed violently.  That organ which he was
+accused by Rebecca of not possessing began to thump
+tumultuously.  He recalled the days when he had fled from
+her, and the passion which had once inflamed him--the
+days when he had driven her in his curricle:  when she
+had knit the green purse for him:  when he had sate
+enraptured gazing at her white arms and bright eyes.
+
+"I know you think me ungrateful," Rebecca continued,
+coming out of the window, and once more looking at
+him and addressing him in a low tremulous voice.  "Your
+coldness, your averted looks, your manner when we have
+met of late--when I came in just now, all proved it to
+me.  But were there no reasons why I should avoid you?
+Let your own heart answer that question.  Do you think
+my husband was too much inclined to welcome you?
+The only unkind words I have ever had from him (I
+will do Captain Crawley that justice) have been about
+you--and most cruel, cruel words they were."
+
+"Good gracious! what have I done?" asked Jos in a
+flurry of pleasure and perplexity; "what have I done--
+to--to--?"
+
+"Is jealousy nothing?" said Rebecca.  "He makes me
+miserable about you.  And whatever it might have been
+once--my heart is all his.  I am innocent now.  Am I
+not, Mr. Sedley?"
+
+All Jos's blood tingled with delight, as he surveyed
+this victim to his attractions.  A few adroit words, one
+or two knowing tender glances of the eyes, and his heart
+was inflamed again and his doubts and suspicions
+forgotten.  From Solomon downwards, have not wiser men
+than he been cajoled and befooled by women?  "If the
+worst comes to the worst," Becky thought, "my retreat
+is secure; and I have a right-hand seat in the barouche."
+
+There is no knowing into what declarations of love
+and ardour the tumultuous passions of Mr. Joseph
+might have led him, if Isidor the valet had not made
+his reappearance at this minute, and begun to busy
+himself about the domestic affairs.  Jos, who was just going
+to gasp out an avowal, choked almost with the emotion
+that he was obliged to restrain.  Rebecca too bethought
+her that it was time she should go in and comfort her
+dearest Amelia.  "Au revoir," she said, kissing her hand
+to Mr. Joseph, and tapped gently at the door of his
+sister's apartment.  As she entered and closed the door
+on herself, he sank down in a chair, and gazed and
+sighed and puffed portentously.  "That coat is very tight
+for Milor," Isidor said, still having his eye on the frogs;
+but his master heard him not:  his thoughts were
+elsewhere:  now glowing, maddening, upon the contemplation
+of the enchanting Rebecca:  anon shrinking guiltily
+before the vision of the jealous Rawdon Crawley, with his
+curling, fierce mustachios, and his terrible duelling pistols
+loaded and cocked.
+
+Rebecca's appearance struck Amelia with terror, and
+made her shrink back.  It recalled her to the world and
+the remembrance of yesterday.  In the overpowering fears
+about to-morrow she had forgotten Rebecca--jealousy--
+everything except that her husband was gone and was
+in danger.  Until this dauntless worldling came in and
+broke the spell, and lifted the latch, we too have
+forborne to enter into that sad chamber.  How long had that
+poor girl been on her knees!  what hours of speechless
+prayer and bitter prostration had she passed there!  The
+war-chroniclers who write brilliant stories of fight and
+triumph scarcely tell us of these.  These are too mean
+parts of the pageant:  and you don't hear widows' cries
+or mothers' sobs in the midst of the shouts and jubilation
+in the great Chorus of Victory.  And yet when was
+the time that such have not cried out:  heart-broken,
+humble protestants, unheard in the uproar of the triumph!
+
+After the first movement of terror in Amelia's mind
+--when Rebecca's green eyes lighted upon her, and
+rustling in her fresh silks and brilliant ornaments, the latter
+tripped up with extended arms to embrace her--a feeling
+of anger succeeded, and from being deadly pale before,
+her face flushed up red, and she returned Rebecca's look
+after a moment with a steadiness which surprised and
+somewhat abashed her rival.
+
+"Dearest Amelia, you are very unwell," the visitor said,
+putting forth her hand to take Amelia's.  "What is it?
+I could not rest until I knew how you were."
+
+Amelia drew back her hand--never since her life
+began had that gentle soul refused to believe or to
+answer any demonstration of good-will or affection.  But
+she drew back her hand, and trembled all over.  "Why
+are you here, Rebecca?" she said, still looking at her
+solemnly with her large eyes.  These glances troubled her
+visitor.
+
+"She must have seen him give me the letter at the
+ball," Rebecca thought.  "Don't be agitated, dear Amelia,"
+she said, looking down.  "I came but to see if I could--
+if you were well."
+
+"Are you well?" said Amelia.  "I dare say you are.
+You don't love your husband.  You would not be here if
+you did.  Tell me, Rebecca, did I ever do you anything
+but kindness?"
+
+"Indeed, Amelia, no," the other said, still hanging
+down her head.
+
+"When you were quite poor, who was it that befriended
+you?  Was I not a sister to you?  You saw us
+all in happier days before he married me.  I was all in
+all then to him; or would he have given up his fortune,
+his family, as he nobly did to make me happy?  Why did
+you come between my love and me?  Who sent you to
+separate those whom God joined, and take my darling's
+heart from me-- my own husband? Do you think you
+could I love him as I did?  His love was everything to me.
+You knew it, and wanted to rob me of it.  For shame,
+Rebecca; bad and wicked woman--false friend and false
+wife."
+
+"Amelia, I protest before God, I have done my
+husband no wrong," Rebecca said, turning from her.
+
+"Have you done me no wrong, Rebecca?  You did not
+succeed, but you tried.  Ask your heart if you did not."
+
+She knows nothing, Rebecca thought.
+
+"He came back to me.  I knew he would.  I knew that
+no falsehood, no flattery, could keep him from me long.
+I knew he would come.  I prayed so that he should."
+
+The poor girl spoke these words with a spirit and
+volubility which Rebecca had never before seen in her,
+and before which the latter was quite dumb.  "But what
+have I done to you," she continued in a more pitiful tone,
+"that you should try and take him from me?  I had him
+but for six weeks.  You might have spared me those,
+Rebecca.  And yet, from the very first day of our wedding,
+you came and blighted it.  Now he is gone, are you come
+to see how unhappy I am?" she continued.  "You made
+me wretched enough for the past fortnight:  you might
+have spared me to-day."
+
+"I--I never came here," interposed Rebecca, with
+unlucky truth.
+
+"No.  You didn't come.  You took him away.  Are you
+come to fetch him from me?" she continued in a wilder
+tone.  "He was here, but he is gone now.  There on that
+very sofa he sate.  Don't touch it.  We sate and talked
+there.  I was on his knee, and my arms were round his
+neck, and we said 'Our Father.' Yes, he was here:  and
+they came and took him away, but he promised me to
+come back."
+
+"He will come back, my dear," said Rebecca, touched
+in spite of herself.
+
+"Look," said Amelia, "this is his sash--isn't it a pretty
+colour?'' and she took up the fringe and kissed it.  She
+had tied it round her waist at some part of the day.  She
+had forgotten her anger, her jealousy, the very presence
+of her rival seemingly.  For she walked silently and almost
+with a smile on her face, towards the bed, and began to
+smooth down George's pillow.
+
+Rebecca walked, too, silently away.  "How is Amelia?"
+asked Jos, who still held his position in the chair.
+
+"There should be somebody with her," said Rebecca.
+"I think she is very unwell":  and she went away with a
+very grave face, refusing Mr. Sedley's entreaties that she
+would stay and partake of the early dinner which he had
+ordered.
+
+Rebecca was of a good-natured and obliging disposition;
+and she liked Amelia rather than otherwise.  Even
+her hard words, reproachful as they were, were
+complimentary--the groans of a person stinging under defeat.
+Meeting Mrs. O'Dowd, whom the Dean's sermons had
+by no means comforted, and who was walking very
+disconsolately in the Parc, Rebecca accosted the latter,
+rather to the surprise of the Major's wife, who was not
+accustomed to such marks of politeness from Mrs.
+Rawdon Crawley, and informing her that poor little Mrs.
+Osborne was in a desperate condition, and almost mad
+with grief, sent off the good-natured Irishwoman straight
+to see if she could console her young favourite.
+
+"I've cares of my own enough," Mrs. O'Dowd said,
+gravely, "and I thought poor Amelia would be little
+wanting for company this day.  But if she's so bad as you
+say, and you can't attend to her, who used to be so
+fond of her, faith I'll see if I can be of service.  And so
+good marning to ye, Madam"; with which speech and a
+toss of her head, the lady of the repayther took a
+farewell of Mrs. Crawley, whose company she by no means
+courted.
+
+Becky watched her marching off, with a smile on her
+lip.  She had the keenest sense of humour, and the
+Parthian look which the retreating Mrs. O'Dowd flung
+over her shoulder almost upset Mrs. Crawley's gravity.
+"My service to ye, me fine Madam, and I'm glad to see
+ye so cheerful," thought Peggy.  "It's not YOU that will cry
+your eyes out with grief, anyway." And with this she
+passed on, and speedily found her way to Mrs. Osborne's
+lodgings.
+
+The poor soul was still at the bedside, where Rebecca
+had left her, and stood almost crazy with grief.  The
+Major's wife, a stronger-minded woman, endeavoured her
+best to comfort her young friend.  "You must bear up,
+Amelia, dear," she said kindly, "for he mustn't find you
+ill when he sends for you after the victory.  It's not you
+are the only woman that are in the hands of God this
+day."
+
+"I know that.  I am very wicked, very weak," Amelia
+said.  She knew her own weakness well enough.  The
+presence of the more resolute friend checked it, however; and
+she was the better of this control and company.  They
+went on till two o'clock; their hearts were with the column
+as it marched farther and farther away.  Dreadful doubt
+and anguish--prayers and fears and griefs unspeakable--
+followed the regiment.  It was the women's tribute to the
+war.  It taxes both alike, and takes the blood of the men,
+and the tears of the women.
+
+At half-past two, an event occurred of daily importance
+to Mr. Joseph: the dinner-hour arrived.  Warriors
+may fight and perish, but he must dine.  He came into
+Amelia's room to see if he could coax her to share that
+meal.  "Try," said he; "the soup is very good.  Do try,
+Emmy," and he kissed her hand.  Except when she was
+married, he had not done so much for years before.  "You
+are very good and kind, Joseph," she said.  "Everybody
+is, but, if you please, I will stay in my room to-day."
+
+The savour of the soup, however, was agreeable to
+Mrs. O'Dowd's nostrils: and she thought she would bear
+Mr. Jos company.  So the two sate down to their meal.
+"God bless the meat," said the Major's wife, solemnly:
+she was thinking of her honest Mick, riding at the head
+of his regiment:  " 'Tis but a bad dinner those poor
+boys will get to-day," she said, with a sigh, and then,
+like a philosopher, fell to.
+
+Jos's spirits rose with his meal.  He would drink the
+regiment's health; or, indeed, take any other excuse to
+indulge in a glass of champagne.  "We'll drink to O'Dowd
+and the brave --th," said he, bowing gallantly to his
+guest.  "Hey, Mrs. O'Dowd?  Fill Mrs. O'Dowd's glass,
+Isidor."
+
+But all of a sudden, Isidor started, and the Major's
+wife laid down her knife and fork.  The windows of the
+room were open, and looked southward, and a dull distant
+sound came over the sun-lighted roofs from that
+direction.  ''What is it?" said Jos.  "Why don't you pour, you
+rascal?"
+
+"Cest le feu!" said Isidor, running to the balcony.
+
+"God defend us; it's cannon!" Mrs. O'Dowd cried,
+starting up, and followed too to the window.  A thousand
+pale and anxious faces might have been seen looking
+from other casements.  And presently it seemed as if the
+whole population of the city rushed into the streets.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+In Which Jos Takes Flight, and the War Is Brought to a Close
+
+We of peaceful London City have never beheld--and
+please God never shall witness--such a scene of hurry
+and alarm, as that which Brussels presented.  Crowds
+rushed to the Namur gate, from which direction the noise
+proceeded, and many rode along the level chaussee, to
+be in advance of any intelligence from the army.  Each
+man asked his neighbour for news; and even great
+English lords and ladies condescended to speak to persons
+whom they did not know.  The friends of the French went
+abroad, wild with excitement, and prophesying the
+triumph of their Emperor.  The merchants closed their
+shops, and came out to swell the general chorus of alarm
+and clamour.  Women rushed to the churches, and
+crowded the chapels, and knelt and prayed on the flags
+and steps.  The dull sound of the cannon went on rolling,
+rolling.  Presently carriages with travellers began to leave
+the town, galloping away by the Ghent barrier.  The
+prophecies of the French partisans began to pass for
+facts.  "He has cut the armies in two," it was said.  "He is
+marching straight on Brussels.  He will overpower the
+English, and be here to-night." "He will overpower the
+English," shrieked Isidor to his master, "and will be here
+to-night." The man bounded in and out from the lodgings
+to the street, always returning with some fresh particulars
+of disaster.  Jos's face grew paler and paler.  Alarm began
+to take entire possession of the stout civilian.  All the
+champagne he drank brought no courage to him.  Before
+sunset he was worked up to such a pitch of nervousness
+as gratified his friend Isidor to behold, who now counted
+surely upon the spoils of the owner of the laced coat.
+
+The women were away all this time.  After hearing
+the firing for a moment, the stout Major's wife bethought
+her of her friend in the next chamber, and ran in to watch,
+and if possible to console, Amelia.  The idea that she had
+that helpless and gentle creature to protect, gave
+additional strength to the natural courage of the honest
+Irishwoman.  She passed five hours by her friend's side,
+sometimes in remonstrance, sometimes talking cheerfully,
+oftener in silence and terrified mental supplication.  "I
+never let go her hand once," said the stout lady
+afterwards, "until after sunset, when the firing was over."
+Pauline, the bonne, was on her knees at church hard by,
+praying for son homme a elle.
+
+When the noise of the cannonading was over, Mrs.
+O'Dowd issued out of Amelia's room into the parlour
+adjoining, where Jos sate with two emptied flasks, and
+courage entirely gone.  Once or twice he had ventured into
+his sister's bedroom, looking very much alarmed, and
+as if he would say something.  But the Major's wife kept
+her place, and he went away without disburthening
+himself of his speech.  He was ashamed to tell her that he
+wanted to fly.
+
+But when she made her appearance in the dining-room,
+where he sate in the twilight in the cheerless company
+of his empty champagne bottles, he began to open his
+mind to her.
+
+"Mrs. O'Dowd," he said, "hadn't you better get Amelia
+ready?"
+
+"Are you going to take her out for a walk?" said the
+Major's lady; "sure she's too weak to stir."
+
+"I--I've ordered the carriage," he said, "and--and
+post-horses; Isidor is gone for them," Jos continued.
+
+"What do you want with driving to-night?" answered
+the lady.  "Isn't she better on her bed?  I've just got her
+to lie down."
+
+"Get her up," said Jos; "she must get up, I say":  and
+he stamped his foot energetically.  "I say the horses are
+ordered--yes, the horses are ordered.  It's all over, and--"
+
+"And what?" asked Mrs. O'Dowd.
+
+"I'm off for Ghent," Jos answered.  "Everybody is
+going; there's a place for you!  We shall start in half-an-
+hour."
+
+The Major's wife looked at him with infinite scorn.  "I
+don't move till O'Dowd gives me the route," said she.
+"You may go if you like, Mr. Sedley; but, faith, Amelia
+and I stop here."
+
+"She SHALL go," said Jos, with another stamp of his
+foot.  Mrs. O'Dowd put herself with arms akimbo before
+the bedroom door.
+
+"Is it her mother you're going to take her to?" she
+said; "or do you want to go to Mamma yourself, Mr.
+Sedley?  Good marning--a pleasant journey to ye, sir.
+Bon voyage, as they say, and take my counsel, and shave
+off them mustachios, or they'll bring you into mischief."
+
+"D--n!" yelled out Jos, wild with fear, rage, and
+mortification; and Isidor came in at this juncture, swearing in
+his turn.  "Pas de chevaux, sacre bleu!" hissed out the
+furious domestic.  All the horses were gone.  Jos was
+not the only man in Brussels seized with panic that day.
+
+But Jos's fears, great and cruel as they were already,
+were destined to increase to an almost frantic pitch
+before the night was over.  It has been mentioned how
+Pauline, the bonne, had son homme a elle also in the
+ranks of the army that had gone out to meet the Emperor
+Napoleon.  This lover was a native of Brussels, and a
+Belgian hussar.  The troops of his nation signalised
+themselves in this war for anything but courage, and young
+Van Cutsum, Pauline's admirer, was too good a soldier
+to disobey his Colonel's orders to run away.  Whilst in
+garrison at Brussels young Regulus (he had been born in
+the revolutionary times) found his great comfort, and
+passed almost all his leisure moments, in Pauline's
+kitchen; and it was with pockets and holsters crammed
+full of good things from her larder, that he had take
+leave of his weeping sweetheart, to proceed upon the
+campaign a few days before.
+
+As far as his regiment was concerned, this campaign
+was over now.  They had formed a part of the division
+under the command of his Sovereign apparent, the Prince
+of Orange, and as respected length of swords and
+mustachios, and the richness of uniform and equipments,
+Regulus and his comrades looked to be as gallant a body
+of men as ever trumpet sounded for.
+
+When Ney dashed upon the advance of the allied
+troops, carrying one position after the other, until the
+arrival of the great body of the British army from
+Brussels changed the aspect of the combat of Quatre Bras,
+the squadrons among which Regulus rode showed the
+greatest activity in retreating before the French, and were
+dislodged from one post and another which they occupied
+with perfect alacrity on their part.  Their movements
+were only checked by the advance of the British in their
+rear.  Thus forced to halt, the enemy's cavalry (whose
+bloodthirsty obstinacy cannot be too severely
+reprehended) had at length an opportunity of coming to close
+quarters with the brave Belgians before them; who
+preferred to encounter the British rather than the French,
+and at once turning tail rode through the English
+regiments that were behind them, and scattered in all
+directions.  The regiment in fact did not exist any more.  It was
+nowhere.  It had no head-quarters.  Regulus found himself
+galloping many miles from the field of action, entirely
+alone; and whither should he fly for refuge so naturally
+as to that kitchen and those faithful arms in which
+Pauline had so often welcomed him?
+
+At some ten o'clock the clinking of a sabre might have
+been heard up the stair of the house where the Osbornes
+occupied a story in the continental fashion.  A knock
+might have been heard at the kitchen door; and poor
+Pauline, come back from church, fainted almost with
+terror as she opened it and saw before her her haggard
+hussar.  He looked as pale as the midnight dragoon who
+came to disturb Leonora.  Pauline would have screamed,
+but that her cry would have called her masters, and
+discovered her friend.  She stifled her scream, then, and
+leading her hero into the kitchen, gave him beer, and
+the choice bits from the dinner, which Jos had not had
+the heart to taste.  The hussar showed he was no ghost by
+the prodigious quantity of flesh and beer which he
+devoured--and during the mouthfuls he told his tale of
+disaster.
+
+His regiment had performed prodigies of courage, and
+had withstood for a while the onset of the whole French
+army.  But they were overwhelmed at last, as was the
+whole British army by this time.  Ney destroyed each
+regiment as it came up.  The Belgians in vain interposed to
+prevent the butchery of the English.  The Brunswickers
+were routed and had fled--their Duke was killed.  It was
+a general debacle.  He sought to drown his sorrow for
+the defeat in floods of beer.
+
+Isidor, who had come into the kitchen, heard the
+conversation and rushed out to inform his master.  "It is
+all over," he shrieked to Jos.  "Milor Duke is a prisoner;
+the Duke of Brunswick is killed; the British army is in
+full flight; there is only one man escaped, and he is in the
+kitchen now--come and hear him." So Jos tottered into
+that apartment where Regulus still sate on the kitchen
+table, and clung fast to his flagon of beer.  In the best
+French which he could muster, and which was in sooth
+of a very ungrammatical sort, Jos besought the hussar to
+tell his tale.  The disasters deepened as Regulus spoke.  He
+was the only man of his regiment not slain on the field.
+He had seen the Duke of Brunswick fall, the black
+hussars fly, the Ecossais pounded down by the cannon.
+"And the --th?" gasped Jos.
+
+"Cut in pieces," said the hussar--upon which Pauline
+cried out, "O my mistress, ma bonne petite dame," went
+off fairly into hysterics, and filled the house with her
+screams.
+
+Wild with terror, Mr. Sedley knew not how or where
+to seek for safety.  He rushed from the kitchen back to
+the sitting-room, and cast an appealing look at Amelia's
+door, which Mrs. O'Dowd had closed and locked in his
+face; but he remembered how scornfully the latter had
+received him, and after pausing and listening for a brief
+space at the door, he left it, and resolved to go into the
+street, for the first time that day.  So, seizing a candle, he
+looked about for his gold-laced cap, and found it lying in its
+usual place, on a console-table, in the anteroom, placed
+before a mirror at which Jos used to coquet, always
+giving his side-locks a twirl, and his cap the proper cock
+over his eye, before he went forth to make appearance in
+public.  Such is the force of habit, that even in the midst
+of his terror he began mechanically to twiddle with his
+hair, and arrange the cock of his hat.  Then he looked
+amazed at the pale face in the glass before him, and
+especially at his mustachios, which had attained a rich
+growth in the course of near seven weeks, since they had
+come into the world.  They WILL mistake me for a military
+man, thought he, remembering Isidor's warning as
+to the massacre with which all the defeated British army
+was threatened; and staggering back to his bedchamber,
+he began wildly pulling the bell which summoned his
+valet.
+
+Isidor answered that summons.  Jos had sunk in a chair
+--he had torn off his neckcloths, and turned down his
+collars, and was sitting with both his hands lifted to his
+throat.
+
+"Coupez-moi, Isidor," shouted he; "vite!  Coupez-moi!"
+
+Isidor thought for a moment he had gone mad, and
+that he wished his valet to cut his throat.
+
+"Les moustaches," gasped Joe; "les moustaches--
+coupy, rasy, vite!"--his French was of this sort--voluble,
+as we have said, but not remarkable for grammar.
+
+Isidor swept off the mustachios in no time with the
+razor, and heard with inexpressible delight his master's
+orders that he should fetch a hat and a plain coat.  "Ne
+porty ploo--habit militair--bonn--bonny a voo, prenny
+dehors"--were Jos's words--the coat and cap were at
+last his property.
+
+This gift being made, Jos selected a plain black coat
+and waistcoat from his stock, and put on a large white
+neckcloth, and a plain beaver.  If he could have got a
+shovel hat he would have worn it.  As it was, you would
+have fancied he was a flourishing, large parson of the
+Church of England.
+
+"Venny maintenong," he continued, "sweevy--ally--
+party--dong la roo." And so having said, he plunged
+swiftly down the stairs of the house, and passed into the
+street.
+
+Although Regulus had vowed that he was the only
+man of his regiment or of the allied army, almost, who
+had escaped being cut to pieces by Ney, it appeared
+that his statement was incorrect, and that a good number
+more of the supposed victims had survived the massacre.
+Many scores of Regulus's comrades had found their way
+back to Brussels, and all agreeing that they had run
+away--filled the whole town with an idea of the defeat
+of the allies.  The arrival of the French was expected
+hourly; the panic continued, and preparations for flight
+went on everywhere.  No horses!  thought Jos, in terror.
+He made Isidor inquire of scores of persons, whether
+they had any to lend or sell, and his heart sank within
+him, at the negative answers returned everywhere.  Should
+he take the journey on foot?  Even fear could not render
+that ponderous body so active.
+
+Almost all the hotels occupied by the English in Brussels
+face the Parc, and Jos wandered irresolutely about
+in this quarter, with crowds of other people, oppressed as
+he was by fear and curiosity.  Some families he saw more
+happy than himself, having discovered a team of horses,
+and rattling through the streets in retreat; others again
+there were whose case was like his own, and who
+could not for any bribes or entreaties procure the
+necessary means of flight.  Amongst these would-be fugitives,
+Jos remarked the Lady Bareacres and her daughter, who
+sate in their carriage in the porte-cochere of their hotel,
+all their imperials packed, and the only drawback to
+whose flight was the same want of motive power which
+kept Jos stationary.
+
+Rebecca Crawley occupied apartments in this hotel;
+and had before this period had sundry hostile meetings
+with the ladies of the Bareacres family.  My Lady
+Bareacres cut Mrs. Crawley on the stairs when they met
+by chance; and in all places where the latter's name was
+mentioned, spoke perseveringly ill of her neighbour.  The
+Countess was shocked at the familiarity of General Tufto
+with the aide-de-camp's wife.  The Lady Blanche avoided
+her as if she had been an infectious disease.  Only the
+Earl himself kept up a sly occasional acquaintance with
+her, when out of the jurisdiction of his ladies.
+
+Rebecca had her revenge now upon these insolent
+enemies.  If became known in the hotel that Captain
+Crawley's horses had been left behind, and when the
+panic began, Lady Bareacres condescended to send her
+maid to the Captain's wife with her Ladyship's compliments,
+and a desire to know the price of Mrs. Crawley's
+horses.  Mrs. Crawley returned a note with her compliments,
+and an intimation that it was not her custom to
+transact bargains with ladies' maids.
+
+This curt reply brought the Earl in person to Becky's
+apartment; but he could get no more success than the
+first ambassador.  "Send a lady's maid to ME!" Mrs.
+Crawley cried in great anger; "why didn't my Lady
+Bareacres tell me to go and saddle the horses!  Is it her
+Ladyship that wants to escape, or her Ladyship's femme
+de chambre?"  And this was all the answer that the Earl
+bore back to his Countess.
+
+What will not necessity do?  The Countess herself
+actually came to wait upon Mrs. Crawley on the failure
+of her second envoy.  She entreated her to name her own
+price; she even offered to invite Becky to Bareacres
+House, if the latter would but give her the means of
+returning to that residence.  Mrs. Crawley sneered at her.
+
+"I don't want to be waited on by bailiffs in livery," she
+said; "you will never get back though most probably--
+at least not you and your diamonds together.  The French
+will have those They will be here in two hours, and I
+shall be half way to Ghent by that time.  I would not sell
+you my horses, no, not for the two largest diamonds that
+your Ladyship wore at the ball."  Lady Bareacres trembled
+with rage and terror.  The diamonds were sewed into her
+habit, and secreted in my Lord's padding and boots.
+"Woman, the diamonds are at the banker's, and I WILL
+have the horses," she said.  Rebecca laughed in her face.
+The infuriate Countess went below, and sate in her
+carriage; her maid, her courier, and her husband were sent
+once more through the town, each to look for cattle; and
+woe betide those who came last!  Her Ladyship was
+resolved on departing the very instant the horses arrived
+from any quarter--with her husband or without him.
+
+Rebecca had the pleasure of seeing her Ladyship in
+the horseless carriage, and keeping her eyes fixed upon
+her, and bewailing, in the loudest tone of voice, the
+Countess's perplexities.  "Not to be able to get horses!"
+she said, "and to have all those diamonds sewed into the
+carriage cushions!  What a prize it will be for the French
+when they come!--the carriage and the diamonds, I mean;
+not the lady!"  She gave this information to the landlord,
+to the servants, to the guests, and the innumerable
+stragglers about the courtyard.  Lady Bareacres could have
+shot her from the carriage window.
+
+It was while enjoying the humiliation of her enemy that
+Rebecca caught sight of Jos, who made towards her
+directly he perceived her.
+
+That altered, frightened, fat face, told his secret well
+enough.  He too wanted to fly, and was on the look-out
+for the means of escape.  "HE shall buy my horses,"
+thought Rebecca, "and I'll ride the mare."
+
+Jos walked up to his friend, and put the question for
+the hundredth time during the past hour, "Did she know
+where horses were to be had?"
+
+"What, YOU fly?" said Rebecca, with a laugh.  "I
+thought you were the champion of all the ladies, Mr.
+Sedley."
+
+"I--I'm not a military man," gasped he.
+
+"And Amelia?--Who is to protect that poor little sister
+of yours?" asked Rebecca.  "You surely would not desert
+her?"
+
+"What good can I do her, suppose--suppose the enemy
+arrive?" Jos answered.  "They'll spare the women; but my
+man tells me that they have taken an oath to give no
+quarter to the men--the dastardly cowards."
+
+"Horrid!" cried Rebecca, enjoying his perplexity.
+
+"Besides, I don't want to desert her," cried the brother.
+"She SHAN'T be deserted.  There is a seat for her in my
+carriage, and one for you, dear Mrs. Crawley, if you will
+come; and if we can get horses--" sighed he--
+
+"I have two to sell," the lady said.  Jos could have
+flung himself into her arms at the news.  "Get the carriage,
+Isidor," he cried; "we've found them--we have found
+them."
+
+My horses never were in harness," added the lady.
+"Bullfinch would kick the carriage to pieces, if you put
+him in the traces."
+
+"But he is quiet to ride?" asked the civilian.
+
+"As quiet as a lamb, and as fast as a hare," answered
+Rebecca.
+
+"Do you think he is up to my weight?" Jos said.  He
+was already on his back, in imagination, without ever so
+much as a thought for poor Amelia.  What person who
+loved a horse-speculation could resist such a temptation?
+
+In reply, Rebecca asked him to come into her room,
+whither he followed her quite breathless to conclude the
+bargain.  Jos seldom spent a half-hour in his life which
+cost him so much money.  Rebecca, measuring the value
+of the goods which she had for sale by Jos's eagerness to
+purchase, as well as by the scarcity of the article, put
+upon her horses a price so prodigious as to make even
+the civilian draw back.  "She would sell both or neither,"
+she said, resolutely.  Rawdon had ordered her not to part
+with them for a price less than that which she specified.
+Lord Bareacres below would give her the same money--
+and with all her love and regard for the Sedley family,
+her dear Mr. Joseph must conceive that poor people must
+live--nobody, in a word, could be more affectionate, but
+more firm about the matter of business.
+
+Jos ended by agreeing, as might be supposed of him.
+The sum he had to give her was so large that he was
+obliged to ask for time; so large as to be a little fortune
+to Rebecca, who rapidly calculated that with this sum,
+and the sale of the residue of Rawdon's effects, and her
+pension as a widow should he fall, she would now be
+absolutely independent of the world, and might look her
+weeds steadily in the face.
+
+Once or twice in the day she certainly had herself
+thought about flying.  But her reason gave her better
+counsel.  "Suppose the French do come," thought Becky,
+"what can they do to a poor officer's widow?  Bah!  the
+times of sacks and sieges are over.  We shall be let to go
+home quietly, or I may live pleasantly abroad with a snug
+little income."
+
+Meanwhile Jos and Isidor went off to the stables to
+inspect the newly purchased cattle.  Jos bade his man
+saddle the horses at once.  He would ride away that very
+night, that very hour.  And he left the valet busy in getting
+the horses ready, and went homewards himself to
+prepare for his departure.  It must be secret.  He would go to
+his chamber by the back entrance.  He did not care to face
+Mrs. O'Dowd and Amelia, and own to them that he was
+about to run.
+
+By the time Jos's bargain with Rebecca was completed,
+and his horses had been visited and examined, it was
+almost morning once more.  But though midnight was long
+passed, there was no rest for the city; the people were
+up, the lights in the houses flamed, crowds were still
+about the doors, and the streets were busy.  Rumours of
+various natures went still from mouth to mouth:  one
+report averred that the Prussians had been utterly
+defeated; another that it was the English who had been
+attacked and conquered:  a third that the latter had held
+their ground.  This last rumour gradually got strength.  No
+Frenchmen had made their appearance.  Stragglers had
+come in from the army bringing reports more and more
+favourable:  at last an aide-de-camp actually reached
+Brussels with despatches for the Commandant of the
+place, who placarded presently through the town an
+official announcement of the success of the allies at Quatre
+Bras, and the entire repulse of the French under Ney
+after a six hours' battle.  The aide-de-camp must have
+arrived sometime while Jos and Rebecca were making their
+bargain together, or the latter was inspecting his
+purchase.  When he reached his own hotel, he found a score
+of its numerous inhabitants on the threshold discoursing
+of the news; there was no doubt as to its truth.  And he
+went up to communicate it to the ladies under his charge.
+He did not think it was necessary to tell them how he
+had intended to take leave of them, how he had bought
+horses, and what a price he had paid for them.
+
+But success or defeat was a minor matter to them, who
+had only thought for the safety of those they loved.
+Amelia, at the news of the victory, became still more
+agitated even than before.  She was for going that
+moment to the army.  She besought her brother with tears to
+conduct her thither.  Her doubts and terrors reached their
+paroxysm; and the poor girl, who for many hours had
+been plunged into stupor, raved and ran hither and
+thither in hysteric insanity--a piteous sight.  No man
+writhing in pain on the hard-fought field fifteen miles
+off, where lay, after their struggles, so many of the brave
+--no man suffered more keenly than this poor harmless
+victim of the war.  Jos could not bear the sight of her
+pain.  He left his sister in the charge of her stouter female
+companion, and descended once more to the threshold
+of the hotel, where everybody still lingered, and talked,
+and waited for more news.
+
+It grew to be broad daylight as they stood here, and
+fresh news began to arrive from the war, brought by
+men who had been actors in the scene.  Wagons and long
+country carts laden with wounded came rolling into the
+town; ghastly groans came from within them, and
+haggard faces looked up sadly from out of the straw.  Jos
+Sedley was looking at one of these carriages with a
+painful curiosity--the moans of the people within were
+frightful--the wearied horses could hardly pull the cart.
+"Stop!  stop!" a feeble voice cried from the straw, and the
+carriage stopped opposite Mr. Sedley's hotel.
+
+"It is George, I know it is!" cried Amelia, rushing in a
+moment to the balcony, with a pallid face and loose
+flowing hair.  It was not George, however, but it was the
+next best thing:  it was news of him.
+
+It was poor Tom Stubble, who had marched out of
+Brussels so gallantly twenty-four hours before, bearing
+the colours of the regiment, which he had defended very
+gallantly upon the field.  A French lancer had speared the
+young ensign in the leg, who fell, still bravely holding to
+his flag.  At the conclusion of the engagement, a place
+had been found for the poor boy in a cart, and he had
+been brought back to Brussels.
+
+"Mr. Sedley, Mr. Sedley!" cried the boy, faintly, and
+Jos came up almost frightened at the appeal.  He had not
+at first distinguished who it was that called him.
+
+Little Tom Stubble held out his hot and feeble hand.
+"I'm to be taken in here," he said.  "Osborne--and--and
+Dobbin said I was; and you are to give the man two
+napoleons: my mother will pay you." This young fellow's
+thoughts, during the long feverish hours passed in the
+cart, had been wandering to his father's parsonage which
+he had quitted only a few months before, and he had
+sometimes forgotten his pain in that delirium.
+
+The hotel was large, and the people kind, and all the
+inmates of the cart were taken in and placed on various
+couches.  The young ensign was conveyed upstairs to
+Osborne's quarters.  Amelia and the Major's wife had
+rushed down to him, when the latter had recognised him
+from the balcony.  You may fancy the feelings of these
+women when they were told that the day was over, and
+both their husbands were safe; in what mute rapture
+Amelia fell on her good friend's neck, and embraced
+her; in what a grateful passion of prayer she fell on her
+knees, and thanked the Power which had saved her
+husband.
+
+Our young lady, in her fevered and nervous condition,
+could have had no more salutary medicine prescribed for
+her by any physician than that which chance put in her
+way.  She and Mrs. O'Dowd watched incessantly by the
+wounded lad, whose pains were very severe, and in the
+duty thus forced upon her, Amelia had not time to brood
+over her personal anxieties, or to give herself up to her
+own fears and forebodings after her wont.  The young
+patient told in his simple fashion the events of the day, and
+the actions of our friends of the gallant --th.  They had
+suffered severely.  They had lost very many officers and
+men.  The Major's horse had been shot under him as the
+regiment charged, and they all thought that O'Dowd was
+gone, and that Dobbin had got his majority, until on their
+return from the charge to their old ground, the Major was
+discovered seated on Pyramus's carcase, refreshing him-
+self from a case-bottle.  It was Captain Osborne that cut
+down the French lancer who had speared the ensign.
+Amelia turned so pale at the notion, that Mrs. O'Dowd
+stopped the young ensign in this story.  And it was
+Captain Dobbin who at the end of the day, though wounded
+himself, took up the lad in his arms and carried him to
+the surgeon, and thence to the cart which was to bring
+him back to Brussels.  And it was he who promised the
+driver two louis if he would make his way to Mr. Sedley's
+hotel in the city; and tell Mrs. Captain Osborne that the
+action was over, and that her husband was unhurt and
+well.
+
+"Indeed, but he has a good heart that William
+Dobbin," Mrs. O'Dowd said, "though he is always laughing
+at me."
+
+Young Stubble vowed there was not such another
+officer in the army, and never ceased his praises of the
+senior captain, his modesty, his kindness, and his admirable
+coolness in the field.  To these parts of the conversation,
+Amelia lent a very distracted attention:  it was only when
+George was spoken of that she listened, and when he
+was not mentioned, she thought about him.
+
+In tending her patient, and in thinking of the wonderful
+escapes of the day before, her second day passed
+away not too slowly with Amelia.  There was only one
+man in the army for her:  and as long as he was well, it
+must be owned that its movements interested her little.
+All the reports which Jos brought from the streets fell
+very vaguely on her ears; though they were sufficient to
+give that timorous gentleman, and many other people
+then in Brussels, every disquiet.  The French had been
+repulsed certainly, but it was after a severe and doubtful
+struggle, and with only a division of the French army.
+The Emperor, with the main body, was away at Ligny,
+where he had utterly annihilated the Prussians, and was
+now free to bring his whole force to bear upon the allies.
+The Duke of Wellington was retreating upon the capital,
+and a great battle must be fought under its walls
+probably, of which the chances were more than doubtful.
+The Duke of Wellington had but twenty thousand British
+troops on whom he could rely, for the Germans were
+raw militia, the Belgians disaffected, and with this handful
+his Grace had to resist a hundred and fifty thousand men
+that had broken into Belgium under Napoleon.  Under
+Napoleon!  What warrior was there, however famous and
+skilful, that could fight at odds with him?
+
+Jos thought of all these things, and trembled.  So did
+all the rest of Brussels--where people felt that the fight
+of the day before was but the prelude to the greater
+combat which was imminent.  One of the armies opposed to
+the Emperor was scattered to the winds already.  The
+few English that could be brought to resist him would
+perish at their posts, and the conqueror would pass over
+their bodies into the city.  Woe be to those whom he
+found there!  Addresses were prepared, public functionaries assembled and debated secretly, apartments were
+got ready, and tricoloured banners and triumphal
+emblems manufactured, to welcome the arrival of His
+Majesty the Emperor and King.
+
+The emigration still continued, and wherever families
+could find means of departure, they fled.  When Jos, on
+the afternoon of the 17th of June, went to Rebecca's
+hotel, he found that the great Bareacres' carriage had at
+length rolled away from the porte-cochere.  The Earl
+had procured a pair of horses somehow, in spite of Mrs.
+Crawley, and was rolling on the road to Ghent.  Louis the
+Desired was getting ready his portmanteau in that city,
+too.  It seemed as if Misfortune was never tired of
+worrying into motion that unwieldy exile.
+
+Jos felt that the delay of yesterday had been only a
+respite, and that his dearly bought horses must of a
+surety be put into requisition.  His agonies were very
+severe all this day.  As long as there was an English army
+between Brussels and Napoleon, there was no need of
+immediate flight; but he had his horses brought from
+their distant stables, to the stables in the court-yard of
+the hotel where he lived; so that they might be under his
+own eyes, and beyond the risk of violent abduction.
+Isidor watched the stable-door constantly, and had the
+horses saddled, to be ready for the start.  He longed
+intensely for that event.
+
+After the reception of the previous day, Rebecca did
+not care to come near her dear Amelia.  She clipped the
+bouquet which George had brought her, and gave fresh
+water to the flowers, and read over the letter which he
+had sent her.  "Poor wretch," she said, twirling round the
+little bit of paper in her fingers, "how I could crush her
+with this!--and it is for a thing like this that she must
+break her heart, forsooth--for a man who is stupid--a
+coxcomb--and who does not care for her.  My poor good
+Rawdon is worth ten of this creature." And then she fell
+to thinking what she should do if--if anything happened
+to poor good Rawdon, and what a great piece of luck it
+was that he had left his horses behind.
+
+In the course of this day too, Mrs. Crawley, who saw
+not without anger the Bareacres party drive off,
+bethought her of the precaution which the Countess had
+taken, and did a little needlework for her own advantage;
+she stitched away the major part of her trinkets, bills,
+and bank-notes about her person, and so prepared, was
+ready for any event--to fly if she thought fit, or to stay
+and welcome the conqueror, were he Englishman or
+Frenchman.  And I am not sure that she did not dream
+that night of becoming a duchess and Madame la
+Marechale, while Rawdon wrapped in his cloak, and making
+his bivouac under the rain at Mount Saint John, was
+thinking, with all the force of his heart, about the little
+wife whom he had left behind him.
+
+The next day was a Sunday.  And Mrs. Major O'Dowd
+had the satisfaction of seeing both her patients refreshed
+in health and spirits by some rest which they had taken
+during the night.  She herself had slept on a great chair in
+Amelia's room, ready to wait upon her poor friend or the
+ensign, should either need her nursing.  When morning
+came, this robust woman went back to the house where
+she and her Major had their billet; and here performed
+an elaborate and splendid toilette, befitting the day.  And
+it is very possible that whilst alone in that chamber, which
+her husband had inhabited, and where his cap still lay on
+the pillow, and his cane stood in the corner, one prayer at
+least was sent up to Heaven for the welfare of the brave
+soldier, Michael O'Dowd.
+
+When she returned she brought her prayer-book with
+her, and her uncle the Dean's famous book of sermons,
+out of which she never failed to read every Sabbath; not
+understanding all, haply, not pronouncing many of the
+words aright, which were long and abstruse--for the
+Dean was a learned man, and loved long Latin words--
+but with great gravity, vast emphasis, and with tolerable
+correctness in the main.  How often has my Mick listened
+to these sermons, she thought, and me reading in the
+cabin of a calm!  She proposed to resume this exercise on
+the present day, with Amelia and the wounded ensign
+for a congregation.  The same service was read on that
+day in twenty thousand churches at the same hour; and
+millions of British men and women, on their knees,
+implored protection of the Father of all.
+
+They did not hear the noise which disturbed our little
+congregation at Brussels.  Much louder than that which
+had interrupted them two days previously, as Mrs.
+O'Dowd was reading the service in her best voice, the
+cannon of Waterloo began to roar.
+
+When Jos heard that dreadful sound, he made up his
+mind that he would bear this perpetual recurrence of
+terrors no longer, and would fly at once.  He rushed into the
+sick man's room, where our three friends had paused in
+their prayers, and further interrupted them by a
+passionate appeal to Amelia
+
+"I can't stand it any more, Emmy," he said; 'I won't
+stand it; and you must come with me.  I have bought a
+horse for you--never mind at what price--and you must
+dress and come with me, and ride behind Isidor."
+
+"God forgive me, Mr. Sedley, but you are no better
+than a coward," Mrs. O'Dowd said, laying down the
+book.
+
+"I say come, Amelia," the civilian went on; "never
+mind what she says; why are we to stop here and be
+butchered by the Frenchmen?"
+
+"You forget the --th, my boy," said the little Stubble,
+the wounded hero, from his bed--"and and you
+won't leave me, will you, Mrs. O'Dowd?"
+
+"No, my dear fellow," said she, going up and kissing
+the boy.  "No harm shall come to you while I stand by.
+I don't budge till I get the word from Mick.  A pretty
+figure I'd be, wouldn't I, stuck behind that chap on a
+pillion?"
+
+This image caused the young patient to burst out
+laughing in his bed, and even made Amelia smile.  "I
+don't ask her," Jos shouted out--"I don't ask that--that
+Irishwoman, but you Amelia; once for all, will you
+come?"
+
+"Without my husband, Joseph?" Amelia said, with a
+look of wonder, and gave her hand to the Major's wife.
+Jos's patience was exhausted.
+
+"Good-bye, then," he said, shaking his fist in a rage,
+and slamming the door by which he retreated.  And this
+time he really gave his order for march:  and mounted in
+the court-yard.  Mrs. O'Dowd heard the clattering hoofs
+of the horses as they issued from the gate; and looking
+on, made many scornful remarks on poor Joseph as he
+rode down the street with Isidor after him in the laced
+cap.  The horses, which had not been exercised for some
+days, were lively, and sprang about the street.  Jos, a
+clumsy and timid horseman, did not look to advantage in
+the saddle.  "Look at him, Amelia dear, driving into the
+parlour window.  Such a bull in a china-shop I never
+saw." And presently the pair of riders disappeared at a
+canter down the street leading in the direction of the
+Ghent road, Mrs. O'Dowd pursuing them with a fire of
+sarcasm so long as they were in sight.
+
+All that day from morning until past sunset, the
+cannon never ceased to roar.  It was dark when the
+cannonading stopped all of a sudden.
+
+All of us have read of what occurred during that
+interval.  The tale is in every Englishman's mouth; and
+you and I, who were children when the great battle was
+won and lost, are never tired of hearing and recounting
+the history of that famous action.  Its remembrance
+rankles still in the bosoms of millions of the countrymen of
+those brave men who lost the day.  They pant for an
+opportunity of revenging that humiliation; and if a contest,
+ending in a victory on their part, should ensue, elating
+them in their turn, and leaving its cursed legacy of hatred
+and rage behind to us, there is no end to the so-called
+glory and shame, and to the alternations of successful
+and unsuccessful murder, in which two high-spirited
+nations might engage.  Centuries hence, we Frenchmen and
+Englishmen might be boasting and killing each other still,
+carrying out bravely the Devil's code of honour.
+
+All our friends took their share and fought like men in
+the great field.  All day long, whilst the women were
+praying ten miles away, the lines of the dauntless English
+infantry were receiving and repelling the furious charges of
+the French horsemen.  Guns which were heard at Brussels
+were ploughing up their ranks, and comrades falling, and
+the resolute survivors closing in.  Towards evening, the
+attack of the French, repeated and resisted so bravely,
+slackened in its fury.  They had other foes besides the
+British to engage, or were preparing for a final onset.  It
+came at last:  the columns of the Imperial Guard marched
+up the hill of Saint Jean, at length and at once to sweep
+the English from the height which they had maintained
+all day, and spite of all:  unscared by the thunder of the
+artillery, which hurled death from the English line--the
+dark rolling column pressed on and up the hill.  It seemed
+almost to crest the eminence, when it began to wave and
+falter.  Then it stopped, still facing the shot.  Then at last
+the English troops rushed from the post from which no
+enemy had been able to dislodge them, and the Guard
+turned and fled.
+
+No more firing was heard at Brussels--the pursuit
+rolled miles away.  Darkness came down on the field and
+city:  and Amelia was praying for George, who was lying
+on his face, dead, with a bullet through his heart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+
+In Which Miss Crawley's Relations Are Very Anxious About Her
+
+The kind reader must please to remember--while the
+army is marching from Flanders, and, after its heroic
+actions there, is advancing to take the fortifications on the
+frontiers of France, previous to an occupation of that
+country--that there are a number of persons living
+peaceably in England who have to do with the history at
+present in hand, and must come in for their share of the
+chronicle.  During the time of these battles and dangers,
+old Miss Crawley was living at Brighton, very moderately
+moved by the great events that were going on.  The great
+events rendered the newspapers rather interesting, to be
+sure, and Briggs read out the Gazette, in which Rawdon
+Crawley's gallantry was mentioned with honour, and his
+promotion was presently recorded.
+
+"What a pity that young man has taken such an
+irretrievable step in the world!" his aunt said; "with his rank
+and distinction he might have married a brewer's
+daughter with a quarter of a million--like Miss Grains; or have
+looked to ally himself with the best families in England.
+He would have had my money some day or other; or his
+children would--for I'm not in a hurry to go, Miss Briggs,
+although you may be in a hurry to be rid of me; and
+instead of that, he is a doomed pauper, with a dancing-girl
+for a wife."
+
+"Will my dear Miss Crawley not cast an eye of
+compassion upon the heroic soldier, whose name is inscribed
+in the annals of his country's glory?" said Miss Briggs,
+who was greatly excited by the Waterloo proceedings,
+and loved speaking romantically when there was an
+occasion.  "Has not the Captain--or the Colonel as I may
+now style him--done deeds which make the name of
+Crawley illustrious?"
+
+"Briggs, you are a fool," said Miss Crawley: "Colonel
+Crawley has dragged the name of Crawley through the
+mud, Miss Briggs.  Marry a drawing-master's daughter,
+indeed!--marry a dame de compagnie--for she was no
+better, Briggs; no, she was just what you are--only younger,
+and a great deal prettier and cleverer.  Were you an
+accomplice of that abandoned wretch, I wonder, of whose
+vile arts he became a victim, and of whom you used to
+be such an admirer?  Yes, I daresay you were an accomplice.
+But you will find yourself disappointed in my will,
+I can tell you:  and you will have the goodness to write to
+Mr. Waxy, and say that I desire to see him immediately."
+Miss Crawley was now in the habit of writing to Mr.
+Waxy her solicitor almost every day in the week, for her
+arrangements respecting her property were all revoked,
+and her perplexity was great as to the future disposition
+of her money.
+
+The spinster had, however, rallied considerably; as
+was proved by the increased vigour and frequency of her
+sarcasms upon Miss Briggs, all which attacks the poor
+companion bore with meekness, with cowardice, with a
+resignation that was half generous and half hypocritical
+--with the slavish submission, in a word, that women of
+her disposition and station are compelled to show.  Who
+has not seen how women bully women?  What tortures
+have men to endure, comparable to those daily repeated
+shafts of scorn and cruelty with which poor women are
+riddled by the tyrants of their sex?  Poor victims!  But we
+are starting from our proposition, which is, that Miss
+Crawley was always particularly annoying and savage
+when she was rallying from illness--as they say wounds
+tingle most when they are about to heal.
+
+While thus approaching, as all hoped, to convalescence,
+Miss Briggs was the only victim admitted into the
+presence of the invalid; yet Miss Crawley's relatives afar
+off did not forget their beloved kinswoman, and by a
+number of tokens, presents, and kind affectionate
+messages, strove to keep themselves alive in her
+recollection.
+
+In the first place, let us mention her nephew, Rawdon
+Crawley.  A few weeks after the famous fight of Waterloo,
+and after the Gazette had made known to her the promotion
+and gallantry of that distinguished officer, the Dieppe
+packet brought over to Miss Crawley at Brighton, a box
+containing presents, and a dutiful letter, from the
+Colonel her nephew.  In the box were a pair of French
+epaulets, a Cross of the Legion of Honour, and the hilt of a
+sword--relics from the field of battle:  and the letter
+described with a good deal of humour how the latter
+belonged to a commanding officer of the Guard, who having
+sworn that "the Guard died, but never surrendered,"
+was taken prisoner the next minute by a private soldier,
+who broke the Frenchman's sword with the butt of his
+musket, when Rawdon made himself master of the
+shattered weapon.  As for the cross and epaulets, they came
+from a Colonel of French cavalry, who had fallen under
+the aide-de-camp's arm in the battle:  and Rawdon Crawley
+did not know what better to do with the spoils than
+to send them to his kindest and most affectionate old
+friend.  Should he continue to write to her from Paris,
+whither the army was marching?  He might be able to
+give her interesting news from that capital, and of some
+of Miss Crawley's old friends of the emigration, to whom
+she had shown so much kindness during their distress.
+
+The spinster caused Briggs to write back to the Colonel
+a gracious and complimentary letter, encouraging
+him to continue his correspondence.  His first letter was
+so excessively lively and amusing that she should look
+with pleasure for its successors.--"Of course, I know,"
+she explained to,Miss Briggs, "that Rawdon could not
+write such a good letter any more than you could, my
+poor Briggs, and that it is that clever little wretch of a
+Rebecca, who dictates every word to him; but that is no
+reason why my nephew should not amuse me; and so I
+wish to let him understand that I am in high good
+humour."
+
+I wonder whether she knew that it was not only Becky
+who wrote the letters, but that Mrs. Rawdon actually
+took and sent home the trophies which she bought for a
+few francs, from one of the innumerable pedlars who
+immediately began to deal in relics of the war.  The
+novelist, who knows everything, knows this also.  Be this,
+however, as it may, Miss Crawley's gracious reply greatly
+encouraged our young friends, Rawdon and his lady, who
+hoped for the best from their aunt's evidently pacified
+humour:  and they took care to entertain her with many
+delightful letters from Paris, whither, as Rawdon said,
+they had the good luck to go in the track of the
+conquering army.
+
+To the rector's lady, who went off to tend her
+husband's broken collar-bone at the Rectory at Queen's
+Crawley, the spinster's communications were by no
+means so gracious.  Mrs. Bute, that brisk, managing,
+lively, imperious woman, had committed the most fatal of
+all errors with regard to her sister-in-law.  She had not
+merely oppressed her and her household--she had bored
+Miss Crawley; and if poor Miss Briggs had been a
+woman of any spirit, she might have been made happy
+by the commission which her principal gave her to write
+a letter to Mrs. Bute Crawley, saying that Miss Crawley's
+health was greatly improved since Mrs. Bute had left her,
+and begging the latter on no account to put herself to
+trouble, or quit her family for Miss Crawley's sake.  This
+triumph over a lady who had been very haughty and
+cruel in her behaviour to Miss Briggs, would have rejoiced
+most women; but the truth is, Briggs was a woman of no
+spirit at all, and the moment her enemy was discomfited,
+she began to feel compassion in her favour.
+
+"How silly I was," Mrs. Bute thought, and with
+reason, "ever to hint that I was coming, as I did, in that
+foolish letter when we sent Miss Crawley the guinea-
+fowls. I ought to have gone without a word to the poor
+dear doting old creature, and taken her out of the hands
+of that ninny Briggs, and that harpy of a femme de
+chambre.  Oh!  Bute, Bute, why did you break your collar-
+bone?"
+
+Why, indeed?  We have seen how Mrs. Bute, having the
+game in her hands, had really played her cards too well.
+She had ruled over Miss Crawley's household utterly and
+completely, to be utterly and completely routed when a
+favourable opportunity for rebellion came.  She and her
+household, however, considered that she had been the
+victim of horrible selfishness and treason, and that her
+sacrifices in Miss Crawley's behalf had met with the most
+savage ingratitude.  Rawdon's promotion, and the
+honourable mention made of his name in the Gazette, filled
+this good Christian lady also with alarm.  Would his aunt
+relent towards him now that he was a Lieutenant-Colonel
+and a C.B.? and would that odious Rebecca once more
+get into favour?  The Rector's wife wrote a sermon for her
+husband about the vanity of military glory and the
+prosperity of the wicked, which the worthy parson read in
+his best voice and without understanding one syllable of
+it.  He had Pitt Crawley for one of his auditors--Pitt, who
+had come with his two half-sisters to church, which.the
+old Baronet could now by no means be brought to
+frequent.
+
+Since the departure of Becky Sharp, that old wretch
+had given himself up entirely to his bad courses, to the
+great scandal of the county and the mute horror of his
+son.  The ribbons in Miss Horrocks's cap became more
+splendid than ever.  The polite families fled the hall and
+its owner in terror.  Sir Pitt went about tippling at his
+tenants' houses; and drank rum-and-water with the
+farmers at Mudbury and the neighbouring places on
+market-days.  He drove the family coach-and-four to
+Southampton with Miss Horrocks inside:  and the county people
+expected, every week, as his son did in speechless agony,
+that his marriage with her would be announced in the
+provincial paper.  It was indeed a rude burthen for Mr.
+Crawley to bear.  His eloquence was palsied at the
+missionary meetings, and other religious assemblies in the
+neighbourhood, where he had been in the habit of
+presiding, and of speaking for hours; for he felt, when he rose,
+that the audience said, "That is the son of the old
+reprobate Sir Pitt, who is very likely drinking at the public
+house at this very moment." And once when he was
+speaking of the benighted condition of the king of
+Timbuctoo, and the number of his wives who were likewise in
+darkness, some gipsy miscreant from the crowd asked,
+"How many is there at Queen's Crawley, Young
+Squaretoes?" to the surprise of the platform, and the ruin
+of Mr. Pitt's speech.  And the two daughters of the house of
+Queen's Crawley would have been allowed to run utterly
+wild (for Sir Pitt swore that no governess should ever
+enter into his doors again), had not Mr. Crawley, by
+threatening the old gentleman, forced the latter to send
+them to school.
+
+Meanwhile, as we have said, whatever individual
+differences there might be between them all, Miss Crawley's
+dear nephews and nieces were unanimous in loving her
+and sending her tokens of affection.  Thus Mrs. Bute sent
+guinea-fowls, and some remarkably fine cauliflowers, and
+a pretty purse or pincushion worked by her darling girls,
+who begged to keep a LITTLE place in the recollection of
+their dear aunt, while Mr. Pitt sent peaches and grapes
+and venison from the Hall.  The Southampton coach used
+to carry these tokens of affection to Miss Crawley at
+Brighton:  it used sometimes to convey Mr. Pitt thither
+too:  for his differences with Sir Pitt caused Mr. Crawley
+to absent himself a good deal from home now:  and
+besides, he had an attraction at Brighton in the person of
+the Lady Jane Sheepshanks, whose engagement to Mr.
+Crawley has been formerly mentioned in this history.
+Her Ladyship and her sisters lived at Brighton with their
+mamma, the Countess Southdown, that strong-minded
+woman so favourably known in the serious world.
+
+A few words ought to be said regarding her Ladyship
+and her noble family, who are bound by ties of present
+and future relationship to the house of Crawley.
+Respecting the chief of the Southdown family, Clement
+William, fourth Earl of Southdown, little need be told,
+except that his Lordship came into Parliament (as Lord
+Wolsey) under the auspices of Mr. Wilberforce, and for
+a time was a credit to his political sponsor, and decidedly
+a serious young man.  But words cannot describe the
+feelings of his admirable mother, when she learned, very
+shortly after her noble husband's demise, that her son
+was a member of several worldly clubs, had lost largely
+at play at Wattier's and the Cocoa Tree; that he had
+raised money on post-obits, and encumbered the family
+estate; that he drove four-in-hand, and patronised the
+ring; and that he actually had an opera-box, where he
+entertained the most dangerous bachelor company.  His
+name was only mentioned with groans in the dowager's
+circle.
+
+The Lady Emily was her brother's senior by many
+years; and took considerable rank in the serious world as
+author of some of the delightful tracts before mentioned,
+and of many hymns and spiritual pieces.  A mature
+spinster, and having but faint ideas of marriage, her love for
+the blacks occupied almost all her feelings.  It is to her, I
+believe, we owe that beautiful poem
+
+Lead us to some sunny isle,
+Yonder in the western deep;
+Where the skies for ever smile,
+And the blacks for ever weep, &c.
+
+She had correspondences with clerical gentlemen in
+most of our East and West India possessions; and was
+secretly attached to the Reverend Silas Hornblower, who
+was tattooed in the South Sea Islands.
+
+As for the Lady Jane, on whom, as it has been said, Mr.
+Pitt Crawley's affection had been placed, she was gentle,
+blushing, silent, and timid.  In spite of his falling away,
+she wept for her brother, and was quite ashamed of
+loving him still.  Even yet she used to send him little hurried
+smuggled notes, and pop them into the post in private.
+The one dreadful secret which weighed upon her life was,
+that she and the old housekeeper had been to pay
+Southdown a furtive visit at his chambers in the Albany; and
+found him--O the naughty dear abandoned wretch!--
+smoking a cigar with a bottle of Curacao before him.  She
+admired her sister, she adored her mother, she thought
+Mr. Crawley the most delightful and accomplished of
+men, after Southdown, that fallen angel:  and her mamma
+and sister, who were ladies of the most superior sort,
+managed everything for her, and regarded her with that
+amiable pity, of which your really superior woman always
+has such a share to give away.  Her mamma ordered her
+dresses, her books, her bonnets, and her ideas for her.
+She was made to take pony-riding, or piano-exercise, or
+any other sort of bodily medicament, according as my
+Lady Southdown saw meet; and her ladyship would have
+kept her daughter in pinafores up to her present age of
+six-and-twenty, but that they were thrown off when Lady
+Jane was presented to Queen Charlotte.
+
+When these ladies first came to their house at Brighton,
+it was to them alone that Mr. Crawley paid his personal
+visits, contenting himself by leaving a card at his aunt's
+house, and making a modest inquiry of Mr. Bowls or his
+assistant footman, with respect to the health of the
+invalid.  When he met Miss Briggs coming home from the
+library with a cargo of novels under her arm, Mr. Crawley
+blushed in a manner quite unusual to him, as he
+stepped forward and shook Miss Crawley's companion by
+the hand.  He introduced Miss Briggs to the lady with
+whom he happened to be walking, the Lady Jane
+Sheepshanks, saying, "Lady Jane, permit me to introduce to
+you my aunt's kindest friend and most affectionate
+companion, Miss Briggs, whom you know under another title,
+as authoress of the delightful 'Lyrics of the Heart,' of
+which you are so fond."  Lady Jane blushed too as she
+held out a kind little hand to Miss Briggs, and said
+something very civil and incoherent about mamma, and
+proposing to call on Miss Crawley, and being glad to be
+made known to the friends and relatives of Mr. Crawley;
+and with soft dove-like eyes saluted Miss Briggs as
+they separated, while Pitt Crawley treated her to a
+profound courtly bow, such as he had used to H.H. the
+Duchess of Pumpernickel, when he was attache at that court.
+
+The artful diplomatist and disciple of the Machiavellian
+Binkie!  It was he who had given Lady Jane that copy of
+poor Briggs's early poems, which he remembered to have
+seen at Queen's Crawley, with a dedication from the
+poetess to his father's late wife; and he brought the
+volume with him to Brighton, reading it in the Southampton
+coach and marking it with his own pencil, before he
+presented it to the gentle Lady Jane.
+
+It was he, too, who laid before Lady Southdown the
+great advantages which might occur from an intimacy
+between her family and Miss Crawley--advantages both
+worldly and spiritual, he said:  for Miss Crawley was now
+quite alone; the monstrous dissipation and alliance of his
+brother Rawdon had estranged her affections from that
+reprobate young man; the greedy tyranny and avarice of
+Mrs. Bute Crawley had caused the old lady to revolt
+against the exorbitant pretensions of that part of the
+family; and though he himself had held off all his life from
+cultivating Miss Crawley's friendship, with perhaps an
+improper pride, he thought now that every becoming
+means should be taken, both to save her soul from
+perdition, and to secure her fortune to himself as the head of
+the house of Crawley.
+
+The strong-minded Lady Southdown quite agreed in
+both proposals of her son-in-law, and was for converting
+Miss Crawley off-hand.  At her own home, both at
+Southdown and at Trottermore Castle, this tall and awful
+missionary of the truth rode about the country in her
+barouche with outriders, launched packets of tracts among
+the cottagers and tenants, and would order Gaffer Jones
+to be converted, as she would order Goody Hicks to take
+a James's powder, without appeal, resistance, or benefit of
+clergy.  My Lord Southdown, her late husband, an epileptic
+and simple-minded nobleman, was in the habit of
+approving of everything which his Matilda did and
+thought.  So that whatever changes her own belief might
+undergo (and it accommodated itself to a prodigious
+variety of opinion, taken from all sorts of doctors among
+the Dissenters) she had not the least scruple in ordering
+all her tenants and inferiors to follow and believe after
+her.  Thus whether she received the Reverend Saunders
+McNitre, the Scotch divine; or the Reverend Luke Waters,
+the mild Wesleyan; or the Reverend Giles Jowls, the
+illuminated Cobbler, who dubbed himself Reverend as
+Napoleon crowned himself Emperor--the household,
+children, tenantry of my Lady Southdown were expected to
+go down on their knees with her Ladyship, and say Amen
+to the prayers of either Doctor.  During these exercises old
+Southdown, on account of his invalid condition, was
+allowed to sit in his own room, and have negus and the
+paper read to him.  Lady Jane was the old Earl's favourite
+daughter, and tended him and loved him sincerely:  as for
+Lady Emily, the authoress of the "Washerwoman of
+Finchley Common," her denunciations of future punishment
+(at this period, for her opinions modified afterwards)
+were so awful that they used to frighten the timid
+old gentleman her father, and the physicians declared his
+fits always occurred after one of her Ladyship's sermons.
+
+"I will certainly call," said Lady Southdown then, in
+reply to the exhortation of her daughter's pretendu, Mr.
+Pitt Crawley--"Who is Miss Crawley's medical man?"
+
+Mr. Crawley mentioned the name of Mr. Creamer.
+
+"A most dangerous and ignorant practitioner, my dear
+Pitt.  I have providentially been the means of removing
+him from several houses:  though in one or two
+instances I did not arrive in time.  I could not save poor
+dear General Glanders, who was dying under the hands of
+that ignorant man--dying.  He rallied a little under the
+Podgers' pills which I administered to him; but alas!  it
+was too late.  His death was delightful, however; and his
+change was only for the better; Creamer, my dear Pitt,
+must leave your aunt."
+
+Pitt expressed his perfect acquiescence.  He, too, had
+been carried along by the energy of his noble kinswoman,
+and future mother-in-law.  He had been made to accept
+Saunders McNitre, Luke Waters, Giles Jowls, Podgers'
+Pills, Rodgers' Pills, Pokey's Elixir, every one of her
+Ladyship's remedies spiritual or temporal.  He never left
+her house without carrying respectfully away with him
+piles of her quack theology and medicine.  O, my dear
+brethren and fellow-sojourners in Vanity Fair, which
+among you does not know and suffer under such
+benevolent despots?  It is in vain you say to them, "Dear
+Madam, I took Podgers' specific at your orders last year,
+and believe in it.  Why, why am I to recant and accept the
+Rodgers' articles now?"  There is no help for it; the faithful proselytizer, if she cannot convince by argument,
+bursts into tears, and the refusant finds himself, at the
+end of the contest, taking down the bolus, and saying,
+"Well, well, Rodgers' be it."
+
+"And as for her spiritual state," continued the Lady,
+"that of course must be looked to immediately:  with
+Creamer about her, she may go off any day:  and in what
+a condition, my dear Pitt, in what a dreadful condition!
+I will send the Reverend Mr. Irons to her instantly.  Jane,
+write a line to the Reverend Bartholomew Irons, in the
+third person, and say that I desire the pleasure of his
+company this evening at tea at half-past six.  He is an
+awakening man; he ought to see Miss Crawley before she
+rests this night.  And Emily, my love, get ready a packet
+of books for Miss Crawley.  Put up 'A Voice from the
+Flames,' 'A Trumpet-warning to Jericho,' and the
+'Fleshpots Broken; or, the Converted Cannibal.' "
+
+"And the 'Washerwoman of Finchley Common,'
+Mamma," said Lady Emily.  "It is as well to begin
+soothingly at first."
+
+"Stop, my dear ladies," said Pitt, the diplomatist.
+"With every deference to the opinion of my beloved and
+respected Lady Southdown, I think it would be quite
+unadvisable to commence so early upon serious topics with
+Miss Crawley.  Remember her delicate condition, and how
+little, how very little accustomed she has hitherto been
+to considerations connected with her immortal welfare."
+
+"Can we then begin too early, Pitt?" said Lady Emily,
+rising with six little books already in her hand.
+
+"If you begin abruptly, you will frighten her altogether.
+I know my aunt's worldly nature so well as to be sure
+that any abrupt attempt at conversion will be the very
+worst means that can be employed for the welfare of that
+unfortunate lady.  You will only frighten and annoy her.
+She will very likely fling the books away, and refuse all
+acquaintance with the givers."
+
+"You are as worldly as Miss Crawley, Pitt," said Lady
+Emily, tossing out of the room, her books in her hand.
+
+"And I need not tell you, my dear Lady Southdown,"
+Pitt continued, in a low voice, and without heeding the
+interruption, "how fatal a little want of gentleness and
+caution may be to any hopes which we may entertain with
+regard to the worldly possessions of my aunt.  Remember
+she has seventy thousand pounds; think of her age, and
+her highly nervous and delicate condition; I know that she
+has destroyed the will which was made in my brother's
+(Colonel Crawley's) favour:  it is by soothing that
+wounded spirit that we must lead it into the right path,
+and not by frightening it; and so I think you will agree
+with me that--that--'
+
+"Of course, of course," Lady Southdown remarked.
+"Jane, my love, you need not send that note to Mr. Irons.
+If her health is such that discussions fatigue her, we will
+wait her amendment.  I will call upon Miss Crawley
+tomorrow."
+
+"And if I might suggest, my sweet lady," Pitt said in a
+bland tone, "it would be as well not to take our precious
+Emily, who is too enthusiastic; but rather that you should
+be accompanied by our sweet and dear Lady Jane."
+
+"Most certainly, Emily would ruin everything," Lady
+Southdown said; and this time agreed to forego her usual
+practice, which was, as we have said, before she bore
+down personally upon any individual whom she proposed
+to subjugate, to fire in a quantity of tracts upon the
+menaced party (as a charge of the French was always
+preceded by a furious cannonade).  Lady Southdown, we
+say, for the sake of the invalid's health, or for the sake
+of her soul's ultimate welfare, or for the sake of her
+money, agreed to temporise.
+
+The next day, the great Southdown female family
+carriage, with the Earl's coronet and the lozenge (upon
+which the three lambs trottant argent upon the field vert
+of the Southdowns, were quartered with sable on a bend
+or, three snuff-mulls gules, the cognizance of the house of
+Binkie), drove up in state to Miss Crawley's door, and
+the tall serious footman handed in to Mr. Bowls her
+Ladyship's cards for Miss Crawley, and one likewise for
+Miss Briggs.  By way of compromise, Lady Emily sent in a
+packet in the evening for the latter lady, containing
+copies of the "Washerwoman," and other mild and favourite
+tracts for Miss B.'s own perusal; and a few for the
+servants' hall, viz.:  "Crumbs from the Pantry," "The
+Frying Pan and the Fire," and "The Livery of Sin," of a
+much stronger kind.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+
+James Crawley's Pipe Is Put Out
+
+The amiable behaviour of Mr. Crawley, and Lady Jane's
+kind reception of her, highly flattered Miss Briggs, who
+was enabled to speak a good word for the latter, after
+the cards of the Southdown family had been presented to
+Miss Crawley.  A Countess's card left personally too for
+her, Briggs, was not a little pleasing to the poor friendless
+companion.  "What could Lady Southdown mean by
+leaving a card upon you, I wonder, Miss Briggs?" said
+the republican Miss Crawley; upon which the companion
+meekly said "that she hoped there could be no harm in a
+lady of rank taking notice of a poor gentlewoman," and
+she put away this card in her work-box amongst her most
+cherished personal treasures.  Furthermore, Miss Briggs
+explained how she had met Mr. Crawley walking with his
+cousin and long affianced bride the day before:  and she
+told how kind and gentle-looking the lady was, and what
+a plain, not to say common, dress she had, all the articles
+of which, from the bonnet down to the boots, she
+described and estimated with female accuracy.
+
+Miss Crawley allowed Briggs to prattle on without
+interrupting her too much.  As she got well, she was pining
+for society.  Mr. Creamer, her medical man, would not
+hear of her returning to her old haunts and dissipation in
+London.  The old spinster was too glad to find any
+companionship at Brighton, and not only were the cards
+acknowledged the very next day, but Pitt Crawley was
+graciously invited to come and see his aunt.  He came,
+bringing with him Lady Southdown and her daughter.  The
+dowager did not say a word about the state of Miss
+Crawley's soul; but talked with much discretion about the
+weather:  about the war and the downfall of the monster
+Bonaparte:  and above all, about doctors, quacks, and the
+particular merits of Dr. Podgers, whom she then
+patronised.
+
+During their interview Pitt Crawley made a great
+stroke, and one which showed that, had his diplomatic
+career not been blighted by early neglect, he might have
+risen to a high rank in his profession.  When the Countess
+Dowager of Southdown fell foul of the Corsican upstart,
+as the fashion was in those days, and showed that he was
+a monster stained with every conceivable crime, a coward
+and a tyrant not fit to live, one whose fall was predicted,
+&c., Pitt Crawley suddenly took up the cudgels in favour
+of the man of Destiny.  He described the First Consul as
+he saw him at Paris at the peace of Amiens; when he, Pitt
+Crawley, had the gratification of making the acquaintance
+of the great and good Mr. Fox, a statesman whom,
+however much he might differ with him, it was impossible not
+to admire fervently--a statesman who had always had
+the highest opinion of the Emperor Napoleon.  And he
+spoke in terms of the strongest indignation of the faithless
+conduct of the allies towards this dethroned monarch,
+who, after giving himself generously up to their mercy,
+was consigned to an ignoble and cruel banishment, while
+a bigoted Popish rabble was tyrannising over France in
+his stead.
+
+This orthodox horror of Romish superstition saved
+Pitt Crawley in Lady Southdown's opinion, whilst his
+admiration for Fox and Napoleon raised him immeasurably
+in Miss Crawley's eyes.  Her friendship with that
+defunct British statesman was mentioned when we first
+introduced her in this history.  A true Whig, Miss Crawley
+had been in opposition all through the war, and though, to
+be sure, the downfall of the Emperor did not very much
+agitate the old lady, or his ill-treatment tend to shorten
+her life or natural rest, yet Pitt spoke to her heart when
+he lauded both her idols; and by that single speech made
+immense progress in her favour.
+
+"And what do you think, my dear?" Miss Crawley said
+to the young lady, for whom she had taken a liking at
+first sight, as she always did for pretty and modest young
+people; though it must be owned her affections cooled as
+rapidly as they rose.
+
+Lady Jane blushed very much, and said "that she did
+not understand politics, which she left to wiser heads
+than hers; but though Mamma was, no doubt, correct,
+Mr. Crawley had spoken beautifully." And when the ladies
+were retiring at the conclusion of their visit, Miss Crawley
+hoped "Lady Southdown would be so kind as to send
+her Lady Jane sometimes, if she could be spared to come
+down and console a poor sick lonely old woman." This
+promise was graciously accorded, and they separated
+upon great terms of amity.
+
+"Don't let Lady Southdown come again, Pitt," said the
+old lady.  "She is stupid and pompous, like all your mother's
+family, whom I never could endure.  But bring that nice
+good-natured little Jane as often as ever you please." Pitt
+promised that he would do so.  He did not tell the Countess
+of Southdown what opinion his aunt had formed of
+her Ladyship, who, on the contrary, thought that she had
+made a most delightful and majestic impression on Miss
+Crawley.
+
+And so, nothing loth to comfort a sick lady, and
+perhaps not sorry in her heart to be freed now and again
+from the dreary spouting of the Reverend Bartholomew
+Irons, and the serious toadies who gathered round the
+footstool of the pompous Countess, her mamma, Lady
+Jane became a pretty constant visitor to Miss Crawley,
+accompanied her in her drives, and solaced many of her
+evenings.  She was so naturally good and soft, that even
+Firkin was not jealous of her; and the gentle Briggs
+thought her friend was less cruel to her when kind Lady
+Jane was by.  Towards her Ladyship Miss Crawley's
+manners were charming.  The old spinster told her a thousand
+anecdotes about her youth, talking to her in a very
+different strain from that in which she had been accustomed
+to converse with the godless little Rebecca; for there was
+that in Lady Jane's innocence which rendered light talking impertinence before her, and Miss Crawley was too
+much of a gentlewoman to offend such purity.  The young
+lady herself had never received kindness except from this
+old spinster, and her brother and father:  and she repaid
+Miss Crawley's engoument by artless sweetness and
+friendship.
+
+In the autumn evenings (when Rebecca was flaunting
+at Paris, the gayest among the gay conquerors there, and
+our Amelia, our dear wounded Amelia, ah! where was
+she?) Lady Jane would be sitting in Miss Crawley's
+drawing-room singing sweetly to her, in the twilight, her
+little simple songs and hymns, while the sun was setting
+and the sea was roaring on the beach.  The old spinster
+used to wake up when these ditties ceased, and ask for
+more.  As for Briggs, and the quantity of tears of happiness
+which she now shed as she pretended to knit, and
+looked out at the splendid ocean darkling before the
+windows, and the lamps of heaven beginning more brightly to
+shine--who, I say can measure the happiness and
+sensibility of Briggs?
+
+Pitt meanwhile in the dining-room, with a pamphlet on
+the Corn Laws or a Missionary Register by his side, took
+that kind of recreation which suits romantic and unromantic
+men after dinner.  He sipped Madeira:  built castles
+in the air:  thought himself a fine fellow:  felt himself much
+more in love with Jane than he had been any time these
+seven years, during which their liaison had lasted without
+the slightest impatience on Pitt's part--and slept a good
+deal.  When the time for coffee came, Mr. Bowls used to
+enter in a noisy manner, and summon Squire Pitt, who
+would be found in the dark very busy with his pamphlet.
+
+"I wish, my love, I could get somebody to play piquet
+with me," Miss Crawley said one night when this functionary
+made his appearance with the candles and the coffee.
+"Poor Briggs can no more play than an owl, she is so
+stupid" (the spinster always took an opportunity of abusing
+Briggs before the servants); "and I think I should
+sleep better if I had my game."
+
+At this Lady Jane blushed to the tips of her little ears,
+and down to the ends of her pretty fingers; and when Mr.
+Bowls had quitted the room, and the door was quite shut,
+she said:
+
+"Miss Crawley, I can play a little.  I used to--to play
+a little with poor dear papa."
+
+"Come and kiss me.  Come and kiss me this instant,
+you dear good little soul," cried Miss Crawley in an ecstasy:
+and in this picturesque and friendly occupation Mr. Pitt
+found the old lady and the young one, when he came
+upstairs with him pamphlet in his hand.  How she did blush
+all the evening, that poor Lady Jane!
+
+It must not be imagined that Mr. Pitt Crawley's artifices
+escaped the attention of his dear relations at the
+Rectory at Queen's Crawley.  Hampshire and Sussex lie
+very close together, and Mrs. Bute had friends in the
+latter county who took care to inform her of all, and a great
+deal more than all, that passed at Miss Crawley's house
+at Brighton.  Pitt was there more and more.  He did not
+come for months together to the Hall, where his abominable
+old father abandoned himself completely to rum-
+and-water, and the odious society of the Horrocks family.
+Pitt's success rendered the Rector's family furious, and
+Mrs. Bute regretted more (though she confessed less)
+than ever her monstrous fault in so insulting Miss Briggs,
+and in being so haughty and parsimonious to Bowls and
+Firkin, that she had not a single person left in Miss Crawley's household to give her information of what took place
+there.  "It was all Bute's collar-bone," she persisted in
+saying; "if that had not broke, I never would have left her.  I
+am a martyr to duty and to your odious unclerical habit
+of hunting, Bute."
+
+"Hunting; nonsense!  It was you that frightened her,
+Barbara," the divine interposed.  "You're a clever woman,
+but you've got a devil of a temper; and you're a screw
+with your money, Barbara."
+
+"You'd have been screwed in gaol, Bute, if I had not
+kept your money."
+
+"I know I would, my dear," said the Rector, good-naturedly.
+"You ARE a clever woman, but you manage too
+well, you know":  and the pious man consoled himself
+with a big glass of port.
+
+"What the deuce can she find in that spooney of a Pitt
+Crawley?" he continued.  "The fellow has not pluck enough
+to say Bo to a goose.  I remember when Rawdon, who is a
+man, and be hanged to him, used to flog him round the
+stables as if he was a whipping-top:  and Pitt would go
+howling home to his ma--ha, ha!  Why, either of my boys
+would whop him with one hand.  Jim says he's
+remembered at Oxford as Miss Crawley still--the spooney.
+
+"I say, Barbara," his reverence continued, after a pause.
+
+"What?" said Barbara, who was biting her nails, and
+drumming the table.
+
+"I say, why not send Jim over to Brighton to see if he
+can do anything with the old lady.  He's very near getting
+his degree, you know.  He's only been plucked twice--so
+was I--but he's had the advantages of Oxford and a
+university education.  He knows some of the best chaps there.
+He pulls stroke in the Boniface boat.  He's a handsome
+feller.  D-- it, ma'am, let's put him on the old woman,
+hey, and tell him to thrash Pitt if he says anything.
+Ha, ha, ha!
+
+"Jim might go down and see her, certainly," the housewife
+said; adding with a sigh, "If we could but get one of
+the girls into the house; but she could never endure them,
+because they are not pretty!"  Those unfortunate and
+well-educated women made themselves heard from the
+neighbouring drawing-room, where they were thrumming
+away, with hard fingers, an elaborate music-piece on the
+piano-forte, as their mother spoke; and indeed, they were at
+music, or at backboard, or at geography, or at history,
+the whole day long.  But what avail all these accomplishments,
+in Vanity Fair, to girls who are short, poor, plain,
+and have a bad complexion?  Mrs. Bute could think of
+nobody but the Curate to take one of them off her hands;
+and Jim coming in from the stable at this minute, through
+the parlour window, with a short pipe stuck in his
+oilskin cap, he and his father fell to talking about odds on
+the St. Leger, and the colloquy between the Rector and his
+wife ended.
+
+Mrs. Bute did not augur much good to the cause from
+the sending of her son James as an ambassador, and saw
+him depart in rather a despairing mood.  Nor did the
+young fellow himself, when told what his mission was to
+be, expect much pleasure or benefit from it; but he was
+consoled by the thought that possibly the old lady would
+give him some handsome remembrance of her, which
+would pay a few of his most pressing bills at the
+commencement of the ensuing Oxford term, and so took his
+place by the coach from Southampton, and was safely
+landed at Brighton on the same evening?  with his
+portmanteau, his favourite bull-dog Towzer, and an
+immense basket of farm and garden produce, from the dear
+Rectory folks to the dear Miss Crawley.  Considering it
+was too late to disturb the invalid lady on the first night
+of his arrival, he put up at an inn, and did not wait upon
+Miss Crawley until a late hour in the noon of next day.
+
+James Crawley, when his aunt had last beheld him, was
+a gawky lad, at that uncomfortable age when the voice
+varies between an unearthly treble and a preternatural
+bass; when the face not uncommonly blooms out with
+appearances for which Rowland's Kalydor is said to act as
+a cure; when boys are seen to shave furtively with their
+sister's scissors, and the sight of other young women
+produces intolerable sensations of terror in them; when the
+great hands and ankles protrude a long way from
+garments which have grown too tight for them; when their
+presence after dinner is at once frightful to the ladies, who
+are whispering in the twilight in the drawing-room, and
+inexpressibly odious to the gentlemen over the mahogany,
+who are restrained from freedom of intercourse and
+delightful interchange of wit by the presence of that gawky
+innocence; when, at the conclusion of the second glass,
+papa says, "Jack, my boy, go out and see if the evening
+holds up," and the youth, willing to be free, yet hurt at
+not being yet a man, quits the incomplete banquet.  James,
+then a hobbadehoy, was now become a young man,
+having had the benefits of a university education, and
+acquired the inestimable polish which is gained by living in a
+fast set at a small college, and contracting debts, and
+being rusticated, and being plucked.
+
+He was a handsome lad, however, when he came to
+present himself to his aunt at Brighton, and good looks
+were always a title to the fickle old lady's favour.  Nor did
+his blushes and awkwardness take away from it:  she
+was pleased with these healthy tokens of the young
+gentleman's ingenuousness.
+
+He said "he had come down for a couple of days to see
+a man of his college, and--and to pay my respects to you,
+Ma'am, and my father's and mother's, who hope you are
+well."
+
+Pitt was in the room with Miss Crawley when the lad
+was announced, and looked very blank when his name
+was mentioned.  The old lady had plenty of humour, and
+enjoyed her correct nephew's perplexity.  She asked after
+all the people at the Rectory with great interest; and said
+she was thinking of paying them a visit.  She praised the
+lad to his face, and said he was well-grown and very much
+improved, and that it was a pity his sisters had not some
+of his good looks; and finding, on inquiry, that he had
+taken up his quarters at an hotel, would not hear of his
+stopping there, but bade Mr. Bowls send for Mr. James
+Crawley's things instantly; "and hark ye, Bowls," she
+added, with great graciousness, "you will have the
+goodness to pay Mr. James's bill."
+
+She flung Pitt a look of arch triumph, which caused
+that diplomatist almost to choke with envy.  Much as he
+had ingratiated himself with his aunt, she had never yet
+invited him to stay under her roof, and here was a young
+whipper-snapper, who at first sight was made welcome
+there.
+
+"I beg your pardon, sir," says Bowls, advancing with a
+profound bow; "what otel, sir, shall Thomas fetch the
+luggage from?"
+
+"O, dam," said young James, starting up, as if in some
+alarm, "I'll go."
+
+"What!" said Miss Crawley.
+
+"The Tom Cribb's Arms," said James, blushing deeply.
+
+Miss Crawley burst out laughing at this title.  Mr.
+Bowls gave one abrupt guffaw, as a confidential servant
+of the family, but choked the rest of the volley; the
+diplomatist only smiled.
+
+"I--I didn't know any better," said James, looking down.
+"I've never been here before; it was the coachman told
+me." The young story-teller!  The fact is, that on the
+Southampton coach, the day previous, James Crawley had
+met the Tutbury Pet, who was coming to Brighton to
+make a match with the Rottingdean Fibber; and enchanted
+by the Pet's conversation, had passed the evening in
+company with that scientific man and his friends, at the inn
+in question.
+
+"I--I'd best go and settle the score," James continued.
+"Couldn't think of asking you, Ma'am," he added,
+generously.
+
+This delicacy made his aunt laugh the more.
+
+"Go and settle the bill, Bowls," she said, with a wave of
+her hand, "and bring it to me."
+
+Poor lady, she did not know what she had done!  "There
+--there's a little dawg," said James, looking frightfully
+guilty.  "I'd best go for him.  He bites footmen's calves."
+
+All the party cried out with laughing at this description;
+even Briggs and Lady Jane, who was sitting mute
+during the interview between Miss Crawley and her
+nephew:  and Bowls, without a word, quitted the room.
+
+Still, by way of punishing her elder nephew, Miss
+Crawley persisted in being gracious to the young Oxonian.
+There were no limits to her kindness or her compliments
+when they once began.  She told Pitt he might come to
+dinner, and insisted that James should accompany her
+in her drive, and paraded him solemnly up and down the
+cliff, on the back seat of the barouche.  During all this
+excursion, she condescended to say civil things to him:
+she quoted Italian and French poetry to the poor
+bewildered lad, and persisted that he was a fine scholar,
+and was perfectly sure he would gain a gold medal, and
+be a Senior Wrangler.
+
+"Haw, haw," laughed James, encouraged by these
+compliments; "Senior Wrangler, indeed; that's at the other
+shop."
+
+"What is the other shop, my dear child?" said the lady.
+
+"Senior Wranglers at Cambridge, not Oxford," said the
+scholar, with a knowing air; and would probably have
+been more confidential, but that suddenly there
+appeared on the cliff in a tax-cart, drawn by a bang-up
+pony, dressed in white flannel coats, with mother-of-pearl
+buttons, his friends the Tutbury Pet and the Rottingdean
+Fibber, with three other gentlemen of their acquaintance,
+who all saluted poor James there in the carriage as he
+sate.  This incident damped the ingenuous youth's spirits,
+and no word of yea or nay could he be induced to utter
+during the rest of the drive.
+
+On his return he found his room prepared, and his
+portmanteau ready, and might have remarked that Mr.
+Bowls's countenance, when the latter conducted him to
+his apartments, wore a look of gravity, wonder, and
+compassion.  But the thought of Mr. Bowls did not enter
+his head.  He was deploring the dreadful predicament
+in which he found himself, in a house full of old women,
+jabbering French and Italian, and talking poetry to him.
+"Reglarly up a tree, by jingo!" exclaimed the modest
+boy, who could not face the gentlest of her sex--not
+even Briggs--when she began to talk to him; whereas,
+put him at Iffley Lock, and he could out-slang the
+boldest bargeman.
+
+At dinner, James appeared choking in a white
+neckcloth, and had the honour of handing my Lady Jane
+downstairs, while Briggs and Mr. Crawley followed
+afterwards, conducting the old lady, with her apparatus of
+bundles, and shawls, and cushions.  Half of Briggs's time
+at dinner was spent in superintending the invalid's
+comfort, and in cutting up chicken for her fat spaniel.  James
+did not talk much, but he made a point of asking all
+the ladies to drink wine, and accepted Mr. Crawley's
+challenge, and consumed the greater part of a bottle of
+champagne which Mr. Bowls was ordered to produce in
+his honour.  The ladies having withdrawn, and the two
+cousins being left together, Pitt, the ex-diplomatist, be
+came very communicative and friendly.  He asked after
+James's career at college--what his prospects in life
+were--hoped heartily he would get on; and, in a word,
+was frank and amiable.  James's tongue unloosed with
+the port, and he told his cousin his life, his prospects,
+his debts, his troubles at the little-go, and his rows with
+the proctors, filling rapidly from the bottles before him,
+and flying from Port to Madeira with joyous activity.
+
+"The chief pleasure which my aunt has," said Mr.
+Crawley, filling his glass, "is that people should do as they
+like in her house.  This is Liberty Hall, James, and you
+can't do Miss Crawley a greater kindness than to do
+as you please, and ask for what you will.  I know you
+have all sneered at me in the country for being a Tory.
+Miss Crawley is liberal enough to suit any fancy.  She
+is a Republican in principle, and despises everything like
+rank or title."
+
+"Why are you going to marry an Earl's daughter?"
+said James.
+
+"My dear friend, remember it is not poor Lady Jane's
+fault that she is well born," Pitt replied, with a courtly
+air.  "She cannot help being a lady.  Besides, I am a
+Tory, you know."
+
+"Oh, as for that," said Jim, "there's nothing like old
+blood; no, dammy, nothing like it.  I'm none of your
+radicals.  I know what it is to be a gentleman, dammy.
+See the chaps in a boat-race; look at the fellers in a
+fight; aye, look at a dawg killing rats--which is it wins?
+the good-blooded ones.  Get some more port, Bowls, old
+boy, whilst I buzz this bottle-here.  What was I asaying?"
+
+"I think you were speaking of dogs killing rats," Pitt
+remarked mildly, handing his cousin the decanter to
+"buzz.~
+
+"Killing rats was I? Well, Pitt, are you a sporting
+man? Do you want to see a dawg as CAN kill a rat?
+If you do, come down with me to Tom Corduroy's, in
+Castle Street Mews, and I'll show you such a bull-terrier
+as--Pooh! gammon," cried James, bursting out laughing
+at his own absurdity--"YOU don't care about a dawg
+or rat; it's all nonsense.  I'm blest if I think you know
+the difference between a dog and a duck."
+
+"No; by the way," Pitt continued with increased blandness,
+"it was about blood you were talking, and the
+personal advantages which people derive from patrician
+birth.  Here's the fresh bottle."
+
+"Blood's the word," said James, gulping the ruby fluid
+down.  "Nothing like blood, sir, in hosses, dawgs, AND
+men.  Why, only last term, just before I was rusticated,
+that is, I mean just before I had the measles, ha, ha--there
+was me and Ringwood of Christchurch, Bob Ringwood,
+Lord Cinqbars' son, having our beer at the Bell at
+Blenheim, when the Banbury bargeman offered to fight either
+of us for a bowl of punch.  I couldn't.  My arm was in a
+sling; couldn't even take the drag down--a brute of a
+mare of mine had fell with me only two days before,
+out with the Abingdon, and I thought my arm was broke.
+Well, sir, I couldn't finish him, but Bob had his coat
+off at once--he stood up to the Banbury man for three
+minutes, and polished him off in four rounds easy.  Gad,
+how he did drop, sir, and what was it? Blood, sir, all
+blood."
+
+"You don't drink, James," the ex-attache continued.
+"In my time at Oxford, the men passed round the bottle
+a little quicker than you young fellows seem to do."
+
+"Come, come," said James, putting his hand to his
+nose and winking at his cousin with a pair of vinous
+eyes, "no jokes, old boy; no trying it on on me.  You
+want to trot me out, but it's no go.  In vino veritas, old
+boy.  Mars, Bacchus, Apollo virorum, hey? I wish my
+aunt would send down some of this to the governor; it's
+a precious good tap."
+
+"You had better ask her," Machiavel continued, "or
+make the best of your time now.  What says the bard?
+'Nunc vino pellite curas, Cras ingens iterabimus aequor,' "
+and the Bacchanalian, quoting the above with a House
+of Commons air, tossed off nearly a thimbleful of wine
+with an immense flourish of his glass.
+
+At the Rectory, when the bottle of port wine was
+opened after dinner, the young ladies had each a glass
+from a bottle of currant wine.  Mrs. Bute took one glass
+of port, honest James had a couple commonly, but as
+his father grew very sulky if he made further inroads
+on the bottle, the good lad generally refrained from
+trying for more, and subsided either into the currant wine,
+or to some private gin-and-water in the stables, which
+he enjoyed in the company of the coachman and his
+pipe.  At Oxford, the quantity of wine was unlimited,
+but the quality was inferior:  but when quantity and
+quality united as at his aunt's house, James showed that
+he could appreciate them indeed; and hardly needed any
+of his cousin's encouragement in draining off the
+second bottle supplied by Mr. Bowls.
+
+When the time for coffee came, however, and for a
+return to the ladies, of whom he stood in awe, the young
+gentleman's agreeable frankness left him, and he relapsed
+into his usual surly timidity; contenting himself by
+saying yes and no, by scowling at Lady Jane, and by
+upsetting one cup of coffee during the evening.
+
+If he did not speak he yawned in a pitiable manner,
+and his presence threw a damp upon the modest
+proceedings of the evening, for Miss Crawley and Lady Jane
+at their piquet, and Miss Briggs at her work, felt that
+his eyes were wildly fixed on them, and were uneasy
+under that maudlin look.
+
+"He seems a very silent, awkward, bashful lad," said
+Miss Crawley to Mr. Pitt.
+
+"He is more communicative in men's society than with
+ladies," Machiavel dryly replied:  perhaps rather
+disappointed that the port wine had not made Jim
+speak more.
+
+He had spent the early part of the next morning in
+writing home to his mother a most flourishing account
+of his reception by Miss Crawley.  But ah! he little knew
+what evils the day was bringing for him, and how short his
+reign of favour was destined to be.  A circumstance
+which Jim had forgotten--a trivial but fatal circumstance
+--had taken place at the Cribb's Arms on the night
+before he had come to his aunt's house.  It was no other
+than this--Jim, who was always of a generous disposition,
+and when in his cups especially hospitable, had in the
+course of the night treated the Tutbury champion and
+the Rottingdean man, and their friends, twice or thrice
+to the refreshment of gin-and-water--so that no less than
+eighteen glasses of that fluid at eightpence per glass were
+charged in Mr. James Crawley's bill.  It was not the
+amount of eightpences, but the quantity of gin which
+told fatally against poor James's character, when his
+aunt's butler, Mr. Bowls, went down at his mistress's
+request to pay the young gentleman's bill.  The landlord,
+fearing lest the account should be refused altogether,
+swore solemnly that the young gent had consumed
+personally every farthing's worth of the liquor:  and Bowls
+paid the bill finally, and showed it on his return home
+to Mrs. Firkin, who was shocked at the frightful
+prodigality of gin; and took the bill to Miss Briggs as
+accountant-general; who thought it her duty to mention
+the circumstance to her principal, Miss Crawley.
+
+Had he drunk a dozen bottles of claret, the old
+spinster could have pardoned him.  Mr. Fox and Mr.
+Sheridan drank claret.  Gentlemen drank claret.  But eighteen
+glasses of gin consumed among boxers in an ignoble
+pot-house--it was an odious crime and not to be
+pardoned readily.  Everything went against the lad:  he came
+home perfumed from the stables, whither he had been
+to pay his dog Towzer a visit--and whence he was
+going to take his friend out for an airing, when he met
+Miss Crawley and her wheezy Blenheim spaniel, which
+Towzer would have eaten up had not the Blenheim fled
+squealing to the protection of Miss Briggs, while the
+atrocious master of the bull-dog stood laughing at the
+horrible persecution.
+
+This day too the unlucky boy's modesty had likewise
+forsaken him.  He was lively and facetious at dinner.
+During the repast he levelled one or two jokes against Pitt
+Crawley:  he drank as much wine as upon the previous
+day; and going quite unsuspiciously to the drawing-room,
+began to entertain the ladies there with some choice
+Oxford stories.  He described the different pugilistic qualities
+of Molyneux and Dutch Sam, offered playfully to give
+Lady Jane the odds upon the Tutbury Pet against the
+Rottingdean man, or take them, as her Ladyship chose:
+and crowned the pleasantry by proposing to back
+himself against his cousin Pitt Crawley, either with or without
+the gloves.  "And that's a fair offer, my buck," he said,
+with a loud laugh, slapping Pitt on the shoulder, "and
+my father told me to make it too, and he'll go halves
+in the bet, ha, ha!" So saying, the engaging youth nodded
+knowingly at poor Miss Briggs, and pointed his thumb
+over his shoulder at Pitt Crawley in a jocular and
+exulting manner.
+
+Pitt was not pleased altogether perhaps, but still not
+unhappy in the main.  Poor Jim had his laugh out:  and
+staggered across the room with his aunt's candle, when
+the old lady moved to retire, and offered to salute her
+with the blandest tipsy smile:  and he took his own leave
+and went upstairs to his bedroom perfectly satisfied with
+himself, and with a pleased notion that his aunt's money
+would be left to him in preference to his father and all
+the rest of the family.
+
+Once up in the bedroom, one would have thought he
+could not make matters worse; and yet this unlucky boy
+did.  The moon was shining very pleasantly out on the
+sea, and Jim, attracted to the window by the romantic
+appearance of the ocean and the heavens, thought he
+would further enjoy them while smoking.  Nobody would
+smell the tobacco, he thought, if he cunningly opened
+the window and kept his head and pipe in the fresh air.
+This he did:  but being in an excited state, poor Jim
+had forgotten that his door was open all this time, so
+that the breeze blowing inwards and a fine thorough
+draught being established, the clouds of tobacco were
+carried downstairs, and arrived with quite undiminished
+fragrance to Miss Crawley and Miss Briggs.
+
+The pipe of tobacco finished the business:  and the
+Bute-Crawleys never knew how many thousand pounds
+it cost them.  Firkin rushed downstairs to Bowls who
+was reading out the "Fire and the Frying Pan" to his
+aide-de-camp in a loud and ghostly voice.  The dreadful
+secret was told to him by Firkin with so frightened a look,
+that for the first moment Mr. Bowls and his young man
+thought that robbers were in the house, the legs of whom
+had probably been discovered by the woman under Miss
+Crawley's bed.  When made aware of the fact, however
+--to rush upstairs at three steps at a time to enter
+the unconscious James's apartment, calling out, "Mr.
+James," in a voice stifled with alarm, and to cry, "For
+Gawd's sake, sir, stop that 'ere pipe," was the work of
+a minute with Mr. Bowls.  "O, Mr. James, what 'AVE you
+done!" he said in a voice of the deepest pathos, as he
+threw the implement out of the window.  "What 'ave you
+done, sir!  Missis can't abide 'em."
+
+"Missis needn't smoke," said James with a frantic
+misplaced laugh, and thought the whole matter an excellent
+joke.  But his feelings were very different in the morning,
+when Mr. Bowls's young man, who operated upon Mr.
+James's boots, and brought him his hot water to shave
+that beard which he was so anxiously expecting, handed
+a note in to Mr. James in bed, in the handwriting of
+Miss Briggs.
+
+"Dear sir," it said, "Miss Crawley has passed an
+exceedingly disturbed night, owing to the shocking manner
+in which the house has been polluted by tobacco; Miss
+Crawley bids me say she regrets that she is too unwell
+to see you before you go--and above all that she ever
+induced you to remove from the ale-house, where she is
+sure you will be much more comfortable during the rest
+of your stay at Brighton."
+
+And herewith honest James's career as a candidate for
+his aunt's favour ended.  He had in fact, and without
+knowing it, done what he menaced to do.  He had fought
+his cousin Pitt with the gloves.
+
+Where meanwhile was he who had been once first
+favourite for this race for money? Becky and Rawdon,
+as we have seen, were come together after Waterloo,
+and were passing the winter of 1815 at Paris in great
+splendour and gaiety.  Rebecca was a good economist,
+and the price poor Jos Sedley had paid for her two
+horses was in itself sufficient to keep their little
+establishment afloat for a year, at the least; there was no
+occasion to turn into money "my pistols, the same which
+I shot Captain Marker," or the gold dressing-case, or
+the cloak lined with sable.  Becky had it made into a
+pelisse for herself, in which she rode in the Bois de
+Boulogne to the admiration of all:  and you should have
+seen the scene between her and her delighted husband,
+whom she rejoined after the army had entered Cambray,
+and when she unsewed herself, and let out of her dress
+all those watches, knick-knacks, bank-notes, cheques, and
+valuables, which she had secreted in the wadding, previous
+to her meditated flight from Brussels!  Tufto was charmed,
+and Rawdon roared with delighted laughter, and swore
+that she was better than any play he ever saw, by Jove.
+And the way in which she jockeyed Jos, and which
+she described with infinite fun, carried up his delight to
+a pitch of quite insane enthusiasm.  He believed in his
+wife as much as the French soldiers in Napoleon.
+
+Her success in Paris was remarkable.  All the French
+ladies voted her charming.  She spoke their language
+admirably.  She adopted at once their grace, their liveliness,
+their manner.  Her husband was stupid certainly--all
+English are stupid--and, besides, a dull husband at Paris is
+always a point in a lady's favour.  He was the heir of the
+rich and spirituelle Miss Crawley, whose house had been
+open to so many of the French noblesse during the
+emigration.  They received the colonel's wife in their own
+hotels--"Why," wrote a great lady to Miss Crawley, who
+had bought her lace and trinkets at the Duchess's own
+price, and given her many a dinner during the pinching
+times after the Revolution--"Why does not our dear Miss
+come to her nephew and niece, and her attached friends
+in Paris? All the world raffoles of the charming Mistress
+and her espiegle beauty.  Yes, we see in her the grace,
+the charm, the wit of our dear friend Miss Crawley!
+The King took notice of her yesterday at the Tuileries,
+and we are all jealous of the attention which Monsieur
+pays her.  If you could have seen the spite of a certain
+stupid Miladi Bareacres (whose eagle-beak and toque
+and feat,hers may be seen peering over the heads of all
+assemblies) when Madame, the Duchess of Angouleme,
+the august daughter and companion of kings, desired
+especially to be presented to Mrs. Crawley, as your dear
+daughter and protegee, and thanked her in the name
+of France, for all your benevolence towards our
+unfortunates during their exile!  She is of all the societies,
+of all the balls--of the balls--yes--of the dances, no;
+and yet how interesting and pretty this fair creature looks
+surrounded by the homage of the men, and so soon to
+be a mother!  To hear her speak of you, her protectress,
+her mother, would bring tears to the eyes of ogres.  How
+she loves you! how we all love our admirable, our
+respectable Miss Crawley!"
+
+It is to be feared that this letter of the Parisian great
+lady did not by any means advance Mrs. Becky's interest
+with her admirable, her respectable, relative.  On the
+contrary, the fury of the old spinster was beyond bounds,
+when she found what was Rebecca's situation, and how
+audaciously she had made use of Miss Crawley's name,
+to get an entree into Parisian society.  Too much shaken
+in mind and body to compose a letter in the French
+language in reply to that of her correspondent, she
+dictated to Briggs a furious answer in her own native tongue,
+repudiating Mrs. Rawdon Crawley altogether, and warning
+the public to beware of her as a most artful and
+dangerous person.  But as Madame the Duchess of X--
+had only been twenty years in England, she did not
+understand a single word of the language, and contented
+herself by informing Mrs. Rawdon Crawley at their next
+meeting, that she had received a charming letter from
+that chere Mees, and that it was full of benevolent
+things for Mrs. Crawley, who began seriously to have
+hopes that the spinster would relent.
+
+Meanwhile, she was the gayest and most admired of
+Englishwomen:  and had a little European congress on her
+reception-night.  Prussians and Cossacks, Spanish and
+English--all the world was at Paris during this famous
+winter:  to have seen the stars and cordons in Rebecca's
+humble saloon would have made all Baker Street pale
+with envy.  Famous warriors rode by her carriage in
+the Bois, or crowded her modest little box at the Opera.
+Rawdon was in the highest spirits.  There were no duns
+in Paris as yet:  there were parties every day at Very's
+or Beauvilliers'; play was plentiful and his luck good.
+Tufto perhaps was sulky.  Mrs. Tufto had come over to
+Paris at her own invitation, and besides this
+contretemps, there were a score of generals now round
+Becky's chair, and she might take her choice of a dozen
+bouquets when she went to the play.  Lady Bareacres
+and the chiefs of the English society, stupid and
+irreproachable females, writhed with anguish at the
+success of the little upstart Becky, whose poisoned jokes
+quivered and rankled in their chaste breasts.  But she
+had all the men on her side.  She fought the women
+with indomitable courage, and they could not talk
+scandal in any tongue but their own.
+
+So in fetes, pleasures, and prosperity, the winter of
+1815-16 passed away with Mrs. Rawdon Crawley,
+who accommodated herself to polite life as if her
+ancestors had been people of fashion for centuries past--
+and who from her wit, talent, and energy, indeed merited
+a place of honour in Vanity Fair.  In the early spring of
+1816, Galignani's Journal contained the following
+announcement in an interesting corner of the paper:  "On
+the 26th of March--the Lady of Lieutenant-Colonel
+Crawley, of the Life Guards Green--of a son and heir."
+
+This event was copied into the London papers, out of
+which Miss Briggs read the statement to Miss Crawley,
+at breakfast, at Brighton.  The intelligence, expected as
+it might have been, caused a crisis in the affairs of
+the Crawley family.  The spinster's rage rose to its height,
+and sending instantly for Pitt, her nephew, and for the
+Lady Southdown, from Brunswick Square, she requested
+an immediate celebration of the marriage which had been
+so long pending between the two families.  And she
+announced that it was her intention to allow the young
+couple a thousand a year during her lifetime, at the
+expiration of which the bulk of her property would be
+settled upon her nephew and her dear niece, Lady Jane
+Crawley.  Waxy came down to ratify the deeds--Lord
+Southdown gave away his sister--she was married by a
+Bishop, and not by the Rev.  Bartholomew Irons--to the
+disappointment of the irregular prelate.
+
+When they were married, Pitt would have liked to
+take a hymeneal tour with his bride, as became people
+of their condition.  But the affection of the old lady
+towards Lady Jane had grown so strong, that she fairly
+owned she could not part with her favourite.  Pitt and
+his wife came therefore and lived with Miss Crawley:
+and (greatly to the annoyance of poor Pitt, who
+conceived himself a most injured character--being subject
+to the humours of his aunt on one side, and of his
+mother-in-law on the other) Lady Southdown, from her
+neighbouring house, reigned over the whole family--
+Pitt, Lady Jane, Miss Crawley, Briggs, Bowls, Firkin, and
+all.  She pitilessly dosed them with her tracts and her
+medicine, she dismissed Creamer, she installed Rodgers,
+and soon stripped Miss Crawley of even the semblance
+of authority.  The poor soul grew so timid that she
+actually left off bullying Briggs any more, and clung to
+her niece, more fond and terrified every day.  Peace to
+thee, kind and selfish, vain and generous old heathen!--
+We shall see thee no more.  Let us hope that Lady Jane
+supported her kindly, and led her with gentle hand out
+of the busy struggle of Vanity Fair.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+
+Widow and Mother
+
+The news of the great fights of Quatre Bras and Waterloo
+reached England at the same time.  The Gazette first
+published the result of the two battles; at which glorious
+intelligence all England thrilled with triumph and fear.
+Particulars then followed; and after the announcement of
+the victories came the list of the wounded and the slain.
+Who can tell the dread with which that catalogue was
+opened and read!  Fancy, at every village and homestead
+almost through the three kingdoms, the great news
+coming of the battles in Flanders, and the feelings of
+exultation and gratitude, bereavement and sickening dismay,
+when the lists of the regimental losses were gone through,
+and it became known whether the dear friend and relative
+had escaped or fallen.  Anybody who will take the trouble
+of looking back to a file of the newspapers of the
+time, must, even now, feel at second-hand this breathless
+pause of expectation.  The lists of casualties are carried
+on from day to day:  you stop in the midst as in a story
+which is to be continued in our next.  Think what the
+feelings must have been as those papers followed each
+other fresh from the press; and if such an interest could
+be felt in our country, and about a battle where but
+twenty thousand of our people were engaged, think of
+the condition of Europe for twenty years before, where
+people were fighting, not by thousands, but by millions;
+each one of whom as he struck his enemy wounded
+horribly some other innocent heart far away.
+
+The news which that famous Gazette brought to the
+Osbornes gave a dreadful shock to the family and its chief.
+The girls indulged unrestrained in their grief.  The
+gloom-stricken old father was still more borne down by his fate
+and sorrow.  He strove to think that a judgment was on
+the boy for his disobedience.  He dared not own that the
+severity of the sentence frightened him, and that its
+fulfilment had come too soon upon his curses.  Sometimes a
+shuddering terror struck him, as if he had been the author
+of the doom which he had called down on his son.  There
+was a chance before of reconciliation.  The boy's wife
+might have died; or he might have come back and said,
+Father I have sinned.  But there was no hope now.  He
+stood on the other side of the gulf impassable, haunting
+his parent with sad eyes.  He remembered them once
+before so in a fever, when every one thought the lad was
+dying, and he lay on his bed speechless, and gazing with a
+dreadful gloom.  Good God! how the father clung to the
+doctor then, and with what a sickening anxiety he
+followed him:  what a weight of grief was off his mind when,
+after the crisis of the fever, the lad recovered, and looked
+at his father once more with eyes that recognised him.
+But now there was no help or cure, or chance of
+reconcilement:  above all, there were no humble words to
+soothe vanity outraged and furious, or bring to its natural
+flow the poisoned, angry blood.  And it is hard to say
+which pang it was that tore the proud father's heart most
+keenly--that his son should have gone out of the reach
+of his forgiveness, or that the apology which his own
+pride expected should have escaped him.
+
+Whatever his sensations might have been, however, the
+stem old man would have no confidant.  He never
+mentioned his son's name to his daughters; but ordered the
+elder to place all the females of the establishment in
+mourning; and desired that the male servants should be
+similarly attired in deep black.  All parties and entertainments,
+of course, were to be put off.  No communications
+were made to his future son-in-law, whose marriage-day
+had been fixed:  but there was enough in Mr. Osborne's
+appearance to prevent Mr. Bullock from making any
+inquiries, or in any way pressing forward that ceremony.
+He and the ladies whispered about it under their voices
+in the drawing-room sometimes, whither the father never
+came.  He remained constantly in his own study; the
+whole front part of the house being closed until some
+time after the completion of the general mourning.
+
+About three weeks after the 18th of June, Mr.
+Osborne's acquaintance, Sir William Dobbin, called at Mr.
+Osborne's house in Russell Square, with a very pale and
+agitated face, and insisted upon seeing that gentleman.
+Ushered into his room, and after a few words, which
+neither the speaker nor the host understood, the former
+produced from an inclosure a letter sealed with a large
+red seal.  "My son, Major Dobbin," the Alderman said,
+with some hesitation, "despatched me a letter by an
+officer of the --th, who arrived in town to-day.  My son's
+letter contains one for you, Osborne." The Alderman
+placed the letter on the table, and Osborne stared at him
+for a moment or two in silence.  His looks frightened the
+ambassador, who after looking guiltily for a little time at
+the grief-stricken man, hurried away without another
+word.
+
+The letter was in George's well-known bold handwriting.
+It was that one which he had written before daybreak
+on the 16th of June, and just before he took leave
+of Amelia.  The great red seal was emblazoned with the
+sham coat of arms which Osborne had assumed from
+the Peerage, with "Pax in bello" for a motto; that of the
+ducal house with which the vain old man tried to fancy
+himself connected.  The hand that signed it would never
+hold pen or sword more.  The very seal that sealed it
+had been robbed from George's dead body as it lay on the
+field of battle.  The father knew nothing of this, but sat and
+looked at the letter in terrified vacancy.  He almost fell
+when he went to open it.
+
+Have you ever had a difference with a dear friend?
+How his letters, written in the period of love and
+confidence, sicken and rebuke you!  What a dreary mourning
+it is to dwell upon those vehement protests of dead
+affection!  What lying epitaphs they make over the corpse of
+love!  What dark, cruel comments upon Life and Vanities!
+Most of us have got or written drawers full of them.
+They are closet-skeletons which we keep and shun.
+Osborne trembled long before the letter from his dead
+son.
+
+The poor boy's letter did not say much.  He had been
+too proud to acknowledge the tenderness which his heart
+felt.  He only said, that on the eve of a great battle, he
+wished to bid his father farewell, and solemnly to implore
+his good offices for the wife--it might be for the child--
+whom he left behind him.  He owned with contrition that
+his irregularities and his extravagance had already wasted
+a large part of his mother's little fortune.  He thanked his
+father for his former generous conduct; and he promised
+him that if he fell on the field or survived it, he would
+act in a manner worthy of the name of George Osborne.
+
+His English habit, pride, awkwardness perhaps, had
+prevented him from saying more.  His father could not
+see the kiss George had placed on the superscription of
+his letter.  Mr. Osborne dropped it with the bitterest,
+deadliest pang of balked affection and revenge.  His son
+was still beloved and unforgiven.
+
+About two months afterwards, however, as the young
+ladies of the family went to church with their father, they
+remarked how he took a different seat from that which
+he usually occupied when he chose to attend divine
+worship; and that from his cushion opposite, he looked up at
+the wall over their heads.  This caused the young women
+likewise to gaze in the direction towards which their
+father's gloomy eyes pointed:  and they saw an elaborate
+monument upon the wall, where Britannia was represented
+weeping over an urn, and a broken sword and a
+couchant lion indicated that the piece of sculpture had
+been erected in honour of a deceased warrior.  The
+sculptors of those days had stocks of such funereal
+emblems in hand; as you may see still on the walls of St.
+Paul's, which are covered with hundreds of these
+braggart heathen allegories.  There was a constant demand
+for them during the first fifteen years of the present
+century.
+
+Under the memorial in question were emblazoned the
+well-known and pompous Osborne arms; and the
+inscription said, that the monument was "Sacred to the
+memory of George Osborne, Junior, Esq., late a Captain
+in his Majesty's --th regiment of foot, who fell on the
+18th of June, 1815, aged 28 years, while fighting for his
+king and country in the glorious victory of Waterloo.
+Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori."
+
+The sight of that stone agitated the nerves of the
+sisters so much, that Miss Maria was compelled to leave
+the church.  The congregation made way respectfully for
+those sobbing girls clothed in deep black, and pitied the
+stern old father seated opposite the memorial of the dead
+soldier.  "Will he forgive Mrs. George?" the girls said to
+themselves as soon as their ebullition of grief was over.
+Much conversation passed too among the acquaintances
+of the Osborne family, who knew of the rupture between
+the son and father caused by the former's marriage, as
+to the chance of a reconciliation with the young widow.
+There were bets among the gentlemen both about Russell
+Square and in the City.
+
+If the sisters had any anxiety regarding the possible
+recognition of Amelia as a daughter of the family, it
+was increased presently, and towards the end of the
+autumn, by their father's announcement that he was going
+abroad.  He did not say whither, but they knew at once
+that his steps would be turned towards Belgium, and were
+aware that George's widow was still in Brussels.  They
+had pretty accurate news indeed of poor Amelia from
+Lady Dobbin and her daughters.  Our honest Captain had
+been promoted in consequence of the death of the second
+Major of the regiment on the field; and the brave O'Dowd,
+who had distinguished himself greatly here as upon all
+occasions where he had a chance to show his coolness
+and valour, was a Colonel and Companion of the Bath.
+
+Very many of the brave --th, who had suffered
+severely upon both days of action, were still at Brussels
+in the autumn, recovering of their wounds.  The city was
+a vast military hospital for months after the great battles;
+and as men and officers began to rally from their hurts,
+the gardens and places of public resort swarmed with
+maimed warriors, old and young, who, just rescued out of
+death, fell to gambling, and gaiety, and love-making, as
+people of Vanity Fair will do.  Mr. Osborne found out
+some of the --th easily.  He knew their uniform quite
+well, and had been used to follow all the promotions and
+exchanges in the regiment, and loved to talk about it and
+its officers as if he had been one of the number.  On the
+day after his arrival at Brussels, and as he issued from
+his hotel, which faced the park, he saw a soldier in the
+well-known facings, reposing on a stone bench in the
+garden, and went and sate down trembling by the
+wounded convalescent man.
+
+"Were you in Captain Osborne's company?" he said,
+and added, after a pause, "he was my son, sir."
+
+The man was not of the Captain's company, but he
+lifted up his unwounded arm and touched-his cap sadly
+and respectfully to the haggard broken-spirited gentleman
+who questioned him.  "The whole army didn't contain
+a finer or a better officer," the soldier said.  "The Sergeant
+of the Captain's company (Captain Raymond had it
+now), was in town, though, and was just well of a shot
+in the shoulder.  His honour might see him if he liked,
+who could tell him anything he wanted to know about--
+about the --th's actions.  But his honour had seen
+Major Dobbin, no doubt, the brave Captain's great
+friend; and Mrs. Osborne, who was here too, and had
+been very bad, he heard everybody say.  They say she
+was out of her mind like for six weeks or more.  But your
+honour knows all about that--and asking your pardon"
+--the man added.
+
+Osborne put a guinea into the soldier's hand, and told
+him he should have another if he would bring the Sergeant
+to the Hotel du Parc; a promise which very soon
+brought the desired officer to Mr. Osborne's presence.
+And the first soldier went away; and after telling a
+comrade or two how Captain Osborne's father was arrived,
+and what a free-handed generous gentleman he was, they
+went and made good cheer with drink and feasting, as
+long as the guineas lasted which had come from the
+proud purse of the mourning old father.
+
+In the Sergeant's company, who was also just convalescent,
+Osborne made the journey of Waterloo and
+Quatre Bras, a journey which thousands of his countrymen
+were then taking.  He took the Sergeant with him in
+his carriage, and went through both fields under his
+guidance.  He saw the point of the road where the regiment
+marched into action on the 16th, and the slope down
+which they drove the French cavalry who were pressing
+on the retreating Belgians.  There was the spot where the
+noble Captain cut down the French officer who was
+grappling with the young Ensign for the colours, the
+Colour-Sergeants having been shot down.  Along this road
+they retreated on the next day, and here was the bank
+at which the regiment bivouacked under the rain of the
+night of the seventeenth.  Further on was the position
+which they took and held during the day, forming time
+after time to receive the charge of the enemy's horsemen
+and lying down under the shelter of the bank from the
+furious French cannonade.  And it was at this declivity
+when at evening the whole English line received the order
+to advance, as the enemy fell back after his last charge,
+that the Captain, hurraying and rushing down the hill
+waving his sword, received a shot and fell dead.  "It was
+Major Dobbin who took back the Captain's body to
+Brussels," the Sergeant said, in a low voice, "and had him
+buried, as your honour knows." The peasants and relic-
+hunters about the place were screaming round the pair,
+as the soldier told his story, offering for sale all sorts of
+mementoes of the fight, crosses, and epaulets, and
+shattered cuirasses, and eagles.
+
+Osborne gave a sumptuous reward to the Sergeant
+when he parted with him, after having visited the scenes
+of his son's last exploits.  His burial-place he had already
+seen.  Indeed, he had driven thither immediately after his
+arrival at Brussels.  George's body lay in the pretty burial-
+ground of Laeken, near the city; in which place, having
+once visited it on a party of pleasure, he had lightly
+expressed a wish to have his grave made.  And there the
+young officer was laid by his friend, in the unconsecrated
+corner of the garden, separated by a little hedge from
+the temples and towers and plantations of flowers and
+shrubs, under which the Roman Catholic dead repose.  It
+seemed a humiliation to old Osborne to think that his
+son, an English gentleman, a captain in the famous British
+army, should not be found worthy to lie in ground where
+mere foreigners were buried.  Which of us is there can
+tell how much vanity lurks in our warmest regard for
+others, and how selfish our love is? Old Osborne did
+not speculate much upon the mingled nature of his feelings,
+and how his instinct and selfishness were combating
+together.  He firmly believed that everything he did was
+right, that he ought on all occasions to have his own way
+--and like the sting of a wasp or serpent his hatred
+rushed out armed and poisonous against anything like
+opposition.  He was proud of his hatred as of everything
+else.  Always to be right, always to trample forward, and
+never to doubt, are not these the great qualities with
+which dullness takes the lead in the world?
+
+As after the drive to Waterloo, Mr. Osborne's carriage
+was nearing the gates of the city at sunset, they met
+another open barouche, in which were a couple of ladies
+and a gentleman, and by the side of which an officer was
+riding.  Osborne gave a start back, and the Sergeant,
+seated with him, cast a look of surprise at his neighbour,
+as he touched his cap to the officer, who mechanically
+returned his salute.  It was Amelia, with the lame young
+Ensign by her side, and opposite to her her faithful
+friend Mrs. O'Dowd.  It was Amelia, but how changed
+from the fresh and comely girl Osborne knew.  Her face
+was white and thin.  Her pretty brown hair was parted
+under a widow's cap--the poor child.  Her eyes were
+fixed, and looking nowhere.  They stared blank in the
+face of Osborne, as the carriages crossed each other, but
+she did not know him; nor did he recognise her, until
+looking up, he saw Dobbin riding by her:  and then he
+knew who it was.  He hated her.  He did not know how
+much until he saw her there.  When her carriage had
+passed on, he turned and stared at the Sergeant, with a
+curse and defiance in his eye cast at his companion, who
+could not help looking at him--as much as to say "How
+dare you look at me? Damn you!  I do hate her.  It is she
+who has tumbled my hopes and all my pride down."
+"Tell the scoundrel to drive on quick," he shouted with
+an oath, to the lackey on the box.  A minute afterwards, a
+horse came clattering over the pavement behind
+Osborne's carriage, and Dobbin rode up.  His thoughts
+had been elsewhere as the carriages passed each other,
+and it was not until he had ridden some paces forward,
+that he remembered it was Osborne who had just passed
+him.  Then he turned to examine if the sight of her father-
+in-law had made any impression on Amelia, but the poor
+girl did not know who had passed.  Then William, who
+daily used to accompany her in his drives, taking out his
+watch, made some excuse about an engagement which he
+suddenly recollected, and so rode off.  She did not
+remark that either:  but sate looking before her, over the
+homely landscape towards the woods in the distance, by
+which George marched away.
+
+Mr. Osborne, Mr. Osborne!" cried Dobbin, as he rode
+up and held out his hand.  Osborne made no motion to
+take it, but shouted out once more and with another curse
+to his servant to drive on.
+
+Dobbin laid his hand on the carriage side.  "I will see
+you, sir," he said.  "I have a message for you."
+
+"From that woman?" said Osborne, fiercely.
+
+"No," replied the other, "from your son"; at which
+Osborne fell back into the corner of his carriage, and
+Dobbin allowing it to pass on, rode close behind it, and
+so through the town until they reached Mr. Osborne's
+hotel, and without a word.  There he followed Osborne
+up to his apartments.  George had often been in the
+rooms; they were the lodgings which the Crawleys had
+occupied during their stay in Brussels.
+
+"Pray, have you any commands for me, Captain
+Dobbin, or, I beg your pardon, I should say MAJOR Dobbin,
+since better men than you are dead, and you step into
+their SHOES?" said Mr. Osborne, in that sarcastic tone
+which he sometimes was pleased to assume.
+
+"Better men ARE dead," Dobbin replied.  "I want to
+speak to you about one."
+
+"Make it short, sir," said the other with an oath,
+scowling at his visitor.
+
+"I am here as his closest friend," the Major resumed,
+"and the executor of his will.  He made it before he went
+into action.  Are you aware how small his means are,
+and of the straitened circumstances of his widow?"
+
+"I don't know his widow, sir," Osborne said.  "Let her
+go back to her father." But the gentleman whom he
+addressed was determined to remain in good temper, and
+went on without heeding the interruption.
+
+"Do you know, sir, Mrs. Osborne's condition? Her life
+and her reason almost have been shaken by the blow
+which has fallen on her.  It is very doubtful whether she
+will rally.  There is a chance left for her, however, and it
+is about this I came to speak to you.  She will be a mother
+soon.  Will you visit the parent's offence upon the child's
+head? or will you forgive the child for poor George's
+sake?"
+
+Osborne broke out into a rhapsody of self-praise and
+imprecations;--by the first, excusing himself to his own
+conscience for his conduct; by the second, exaggerating
+the undutifulness of George.  No father in all England
+could have behaved more generously to a son, who had
+rebelled against him wickedly.  He had died without even
+so much as confessing he was wrong.  Let him take
+the consequences of his undutifulness and folly.  As for
+himself, Mr. Osborne, he was a man of his word.  He
+had sworn never to speak to that woman, or to recognize
+her as his son's wife.  "And that's what you may tell
+her," he concluded with an oath; "and that's what I will
+stick to to the last day of my life."
+
+There was no hope from that quarter then.  The widow
+must live on her slender pittance, or on such aid as Jos
+could give her.  "I might tell her, and she would not heed
+it," thought Dobbin, sadly:  for the poor girl's thoughts
+were not here at all since her catastrophe, and, stupefied
+under the pressure of her sorrow, good and evil were
+alike indifferent to her.
+
+So, indeed, were even friendship and kindness.  She
+received them both uncomplainingly, and having accepted
+them, relapsed into her grief.
+
+Suppose some twelve months after the above conversation
+took place to have passed in the life of our poor
+Amelia.  She has spent the first portion of that time in a
+sorrow so profound and pitiable, that we who have been
+watching and describing some of the emotions of that
+weak and tender heart, must draw back in the presence
+of the cruel grief under which it is bleeding.  Tread silently
+round the hapless couch of the poor prostrate soul.
+Shut gently the door of the dark chamber wherein she
+suffers, as those kind people did who nursed her through
+the first months of her pain, and never left her until
+heaven had sent her consolation.  A day came--of
+almost terrified delight and wonder--when the poor
+widowed girl pressed a child upon her breast--a child, with
+the eyes of George who was gone--a little boy, as beautiful
+as a cherub.  What a miracle it was to hear its first
+cry!  How she laughed and wept over it--how love, and
+hope, and prayer woke again in her bosom as the baby
+nestled there.  She was safe.  The doctors who attended
+her, and had feared for her life or for her brain, had
+waited anxiously for this crisis before they could
+pronounce that either was secure.  It was worth the long
+months of doubt and dread which the persons who had
+constantly been with her had passed, to see her eyes once
+more beaming tenderly upon them.
+
+Our friend Dobbin was one of them.  It was he who
+brought her back to England and to her mother's house;
+when Mrs. O'Dowd, receiving a peremptory summons
+from her Colonel, had been forced to quit her patient.
+To see Dobbin holding the infant, and to hear Amelia's
+laugh of triumph as she watched him, would have done
+any man good who had a sense of humour.  William was
+the godfather of the child, and exerted his ingenuity in
+the purchase of cups, spoons, pap-boats, and corals for
+this little Christian.
+
+How his mother nursed him, and dressed him, and
+lived upon him; how she drove away all nurses, and
+would scarce allow any hand but her own to touch him;
+how she considered that the greatest favour she could
+confer upon his godfather, Major Dobbin, was to allow
+the Major occasionally to dandle him, need not be told
+here.  This child was her being.  Her existence was a
+maternal caress.  She enveloped the feeble and unconscious
+creature with love and worship.  It was her life
+which the baby drank in from her bosom.  Of nights, and
+when alone, she had stealthy and intense raptures of
+motherly love, such as God's marvellous care has awarded
+to the female instinct--joys how far higher and lower
+than reason--blind beautiful devotions which only women's
+hearts know.  It was William Dobbin's task to muse
+upon these movements of Amelia's, and to watch her
+heart; and if his love made him divine almost all the feelings
+which agitated it, alas! he could see with a fatal
+perspicuity that there was no place there for him.  And
+so, gently, he bore his fate, knowing it, and content to
+bear it.
+
+I suppose Amelia's father and mother saw through the
+intentions of the Major, and were not ill-disposed to
+encourage him; for Dobbin visited their house daily, and
+stayed for hours with them, or with Amelia, or with the
+honest landlord, Mr. Clapp, and his family.  He brought,
+on one pretext or another, presents to everybody, and
+almost every day; and went, with the landlord's little girl,
+who was rather a favourite with Amelia, by the name of
+Major Sugarplums.  It was this little child who commonly
+acted as mistress of the ceremonies to introduce him
+to Mrs. Osborne.  She laughed one day when Major Sugarplums'
+cab drove up to Fulham, and he descended from
+it, bringing out a wooden horse, a drum, a trumpet, and
+other warlike toys, for little Georgy, who was scarcely
+six months old, and for whom the articles in question were
+entirely premature.
+
+The child was asleep.  "Hush," said Amelia, annoyed,
+perhaps, at the creaking of the Major's boots; and she
+held out her hand; smiling because William could not
+take it until he had rid himself of his cargo of toys.  "Go
+downstairs, little Mary," said he presently to the child,
+"I want to speak to Mrs. Osborne." She looked up rather
+astonished, and laid down the infant on its bed.
+
+"I am come to say good-bye, Amelia," said he, taking
+her slender little white hand gently.
+
+"Good-bye? and where are you going?" she said, with
+a smile.
+
+"Send the letters to the agents," he said; "they will
+forward them; for you will write to me, won't you? I
+shall be away a long time."
+
+"I'll write to you about Georgy," she said.  "Dear' William,
+how good you have been to him and to me.  Look at
+him.  Isn't he like an angel?"
+
+The little pink hands of the child closed mechanically
+round the honest soldier's finger, and Amelia looked up
+in his face with bright maternal pleasure.  The cruellest
+looks could not have wounded him more than that glance
+of hopeless kindness.  He bent over the child and mother.
+He could not speak for a moment.  And it was only with
+all his strength that he could force himself to say a God
+bless you.  "God bless you," said Amelia, and held up her
+face and kissed him.
+
+"Hush!  Don't wake Georgy!" she added, as William
+Dobbin went to the door with heavy steps.  She did not
+hear the noise of his cab-wheels as he drove away:  she
+was looking at the child, who was laughing in his sleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+
+How to Live Well on Nothing a Year
+
+I suppose there is no man in this Vanity Fair of ours so
+little observant as not to think sometimes about the
+worldly affairs of his acquaintances, or so extremely
+charitable as not to wonder how his neighbour Jones,
+or his neighbour Smith, can make both ends meet at the
+end of the year.  With the utmost regard for the family,
+for instance (for I dine with them twice or thrice in the
+season), I cannot but own that the appearance of the
+Jenkinses in the park, in the large barouche with the
+grenadier-footmen, will surprise and mystify me to my
+dying day:  for though I know the equipage is only
+jobbed, and all the Jenkins people are on board wages,
+yet those three men and the carriage must represent an
+expense of six hundred a year at the very least--and then
+there are the splendid dinners, the two boys at Eton, the
+prize governess and masters for the girls, the trip
+abroad, or to Eastbourne or Worthing, in the autumn,
+the annual ball with a supper from Gunter's (who, by the
+way, supplies most of the first-rate dinners which J.  gives,
+as I know very well, having been invited to one of them to
+fill a vacant place, when I saw at once that these repasts are
+very superior to the common run of entertainments for which the
+humbler sort of J.'s acquaintances get cards)--who, I say, with the
+most good-natured feelings in the world, can help wondering how
+the Jenkinses make out matters? What is Jenkins? We all know
+--Commissioner of the Tape and Sealing Wax Office, with
+1200 pounds a year for a salary.  Had his wife a private
+fortune? Pooh!--Miss Flint--one of eleven children of a
+small squire in Buckinghamshire.  All she ever gets from
+her family is a turkey at Christmas, in exchange for which
+she has to board two or three of her sisters in the off
+season, and lodge and feed her brothers when they
+come to town.  How does Jenkins balance his income? I
+say, as every friend of his must say, How is it that he
+has not been outlawed long since, and that he ever came
+back (as he did to the surprise of everybody) last year
+from Boulogne?
+
+"I" is here introduced to personify the world in
+general--the Mrs. Grundy of each respected reader's private
+circle--every one of whom can point to some families
+of his acquaintance who live nobody knows how.  Many
+a glass of wine have we all of us drunk, I have very
+little doubt, hob-and-nobbing with the hospitable giver
+and wondering how the deuce he paid for it.
+
+Some three or four years after his stay in Paris, when
+Rawdon Crawley and his wife were established in a very
+small comfortable house in Curzon Street, May Fair, there
+was scarcely one of the numerous friends whom they
+entertained at dinner that did not ask the above question
+regarding them.  The novelist, it has been said before,
+knows everything, and as I am in a situation to be
+able to tell the public how Crawley and his wife lived
+without any income, may I entreat the public newspapers
+which are in the habit of extracting portions of the
+various periodical works now published not to reprint
+the following exact narrative and calculations--of which
+I ought, as the discoverer (and at some expense, too),
+to have the benefit? My son, I would say, were I blessed
+with a child--you may by deep inquiry and constant
+intercourse with him learn how a man lives comfortably
+on nothing a year.  But it is best not to be intimate with
+gentlemen of this profession and to take the calculations
+at second hand, as you do logarithms, for to work
+them yourself, depend upon it, will cost you something
+considerable.
+
+On nothing per annum then, and during a course of
+some two or three years, of which we can afford to
+give but a very brief history, Crawley and his wife lived
+very happily and comfortably at Paris.  It was in this
+period that he quitted the Guards and sold out of the
+army.  When we find him again, his mustachios and the
+title of Colonel on his card are the only relics of his
+military profession.
+
+It has been mentioned that Rebecca, soon after her
+arrival in Paris, took a very smart and leading position in
+the society of that capital, and was welcomed at some
+of the most distinguished houses of the restored French
+nobility.  The English men of fashion in Paris courted her,
+too, to the disgust of the ladies their wives, who could
+not bear the parvenue.  For some months the salons
+of the Faubourg St.  Germain, in which her place was
+secured, and the splendours of the new Court, where she
+was received with much distinction, delighted and
+perhaps a little intoxicated Mrs. Crawley, who may have
+been disposed during this period of elation to slight the
+people--honest young military men mostly--who formed
+her husband's chief society.
+
+But the Colonel yawned sadly among the Duchesses
+and great ladies of the Court.  The old women who
+played ecarte made such a noise about a five-franc
+piece that it was not worth Colonel Crawley's while to
+sit down at a card-table.  The wit of their conversation he
+could not appreciate, being ignorant of their language.
+And what good could his wife get, he urged, by making
+curtsies every night to a whole circle of Princesses? He
+left Rebecca presently to frequent these parties alone,
+resuming his own simple pursuits and amusements
+amongst the amiable friends of his own choice.
+
+The truth is, when we say of a gentleman that he
+lives elegantly on nothing a year, we use the word
+"nothing" to signify something unknown; meaning, simply,
+that we don't know how the gentleman in question defrays
+the expenses of his establishment.  Now, our friend the
+Colonel had a great aptitude for all games of chance:
+and exercising himself, as he continually did, with the
+cards, the dice-box, or the cue, it is natural to suppose
+that he attained a much greater skill in the use of these
+articles than men can possess who only occasionally
+handle them.  To use a cue at billiards well is like using a
+pencil, or a German flute, or a small-sword--you cannot
+master any one of these implements at first, and it is only
+by repeated study and perseverance, joined to a natural
+taste, that a man can excel in the handling of either.
+Now Crawley, from being only a brilliant amateur, had
+grown to be a consummate master of billiards.  Like a
+great General, his genius used to rise with the danger,
+and when the luck had been unfavourable to him for a
+whole game, and the bets were consequently against him,
+he would, with consummate skill and boldness, make
+some prodigious hits which would restore the battle, and
+come in a victor at the end, to the astonishment of
+everybody--of everybody, that is, who was a stranger to his
+play.  Those who were accustomed to see it were cautious
+how they staked their money against a man of such
+sudden resources and brilliant and overpowering skill.
+
+At games of cards he was equally skilful; for though
+he would constantly lose money at the commencement
+of an evening, playing so carelessly and making such
+blunders, that newcomers were often inclined to think
+meanly of his talent; yet when roused to action and
+awakened to caution by repeated small losses, it was
+remarked that Crawley's play became quite different, and
+that he was pretty sure of beating his enemy thoroughly
+before the night was over.  Indeed, very few men could
+say that they ever had the better of him.
+His successes were so repeated that no wonder the
+envious and the vanquished spoke sometimes with
+bitterness regarding them.  And as the French say of the
+Duke of Wellington, who never suffered a defeat, that
+only an astonishing series of lucky accidents enabled him
+to be an invariable winner; yet even they allow that he
+cheated at Waterloo, and was enabled to win the last
+great trick:  so it was hinted at headquarters in England
+that some foul play must have taken place in order to
+account for the continuous successes of Colonel Crawley.
+
+Though Frascati's and the Salon were open at that time
+in Paris, the mania for play was so widely spread that
+the public gambling-rooms did not suffice for the general
+ardour, and gambling went on in private houses as
+much as if there had been no public means for gratifying
+the passion.  At Crawley's charming little reunions of an
+evening this fatal amusement commonly was practised--
+much to good-natured little Mrs. Crawley's annoyance.
+She spoke about her husband's passion for dice with the
+deepest grief; she bewailed it to everybody who came to
+her house.  She besought the young fellows never, never
+to touch a box; and when young Green, of the Rifles,
+lost a very considerable sum of money, Rebecca passed a
+whole night in tears, as the servant told the unfortunate
+young gentleman, and actually went on her knees to her
+husband to beseech him to remit the debt, and burn the
+acknowledgement.  How could he? He had lost just as
+much himself to Blackstone of the Hussars, and Count
+Punter of the Hanoverian Cavalry.  Green might have any
+decent time; but pay?--of course he must pay; to talk
+of burning IOU's was child's play.
+
+Other officers, chiefly young--for the young fellows
+gathered round Mrs. Crawley--came from her parties
+with long faces, having dropped more or less money at
+her fatal card-tables.  Her house began to have an
+unfortunate reputation.  The old hands warned the less
+experienced of their danger.  Colonel O'Dowd, of the --th
+regiment, one of those occupying in Paris, warned
+Lieutenant Spooney of that corps.  A loud and violent fracas
+took place between the infantry Colonel and his lady,
+who were dining at the Cafe de Paris, and Colonel and
+Mrs. Crawley; who were also taking their meal there.
+The ladies engaged on both sides.  Mrs. O'Dowd snapped
+her fingers in Mrs. Crawley's face and called her
+husband "no betther than a black-leg." Colonel Crawley
+challenged Colonel O'Dowd, C.B.  The Commander-in-Chief
+hearing of the dispute sent for Colonel Crawley, who was
+getting ready the same pistols "which he shot Captain
+Marker," and had such a conversation with him that no
+duel took place.  If Rebecca had not gone on her knees
+to General Tufto, Crawley would have been sent back
+to England; and he did not play, except with civilians,
+for some weeks after.
+
+But, in spite of Rawdon's undoubted skill and constant
+successes, it became evident to Rebecca, considering
+these things, that their position was but a precarious
+one, and that, even although they paid scarcely anybody,
+their little capital would end one day by dwindling into
+zero.  "Gambling," she would say, "dear, is good to help
+your income, but not as an income itself.  Some day
+people may be tired of play, and then where are we?"
+Rawdon acquiesced in the justice of her opinion; and in
+truth he had remarked that after a few nights of his
+little suppers, &c., gentlemen were tired of play with him,
+and, in spite of Rebecca's charms, did not present
+themselves very eagerly.
+
+Easy and pleasant as their life at Paris was, it was
+after all only an idle dalliance and amiable trifling; and
+Rebecca saw that she must push Rawdon's fortune in
+their own country.  She must get him a place or appointment
+at home or in the colonies, and she determined to
+make a move upon England as soon as the way could be
+cleared for her.  As a first step she had made Crawley
+sell out of the Guards and go on half-pay.  His function
+as aide-de-camp to General Tufto had ceased previously.
+Rebecca laughed in all companies at that officer, at his
+toupee (which he mounted on coming to Paris), at his
+waistband, at his false teeth, at his pretensions to be a
+lady-killer above all, and his absurd vanity in fancying
+every woman whom he came near was in love with
+him.  It was to Mrs. Brent, the beetle-browed wife of
+Mr. Commissary Brent, to whom the general transferred
+his attentions now--his bouquets, his dinners at the
+restaurateurs', his opera-boxes, and his knick-knacks.  Poor
+Mrs. Tufto was no more happy than before, and had still
+to pass long evenings alone with her daughters, knowing
+that her General was gone off scented and curled to
+stand behind Mrs. Brent's chair at the play.  Becky had a
+dozen admirers in his place, to be sure, and could cut
+her rival to pieces with her wit.  But, as we have said, she.
+was growing tired of this idle social life:  opera-boxes and
+restaurateur dinners palled upon her:  nosegays could not
+be laid by as a provision for future years:  and she could
+not live upon knick-knacks, laced handkerchiefs, and kid
+gloves.  She felt the frivolity of pleasure and longed for
+more substantial benefits.
+
+At this juncture news arrived which was spread among
+the many creditors of the Colonel at Paris, and which
+caused them great satisfaction.  Miss Crawley, the rich
+aunt from whom he expected his immense inheritance,
+was dying; the Colonel must haste to her bedside.  Mrs.
+Crawley and her child would remain behind until he
+came to reclaim them.  He departed for Calais, and having
+reached that place in safety, it might have been
+supposed that he went to Dover; but instead he took the
+diligence to Dunkirk, and thence travelled to Brussels,
+for which place he had a former predilection.  The fact
+is, he owed more money at London than at Paris; and he
+preferred the quiet little Belgian city to either of the more
+noisy capitals.
+
+Her aunt was dead.  Mrs. Crawley ordered the most
+intense mourning for herself and little Rawdon.  The Colonel
+was busy arranging the affairs of the inheritance.  They
+could take the premier now, instead of the little entresol
+of the hotel which they occupied.  Mrs. Crawley and the
+landlord had a consultation about the new hangings,
+an amicable wrangle about the carpets, and a final adjustment
+of everything except the bill.  She went off in one
+of his carriages; her French bonne with her; the child
+by her side; the admirable landlord and landlady smiling
+farewell to her from the gate.  General Tufto was furious
+when he heard she was gone, and Mrs. Brent furious
+with him for being furious; Lieutenant Spooney was cut
+to the heart; and the landlord got ready his best apartments
+previous to the return of the fascinating little
+woman and her husband.  He serred the trunks which
+she left in his charge with the greatest care.  They had been
+especially recommended to him by Madame Crawley.  They
+were not, however, found to be particularly valuable
+when opened some time after.
+
+But before she went to join her husband in the Belgic
+capital, Mrs. Crawley made an expedition into England,
+leaving behind her her little son upon the continent,
+under the care of her French maid.
+
+The parting between Rebecca and the little Rawdon did
+not cause either party much pain.  She had not, to say
+truth, seen much of the young gentleman since his birth.
+After the amiable fashion of French mothers, she had
+placed him out at nurse in a village in the neighbourhood
+of Paris, where little Rawdon passed the first months of
+his life, not unhappily, with a numerous family of
+foster-brothers in wooden shoes.  His father would ride over
+many a time to see him here, and the elder Rawdon's
+paternal heart glowed to see him rosy and dirty,
+shouting lustily, and happy in the making of mud-pies
+under the superintendence of the gardener's wife, his
+nurse.
+
+Rebecca did not care much to go and see the son
+and heir.  Once he spoiled a new dove-coloured pelisse
+of hers.  He preferred his nurse's caresses to his mamma's,
+and when finally he quitted that jolly nurse and almost
+parent, he cried loudly for hours.  He was only consoled
+by his mother's promise that he should return to his nurse
+the next day; indeed the nurse herself, who probably
+would have been pained at the parting too, was told that
+the child would immediately be restored to her, and for
+some time awaited quite anxiously his return.
+
+In fact, our friends may be said to have been among
+the first of that brood of hardy English adventurers who
+have subsequently invaded the Continent and swindled
+in all the capitals of Europe.  The respect in those happy
+days of 1817-18 was very great for the wealth and
+honour of Britons.  They had not then learned, as I am
+told, to haggle for bargains with the pertinacity which
+now distinguishes them.  The great cities of Europe had
+not been as yet open to the enterprise of our rascals.
+And whereas there is now hardly a town of France or
+Italy in which you shall not see some noble countryman
+of our own, with that happy swagger and insolence
+of demeanour which we carry everywhere, swindling
+inn-landlords, passing fictitious cheques upon credulous
+bankers, robbing coach-makers of their carriages, goldsmiths
+of their trinkets, easy travellers of their money at cards,
+even public libraries of their books--thirty years ago you
+needed but to be a Milor Anglais, travelling in a private
+carriage, and credit was at your hand wherever you chose
+to seek it, and gentlemen, instead of cheating, were
+cheated.  It was not for some weeks after the Crawleys'
+departure that the landlord of the hotel which they
+occupied during their residence at Paris found out the losses
+which he had sustained:  not until Madame Marabou, the
+milliner, made repeated visits with her little bill for
+articles supplied to Madame Crawley; not until Monsieur
+Didelot from Boule d'Or in the Palais Royal had asked
+half a dozen times whether cette charmante Miladi who
+had bought watches and bracelets of him was de retour.
+It is a fact that even the poor gardener's wife, who
+had nursed madame's child, was never paid after the
+first six months for that supply of the milk of human
+kindness with which she had furnished the lusty and
+healthy little Rawdon.  No, not even the nurse was paid
+--the Crawleys were in too great a hurry to remember
+their trifling debt to her.  As for the landlord of the hotel,
+his curses against the English nation were violent for the
+rest of his natural life.  He asked all travellers whether
+they knew a certain Colonel Lor Crawley--avec sa
+femme une petite dame, tres spirituelle.  "Ah,
+Monsieur!" he would add--"ils m'ont affreusement vole." It
+was melancholy to hear his accents as he spoke of that
+catastrophe.
+
+Rebecca's object in her journey to London was to
+effect a kind of compromise with her husband's numerous
+creditors, and by offering them a dividend of ninepence
+or a shilling in the pound, to secure a return for him into
+his own country.  It does not become us to trace the steps
+which she took in the conduct of this most difficult
+negotiation; but, having shown them to their satisfaction
+that the sum which she was empowered to offer was all
+her husband's available capital, and having convinced
+them that Colonel Crawley would prefer a perpetual
+retirement on the Continent to a residence in this country
+with his debts unsettled; having proved to them that there
+was no possibility of money accruing to him from other
+quarters, and no earthly chance of their getting a larger
+dividend than that which she was empowered to offer,
+she brought the Colonel's creditors unanimously to
+accept her proposals, and purchased with fifteen hundred
+pounds of ready money more than ten times that amount
+of debts.
+
+Mrs. Crawley employed no lawyer in the transaction.
+The matter was so simple, to have or to leave, as she
+justly observed, that she made the lawyers of the
+creditors themselves do the business.  And Mr. Lewis
+representing Mr. Davids, of Red Lion Square, and Mr. Moss
+acting for Mr. Manasseh of Cursitor Street (chief
+creditors of the Colonel's), complimented his lady upon the
+brilliant way in which she did business, and declared
+that there was no professional man who could beat her.
+
+Rebecca received their congratulations with perfect
+modesty; ordered a bottle of sherry and a bread cake
+to the little dingy lodgings where she dwelt, while
+conducting the business, to treat the enemy's lawyers:
+shook hands with them at parting, in excellent good
+humour, and returned straightway to the Continent, to
+rejoin her husband and son and acquaint the former
+with the glad news of his entire liberation.  As for the
+latter, he had been considerably neglected during his
+mother's absence by Mademoiselle Genevieve, her French
+maid; for that young woman, contracting an attachment
+for a soldier in the garrison of Calais, forgot her charge
+in the society of this militaire, and little Rawdon very
+narrowly escaped drowning on Calais sands at this
+period, where the absent Genevieve had left and lost
+him.
+
+And so, Colonel and Mrs. Crawley came to London:
+and it is at their house in Curzon Street, May Fair, that
+they really showed the skill which must be possessed by
+those who would live on the resources above named.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII
+
+
+The Subject Continued
+
+In the first place, and as a matter of the greatest
+necessity, we are bound to describe how a house
+may be got for nothing a year.  These mansions
+are to be had either unfurnished, where, if you
+have credit with Messrs.  Gillows or Bantings, you
+can get them splendidly montees and decorated
+entirely according to your own fancy; or they are
+to be let furnished, a less troublesome and
+complicated arrangement to most parties.  It was so
+that Crawley and his wife preferred to hire their house.
+
+Before Mr. Bowls came to preside over Miss Crawley's
+house and cellar in Park Lane, that lady had had
+for a butler a Mr. Raggles, who was born on the family
+estate of Queen's Crawley, and indeed was a younger
+son of a gardener there.  By good conduct, a handsome
+person and calves, and a grave demeanour, Raggles rose
+from the knife-board to the footboard of the carriage;
+from the footboard to the butler's pantry.  When he had
+been a certain number of years at the head of Miss
+Crawley's establishment, where he had had good wages,
+fat perquisites, and plenty of opportunities of saving, he
+announced that he was about to contract a matrimonial
+alliance with a late cook of Miss Crawley's, who had
+subsisted in an honourable manner by the exercise of a
+mangle, and the keeping of a small greengrocer's shop in
+the neighbourhood.  The truth is, that the ceremony had
+been clandestinely performed some years back; although
+the news of Mr. Raggles' marriage was first brought to
+Miss Crawley by a little boy and girl of seven and eight
+years of age, whose continual presence in the kitchen
+had attracted the attention of Miss Briggs.
+
+Mr. Raggles then retired and personally undertook the
+superintendence of the small shop and the greens.  He
+added milk and cream, eggs and country-fed pork to his
+stores, contenting himself whilst other retired butlers
+were vending spirits in public houses, by dealing in the
+simplest country produce.  And having a good connection
+amongst the butlers in the neighbourhood, and a
+snug back parlour where he and Mrs. Raggles received
+them, his milk, cream, and eggs got to be adopted by
+many of the fraternity, and his profits increased every
+year.  Year after year he quietly and modestly amassed
+money, and when at length that snug and complete bachelor's residence at No.  201, Curzon Street, May Fair, lately
+the residence of the Honourable Frederick Deuceace,
+gone abroad, with its rich and appropriate furniture by
+the first makers, was brought to the hammer, who should
+go in and purchase the lease and furniture of the house
+but Charles Raggles? A part of the money he borrowed, it
+is true, and at rather a high interest, from a brother
+butler, but the chief part he paid down, and it was with
+no small pride that Mrs. Raggles found herself sleeping in
+a bed of carved mahogany, with silk curtains, with a
+prodigious cheval glass opposite to her, and a wardrobe
+which would contain her, and Raggles, and all the family.
+
+Of course, they did not intend to occupy permanently
+an apartment so splendid.  It was in order to let the house
+again that Raggles purchased it.  As soon as a tenant
+was found, he subsided into the greengrocer's shop once
+more; but a happy thing it was for him to walk out of
+that tenement and into Curzon Street, and there survey
+his house--his own house--with geraniums in the
+window and a carved bronze knocker.  The footman
+occasionally lounging at the area railing, treated him with
+respect; the cook took her green stuff at his house and
+called him Mr. Landlord, and there was not one thing
+the tenants did, or one dish which they had for dinner,
+that Raggles might not know of, if he liked.
+
+He was a good man; good and happy.  The house
+brought him in so handsome a yearly income that he was
+determined to send his children to good schools, and
+accordingly, regardless of expense, Charles was sent to
+boarding at Dr. Swishtail's, Sugar-cane Lodge, and
+little Matilda to Miss Peckover's, Laurentinum House,
+Clapham.
+
+Raggles loved and adored the Crawley family as the
+author of all his prosperity in life.  He had a silhouette of
+his mistress in his back shop, and a drawing of the
+Porter's Lodge at Queen's Crawley, done by that spinster
+herself in India ink--and the only addition he made to
+the decorations of the Curzon Street House was a print
+of Queen's Crawley in Hampshire, the seat of Sir Walpole
+Crawley, Baronet, who was represented in a gilded car
+drawn by six white horses, and passing by a lake
+covered with swans, and barges containing ladies in hoops,
+and musicians with flags and penwigs.  Indeed Raggles
+thought there was no such palace in all the world, and
+no such august family.
+
+As luck would have it, Raggles' house in Curzon Street
+was to let when Rawdon and his wife returned to London.
+The Colonel knew it and its owner quite well; the latter's
+connection with the Crawley family had been kept up
+constantly, for Raggles helped Mr. Bowls whenever Miss
+Crawley received friends.  And the old man not only let
+his house to the Colonel but officiated as his butler
+whenever he had company; Mrs. Raggles operating in the
+kitchen below and sending up dinners of which old Miss
+Crawley herself might have approved.  This was the way,
+then, Crawley got his house for nothing; for though
+Raggles had to pay taxes and rates, and the interest of the
+mortgage to the brother butler; and the insurance of his
+life; and the charges for his children at school; and the
+value of the meat and drink which his own family--and
+for a time that of Colonel Crawley too--consumed; and
+though the poor wretch was utterly ruined by the
+transaction, his children being flung on the streets, and himself
+driven into the Fleet Prison:  yet somebody must pay even
+for gentlemen who live for nothing a year--and so it was
+this unlucky Raggles was made the representative of
+Colonel Crawley's defective capital.
+
+I wonder how many families are driven to roguery and
+to ruin by great practitioners in Crawlers way?--how
+many great noblemen rob their petty tradesmen,
+condescend to swindle their poor retainers out of wretched
+little sums and cheat for a few shillings? When we read
+that a noble nobleman has left for the Continent, or that
+another noble nobleman has an execution in his house
+--and that one or other owes six or seven millions, the
+defeat seems glorious even, and we respect the victim in
+the vastness of his ruin.  But who pities a poor barber who
+can't get his money for powdering the footmen's heads;
+or a poor carpenter who has ruined himself by fixing up
+ornaments and pavilions for my lady's dejeuner; or the
+poor devil of a tailor whom the steward patronizes, and
+who has pledged all he is worth, and more, to get the
+liveries ready, which my lord has done him the honour
+to bespeak? When the great house tumbles down, these
+miserable wretches fall under it unnoticed:  as they say in
+the old legends, before a man goes to the devil himself,
+he sends plenty of other souls thither.
+
+Rawdon and his wife generously gave their patronage
+to all such of Miss Crawley's tradesmen and purveyors
+as chose to serve them.  Some were willing,enough,
+especially the poor ones.  It was wonderful to see the
+pertinacity with which the washerwoman from Tooting
+brought the cart every Saturday, and her bills week after week.
+Mr. Raggles himself had to supply the greengroceries.  The
+bill for servants' porter at the Fortune of War public
+house is a curiosity in the chronicles of beer.  Every
+servant also was owed the greater part of his wages, and
+thus kept up perforce an interest in the house.  Nobody in
+fact was paid.  Not the blacksmith who opened the lock;
+nor the glazier who mended the pane; nor the jobber who
+let the carriage; nor the groom who drove it; nor the
+butcher who provided the leg of mutton; nor the coals
+which roasted it; nor the cook who basted it; nor the
+servants who ate it:  and this I am given to understand is not
+unfrequently the way in which people live elegantly on
+nothing a year.
+
+In a little town such things cannot be done without
+remark.  We know there the quantity of milk our
+neighbour takes and espy the joint or the fowls which are
+going in for his dinner.  So, probably, 200 and 202 in Curzon
+Street might know what was going on in the house
+between them, the servants communicating through the
+area-railings; but Crawley and his wife and his friends
+did not know 200 and 202.  When you came to 201 there
+was a hearty welcome, a kind smile, a good dinner, and
+a jolly shake of the hand from the host and hostess there,
+just for all the world as if they had been undisputed
+masters of three or four thousand a year--and so they were,
+not in money, but in produce and labour--if they did
+not pay for the mutton, they had it:  if they did not give
+bullion in exchange for their wine, how should we know?
+Never was better claret at any man's table than at honest
+Rawdon's; dinners more gay and neatly served.   His
+drawing-rooms were the prettiest, little, modest salons
+conceivable:  they were decorated with the greatest taste,
+and a thousand knick-knacks from Paris, by Rebecca:
+and when she sat at her piano trilling songs with a
+lightsome heart, the stranger voted himself in a little
+paradise of domestic comfort and agreed that, if the
+husband was rather stupid, the wife was charming, and the
+dinners the pleasantest in the world.
+
+Rebecca's wit, cleverness, and flippancy made her speedily
+the vogue in London among a certain class.  You saw
+demure chariots at her door, out of which stepped very
+great people.  You beheld her carriage in the park,
+surrounded by dandies of note.  The little box in the third
+tier of the opera was crowded with heads constantly
+changing; but it must be confessed that the ladies held
+aloof from her, and that their doors were shut to our
+little adventurer.
+
+With regard to the world of female fashion and its
+customs, the present writer of course can only speak at
+second hand.  A man can no more penetrate or under-
+stand those mysteries than he can know what the ladies
+talk about when they go upstairs after dinner.  It is only
+by inquiry and perseverance that one sometimes gets
+hints of those secrets; and by a similar diligence every
+person who treads the Pall Mall pavement and frequents
+the clubs of this metropolis knows, either through his
+own experience or through some acquaintance with whom
+he plays at billiards or shares the joint, something about
+the genteel world of London, and how, as there are men
+(such as Rawdon Crawley, whose position we mentioned
+before) who cut a good figure to the eyes of the ignorant
+world and to the apprentices in the park, who behold
+them consorting with the most notorious dandies there,
+so there are ladies, who may be called men's women,
+being welcomed entirely by all the gentlemen and cut
+or slighted by all their wives.  Mrs. Firebrace is of this sort;
+the lady with the beautiful fair ringlets whom you see
+every day in Hyde Park, surrounded by the greatest and
+most famous dandies of this empire.  Mrs. Rockwood is
+another, whose parties are announced laboriously in the
+fashionable newspapers and with whom you see that all
+sorts of ambassadors and great noblemen dine; and
+many more might be mentioned had they to do with the
+history at present in hand.  But while simple folks who
+are out of the world, or country people with a taste for
+the genteel, behold these ladies in their seeming glory in
+public places, or envy them from afar off, persons who
+are better instructed could inform them that these envied
+ladies have no more chance of establishing themselves
+in "society," than the benighted squire's wife in
+Somersetshire who reads of their doings in the Morning Post.
+Men living about London are aware of these awful truths.
+You hear how pitilessly many ladies of seeming rank and
+wealth are excluded from this "society." The frantic
+efforts which they make to enter this circle, the meannesses
+to which they submit, the insults which they undergo,
+are matters of wonder to those who take human or
+womankind for a study; and the pursuit of fashion under
+difficulties would be a fine theme for any very great
+person who had the wit, the leisure, and the knowledge of
+the English language necessary for the compiling of
+such a history.
+
+Now the few female acquaintances whom Mrs. Crawley
+had known abroad not only declined to visit her when
+she came to this side of the Channel, but cut her severely
+when they met in public places.  It was curious to see how
+the great ladies forgot her, and no doubt not altogether
+a pleasant study to Rebecca.  When Lady Bareacres met
+her in the waiting-room at the opera, she gathered her
+daughters about her as if they would be contaminated
+by a touch of Becky, and retreating a step or two, placed
+herself in front of them, and stared at her little enemy.
+To stare Becky out of countenance required a severer
+glance than even the frigid old Bareacres could shoot out
+of her dismal eyes.  When Lady de la Mole, who had ridden
+a score of times by Becky's side at Brussels, met Mrs.
+Crawley's open carriage in Hyde Park, her Ladyship was
+quite blind, and could not in the least recognize her
+former friend.  Even Mrs. Blenkinsop, the banker's wife,
+cut her at church.  Becky went regularly to church now; it
+was edifying to see her enter there with Rawdon by her
+side, carrying a couple of large gilt prayer-books, and
+afterwards going through the ceremony with the gravest
+resignation.
+
+Rawdon at first felt very acutely the slights which were
+passed upon his wife, and was inclined to be gloomy and
+savage.  He talked of calling out the husbands or brothers
+of every one of the insolent women who did not pay a
+proper respect to his wife; and it was only by the strongest commands and entreaties on her part that he was
+brought into keeping a decent behaviour.  "You can't
+shoot me into society," she said good-naturedly.  "Remember,
+my dear, that I was but a governess, and you, you
+poor silly old man, have the worst reputation for debt, and
+dice, and all sorts of wickedness.  We shall get quite as
+many friends as we want by and by, and in the meanwhile
+you must be a good boy and obey your schoolmistress in
+everything she tells you to do.  When we heard that your
+aunt had left almost everything to Pitt and his wife, do
+you remember what a rage you were in? You would
+have told all Paris, if I had not made you keep your
+temper, and where would you have been now?--in
+prison at Ste.  Pelagie for debt, and not established in
+London in a handsome house, with every comfort about
+you--you were in such a fury you were ready to murder
+your brother, you wicked Cain you, and what good
+would have come of remaining angry? All the rage in the
+world won't get us your aunt's money; and it is much
+better that we should be friends with your brother's
+family than enemies, as those foolish Butes are.  When
+your father dies, Queen's Crawley will be a pleasant house
+for you and me to pass the winter in.  If we are ruined,
+you can carve and take charge of the stable, and I can
+be a governess to Lady Jane's children.  Ruined!
+fiddlede-dee!  I will get you a good place before that; or Pitt
+and his little boy will die, and we will be Sir Rawdon and my
+lady.  While there is life, there is hope, my dear, and I
+intend to make a man of you yet.  Who sold your horses for
+you? Who paid your debts for you?" Rawdon was obliged
+to confess that he owed all these benefits to his wife, and
+to trust himself to her guidance for the future.
+
+Indeed, when Miss Crawley quitted the world, and that
+money for which all her relatives had been fighting so
+eagerly was finally left to Pitt, Bute Crawley, who found
+that only five thousand pounds had been left to him
+instead of the twenty upon which he calculated, was in
+such a fury at his disappointment that he vented it in
+savage abuse upon his nephew; and the quarrel always
+rankling between them ended in an utter breach of
+intercourse.  Rawdon Crawley's conduct, on the other hand,
+who got but a hundred pounds, was such as to astonish
+his brother and delight his sister-in-law, who was
+disposed to look kindly upon all the members of her
+husband's family.  He wrote to his brother a very frank, manly,
+good-humoured letter from Paris.  He was aware, he said,
+that by his own marriage he had forfeited his aunt's
+favour; and though he did not disguise his disappointment
+that she should have been so entirely relentless towards
+him, he was glad that the money was still kept in their
+branch of the family, and heartily congratulated his brother
+on his good fortune.  He sent his affectionate remembrances
+to his sister, and hoped to have her good-will for
+Mrs. Rawdon; and the letter concluded with a postscript
+to Pitt in the latter lady's own handwriting.  She, too,
+begged to join in her husband's congratulations.  She should
+ever remember Mr. Crawley's kindness to her in early
+days when she was a friendless orphan, the instructress of
+his little sisters, in whose welfare she still took the
+tenderest interest.  She wished him every happiness in his
+married life, and, asking his permission to offer her
+remembrances to Lady Jane (of whose goodness all the
+world informed her), she hoped that one day she might
+be allowed to present her little boy to his uncle and aunt,
+and begged to bespeak for him their good-will and
+protection.
+
+Pitt Crawley received this communication very
+graciously--more graciously than Miss Crawley had received
+some of Rebecca's previous compositions in Rawdon's
+handwriting; and as for Lady Jane, she was so charmed
+with the letter that she expected her husband would
+instantly divide his aunt's legacy into two equal portions
+and send off one-half to his brother at Paris.
+
+To her Ladyship's surprise, however, Pitt declined to
+accommodate his brother with a cheque for thirty
+thousand pounds.  But he made Rawdon a handsome offer
+of his hand whenever the latter should come to England
+and choose to take it; and, thanking Mrs. Crawley for
+her good opinion of himself and Lady Jane, he graciously
+pronounced his willingness to take any opportunity to
+serve her little boy.
+
+Thus an almost reconciliation was brought about
+between the brothers.  When Rebecca came to town Pitt
+and his wife were not in London.  Many a time she drove
+by the old door in Park Lane to see whether they had
+taken possession of Miss Crawley's house there.  But the
+new family did not make its appearance; it was only
+through Raggles that she heard of their movements--how
+Miss Crawley's domestics had been dismissed with decent
+gratuities, and how Mr. Pitt had only once made his
+appearance in London, when he stopped for a few days
+at the house, did business with his lawyers there, and sold
+off all Miss Crawley's French novels to a bookseller out
+of Bond Street.  Becky had reasons of her own which
+caused her to long for the arrival of her new relation.
+"When Lady Jane comes," thought she, "she shall be my
+sponsor in London society; and as for the women! bah!
+the women will ask me when they find the men want to
+see me."
+
+An article as necessary to a lady in this position as her
+brougham or her bouquet is her companion.  I have
+always admired the way in which the tender creatures, who
+cannot exist without sympathy, hire an exceedingly plain
+friend of their own sex from whom they are almost
+inseparable.  The sight of that inevitable woman in her
+faded gown seated behind her dear friend in the opera-
+box, or occupying the back seat of the barouche, is
+always a wholesome and moral one to me, as jolly a
+reminder as that of the Death's-head which figured in
+the repasts of Egyptian bon-vivants, a strange sardonic
+memorial of Vanity Fair.  What? even battered, brazen,
+beautiful, conscienceless, heartless, Mrs. Firebrace, whose
+father died of her shame:  even lovely, daring Mrs.
+Mantrap, who will ride at any fence which any man in
+England will take, and who drives her greys in the
+park, while her mother keeps a huckster's stall in Bath
+still--even those who are so bold, one might fancy
+they could face anything dare not face the world without
+a female friend.  They must have somebody to cling to, the
+affectionate creatures!  And you will hardly see them in
+any public place without a shabby companion in a dyed
+silk, sitting somewhere in the shade close behind them.
+
+"Rawdon," said Becky, very late one night, as a party
+of gentlemen were seated round her crackling drawing-
+room fire (for the men came to her house to finish the
+night; and she had ice and coffee for them, the best in
+London):  "I must have a sheep-dog."
+
+"A what?" said Rawdon, looking up from an ecarte
+table.
+
+"A sheep-dog!" said young Lord Southdown.  "My dear
+Mrs. Crawley, what a fancy!  Why not have a Danish
+dog? I know of one as big as a camel-leopard, by Jove.
+It would almost pull your brougham.  Or a Persian
+greyhound, eh? (I propose, if you please); or a little pug
+that would go into one of Lord Steyne's snuff-boxes?
+There's a man at Bayswater got one with such a nose that
+you might--I mark the king and play--that you might
+hang your hat on it."
+
+"I mark the trick," Rawdon gravely said.  He attended
+to his game commonly and didn't much meddle with
+the conversation, except when it was about horses and
+betting.
+
+"What CAN you want with a shepherd's dog?" the lively
+little Southdown continued.
+
+"I mean a MORAL shepherd's dog," said Becky, laughing
+and looking up at Lord Steyne.
+
+"What the devil's that?" said his Lordship.
+
+"A dog to keep the wolves off me," Rebecca continued.
+"A companion."
+
+"Dear little innocent lamb, you want one," said the
+marquis; and his jaw thrust out, and he began to grin
+hideously, his little eyes leering towards Rebecca.
+
+The great Lord of Steyne was standing by the fire
+sipping coffee.  The fire crackled and blazed pleasantly
+There was a score of candles sparkling round the mantel
+piece, in all sorts of quaint sconces, of gilt and bronze and
+porcelain.  They lighted up Rebecca's figure to admiration,
+as she sat on a sofa covered with a pattern of gaudy
+flowers.  She was in a pink dress that looked as fresh as
+a rose; her dazzling white arms and shoulders were half-
+covered with a thin hazy scarf through which they
+sparkled; her hair hung in curls round her neck; one of her
+little feet peeped out from the fresh crisp folds of the
+silk:  the prettiest little foot in the prettiest little sandal
+in the finest silk stocking in the world.
+
+The candles lighted up Lord Steyne's shining bald head,
+which was fringed with red hair.  He had thick bushy
+eyebrows, with little twinkling bloodshot eyes, surrounded
+by a thousand wrinkles.  His jaw was underhung, and
+when he laughed, two white buck-teeth protruded
+themselves and glistened savagely in the midst of the grin.
+He had been dining with royal personages, and wore
+his garter and ribbon.  A short man was his Lordship,
+broad-chested and bow-legged, but proud of the fineness
+of his foot and ankle, and always caressing his garter-
+knee.
+
+"And so the shepherd is not enough," said he, "to
+defend his lambkin?"
+
+"The shepherd is too fond of playing at cards and going
+to his clubs," answered Becky, laughing.
+
+" 'Gad, what a debauched Corydon!" said my lord--
+"what a mouth for a pipe!"
+
+"I take your three to two," here said Rawdon, at the
+card-table.
+
+"Hark at Meliboeus," snarled the noble marquis; "he's
+pastorally occupied too:  he's shearing a Southdown.
+What an innocent mutton, hey? Damme, what a snowy
+fleece!"
+
+Rebecca's eyes shot out gleams of scornful humour.
+"My lord," she said, "you are a knight of the Order."
+He had the collar round his neck, indeed--a gift of the
+restored princes of Spain.
+
+Lord Steyne in early life had been notorious for his
+daring and his success at play.  He had sat up two days
+and two nights with Mr. Fox at hazard.  He had won
+money of the most august personages of the realm:  he
+had won his marquisate, it was said, at the gaming-
+table; but he did not like an allusion to those bygone
+fredaines.  Rebecca saw the scowl gathering over his heavy
+brow.
+
+She rose up from her sofa and went and took his coffee
+cup out of his hand with a little curtsey.  "Yes," she said,
+"I must get a watchdog.  But he won't bark at YOU.
+And, going into the other drawing-room, she sat down to
+the piano and began to sing little French songs in such a
+charming, thrilling voice that the mollified nobleman
+speedily followed her into that chamber, and might be seen
+nodding his head and bowing time over her.
+
+Rawdon and his friend meanwhile played ecarte until
+they had enough.  The Colonel won; but, say that he won
+ever so much and often, nights like these, which occurred
+many times in the week--his wife having all the talk and
+all the admiration, and he sitting silent without the circle,
+not comprehending a word of the jokes, the allusions, the
+mystical language within--must have been rather
+wearisome to the ex-dragoon.
+
+"How is Mrs. Crawley's husband?" Lord Steyne used
+to say to him by way of a good day when they met; and
+indeed that was now his avocation in life.  He was
+Colonel Crawley no more.  He was Mrs. Crawley's husband.
+
+About the little Rawdon, if nothing has been said all
+this while, it is because he is hidden upstairs in a garret
+somewhere, or has crawled below into the kitchen for
+companionship.  His mother scarcely ever took notice of
+him.  He passed the days with his French bonne as long
+as that domestic remained in Mr. Crawley's family, and
+when the Frenchwoman went away, the little fellow,
+howling in the loneliness of the night, had compassion taken
+on him by a housemaid, who took him out of his solitary
+nursery into her bed in the garret hard by and comforted
+him.
+
+Rebecca, my Lord Steyne, and one or two more were
+in the drawing-room taking tea after the opera, when this
+shouting was heard overhead.  "It's my cherub crying for
+his nurse," she said.  She did not offer to move to go and
+see the child.  "Don't agitate your feelings by going to look
+for him," said Lord Steyne sardonically.  "Bah!" replied
+the other, with a sort of blush, "he'll cry himself to sleep";
+and they fell to talking about the opera.
+
+Rawdon had stolen off though, to look after his son
+and heir; and came back to the company when he found
+that honest Dolly was consoling the child.  The Colonel's
+dressing-room was in those upper regions.  He used to see
+the boy there in private.  They had interviews together
+every morning when he shaved; Rawdon minor sitting on a
+box by his father's side and watching the operation with
+never-ceasing pleasure.  He and the sire were great friends.
+The father would bring him sweetmeats from the dessert
+and hide them in a certain old epaulet box, where the
+child went to seek them, and laughed with joy on
+discovering the treasure; laughed, but not too loud:  for mamma
+was below asleep and must not be disturbed.  She did not
+go to rest till very late and seldom rose till after noon.
+
+Rawdon bought the boy plenty of picture-books and
+crammed his nursery with toys.  Its walls were covered with
+pictures pasted up by the father's own hand and purchased
+by him for ready money.  When he was off duty with
+Mrs. Rawdon in the park, he would sit up here, passing
+hours with the boy; who rode on his chest, who pulled his
+great mustachios as if they were driving-reins, and spent
+days with him in indefatigable gambols.  The room was
+a low room, and once, when the child was not five years
+old, his father, who was tossing him wildly up in his
+arms, hit the poor little chap's skull so violently against
+the ceiling that he almost dropped the child, so terrified
+was he at the disaster.
+
+Rawdon minor had made up his face for a tremendous
+howl--the severity of the blow indeed authorized that
+indulgence; but just as he was going to begin, the father
+interposed.
+
+"For God's sake, Rawdy, don't wake Mamma," he
+cried.  And the child, looking in a very hard and piteous
+way at his father, bit his lips, clenched his hands, and
+didn't cry a bit.  Rawdon told that story at the clubs, at
+the mess, to everybody in town.  "By Gad, sir," he
+explained to the public in general, "what a good plucked one
+that boy of mine is--what a trump he is!  I half-sent his
+head through the ceiling, by Gad, and he wouldn't cry for
+fear of disturbing his mother."
+
+Sometimes--once or twice in a week--that lady visited
+the upper regions in which the child lived.  She came like
+a vivified figure out of the Magasin des Modes--blandly
+smiling in the most beautiful new clothes and little gloves
+and boots.  Wonderful scarfs, laces, and jewels glittered
+about her.  She had always a new bonnet on, and flowers
+bloomed perpetually in it, or else magnificent curling
+ostrich feathers, soft and snowy as camellias.  She nodded
+twice or thrice patronizingly to the little boy, who looked
+up from his dinner or from the pictures of soldiers he was
+painting.  When she left the room, an odour of rose, or
+some other magical fragrance, lingered about the nursery.
+She was an unearthly being in his eyes, superior to his
+father--to all the world:  to be worshipped and admired
+at a distance.  To drive with that lady in the carriage was
+an awful rite:  he sat up in the back seat and did not dare
+to speak:  he gazed with all his eyes at the beautifully
+dressed Princess opposite to him.  Gentlemen on splendid
+prancing horses came up and smiled and talked with her.
+How her eyes beamed upon all of them!  Her hand used
+to quiver and wave gracefully as they passed.  When
+he went out with her he had his new red dress on.  His old
+brown holland was good enough when he stayed at home.
+Sometimes, when she was away, and Dolly his maid was
+making his bed, he came into his mother's room.  It was as
+the abode of a fairy to him--a mystic chamber of
+splendour and delights.  There in the wardrobe hung those
+wonderful robes--pink and blue and many-tinted.  There
+was the jewel-case, silver-clasped, and the wondrous
+bronze hand on the dressing-table, glistening all over
+with a hundred rings.  There was the cheval-glass, that
+miracle of art, in which he could just see his own
+wondering head and the reflection of Dolly (queerly
+distorted, and as if up in the ceiling), plumping and patting
+the pillows of the bed.  Oh, thou poor lonely little
+benighted boy!  Mother is the name for God in the lips and
+hearts of little children; and here was one who was
+worshipping a stone!
+
+Now Rawdon Crawley, rascal as the Colonel was, had
+certain manly tendencies of affection in his heart and
+could love a child and a woman still.  For Rawdon minor
+he had a great secret tenderness then, which did not
+escape Rebecca, though she did not talk about it to her
+husband.  It did not annoy her:  she was too good-
+natured.  It only increased her scorn for him.  He felt
+somehow ashamed of this paternal softness and hid it
+from his wife--only indulging in it when alone with the
+boy.
+
+He used to take him out of mornings when they would
+go to the stables together and to the park.  Little Lord
+Southdown, the best-natured of men, who would make
+you a present of the hat from his head, and whose main
+occupation in life was to buy knick-knacks that he might
+give them away afterwards, bought the little chap a
+pony not much bigger than a large rat, the donor said,
+and on this little black Shetland pygmy young Rawdon's
+great father was pleased to mount the boy, and to walk
+by his side in the park.  It pleased him to see his old
+quarters, and his old fellow-guardsmen at Knightsbridge:
+he had begun to think of his bachelorhood with
+something like regret.  The old troopers were glad to recognize
+their ancient officer and dandle the little colonel.
+Colonel Crawley found dining at mess and with his
+brother-officers very pleasant.  "Hang it, I ain't clever
+enough for her--I know it.  She won't miss me," he used to
+say:  and he was right, his wife did not miss him.
+
+Rebecca was fond of her husband.  She was always
+perfectly good-humoured and kind to him.  She did not
+even show her scorn much for him; perhaps she liked
+him the better for being a fool.  He was her upper servant
+and maitre d'hotel.  He went on her errands; obeyed
+her orders without question; drove in the carriage in the
+ring with her without repining; took her to the opera-box,
+solaced himself at his club during the performance, and
+came punctually back to fetch her when due.  He would
+have liked her to be a little fonder of the boy, but even
+to that he reconciled himself.  "Hang it, you know she's so
+clever," he said, "and I'm not literary and that, you
+know." For, as we have said before, it requires no great
+wisdom to be able to win at cards and billiards, and
+Rawdon made no pretensions to any other sort of skill.
+
+When the companion came, his domestic duties became
+very light.  His wife encouraged him to dine
+abroad:  she would let him off duty at the opera.  "Don't
+stay and stupefy yourself at home to-night, my dear,"
+she would say.  "Some men are coming who will only bore
+you.  I would not ask them, but you know it's for your
+good, and now I have a sheep-dog, I need not be afraid
+to be alone."
+
+"A sheep-dog--a companion!  Becky Sharp with a
+companion!  Isn't it good fun?" thought Mrs. Crawley to
+herself.  The notion tickled hugely her sense of humour.
+
+One Sunday morning, as Rawdon Crawley, his little
+son, and the pony were taking their accustomed walk in
+the park, they passed by an old acquaintance of the
+Colonel's, Corporal Clink, of the regiment, who was in
+conversation with a friend, an old gentleman, who held
+a boy in his arms about the age of little Rawdon.  This
+other youngster had seized hold of the Waterloo medal
+which the Corporal wore, and was examining it with
+delight.
+
+"Good morning, your Honour," said Clink, in reply to
+the "How do, Clink?" of the Colonel.  "This ere young
+gentleman is about the little Colonel's age, sir,"
+continued the corporal.
+
+"His father was a Waterloo man, too," said the old
+gentleman, who carried the boy.  "Wasn't he, Georgy?"
+
+"Yes," said Georgy.  He and the little chap on the pony
+were looking at each other with all their might--solemnly
+scanning each other as children do.
+
+"In a line regiment," Clink said with a patronizing air.
+
+"He was a Captain in the --th regiment," said the old
+gentleman rather pompously.  "Captain George Osborne,
+sir--perhaps you knew him.  He died the death of a
+hero, sir, fighting against the Corsican tyrant."
+Colonel Crawley blushed quite red.  "I knew him very
+well, sir," he said, "and his wife, his dear little wife,
+sir--how is she?"
+ 
+"She is my daughter, sir," said the old gentleman,
+putting down the boy and taking out a card with great
+solemnity, which he handed to the Colonel.  On it
+written--
+ 
+"Mr. Sedley, Sole Agent for the Black Diamond and
+Anti-Cinder Coal Association, Bunker's Wharf, Thames
+Street, and Anna-Maria Cottages, Fulham Road West."
+
+Little Georgy went up and looked at the Shetland
+pony.
+
+"Should you like to have a ride?" said Rawdon minor
+from the saddle.
+
+"Yes," said Georgy.  The Colonel, who had been
+looking at him with some interest, took up the child
+and put him on the pony behind Rawdon minor.
+
+"Take hold of him, Georgy," he said--"take my little
+boy round the waist--his name is Rawdon." And both the
+children began to laugh.
+
+"You won't see a prettier pair I think, THIS summer's
+day, sir," said the good-natured Corporal; and the
+Colonel, the Corporal, and old Mr. Sedley with his umbrella,
+walked by the side of the children.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII
+
+
+A Family in a Very Small Way
+
+We must suppose little George Osborne has ridden from
+Knightsbridge towards Fulham, and will stop and make
+inquiries at that village regarding some friends whom we
+have left there.  How is Mrs. Amelia after the storm of
+Waterloo? Is she living and thriving? What has come of
+Major Dobbin, whose cab was always hankering about
+her premises? And is there any news of the Collector
+of Boggley Wollah? The facts concerning the latter are
+briefly these:
+
+Our worthy fat friend Joseph Sedley returned to India
+not long after his escape from Brussels.  Either his
+furlough was up, or he dreaded to meet any witnesses of his
+Waterloo flight.  However it might be, he went back to his
+duties in Bengal very soon after Napoleon had taken
+up his residence at St.  Helena, where Jos saw the ex-
+Emperor.  To hear Mr. Sedley talk on board ship you
+would have supposed that it was not the first time he and
+the Corsican had met, and that the civilian had bearded
+the French General at Mount St.  John.  He had a
+thousand anecdotes about the famous battles; he knew the
+position of every regiment and the loss which each
+had incurred.  He did not deny that he had been
+concerned in those victories--that he had been with the
+army and carried despatches for the Duke of Wellington.
+And he described what the Duke did and said on
+every conceivable moment of the day of Waterloo, with
+such an accurate knowledge of his Grace's sentiments
+and proceedings that it was clear he must have been by
+the conqueror's side throughout the day; though, as a
+non-combatant, his name was not mentioned in the
+public documents relative to the battle.  Perhaps he actually
+worked himself up to believe that he had been engaged
+with the army; certain it is that he made a prodigious
+sensation for some time at Calcutta, and was called
+Waterloo Sedley during the whole of his subsequent stay in
+Bengal.
+
+The bills which Jos had given for the purchase of those
+unlucky horses were paid without question by him and
+his agents.  He never was heard to allude to the bargain,
+and nobody knows for a certainty what became
+of the horses, or how he got rid of them, or of Isidor, his
+Belgian servant, who sold a grey horse, very like the one
+which Jos rode, at Valenciennes sometime during the
+autumn of 1815.
+
+Jos's London agents had orders to pay one hundred
+and twenty pounds yearly to his parents at Fulham.  It
+was the chief support of the old couple; for Mr. Sedley's
+speculations in life subsequent to his bankruptcy did not
+by any means retrieve the broken old gentleman's
+fortune.  He tried to be a wine-merchant, a coal-merchant,
+a commission lottery agent, &c., &c.  He sent round
+prospectuses to his friends whenever he took a new trade,
+and ordered a new brass plate for the door, and talked
+pompously about making his fortune still.  But Fortune
+never came back to the feeble and stricken old man.  One
+by one his friends dropped off, and were weary of
+buying dear coals and bad wine from him; and there
+was only his wife in all the world who fancied, when he
+tottered off to the City of a morning, that he was still
+doing any business there.  At evening he crawled slowly
+back; and he used to go of nights to a little club at a
+tavern, where he disposed of the finances of the nation.
+It was wonderful to hear him talk about millions, and
+agios, and discounts, and what Rothschild was
+doing, and Baring Brothers.  He talked of such vast sums
+that the gentlemen of the club (the apothecary, the
+undertaker, the great carpenter and builder, the parish clerk,
+who was allowed to come stealthily, and Mr. Clapp, our
+old acquaintance,) respected the old gentleman.  "I was
+better off once, sir," he did not fail to tell everybody who
+"used the room." "My son, sir, is at this minute chief
+magistrate of Ramgunge in the Presidency of Bengal, and
+touching his four thousand rupees per mensem.  My
+daughter might be a Colonel's lady if she liked.  I might
+draw upon my son, the first magistrate, sir, for two
+thousand pounds to-morrow, and Alexander would cash my
+bill, down sir, down on the counter, sir.  But the Sedleys
+were always a proud family." You and I, my dear
+reader, may drop into this condition one day:  for have
+not many of our friends attained it? Our luck may fail:
+our powers forsake us:  our place on the boards be taken
+by better and younger mimes--the chance of life roll
+away and leave us shattered and stranded.  Then men
+will walk across the road when they meet you--or, worse
+still, hold you out a couple of fingers and patronize you
+in a pitying way--then you will know, as soon as your
+back is turned, that your friend begins with a "Poor
+devil, what imprudences he has committed, what chances
+that chap has thrown away!" Well, well--a carriage and
+three thousand a year is not the summit of the reward
+nor the end of God's judgment of men.  If quacks prosper
+as often as they go to the wall--if zanies succeed and
+knaves arrive at fortune, and, vice versa, sharing ill
+luck and prosperity for all the world like the ablest and
+most honest amongst us--I say, brother, the gifts and
+pleasures of Vanity Fair cannot be held of any great
+account, and that it is probable .  .  .  but we are
+wandering out of the domain of the story.
+
+Had Mrs. Sedley been a woman of energy, she would
+have exerted it after her husband's ruin and, occupying
+a large house, would have taken in boarders.  The broken
+Sedley would have acted well as the boarding-house
+landlady's husband; the Munoz of private life; the titular lord
+and master:  the carver, house-steward, and humble
+husband of the occupier of the dingy throne.  I have seen
+men of good brains and breeding, and of good hopes and
+vigour once, who feasted squires and kept hunters in
+their youth, meekly cutting up legs of mutton for
+rancorous old harridans and pretending to preside over their
+dreary tables--but Mrs. Sedley, we say, had not spirit
+enough to bustle about for "a few select inmates to join
+a cheerful musical family," such as one reads of in the
+Times.  She was content to lie on the shore where
+fortune had stranded her--and you could see that the
+career of this old couple was over.
+
+I don't think they were unhappy.  Perhaps they were
+a little prouder in their downfall than in their prosperity.
+Mrs. Sedley was always a great person for her landlady,
+Mrs. Clapp, when she descended and passed many hours
+with her in the basement or ornamented kitchen.  The
+Irish maid Betty Flanagan's bonnets and ribbons, her
+sauciness, her idleness, her reckless prodigality of kitchen
+candles, her consumption of tea and sugar, and so forth
+occupied and amused the old lady almost as much as the
+doings of her former household, when she had Sambo and
+the coachman, and a groom, and a footboy, and a
+housekeeper with a regiment of female domestics--her former
+household, about which the good lady talked a hundred
+times a day.  And besides Betty Flanagan, Mrs. Sedley
+had all the maids-of-all-work in the street to superintend.
+She knew how each tenant of the cottages paid or
+owed his little rent.  She stepped aside when Mrs.
+Rougemont the actress passed with her dubious family.  She
+flung up her head when Mrs. Pestler, the apothecary's
+lady, drove by in her husband's professional one-horse
+chaise.  She had colloquies with the greengrocer about
+the pennorth of turnips which Mr. Sedley loved; she kept
+an eye upon the milkman and the baker's boy; and
+made visitations to the butcher, who sold hundreds of
+oxen very likely with less ado than was made about
+Mrs. Sedley's loin of mutton:  and she counted the
+potatoes under the joint on Sundays, on which days, dressed
+in her best, she went to church twice and read Blair's
+Sermons in the evening.
+
+On that day, for "business" prevented him on weekdays
+from taking such a pleasure, it was old Sedley's
+delight to take out his little grandson Georgy to the
+neighbouring parks or Kensington Gardens, to see the soldiers
+or to feed the ducks.  Georgy loved the redcoats, and his
+grandpapa told him how his father had been a famous
+soldier, and introduced him to many sergeants and others
+with Waterloo medals on their breasts, to whom the
+old grandfather pompously presented the child as the
+son of Captain Osborne of the --th, who died gloriously
+on the glorious eighteenth.  He has been known to treat
+some of these non-commissioned gentlemen to a glass of
+porter, and, indeed, in their first Sunday walks was
+disposed to spoil little Georgy, sadly gorging the boy with
+apples and parliament, to the detriment of his health--
+until Amelia declared that George should never go out
+with his grandpapa unless the latter promised solemnly,
+and on his honour, not to give the child any cakes,
+lollipops, or stall produce whatever.
+
+Between Mrs. Sedley and her daughter there was a sort
+of coolness about this boy, and a secret jealousy--for
+one evening in George's very early days, Amelia, who
+had been seated at work in their little parlour scarcely
+remarking that the old lady had quitted the room, ran
+upstairs instinctively to the nursery at the cries of the
+child, who had been asleep until that moment--and
+there found Mrs. Sedley in the act of surreptitiously
+administering Daffy's Elixir to the infant.  Amelia, the
+gentlest and sweetest of everyday mortals, when she
+found this meddling with her maternal authority, thrilled
+and trembled all over with anger.  Her cheeks, ordinarily
+pale, now flushed up, until they were as red as they used
+to be when she was a child of twelve years old.  She
+seized the baby out of her mother's arms and then
+grasped at the bottle, leaving the old lady gaping at her,
+furious, and holding the guilty tea-spoon.
+
+Amelia flung the bottle crashing into the fire-place.
+"I will NOT have baby poisoned, Mamma," cried Emmy,
+rocking the infant about violently with both her arms
+round him and turning with flashing eyes at her mother.
+
+"Poisoned, Amelia!" said the old lady; "this language
+to me?"
+
+"He shall not have any medicine but that which Mr.
+Pestler sends for hi n.  He told me that Daffy's Elixir was
+poison."
+
+"Very good:  you think I'm a murderess then," replied
+Mrs. Sedley.  "This is the language you use to your mother.
+I have met with misfortunes:  I have sunk low in life:  I
+have kept my carriage, and now walk on foot:  but I did
+not know I was a murderess before, and thank you for the
+NEWS."
+
+"Mamma," said the poor girl, who was always ready for
+tears--"you shouldn't be hard upon me.  I--I didn't mean
+--I mean, I did not wish to say you would to any
+wrong to this dear child, only--"
+
+"Oh, no, my love,--only that I was a murderess; in
+which case I had better go to the Old Bailey.  Though I
+didn't poison YOU, when you were a child, but gave you
+the best of education and the most expensive masters
+money could procure.  Yes; I've nursed five children and
+buried three; and the one I loved the best of all, and
+tended through croup, and teething, and measles, and
+hooping-cough, and brought up with foreign masters,
+regardless of expense, and with accomplishments at Minerva
+House--which I never had when I was a girl--when I was
+too glad to honour my father and mother, that I might
+live long in the land, and to be useful, and not to mope
+all day in my room and act the fine lady--says I'm a
+murderess.  Ah, Mrs. Osborne! may YOU never nourish a
+viper in your bosom, that's MY prayer."
+
+"Mamma, Mamma!" cried the bewildered girl; and the
+child in her arms set up a frantic chorus of shouts.
+"A murderess, indeed!  Go down on your knees and
+pray to God to cleanse your wicked ungrateful heart,
+Amelia, and may He forgive you as I do." And Mrs.
+Sedley tossed out of the room, hissing out the word
+poison once more, and so ending her charitable
+benediction.
+
+Till the termination of her natural life, this breach
+between Mrs. Sedley and her daughter was never thoroughly mended.  The quarrel gave the elder lady numberless
+advantages which she did not fail to turn to account with
+female ingenuity and perseverance.  For instance, she
+scarcely spoke to Amelia for many weeks afterwards.
+She warned the domestics not to touch the child, as Mrs.
+Osborne might be offended.  She asked her daughter to
+see and satisfy herself that there was no poison prepared
+in the little daily messes that were concocted for Georgy.
+When neighbours asked after the boy's health, she
+referred them pointedly to Mrs. Osborne.  SHE never
+ventured to ask whether the baby was well or not.  SHE
+would not touch the child although he was her grandson,
+and own precious darling, for she was not USED to
+children, and might kill it.  And whenever Mr. Pestler came
+upon his healing inquisition, she received the doctor with
+such a sarcastic and scornful demeanour, as made the
+surgeon declare that not Lady Thistlewood herself, whom
+he had the honour of attending professionally, could
+give herself greater airs than old Mrs. Sedley, from whom
+he never took a fee.  And very likely Emmy was jealous
+too, upon her own part, as what mother is not, of those
+who would manage her children for her, or become
+candidates for the first place in their affections.  It is certain
+that when anybody nursed the child, she was uneasy, and
+that she would no more allow Mrs. Clapp or the
+domestic to dress or tend him than she would have let them
+wash her husband's miniature which hung up over her
+little bed--the same little bed from which the poor girl
+had gone to his; and to which she retired now for many
+long, silent, tearful, but happy years.
+
+In this room was all Amelia's heart and treasure.  Here
+it was that she tended her boy and watched him through
+the many ills of childhood, with a constant passion of
+love.  The elder George returned in him somehow, only
+improved, and as if come back from heaven.  In a
+hundred little tones, looks, and movements, the child was
+so like his father that the widow's heart thrilled as she
+held him to it; and he would often ask the cause of her
+tears.  It was because of his likeness to his father, she
+did not scruple to tell him.  She talked constantly to him
+about this dead father, and spoke of her love for George
+to the innocent and wondering child; much more than she
+ever had done to George himself, or to any confidante of
+her youth.  To her parents she never talked about this
+matter, shrinking from baring her heart to them.  Little
+George very likely could understand no better than they,
+but into his ears she poured her sentimental secrets
+unreservedly, and into his only.  The very joy of this
+woman was a sort of grief, or so tender, at least, that
+its expression was tears.  Her sensibilities were so weak
+and tremulous that perhaps they ought not to be talked
+about in a book.  I was told by Dr. Pestler (now a most
+flourishing lady's physician, with a sumptuous dark green
+carriage, a prospect of speedy knighthood, and a house
+in Manchester Square) that her grief at weaning the child
+was a sight that would have unmanned a Herod.  He was
+very soft-hearted many years ago, and his wife was
+mortally jealous of Mrs. Amelia, then and long afterwards.
+
+Perhaps the doctor's lady had good reason for her
+jealousy:  most women shared it, of those who formed the
+small circle of Amelia's acquaintance, and were quite
+angry at the enthusiasm with which the other sex regarded
+her.  For almost all men who came near her loved
+her; though no doubt they would be at a loss to tell you
+why.  She was not brilliant, nor witty, nor wise over
+much, nor extraordinarily handsome.  But wherever she
+went she touched and charmed every one of the male
+sex, as invariably as she awakened the scorn and
+incredulity of her own sisterhood.  I think it was her
+weakness which was her principal charm--a kind of sweet
+submission and softness, which seemed to appeal to
+each man she met for his sympathy and protection.  We
+have seen how in the regiment, though she spoke but to
+few of George's comrades there, all the swords of the
+young fellows at the mess-table would have leapt from
+their scabbards to fight round her; and so it was in
+the little narrow lodging-house and circle at Fulham, she
+interested and pleased everybody.  If she had been Mrs.
+Mango herself, of the great house of Mango, Plantain,
+and Co., Crutched Friars, and the magnificent proprietress
+of the Pineries, Fulham, who gave summer dejeuners
+frequented by Dukes and Earls, and drove about
+the parish with magnificent yellow liveries and bay horses,
+such as the royal stables at Kensington themselves could
+not turn out--I say had she been Mrs. Mango herself, or
+her son's wife, Lady Mary Mango (daughter of the
+Earl of Castlemouldy, who condescended to marry the
+head of the firm), the tradesmen of the neighbourhood
+could not pay her more honour than they invariably
+showed to the gentle young widow, when she passed by
+their doors, or made her humble purchases at their shops.
+
+Thus it was not only Mr. Pestler, the medical man, but
+Mr. Linton the young assistant, who doctored the servant
+maids and small tradesmen, and might be seen any day
+reading the Times in the surgery, who openly declared
+himself the slave of Mrs. Osborne.  He was a personable
+young gentleman, more welcome at Mrs. Sedley's lodgings
+than his principal; and if anything went wrong with
+Georgy, he would drop in twice or thrice in the day to
+see the little chap, and without so much as the thought
+of a fee.  He would abstract lozenges, tamarinds, and
+other produce from the surgery-drawers for little
+Georgy's benefit, and compounded draughts and mixtures
+for him of miraculous sweetness, so that it was quite a
+pleasure to the child to be ailing.  He and Pestler, his
+chief, sat up two whole nights by the boy in that
+momentous and awful week when Georgy had the measles; and
+when you would have thought, from the mother's terror,
+that there had never been measles in the world before.
+Would they have done as much for other people? Did
+they sit up for the folks at the Pineries, when Ralph
+Plantagenet, and Gwendoline, and Guinever Mango had the
+same juvenile complaint? Did they sit up for little Mary
+Clapp, the landlord's daughter, who actually caught the
+disease of little Georgy? Truth compels one to say, no.
+They slept quite undisturbed, at least as far as she was
+concerned--pronounced hers to be a slight case, which
+would almost cure itself, sent her in a draught or two,
+and threw in bark when the child rallied, with perfect
+indifference, and just for form's sake.
+
+Again, there was the little French chevalier opposite,
+who gave lessons in his native tongue at various schools
+in the neighbourhood, aud who might be heard in his
+apartment of nights playing tremulous old gavottes and
+minuets on a wheezy old fiddle.  Whenever this powdered
+and courteous old man, who never missed a Sunday at the
+convent chapel at Hammersmith, and who was in all
+respects, thoughts, conduct, and bearing utterly unlike the
+bearded savages of his nation, who curse perfidious
+Albion, and scowl at you from over their cigars, in the
+Quadrant arcades at the present day--whenever the
+old Chevalier de Talonrouge spoke of Mistress Osborne,
+he would first finish his pinch of snuff, flick away the
+remaining particles of dust with a graceful wave of his
+hand, gather up his fingers again into a bunch, and,
+bringing them up to his mouth, blow them open with a kiss,
+exclaiming, Ah! la divine creature!  He vowed and
+protested that when Amelia walked in the Brompton Lanes
+flowers grew in profusion under her feet.  He called little
+Georgy Cupid, and asked him news of Venus, his mamma;
+and told the astonished Betty Flanagan that she was
+one of the Graces, and the favourite attendant of the
+Reine des Amours.
+
+Instances might be multiplied of this easily gained and
+unconscious popularity.  Did not Mr. Binny, the mild
+and genteel curate of the district chapel, which the family
+attended, call assiduously upon the widow, dandle the
+little boy on his knee, and offer to teach him Latin, to the
+anger of the elderly virgin, his sister, who kept house
+for him? "There is nothing in her, Beilby," the latter
+lady would say.  "When she comes to tea here she does
+not speak a word during the whole evening.  She is but a
+poor lackadaisical creature, and it is my belief has no
+heart at all.  It is only her pretty face which all you
+gentlemen admire so.  Miss Grits, who has five thousand
+pounds, and expectations besides, has twice as much
+character, and is a thousand times more agreeable to my
+taste; and if she were good-looking I know that you would
+think her perfection."
+
+Very likely Miss Binny was right to a great extent.  It
+IS the pretty face which creates sympathy in the hearts of
+men, those wicked rogues.  A woman may possess the
+wisdom and chastity of Minerva, and we give no heed to
+her, if she has a plain face.  What folly will not a pair of
+bright eyes make pardonable? What dulness may not
+red lips and sweet accents render pleasant? And so, with
+their usual sense of justice, ladies argue that because a
+woman is handsome, therefore she is a fool.  O ladies,
+ladies! there are some of you who are neither handsome
+nor wise.
+
+These are but trivial incidents to recount in the life of
+our heroine.  Her tale does not deal in wonders, as the
+gentle reader has already no doubt perceived; and if a
+journal had been kept of her proceedings during the
+seven years after the birth of her son, there would be
+found few incidents more remarkable in it than that of
+the measles, recorded in the foregoing page.  Yes, one
+day, and greatly to her wonder, the Reverend Mr. Binny,
+just mentioned, asked her to change her name of Osborne
+for his own; when, with deep blushes and tears in her
+eyes and voice, she thanked him for his regard for her,
+expressed gratitude for his attentions to her and to her
+poor little boy, but said that she never, never could
+think of any but--but the husband whom she had lost.
+
+On the twenty-fifth of April, and the eighteenth of
+June, the days of marriage and widowhood, she kept her
+room entirely, consecrating them (and we do not know
+how many hours of solitary night-thought, her little boy
+sleeping in his crib by her bedside) to the memory of that
+departed friend.  During the day she was more active.
+She had to teach George to read and to write and a little
+to draw.  She read books, in order that she might tell
+him stories from them.  As his eyes opened and his mind
+expanded under the influence of the outward nature
+round about him, she taught the child, to the best of
+her humble power, to acknowledge the Maker of all, and
+every night and every morning he and she--(in that
+awful and touching communion which I think must bring
+a thrill to the heart of every man who witnesses or who
+remembers it)--the mother and the little boy--prayed
+to Our Father together, the mother pleading with all her
+gentle heart, the child lisping after her as she spoke.  And
+each time they prayed to God to bless dear Papa, as
+if he were alive and in the room with them.
+
+To wash and dress this young gentleman--to take him
+for a run of the mornings, before breakfast, and the
+retreat of grandpapa for "business"--to make for him the
+most wonderful and ingenious dresses, for which end the
+thrifty widow cut up and altered every available little bit
+of finery which she possessed out of her wardrobe during
+her marriage--for Mrs. Osborne herself (greatly to her
+mother's vexation, who preferred fine clothes, especially
+since her misfortunes) always wore a black gown and a
+straw bonnet with a black ribbon--occupied her many
+hours of the day.  Others she had to spare, at the service
+of her mother and her old father.  She had taken the pains
+to learn, and used to play cribbage with this gentleman
+on the nights when he did not go to his club.  She sang
+for him when he was so minded, and it was a good
+sign, for he invariably fell into a comfortable sleep during
+the music.  She wrote out his numerous memorials,
+letters, prospectuses, and projects.  It was in her 
+handwriting that most of the old gentleman's former
+acquaintances were informed that he had become an agent for
+the Black Diamond and Anti-Cinder Coal Company and
+could supply his friends and the public with the best coals
+at --s.  per chaldron.  All he did was to sign the circulars
+with his flourish and signature, and direct them in a
+shaky, clerklike hand.  One of these papers was sent to
+Major Dobbin, --Regt., care of Messrs.  Cox and Greenwood;
+but the Major being in Madras at the time, had no
+particular call for coals.  He knew, though, the hand
+which had written the prospectus.  Good God! what
+would he not have given to hold it in his own!  A second
+prospectus came out, informing the Major that J.  Sedley
+and Company, having established agencies at Oporto,
+Bordeaux, and St.  Mary's, were enabled to offer to their
+friends and the public generally the finest and most
+celebrated growths of ports, sherries, and claret wines at
+reasonable prices and under extraordinary advantages.
+Acting upon this hint, Dobbin furiously canvassed the
+governor, the commander-in-chief, the judges, the
+regiments, and everybody whom he knew in the Presidency,
+and sent home to Sedley and Co.  orders for wine which
+perfectly astonished Mr. Sedley and Mr. Clapp, who was
+the Co.  in the business.  But no more orders came after
+that first burst of good fortune, on which poor old Sedley
+was about to build a house in the City, a regiment of
+clerks, a dock to himself, and correspondents all over
+the world.  The old gentleman's former taste in wine had
+gone:  the curses of the mess-room assailed Major Dobbin
+for the vile drinks he had been the means of introducing
+there; and he bought back a great quantity of the wine
+and sold it at public outcry, at an enormous loss to himself.
+As for Jos, who was by this time promoted to a seat
+at the Revenue Board at Calcutta, he was wild with rage
+when the post brought him out a bundle of these
+Bacchanalian prospectuses, with a private note from his
+father, telling Jos that his senior counted upon him in
+this enterprise, and had consigned a quantity of select
+wines to him, as per invoice, drawing bills upon him for
+the amount of the same.  Jos, who would no more have it
+supposed that his father, Jos Sedley's father, of the Board
+of Revenue, was a wine merchant asking for orders, than
+that he was Jack Ketch, refused the bills with scorn, wrote
+back contumeliously to the old gentleman, bidding him
+to mind his own affairs; and the protested paper coming
+back, Sedley and Co.  had to take it up, with the profits
+which they had made out of the Madras venture, and
+with a little portion of Emmy's savings.
+
+Besides her pension of fifty pounds a year, there had
+been five hundred pounds, as her husband's executor
+stated, left in the agent's hands at the time of Osborne's
+demise, which sum, as George's guardian, Dobbin
+proposed to put out at 8 per cent in an Indian house of
+agency.  Mr. Sedley, who thought the Major had some
+roguish intentions of his own about the money, was
+strongly against this plan; and he went to the agents to
+protest personally against the employment of the money
+in question, when he learned, to his surprise, that there
+had been no such sum in their hands, that all the late
+Captain's assets did not amount to a hundred pounds,
+and that the five hundred pounds in question must be a
+separate sum, of which Major Dobbin knew the particulars.
+More than ever convinced that there was some
+roguery, old Sedley pursued the Major.  As his daughter's
+nearest friend, he demanded with a high hand a statement
+of the late Captain's accounts.  Dobbin's stammering,
+blushing, and awkwardness added to the other's
+convictions that he had a rogue to deal with, and in a
+majestic tone he told that officer a piece of his mind, as
+he called it, simply stating his belief that the Major was
+unlawfully detaining his late son-in-law's money.
+
+Dobbin at this lost all patience, and if his accuser had
+not been so old and so broken, a quarrel might have
+ensued between them at the Slaughters' Coffee-house, in
+a box of which place of entertainment the gentlemen had
+their colloquy.  "Come upstairs, sir," lisped out the
+Major.  "I insist on your coming up the stairs, and I will
+show which is the injured party, poor George or I"; and,
+dragging the old gentleman up to his bedroom, he
+produced from his desk Osborne's accounts, and a bundle
+of IOU's which the latter had given, who, to do him
+justice, was always ready to give an IOU.  "He paid
+his bills in England," Dobbin added, "but he had not a
+hundred pounds in the world when he fell.  I and one or
+two of his brother officers made up the little sum, which
+was all that we could spare, and you dare tell us that
+we are trying to cheat the widow and the orphan."
+Sedley was very contrite and humbled, though the fact is
+that William Dobbin had told a great falsehood to the old
+gentleman; having himself given every shilling of the
+money, having buried his friend, and paid all the fees and
+charges incident upon the calamity and removal of poor
+Amelia.
+
+About these expenses old Osborne had never given
+himself any trouble to think, nor any other relative of
+Amelia, nor Amelia herself, indeed.  She trusted to Major
+Dobbin as an accountant, took his somewhat confused
+calculations for granted, and never once suspected how
+much she was in his debt.
+
+Twice or thrice in the year, according to her promise,
+she wrote him letters to Madras, letters all about
+little Georgy.  How he treasured these papers!  Whenever
+Amelia wrote he answered, and not until then.  But
+he sent over endless remembrances of himself to his
+godson and to her.  He ordered and sent a box of scarfs
+and a grand ivory set of chess-men from China.  The
+pawns were little green and white men, with real swords
+and shields; the knights were on horseback, the castles
+were on the backs of elephants.  "Mrs. Mango's own set at
+the Pineries was not so fine," Mr. Pestler remarked.  These
+chess-men were the delight of Georgy's life, who printed
+his first letter in acknowledgement of this gift of his
+godpapa.  He sent over preserves and pickles, which latter
+the young gentleman tried surreptitiously in the sideboard
+and half-killed himself with eating.  He thought it was a
+judgement upon him for stealing, they were so hot.  Emmy
+wrote a comical little account of this mishap to the
+Major:  it pleased him to think that her spirits were rallying
+and that she could be merry sometimes now.  He
+sent over a pair of shawls, a white one for her and a black
+one with palm-leaves for her mother, and a pair of red
+scarfs, as winter wrappers, for old Mr. Sedley and George.
+The shawls were worth fifty guineas apiece at the very
+least, as Mrs. Sedley knew.  She wore hers in state at
+church at Brompton, and was congratulated by her
+female friends upon the splendid acquisition.  Emmy's, too,
+became prettily her modest black gown.  "What a pity it
+is she won't think of him!" Mrs. Sedley remarked to
+Mrs. Clapp and to all her friends of Brompton.  "Jos never
+sent us such presents, I am sure, and grudges us
+everything.  It is evident that the Major is over head and ears
+in love with her; and yet, whenever I so much as hint it,
+she turns red and begins to cry and goes and sits upstairs
+with her miniature.  I'm sick of that miniature.  I wish we
+had never seen those odious purse-proud Osbornes."
+
+Amidst such humble scenes and associates George's
+early youth was passed, and the boy grew up delicate,
+sensitive, imperious, woman-bred--domineering the
+gentle mother whom he loved with passionate affection.  He
+ruled all the rest of the little world round about him.
+As he grew, the elders were amazed at his haughty
+manner and his constant likeness to his father.  He asked
+questions about everything, as inquiring youth will do.  The
+profundity of his remarks and interrogatories astonished
+his old grandfather, who perfectly bored the club at the
+tavern with stories about the little lad's learning and
+genius.  He suffered his grandmother with a good-humoured indifference.  The small circle round about him
+believed that the equal of the boy did not exist upon the
+earth.  Georgy inherited his father's pride, and perhaps
+thought they were not wrong.
+
+When he grew to be about six years old, Dobbin began
+to write to him very much.  The Major wanted to hear
+that Georgy was going to a school and hoped he would
+acquit himself with credit there:  or would he have a good
+tutor at home? It was time that he should begin to learn;
+and his godfather and guardian hinted that he hoped to
+be allowed to defray the charges of the boy's education,
+which would fall heavily upon his mother's straitened
+income.  The Major, in a word, was always thinking about
+Amelia and her little boy, and by orders to his agents
+kept the latter provided with picture-books, paint-boxes,
+desks, and all conceivable implements of amusement and
+instruction.  Three days before George's sixth birthday a
+gentleman in a gig, accompanied by a servant, drove
+up to Mr. Sedley's house and asked to see Master George
+Osborne:  it was Mr. Woolsey, military tailor, of Conduit
+Street, who came at the Major's order to measure the
+young gentleman for a suit of clothes.  He had had the
+honour of making for the Captain, the young
+gentleman's father.
+
+Sometimes, too, and by the Major's desire no doubt,
+his sisters, the Misses Dobbin, would call in the family
+carriage to take Amelia and the little boy to drive if they
+were so inclined.  The patronage and kindness of these
+ladies was very uncomfortable to Amelia, but she bore it
+meekly enough, for her nature was to yield; and, besides,
+the carriage and its splendours gave little Georgy
+immense pleasure.  The ladies begged occasionally that the
+child might pass a day with them, and he was always glad
+to go to that fine garden-house at Denmark Hill, where
+they lived, and where there were such fine grapes in the
+hot-houses and peaches on the walls.
+
+One day they kindly came over to Amelia with news
+which they were SURE would delight her--something VERY
+interesting about their dear William.
+
+"What was it:  was he coming home?" she asked with
+pleasure beaming in her eyes.
+
+"Oh, no--not the least--but they had very good reason
+to believe that dear William was about to be married--
+and to a relation of a very dear friend of Amelia's--to
+Miss Glorvina O'Dowd, Sir Michael O'Dowd's sister,
+who had gone out to join Lady O'Dowd at Madras--a very
+beautiful and accomplished girl, everybody said."
+
+Amelia said "Oh!" Amelia was very VERY happy indeed.
+But she supposed Glorvina could not be like her old
+acquaintance, who was most kind--but--but she was
+very happy indeed.  And by some impulse of which I
+cannot explain the meaning, she took George in her arms
+and kissed him with an extraordinary tenderness.  Her
+eyes were quite moist when she put the child down; and
+she scarcely spoke a word during the whole of the
+drive--though she was so very happy indeed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX
+
+
+A Cynical Chapter
+
+Our duty now takes us back for a brief space to some old
+Hampshire acquaintances of ours, whose hopes respecting
+the disposal of their rich kinswoman's property were so
+woefully disappointed.  After counting upon thirty thousand
+pounds from his sister, it was a heavy blow.  to Bute Crawley
+to receive but five; out of which sum, when he had paid
+his own debts and those of Jim, his son at college, a very
+small fragment remained to portion off his four plain
+daughters.  Mrs. Bute never knew, or at least never
+acknowledged, how far her own tyrannous behaviour had
+tended to ruin her husband.  All that woman could do, she
+vowed and protested she had done.  Was it her fault if
+she did not possess those sycophantic arts which her
+hypocritical nephew, Pitt Crawley, practised? She wished
+him all the happiness which he merited out of his
+ill-gotten gains.  "At least the money will remain in the
+family," she said charitably.  "Pitt will never spend it, my
+dear, that is quite certain; for a greater miser does not
+exist in England, and he is as odious, though in a
+different way, as his spendthrift brother, the abandoned
+Rawdon."
+
+So Mrs. Bute, after the first shock of rage and
+disappointment, began to accommodate herself as best
+she could to her altered fortunes and to save and retrench
+with all her might.  She instructed her daughters how to
+bear poverty cheerfully, and invented a thousand notable
+methods to conceal or evade it.  She took them about to
+balls and public places in the neighbourhood, with
+praiseworthy energy; nay, she entertained her friends in a
+hospitable comfortable manner at the Rectory, and much
+more frequently than before dear Miss Crawley's legacy
+had fallen in.  From her outward bearing nobody would
+have supposed that the family had been disappointed
+in their expectations, or have guessed from her frequent
+appearance in public how she pinched and starved at
+home.  Her girls had more milliners' furniture than they
+had ever enjoyed before.  They appeared perseveringly
+at the Winchester and Southampton assemblies; they
+penetrated to Cowes for the race-balls and regatta-gaieties
+there; and their carriage, with the horses taken from the
+plough, was at work perpetually, until it began almost to
+be believed that the four sisters had had fortunes left them
+by their aunt, whose name the family never mentioned in
+public but with the most tender gratitude and regard.  I
+know no sort of lying which is more frequent in Vanity
+Fair than this, and it may be remarked how people who
+practise it take credit to themselves for their hypocrisy,
+and fancy that they are exceedingly virtuous and
+praiseworthy, because they are able to deceive the world
+with regard to the extent of their means.
+
+Mrs. Bute certainly thought herself one of the most
+virtuous women in England, and the sight of her happy
+family was an edifying one to strangers.  They were so
+cheerful, so loving, so well-educated, so simple!  Martha
+painted flowers exquisitely and furnished half the charity
+bazaars in the county.  Emma was a regular County Bulbul,
+and her verses in the Hampshire Telegraph were
+the glory of its Poet's Corner.  Fanny and Matilda sang
+duets together, Mamma playing the piano, and the other
+two sisters sitting with their arms round each other's waists
+and listening affectionately.  Nobody saw the poor girls
+drumming at the duets in private.  No one saw Mamma
+drilling them rigidly hour after hour.  In a word, Mrs. Bute
+put a good face against fortune and kept up appearances
+in the most virtuous manner.
+
+Everything that a good and respectable mother could
+do Mrs. Bute did.  She got over yachting men from
+Southampton, parsons from the Cathedral Close at Winchester,
+and officers from the barracks there.  She tried to inveigle
+the young barristers at assizes and encouraged Jim to
+bring home friends with whom he went out hunting with
+the H.  H.  What will not a mother do for the benefit of
+her beloved ones?
+
+Between such a woman and her brother-in-law, the
+odious Baronet at the Hall, it is manifest that there could
+be very little in common.  The rupture between Bute and
+his brother Sir Pitt was complete; indeed, between Sir
+Pitt and the whole county, to which the old man was a
+scandal.  His dislike for respectable society increased with
+age, and the lodge-gates had not opened to a gentleman's
+carriage-wheels since Pitt and Lady Jane came to pay their
+visit of duty after their marriage.
+
+That was an awful and unfortunate visit, never to be
+thought of by the family without horror.  Pitt begged his
+wife, with a ghastly countenance, never to speak of it,
+and it was only through Mrs. Bute herself, who still
+knew everything which took place at the Hall, that the
+circumstances of Sir Pitt's reception of his son and
+daughter-in-law were ever known at all.
+
+As they drove up the avenue of the park in their neat
+and well-appointed carriage, Pitt remarked with dismay
+and wrath great gaps among the trees--his trees--which
+the old Baronet was felling entirely without license.  The
+park wore an aspect of utter dreariness and ruin.  The
+drives were ill kept, and the neat carriage splashed and
+floundered in muddy pools along the road.  The great
+sweep in front of the terrace and entrance stair was
+black and covered with mosses; the once trim flower-beds
+rank and weedy.  Shutters were up along almost the
+whole line of the house; the great hall-door was unbarred
+after much ringing of the bell; an individual in ribbons
+was seen flitting up the black oak stair, as Horrocks at
+length admitted the heir of Queen's Crawley and his bride
+into the halls of their fathers.  He led the way into Sir
+Pitt's "Library," as it was called, the fumes of tobacco
+growing stronger as Pitt and Lady Jane approached that
+apartment, "Sir Pitt ain't very well," Horrocks remarked
+apologetically and hinted that his master was afflicted
+with lumbago.
+
+The library looked out on the front walk and park.
+Sir Pitt had opened one of the windows, and was bawling
+out thence to the postilion and Pitt's servant, who seemed
+to be about to take the baggage down.
+
+"Don't move none of them trunks," he cried, pointing
+with a pipe which he held in his hand.  "It's only a morning
+visit, Tucker, you fool.  Lor, what cracks that off hoss
+has in his heels!  Ain't there no one at the King's Head to
+rub 'em a little? How do, Pitt? How do, my dear? Come
+to see the old man, hay? 'Gad--you've a pretty face, too.
+You ain't like that old horse-godmother, your mother.
+Come and give old Pitt a kiss, like a good little gal."
+
+The embrace disconcerted the daughter-in-law
+somewhat, as the caresses of the old gentleman, unshorn and
+perfumed with tobacco, might well do.  But she
+remembered that her brother Southdown had mustachios,
+and smoked cigars, and submitted to the Baronet with a
+tolerable grace.
+
+"Pitt has got vat," said the Baronet, after this mark of
+affection.  "Does he read ee very long zermons, my dear?
+Hundredth Psalm, Evening Hymn, hay Pitt? Go and get
+a glass of Malmsey and a cake for my Lady Jane, Horrocks,
+you great big booby, and don't stand stearing there like
+a fat pig.  I won't ask you to stop, my dear; you'll find it too
+stoopid, and so should I too along a Pitt.  I'm an old man
+now, and like my own ways, and my pipe and backgammon
+of a night."
+
+"I can play at backgammon, sir," said Lady Jane, 
+laughing.  "I used to play with Papa and Miss Crawley, didn't
+I, Mr. Crawley?"
+
+"Lady Jane can play, sir, at the game to which you
+state that you are so partial," Pitt said haughtily.
+
+But she wawn't stop for all that.  Naw, naw, goo back
+to Mudbury and give Mrs. Rincer a benefit; or drive down
+to the Rectory and ask Buty for a dinner.  He'll be charmed
+to see you, you know; he's so much obliged to you for
+gettin' the old woman's money.  Ha, ha!  Some of it will
+do to patch up the Hall when I'm gone."
+
+"I perceive, sir," said Pitt with a heightened voice,
+"that your people will cut down the timber."
+
+"Yees, yees, very fine weather, and seasonable for the
+time of year," Sir Pitt answered, who had suddenly
+grown deaf.  "But I'm gittin' old, Pitt, now.  Law bless you,
+you ain't far from fifty yourself.  But he wears well, my
+pretty Lady Jane, don't he? It's all godliness, sobriety, and
+a moral life.  Look at me, I'm not very fur from fowr-score
+--he, he"; and he laughed, and took snuff, and leered
+at her and pinched her hand.
+
+Pitt once more brought the conversation back to the
+timber, but the Baronet was deaf again in an instant.
+
+"I'm gittin' very old, and have been cruel bad this year
+with the lumbago.  I shan't be here now for long; but I'm
+glad ee've come, daughter-in-law.  I like your face, Lady
+Jane:  it's got none of the damned high-boned Binkie look
+in it; and I'll give ee something pretty, my dear, to go to
+Court in." And he shuffled across the room to a cupboard,
+from which he took a little old case containing jewels of
+some value.  "Take that," said he, "my dear; it belonged
+to my mother, and afterwards to the first Lady Binkie.
+Pretty pearls--never gave 'em the ironmonger's daughter.
+No, no.  Take 'em and put 'em up quick," said he, thrusting
+the case into his daughter's hand, and clapping the door of
+the cabinet to, as Horrocks entered with a salver and
+refreshments.
+
+"What have you a been and given Pitt's wife?" said
+the individual in ribbons, when Pitt and Lady Jane had
+taken leave of the old gentleman.  It was Miss Horrocks,
+the butler's daughter--the cause of the scandal
+throughout the county--the lady who reigned now almost
+supreme at Queen's Crawley.
+
+The rise and progress of those Ribbons had been
+marked with dismay by the county and family.  The
+Ribbons opened an account at the Mudbury Branch Savings
+Bank; the Ribbons drove to church, monopolising the
+pony-chaise, which was for the use of the servants at
+the Hall.  The domestics were dismissed at her pleasure.
+The Scotch gardener, who still lingered on the premises,
+taking a pride in his walls and hot-houses, and indeed
+making a pretty good livelihood by the garden, which he
+farmed, and of which he sold the produce at Southampton,
+found the Ribbons eating peaches on a sunshiny morning
+at the south-wall, and had his ears boxed when he
+remonstrated about this attack on his property.  He and
+his Scotch wife and his Scotch children, the only
+respectable inhabitants of Queen's Crawley, were forced to
+migrate, with their goods and their chattels, and left the
+stately comfortable gardens to go to waste, and the
+flower-beds to run to seed.  Poor Lady Crawley's rose-garden
+became the dreariest wilderness.  Only two or three
+domestics shuddered in the bleak old servants' hall.  The
+stables and offices were vacant, and shut up, and half
+ruined.  Sir Pitt lived in private, and boozed nightly with
+Horrocks, his butler or house-steward (as he now began
+to be called), and the abandoned Ribbons.  The times
+were very much changed since the period when she drove
+to Mudbury in the spring-cart and called the small tradesmen
+"Sir." It may have been shame, or it may have been
+dislike of his neighbours, but the old Cynic of Queen's
+Crawley hardly issued from his park-gates at all now.  He
+quarrelled with his agents and screwed his tenants by
+letter.  His days were passed in conducting his own
+correspondence; the lawyers and farm-bailiffs who had to
+do business with him could not reach him but through the
+Ribbons, who received them at the door of the
+housekeeper's room, which commanded the back entrance by
+which they were admitted; and so the Baronet's daily
+perplexities increased, and his embarrassments multiplied
+round him.
+
+The horror of Pitt Crawley may be imagined, as these
+reports of his father's dotage reached the most exemplary
+and correct of gentlemen.  He trembled daily lest he should
+hear that the Ribbons was proclaimed his second legal
+mother-in-law.  After that first and last visit, his father's
+name was never mentioned in Pitt's polite and genteel
+establishment.  It was the skeleton in his house, and all the
+family walked by it in terror and silence.  The Countess
+Southdown kept on dropping per coach at the lodge-gate
+the most exciting tracts, tracts which ought to frighten
+the hair off your head.  Mrs. Bute at the parsonage
+nightly looked out to see if the sky was red over the
+elms behind which the Hall stood, and the mansion was on
+fire.  Sir G.  Wapshot and Sir H.  Fuddlestone, old friends of
+the house, wouldn't sit on the bench with Sir Pitt at
+Quarter Sessions, and cut him dead in the High Street
+of Southampton, where the reprobate stood offering his
+dirty old hands to them.  Nothing had any effect upon him;
+he put his hands into his pockets, and burst out laughing,
+as he scrambled into his carriage and four; he used to
+burst out laughing at Lady Southdown's tracts; and he
+laughed at his sons, and at the world, and at the
+Ribbons when she was angry, which was not seldom.
+
+Miss Horrocks was installed as housekeeper at Queen's
+Crawley, and ruled all the domestics there with great
+majesty and rigour.  All the servants were instructed to
+address her as "Mum," or "Madam"--and there was one
+little maid, on her promotion, who persisted in calling
+her "My Lady," without any rebuke on the part of the
+housekeeper.  "There has been better ladies, and there
+has been worser, Hester," was Miss Horrocks' reply to
+this compliment of her inferior; so she ruled, having
+supreme power over all except her father, whom,
+however, she treated with considerable haughtiness, warning
+him not to be too familiar in his behaviour to one "as was
+to be a Baronet's lady." Indeed, she rehearsed that exalted
+part in life with great satisfaction to herself, and to the
+amusement of old Sir Pitt, who chuckled at her airs and
+graces, and would laugh by the hour together at her
+assumptions of dignity and imitations of genteel life.
+He swore it was as good as a play to see her in the
+character of a fine dame, and he made her put on one of
+the first Lady Crawley's court-dresses, swearing (entirely
+to Miss Horrocks' own concurrence) that the dress
+became her prodigiously, and threatening to drive her off
+that very instant to Court in a coach-and-four.  She had
+the ransacking of the wardrobes of the two defunct ladies,
+and cut and hacked their posthumous finery so as to suit
+her own tastes and figure.  And she would have liked to
+take possession of their jewels and trinkets too; but the
+old Baronet had locked them away in his private cabinet;
+nor could she coax or wheedle him out of the keys.  And
+it is a fact, that some time after she left Queen's Crawley
+a copy-book belonging to this lady was discovered, which
+showed that she had taken great pains in private to learn
+the art of writing in general, and especially of writing
+her own name as Lady Crawley, Lady Betsy Horrocks,
+Lady Elizabeth Crawley, &c.
+
+Though the good people of the Parsonage never went to
+the Hall and shunned the horrid old dotard its owner, yet
+they kept a strict knowledge of all that happened there,
+and were looking out every day for the catastrophe for
+which Miss Horrocks was also eager.  But Fate intervened
+enviously and prevented her from receiving the reward due
+to such immaculate love and virtue.
+
+One day the Baronet surprised "her ladyship," as he
+jocularly called her, seated at that old and tuneless piano
+in the drawing-room, which had scarcely been touched
+since Becky Sharp played quadrilles upon it--seated at
+the piano with the utmost gravity and squalling to the
+best of her power in imitation of the music which she
+had sometimes heard.  The little kitchen-maid on her
+promotion was standing at her mistress's side, quite delighted
+during the operation, and wagging her head up and down
+and crying, "Lor, Mum, 'tis bittiful"--just like a genteel
+sycophant in a real drawing-room.
+
+This incident made the old Baronet roar with laughter,
+as usual.  He narrated the circumstance a dozen times to
+Horrocks in the course of the evening, and greatly to the
+discomfiture of Miss Horrocks.  He thrummed on the table
+as if it had been a musical instrument, and squalled in
+imitation of her manner of singing.  He vowed that such
+a beautiful voice ought to be cultivated and declared she
+ought to have singing-masters, in which proposals she
+saw nothing ridiculous.  He was in great spirits that night,
+and drank with his friend and butler an extraordinary
+quantity of rum-and-water--at a very late hour the
+faithful friend and domestic conducted his master to his
+bedroom.
+
+Half an hour afterwards there was a great hurry and
+bustle in the house.  Lights went about from window to
+window in the lonely desolate old Hall, whereof but two or
+three rooms were ordinarily occupied by its owner.
+Presently, a boy on a pony went galloping off to Mudbury,
+to the Doctor's house there.  And in another hour (by
+which fact we ascertain how carefully the excellent Mrs.
+Bute Crawley had always kept up an understanding with
+the great house), that lady in her clogs and calash, the
+Reverend Bute Crawley, and James Crawley, her son,
+had walked over from the Rectory through the park, and
+had entered the mansion by the open hall-door.
+
+They passed through the hall and the small oak parlour,
+on the table of which stood the three tumblers and the
+empty rum-bottle which had served for Sir Pitt's carouse,
+and through that apartment into Sir Pitt's study, where
+they found Miss Horrocks, of the guilty ribbons, with a
+wild air, trying at the presses and escritoires with a
+bunch of keys.  She dropped them with a scream of
+terror, as little Mrs. Bute's eyes flashed out at her from
+under her black calash.
+
+"Look at that, James and Mr. Crawley,?" cried Mrs.
+Bute, pointing at the scared figure of the black-eyed,
+guilty wench.
+
+"He gave 'em me; he gave 'em me!" she cried.
+
+"Gave them you, you abandoned creature!" screamed
+Mrs. Bute.  "Bear witness, Mr. Crawley, we found this
+good-for-nothing woman in the act of stealing your
+brother's property; and she will be hanged, as I always
+said she would."
+
+Betsy Horrocks, quite daunted, flung herself down on
+her knees, bursting into tears.  But those who know a really
+good woman are aware that she is not in a hurry to
+forgive, and that the humiliation of an enemy is a triumph
+to her soul.
+
+"Ring the bell, James," Mrs. Bute said.  "Go on ringing it
+till the people come." The three or four domestics
+resident in the deserted old house came presently at that
+jangling and continued summons.
+
+"Put that woman in the strong-room," she said.  "We
+caught her in the act of robbing Sir Pitt.  Mr. Crawley,
+you'll make out her committal--and, Beddoes, you'll
+drive her over in the spring cart, in the morning, to
+Southampton Gaol."
+
+"My dear," interposed the Magistrate and Rector--
+"she's only--"
+
+"Are there no handcuffs?" Mrs. Bute continued,
+stamping in her clogs.  "There used to be handcuffs.
+Where's the creature's abominable father?"
+
+"He DID give 'em me," still cried poor Betsy; "didn't
+he, Hester? You saw Sir Pitt--you know you did--
+give 'em me, ever so long ago--the day after Mudbury
+fair:  not that I want 'em.  Take 'em if you think they
+ain't mine." And here the unhappy wretch pulled out
+from her pocket a large pair of paste shoe-buckles which
+had excited her admiration, and which she had just
+appropriated out of one of the bookcases in the study,
+where they had lain.
+
+"Law, Betsy, how could you go for to tell such a wicked
+story!" said Hester, the little kitchen-maid late on her
+promotion--"and to Madame Crawley, so good and kind,
+and his Rev'rince (with a curtsey), and you may search
+all MY boxes, Mum, I'm sure, and here's my keys as I'm
+an honest girl, though of pore parents and workhouse
+bred--and if you find so much as a beggarly bit of lace
+or a silk stocking out of all the gownds as YOU'VE had the
+picking of, may I never go to church agin."
+
+"Give up your keys, you hardened hussy," hissed out
+the virtuous little lady in the calash.
+
+"And here's a candle, Mum, and if you please, Mum,
+I can show you her room, Mum, and the press in the
+housekeeper's room, Mum, where she keeps heaps and
+heaps of things, Mum," cried out the eager little Hester
+with a profusion of curtseys.
+
+"Hold your tongue, if you please.  I know the room
+which the creature occupies perfectly well.  Mrs. Brown,
+have the goodness to come with me, and Beddoes don't
+you lose sight of that woman," said Mrs. Bute, seizing the
+candle.  "Mr. Crawley, you had better go upstairs and
+see that they are not murdering your unfortunate brother"
+--and the calash, escorted by Mrs. Brown, walked away
+to the apartment which, as she said truly, she knew
+perfectly well.
+
+Bute went upstairs and found the Doctor from
+Mudbury, with the frightened Horrocks over his master in a
+chair.  They were trying to bleed Sir Pitt Crawley.
+
+With the early morning an express was sent off to Mr.
+Pitt Crawley by the Rector's lady, who assumed the
+command of everything, and had watched the old Baronet
+through the night.  He had been brought back to a sort of
+life; he could not speak, but seemed to recognize people.
+Mrs. Bute kept resolutely by his bedside.  She never seemed
+to want to sleep, that little woman, and did not close her
+fiery black eyes once, though the Doctor snored in the
+arm-chair.  Horrocks made some wild efforts to assert
+his authority and assist his master; but Mrs. Bute called
+him a tipsy old wretch and bade him never show his face
+again in that house, or he should be transported like his
+abominable daughter.
+
+Terrified by her manner, he slunk down to the oak
+parlour where Mr. James was, who, having tried the
+bottle standing there and found no liquor in it, ordered
+Mr. Horrocks to get another bottle of rum, which he
+fetched, with clean glasses, and to which the Rector and
+his son sat down, ordering Horrocks to put down the keys
+at that instant and never to show his face again.
+
+Cowed by this behaviour, Horrocks gave up the keys,
+and he and his daughter slunk off silently through the
+night and gave up possession of the house of Queen's
+Crawley.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL
+
+In Which Becky Is Recognized by the Family
+
+The heir of Crawley arrived at home, in due time, after
+this catastrophe, and henceforth may be said to have
+reigned in Queen's Crawley.  For though the old Baronet
+survived many months, he never recovered the use of
+his intellect or his speech completely, and the government
+of the estate devolved upon his elder son.  In a
+strange condition Pitt found it.  Sir Pitt was always buying
+and mortgaging; he had twenty men of business, and
+quarrels with each; quarrels with all his tenants, and
+lawsuits with them; lawsuits with the lawyers; lawsuits
+with the Mining and Dock Companies in which he was
+proprietor; and with every person with whom he had
+business.  To unravel these difficulties and to set the
+estate clear was a task worthy of the orderly and
+persevering diplomatist of Pumpernickel, and he set
+himself to work with prodigious assiduity.  His whole family,
+of course, was transported to Queen's Crawley, whither
+Lady Southdown, of course, came too; and she set about
+converting the parish under the Rector's nose, and
+brought down her irregular clergy to the dismay of the
+angry Mrs Bute.  Sir Pitt had concluded no bargain for
+the sale of the living of Queen's Crawley; when it should
+drop, her Ladyship proposed to take the patronage into
+her own hands and present a young protege to the
+Rectory, on which subject the diplomatic Pitt said
+nothing.
+
+Mrs. Bute's intentions with regard to Miss Betsy
+Horrocks were not carried into effect, and she paid no visit
+to Southampton Gaol.  She and her father left the Hall
+when the latter took possession of the Crawley Arms in
+the village, of which he had got a lease from Sir Pitt.
+The ex-butler had obtained a small freehold there
+likewise, which gave him a vote for the borough.  The Rector
+had another of these votes, and these and four others
+formed the representative body which returned the two
+members for Queen's Crawley.
+
+There was a show of courtesy kept up between the
+Rectory and the Hall ladies, between the younger ones at
+least, for Mrs. Bute and Lady Southdown never could
+meet without battles, and gradually ceased seeing each
+other.  Her Ladyship kept her room when the ladies from
+the Rectory visited their cousins at the Hall.  Perhaps Mr.
+Pitt was not very much displeased at these occasional
+absences of his mamma-in-law.  He believed the Binkie
+family to be the greatest and wisest and most interesting
+in the world, and her Ladyship and his aunt had long held
+ascendency over him; but sometimes he felt that she
+commanded him too much.  To be considered young was
+complimentary, doubtless, but at six-and-forty to be
+treated as a boy was sometimes mortifying.  Lady Jane
+yielded up everything, however, to her mother.  She was
+only fond of her children in private, and it was lucky
+for her that Lady Southdown's multifarious business, her
+conferences with ministers, and her correspondence with
+all the missionaries of Africa, Asia, aud Australasia, &c.,
+occupied the venerable Countess a great deal, so that
+she had but little time to devote to her granddaughter,
+the little Matilda, and her grandson, Master Pitt Crawley.
+The latter was a feeble child, and it was only by
+prodigious quantities of calomel that Lady Southdown was
+able to keep him in life at all.
+
+As for Sir Pitt he retired into those very apartments
+where Lady Crawley had been previously extinguished,
+and here was tended by Miss Hester, the girl upon her
+promotion, with constant care and assiduity.  What love,
+what fidelity, what constancy is there equal to that of a
+nurse with good wages? They smooth pillows; and make
+arrowroot; they get up at nights; they bear complaints
+and querulousness; they see the sun shining out of doors
+and don't want to go abroad; they sleep on arm-chairs
+and eat their meals in solitude; they pass long long
+evenings doing nothing, watching the embers, and the
+patient's drink simmering in the jug; they read the weekly
+paper the whole week through; and Law's Serious Call or
+the Whole Duty of Man suffices them for literature for
+the year--and we quarrel with them because, when their
+relations come to see them once a week, a little gin
+is smuggled in in their linen basket.  Ladies, what man's
+love is there that would stand a year's nursing of the
+object of his affection? Whereas a nurse will stand by you
+for ten pounds a quarter, and we think her too highly
+paid.  At least Mr. Crawley grumbled a good deal about
+paying half as much to Miss Hester for her constant
+attendance upon the Baronet his father.
+
+Of sunshiny days this old gentleman was taken out in a
+chair on the terrace--the very chair which Miss Crawley
+had had at Brighton, and which had been transported
+thence with a number of Lady Southdown's effects to
+Queen's Crawley.  Lady Jane always walked by the old
+man, and was an evident favourite with him.  He used to
+nod many times to her and smile when she came in, and
+utter inarticulate deprecatory moans when she was going
+away.  When the door shut upon her he would cry and
+sob--whereupon Hester's face and manner, which was
+always exceedingly bland and gentle while her lady was
+present, would change at once, and she would make faces
+at him and clench her fist and scream out "Hold your
+tongue, you stoopid old fool," and twirl away his chair
+from the fire which he loved to look at--at which he
+would cry more.  For this was all that was left after more
+than seventy years of cunning, and struggling, and
+drinking, and scheming, and sin and selfishness--a
+whimpering old idiot put in and out of bed and cleaned
+and fed like a baby.
+
+At last a day came when the nurse's occupation was
+over.  Early one morning, as Pitt Crawley was at his
+steward's and bailiff's books in the study, a knock came
+to the door, and Hester presented herself, dropping a
+curtsey, and said,
+
+"If you please, Sir Pitt, Sir Pitt died this morning, Sir
+Pitt.  I was a-making of his toast, Sir Pitt, for his gruel,
+Sir Pitt, which he took every morning regular at six, Sir
+Pitt, and--I thought I heard a moan-like, Sir Pitt--and--
+and--and--" She dropped another curtsey.
+
+What was it that made Pitt's pale face flush quite
+red? Was it because he was Sir Pitt at last, with a seat
+in Parliament, and perhaps future honours in prospect?
+"I'll clear the estate now with the ready money," he
+thought and rapidly calculated its incumbrances and the
+improvements which he would make.  He would not use his
+aunt's money previously lest Sir Pitt should recover and
+his outlay be in vain.
+
+All the blinds were pulled down at the Hall and Rectory:
+the church bell was tolled, and the chancel hung in
+black; and Bute Crawley didn't go to a coursing meeting,
+but went and dined quietly at Fuddleston, where
+they talked about his deceased brother and young Sir
+Pitt over their port.  Miss Betsy, who was by this time
+married to a saddler at Mudbury, cried a good deal.
+The family surgeon rode over and paid his respectful
+compliments, and inquiries for the health of their
+ladyships.  The death was talked about at Mudbury and at
+the Crawley Arms, the landlord whereof had become
+reconciled with the Rector of late, who was occasionally
+known to step into the parlour and taste Mr. Horrocks'
+mild beer.
+
+"Shall I write to your brother--or will you?" asked
+Lady Jane of her husband, Sir Pitt.
+
+"I will write, of course," Sir Pitt said, "and invite him
+to the funeral:  it will be but becoming."
+
+"And--and--Mrs. Rawdon," said Lady Jane timidly.
+
+"Jane!" said Lady Southdown, "how can you think of
+such a thing?"
+
+"Mrs. Rawdon must of course be asked," said Sir Pitt,
+resolutely.
+
+"Not whilst I am in the house!" said Lady Southdown.
+
+"Your Ladyship will be pleased to recollect that I am
+the head of this family," Sir Pitt replied.  "If you please,
+Lady Jane, you will write a letter to Mrs. Rawdon
+Crawley, requesting her presence upon this melancholy
+occasion."
+
+"Jane, I forbid you to put pen to paper!" cried the
+Countess.
+
+"I believe I am the head of this family," Sir Pitt
+repeated; "and however much I may regret any
+circumstance which may lead to your Ladyship quitting this
+house, must, if you please, continue to govern it as I see
+fit."
+
+Lady Southdown rose up as magnificent as Mrs. Siddons
+in Lady Macbeth and ordered that horses might be put
+to her carriage.  If her son and daughter turned her out
+of their house, she would hide her sorrows somewhere in
+loneliness and pray for their conversion to better
+thoughts.
+
+"We don't turn you out of our house, Mamma," said
+the timid Lady Jane imploringly.
+
+"You invite such company to it as no Christian lady
+should meet, and I will have my horses to-morrow
+morning."
+
+"Have the goodness to write, Jane, under my dictation,"
+said Sir Pitt, rising and throwing himself into an attitude
+of command, like the portrait of a Gentleman in the
+Exhibition, "and begin.  'Queen's Crawley, September 14,
+1822.--My dear brother--' "
+
+Hearing these decisive and terrible words, Lady Macbeth,
+who had been waiting for a sign of weakness or
+vacillation on the part of her son-in-law, rose and, with a
+scared look, left the library.  Lady Jane looked up to
+her husband as if she would fain follow and soothe her
+mamma, but Pitt forbade his wife to move.
+
+"She won't go away," he said.  "She has let her house
+at Brighton and has spent her last half-year's dividends.
+A Countess living at an inn is a ruined woman.  I have
+been waiting long for an opportunity--to take this--this
+decisive step, my love; for, as you must perceive, it is
+impossible that there should be two chiefs in a family:
+and now, if you please, we will resume the dictation.  'My
+dear brother, the melancholy intelligence which it is my
+duty to convey to my family must have been long
+anticipated by,' " &c.
+
+In a word, Pitt having come to his kingdom, and having
+by good luck, or desert rather, as he considered, assumed
+almost all the fortune which his other relatives
+had expected, was determined to treat his family kindly
+and respectably and make a house of Queen's Crawley
+once more.  It pleased him to think that he should be its
+chief.  He proposed to use the vast influence that his
+commanding talents and position must speedily acquire
+for him in the county to get his brother placed and his
+cousins decently provided for, and perhaps had a little
+sting of repentance as he thought that he was the
+proprietor of all that they had hoped for.  In the course of
+three or four days' reign his bearing was changed and
+his plans quite fixed:  he determined to rule justly and
+honestly, to depose Lady Southdown, and to be on the
+friendliest possible terms with all the relations of his
+blood.
+
+So he dictated a letter to his brother Rawdon--a solemn
+and elaborate letter, containing the profoundest
+observations, couched in the longest words, and filling with
+wonder the simple little secretary, who wrote under her
+husband's order.  "What an orator this will be," thought
+she, "when he enters the House of Commons" (on which
+point, and on the tyranny of Lady Southdown, Pitt had
+sometimes dropped hints to his wife in bed); "how wise
+and good, and what a genius my husband is!  I fancied
+him a little cold; but how good, and what a genius!"
+
+The fact is, Pitt Crawley had got every word of the
+letter by heart and had studied it, with diplomatic
+secrecy, deeply and perfectly, long before he thought fit to
+communicate it to his astonished wife.
+
+This letter, with a huge black border and seal, was
+accordingly despatched by Sir Pitt Crawley to his brother
+the Colonel, in London.  Rawdon Crawley was but
+half-pleased at the receipt of it.  "What's the use of going
+down to that stupid place?" thought he.  "I can't stand
+being alone with Pitt after dinner, and horses there
+and back will cost us twenty pound."
+
+He carried the letter, as he did all difficulties, to Becky,
+upstairs in her bedroom--with her chocolate, which he
+always made and took to her of a morning.
+
+He put the tray with the breakfast and the letter on
+the dressing-table, before which Becky sat combing her
+yellow hair.  She took up the black-edged missive, and
+having read it, she jumped up from the chair, crying
+"Hurray!" and waving the note round her head.
+
+"Hurray?" said Rawdon, wondering at the little figure
+capering about in a streaming flannel dressing-gown, with
+tawny locks dishevelled.  "He's not left us anything,
+Becky.  I had my share when I came of age."
+
+"You'll never be of age, you silly old man," Becky
+replied.  "Run out now to Madam Brunoy's, for I must
+have some mourning:  and get a crape on your hat, and a
+black waistcoat--I don't think you've got one; order it
+to be brought home to-morrow, so that we may be able
+to start on Thursday."
+
+"You don't mean to go?" Rawdon interposed.
+
+"Of course I mean to go.  I mean that Lady Jane shall
+present me at Court next year.  I mean that your brother
+shall give you a seat in Parliament, you stupid old
+creature.  I mean that Lord Steyne shall have your vote and
+his, my dear, old silly man; and that you shall be an Irish
+Secretary, or a West Indian Governor:  or a Treasurer,
+or a Consul, or some such thing."
+
+"Posting will cost a dooce of a lot of money," grumbled
+Rawdon.
+
+"We might take Southdown's carriage, which ought to
+be present at the funeral, as he is a relation of the
+family:  but, no--I intend that we shall go by the coach.
+They'll like it better.  It seems more humble--"
+
+"Rawdy goes, of course?" the Colonel asked.
+
+"No such thing; why pay an extra place? He's too big to
+travel bodkin between you and me.  Let him stay here in
+the nursery, and Briggs can make him a black frock.  Go
+you, and do as I bid you.  And you had best tell Sparks,
+your man, that old Sir Pitt is dead and that you will
+come in for something considerable when the affairs are
+arranged.  He'll tell this to Raggles, who has been pressing
+for money, and it will console poor Raggles." And so
+Becky began sipping her chocolate.
+
+When the faithful Lord Steyne arrived in the evening,
+he found Becky and her companion, who was no other
+than our friend Briggs, busy cutting, ripping, snipping,
+and tearing all sorts of black stuffs available for the
+melancholy occasion.
+
+"Miss Briggs and I are plunged in grief and despondency
+for the death of our Papa," Rebecca said.  "Sir Pitt
+Crawley is dead, my lord.  We have been tearing our hair
+all the morning, and now we are tearing up our old
+clothes."
+
+"Oh, Rebecca, how can you--" was all that Briggs could
+say as she turned up her eyes.
+
+"Oh, Rebecca, how can you--" echoed my Lord.  "So
+that old scoundrel's dead, is he? He might have been a
+Peer if he had played his cards better.  Mr. Pitt had very
+nearly made him; but he ratted always at the wrong
+time.  What an old Silenus it was!"
+
+"I might have been Silenus's widow," said Rebecca.
+"Don't you remember, Miss Briggs, how you peeped in
+at the door and saw old Sir Pitt on his knees to me?"
+Miss Briggs, our old friend, blushed very much at this
+reminiscence, and was glad when Lord Steyne ordered
+her to go downstairs and make him a cup of tea.
+
+Briggs was the house-dog whom Rebecca had provided
+as guardian of her innocence and reputation.  Miss Crawley
+had left her a little annuity.  She would have been
+content to remain in the Crawley family with Lady Jane,
+who was good to her and to everybody; but Lady
+Southdown dismissed poor Briggs as quickly as decency
+permitted; and Mr. Pitt (who thought himself much injured
+by the uncalled-for generosity of his deceased relative
+towards a lady who had only been Miss Crawley's
+faithful retainer a score of years) made no objection to that
+exercise of the dowager's authority.  Bowls and Firkin
+likewise received their legacies and their dismissals, and
+married and set up a lodging-house, according to the
+custom of their kind.
+
+Briggs tried to live with her relations in the country,
+but found that attempt was vain after the better society
+to which she had been accustomed.  Briggs's friends, small
+tradesmen, in a country town, quarrelled over Miss
+Briggs's forty pounds a year as eagerly and more openly
+than Miss Crawley's kinsfolk had for that lady's
+inheritance.  Briggs's brother, a radical hatter and grocer, called
+his sister a purse-proud aristocrat, because she would not
+advance a part of her capital to stock his shop; and she
+would have done so most likely, but that their sister, a
+dissenting shoemaker's lady, at variance with the hatter
+and grocer, who went to another chapel, showed how
+their brother was on the verge of bankruptcy, and took
+possession of Briggs for a while.  The dissenting
+shoemaker wanted Miss Briggs to send his son to college
+and make a gentleman of him.  Between them the two
+families got a great portion of her private savings out of
+her, and finally she fled to London followed by the
+anathemas of both, and determined to seek for servitude
+again as infinitely less onerous than liberty.  And advertising
+in the papers that a "Gentlewoman of agreeable
+manners, and accustomed to the best society, was anxious
+to," &c., she took up her residence with Mr. Bowls
+in Half Moon Street, and waited the result of the
+advertisement.
+
+So it was that she fell in with Rebecca.  Mrs. Rawdon's
+dashing little carriage and ponies was whirling down the
+street one day, just as Miss Briggs, fatigued, had
+reached Mr. Bowls's door, after a weary walk to the
+Times Office in the City to insert her advertisement for
+the sixth time.  Rebecca was driving, and at once
+recognized the gentlewoman with agreeable manners, and
+being a perfectly good-humoured woman, as we have
+seen, and having a regard for Briggs, she pulled up the
+ponies at the doorsteps, gave the reins to the groom,
+and jumping out, had hold of both Briggs's hands, before
+she of the agreeable manners had recovered from the
+shock of seeing an old friend.
+
+Briggs cried, and Becky laughed a great deal and
+kissed the gentlewoman as soon as they got into the
+passage; and thence into Mrs. Bowls's front parlour, with
+the red moreen curtains, and the round looking-glass,
+with the chained eagle above, gazing upon the back of
+the ticket in the window which announced "Apartments
+to Let."
+
+Briggs told all her history amidst those perfectly
+uncalled-for sobs and ejaculations of wonder with which
+women of her soft nature salute an old acquaintance, or
+regard a rencontre in the street; for though people meet
+other people every day, yet some there are who insist
+upon discovering miracles; and women, even though they
+have disliked each other, begin to cry when they meet,
+deploring and remembering the time when they last
+quarrelled.  So, in a word, Briggs told all her history, and
+Becky gave a narrative of her own life, with her usual
+artlessness and candour.
+
+Mrs. Bowls, late Firkin, came and listened grimly in
+the passage to the hysterical sniffling and giggling which
+went on in the front parlour.  Becky had never been a
+favourite of hers.  Since the establishment of the married
+couple in London they had frequented their former
+friends of the house of Raggles, and did not like the
+latter's account of the Colonel's menage.  "I wouldn't trust
+him, Ragg, my boy," Bowls remarked; and his wife,
+when Mrs. Rawdon issued from the parlour, only saluted
+the lady with a very sour curtsey; and her fingers
+were like so many sausages, cold and lifeless, when she
+held them out in deference to Mrs. Rawdon, who persisted
+in shaking hands with the retired lady's maid.  She whirled
+away into Piccadilly, nodding with the sweetest of smiles
+towards Miss Briggs, who hung nodding at the window
+close under the advertisement-card, and at the next
+moment was in the park with a half-dozen of dandies
+cantering after her carriage.
+
+When she found how her friend was situated, and how
+having a snug legacy from Miss Crawley, salary was no
+object to our gentlewoman, Becky instantly formed some
+benevolent little domestic plans concerning her.  This
+was just such a companion as would suit her establishment,
+and she invited Briggs to come to dinner with her
+that very evening, when she should see Becky's dear little
+darling Rawdon.
+
+Mrs. Bowls cautioned her lodger against venturing into
+the lion's den, "wherein you will rue it, Miss B., mark my
+words, and as sure as my name is Bowls." And Briggs
+promised to be very cautious.  The upshot of which
+caution was that she went to live with Mrs. Rawdon the next
+week, and had lent Rawdon Crawley six hundred pounds
+upon annuity before six months were over.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI
+
+
+In Which Becky Revisits the Halls of Her Ancestors
+
+So the mourning being ready, and Sir Pitt Crawley warned
+of their arrival, Colonel Crawley and his wife took a
+couple of places in the same old High-flyer coach by
+which Rebecca had travelled in the defunct Baronet's
+company, on her first journey into the world some nine
+years before.  How well she remembered the Inn Yard,
+and the ostler to whom she refused money, and the
+insinuating Cambridge lad who wrapped her in his coat on
+the journey!  Rawdon took his place outside, and would
+have liked to drive, but his grief forbade him.  He sat by
+the coachman and talked about horses and the road the
+whole way; and who kept the inns, and who horsed the
+coach by which he had travelled so many a time, when
+he and Pitt were boys going to Eton.  At Mudbury a
+carriage and a pair of horses received them, with a
+coachman in black.  "It's the old drag, Rawdon," Rebecca said
+as they got in.  "The worms have eaten the cloth a good
+deal--there's the stain which Sir Pitt--ha!  I see Dawson
+the Ironmonger has his shutters up--which Sir Pitt made
+such a noise about.  It was a bottle of cherry brandy he
+broke which we went to fetch for your aunt from
+Southampton.  How time flies, to be sure!  That can't be Polly
+Talboys, that bouncing girl standing by her mother at
+the cottage there.  I remember her a mangy little urchin
+picking weeds in the garden."
+
+"Fine gal," said Rawdon, returning the salute which the
+cottage gave him, by two fingers applied to his crape
+hatband.  Becky bowed and saluted, and recognized
+people here and there graciously.  These recognitions were
+inexpressibly pleasant to her.  It seemed as if she was
+not an imposter any more, and was coming to the home
+of her ancestors.  Rawdon was rather abashed and cast
+down, on the other hand.  What recollections of boyhood
+and innocence might have been flitting across his brain?
+What pangs of dim remorse and doubt and shame?
+
+"Your sisters must be young women now," Rebecca
+said, thinking of those girls for the first time perhaps
+since she had left them.
+
+"Don't know, I'm shaw," replied the Colonel.  "Hullo!
+here's old Mother Lock.  How-dy-do, Mrs. Lock? Remember
+me, don't you? Master Rawdon, hey? Dammy how
+those old women last; she was a hundred when I was a
+boy."
+
+They were going through the lodge-gates kept by old
+Mrs. Lock, whose hand Rebecca insisted upon shaking,
+as she flung open the creaking old iron gate, and the
+carriage passed between the two moss-grown pillars
+surmounted by the dove and serpent.
+
+"The governor has cut into the timber," Rawdon said,
+looking about, and then was silent--so was Becky.  Both
+of them were rather agitated, and thinking of old times.
+He about Eton, and his mother, whom he remembered,
+a frigid demure woman, and a sister who died, of whom
+he had been passionately fond; and how he used to thrash
+Pitt; and about little Rawdy at home.  And Rebecca
+thought about her own youth and the dark secrets of
+those early tainted days; and of her entrance into life
+by yonder gates; and of Miss Pinkerton, and Joe, and
+Amelia.
+
+The gravel walk and terrace had been scraped quite
+clean.  A grand painted hatchment was already over the
+great entrance, and two very solemn and tall personages
+in black flung open each a leaf of the door as the
+carriage pulled up at the familiar steps.  Rawdon turned red,
+and Becky somewhat pale, as they passed through the
+old hall, arm in arm.  She pinched her husband's arm
+as they entered the oak parlour, where Sir Pitt and his
+wife were ready to receive them.  Sir Pitt in black, Lady
+Jane in black, and my Lady Southdown with a large black
+head-piece of bugles and feathers, which waved on her
+Ladyship's head like an undertaker's tray.
+
+Sir Pitt had judged correctly, that she would not quit
+the premises.  She contented herself by preserving a
+solemn and stony silence, when in company of Pitt and
+his rebellious wife, and by frightening the children in
+the nursery by the ghastly gloom of her demeanour.
+Only a very faint bending of the head-dress and plumes
+welcomed Rawdon and his wife, as those prodigals
+returned to their family.
+
+To say the truth, they were not affected very much
+one way or other by this coolness.  Her Ladyship was a
+person only of secondary consideration in their minds
+just then--they were intent upon the reception which
+the reigning brother and sister would afford them.
+
+Pitt, with rather a heightened colour, went up and
+shook his brother by the hand, and saluted Rebecca with
+a hand-shake and a very low bow.  But Lady Jane took both
+the hands of her sister-in-law and kissed her affectionately.
+The embrace somehow brought tears into the eyes of
+the little adventuress--which ornaments, as we know,
+she wore very seldom.  The artless mark of kindness and
+confidence touched and pleased her; and Rawdon,
+encouraged by this demonstration on his sister's part,
+twirled up his mustachios and took leave to salute Lady
+Jane with a kiss, which caused her Ladyship to blush
+exceedingly.
+
+"Dev'lish nice little woman, Lady Jane," was his verdict,
+when he and his wife were together again.  "Pitt's got fat,
+too, and is doing the thing handsomely." "He can afford
+it," said Rebecca and agreed in her husband's farther
+opinion "that the mother-in-law was a tremendous old
+Guy--and that the sisters were rather well-looking
+young women."
+
+They, too, had been summoned from school to attend
+the funeral ceremonies.  It seemed Sir Pitt Crawley, for
+the dignity of the house and family, had thought right to
+have about the place as many persons in black as could
+possibly be assembled.  All the men and maids of the
+house, the old women of the Alms House, whom the elder
+Sir Pitt had cheated out of a great portion of their
+due, the parish clerk's family, and the special retainers
+of both Hall and Rectory were habited in sable; added to
+these, the undertaker's men, at least a score, with crapes
+and hatbands, and who made goodly show when the
+great burying show took place--but these are mute
+personages in our drama; and having nothing to do or say,
+need occupy a very little space here.
+
+With regard to her sisters-in-law Rebecca did not
+attempt to forget her former position of Governess
+towards them, but recalled it frankly and kindly, and asked
+them about their studies with great gravity, and told them
+that she had thought of them many and many a day,
+and longed to know of their welfare.  In fact you would
+have supposed that ever since she had left them she had
+not ceased to keep them uppermost in her thoughts and to
+take the tenderest interest in their welfare.  So supposed
+Lady Crawley herself and her young sisters.
+
+"She's hardly changed since eight years," said Miss
+Rosalind to Miss Violet, as they were preparing for dinner.
+
+"Those red-haired women look wonderfully well,"
+replied the other.
+
+"Hers is much darker than it was; I think she must dye
+it," Miss Rosalind added.  "She is stouter, too, and
+altogether improved," continued Miss Rosalind, who was
+disposed to be very fat.
+
+"At least she gives herself no airs and remembers that
+she was our Governess once," Miss Violet said, intimating
+that it befitted all governesses to keep their proper place,
+and forgetting altogether that she was granddaughter not
+only of Sir Walpole Crawley, but of Mr. Dawson of
+Mudbury, and so had a coal-scuttle in her scutcheon.  There
+are other very well-meaning people whom one meets
+every day in Vanity Fair who are surely equally oblivious.
+
+"It can't be true what the girls at the Rectory said, that
+her mother was an opera-dancer--"
+
+"A person can't help their birth," Rosalind replied with
+great liberality.  "And I agree with our brother, that as she
+is in the family, of course we are bound to notice her.
+I am sure Aunt Bute need not talk; she wants to marry
+Kate to young Hooper, the wine-merchant, and absolutely
+asked him to come to the Rectory for orders."
+
+"I wonder whether Lady Southdown will go away, she
+looked very glum upon Mrs. Rawdon," the other said.
+
+"I wish she would.  I won't read the Washerwoman
+of Finchley Common," vowed Violet; and so saying, and
+avoiding a passage at the end of which a certain coffin was
+placed with a couple of watchers, and lights perpetually
+burning in the closed room, these young women came
+down to the family dinner, for which the bell rang as
+usual.
+
+But before this, Lady Jane conducted Rebecca to the
+apartments prepared for her, which, with the rest of the
+house, had assumed a very much improved appearance
+of order and comfort during Pitt's regency, and here
+beholding that Mrs. Rawdon's modest little trunks had
+arrived, and were placed in the bedroom and
+dressing-room adjoining, helped her to take off her neat
+black bonnet and cloak, and asked her sister-in-law in
+what more she could be useful.
+
+"What I should like best," said Rebecca, "would be to
+go to the nursery and see your dear little children." On
+which the two ladies looked very kindly at each other
+and went to that apartment hand in hand.
+
+Becky admired little Matilda, who was not quite four
+years old, as the most charming little love in the world;
+and the boy, a little fellow of two years--pale, heavy-eyed,
+and large-headed--she pronounced to be a perfect
+prodigy in point of size, intelligence, and beauty.
+
+"I wish Mamma would not insist on giving him so much
+medicine," Lady Jane said with a sigh.  "I often think we
+should all be better without it." And then Lady Jane and
+her new-found friend had one of those confidential medical conversations about the children, which all mothers,
+and most women, as I am given to understand, delight in.
+Fifty years ago, and when the present writer, being an
+interesting little boy, was ordered out of the room with
+the ladies after dinner, I remember quite well that their
+talk was chiefly about their ailments; and putting this
+question directly to two or three since, I have always got
+from them the acknowledgement that times are not
+changed.  Let my fair readers remark for themselves this
+very evening when they quit the dessert-table and
+assemble to celebrate the drawing-room mysteries.  Well
+--in half an hour Becky and Lady Jane were close and
+intimate friends--and in the course of the evening her
+Ladyship informed Sir Pitt that she thought her new
+sister-in-law was a kind, frank, unaffected, and affectionate
+young woman.
+
+And so having easily won the daughter's good-will, the
+indefatigable little woman bent herself to conciliate the
+august Lady Southdown.  As soon as she found her Ladyship
+alone, Rebecca attacked her on the nursery question
+at once and said that her own little boy was saved,
+actually saved, by calomel, freely administered, when all the
+physicians in Paris had given the dear child up.  And then
+she mentioned how often she had heard of Lady Southdown
+from that excellent man the Reverend Lawrence
+Grills, Minister of the chapel in May Fair, which she
+frequented; and how her views were very much changed
+by circumstances and misfortunes; and how she hoped that
+a past life spent in worldliness and error might not
+incapacitate her from more serious thought for the future.
+She described how in former days she had been indebted
+to Mr. Crawley for religious instruction, touched upon
+the Washerwoman of Finchley Common, which she had
+read with the greatest profit, and asked about Lady
+Emily, its gifted author, now Lady Emily Hornblower, at
+Cape Town, where her husband had strong hopes of
+becoming Bishop of Caffraria.
+
+But she crowned all, and confirmed herself in Lady
+Southdown's favour, by feeling very much agitated and
+unwell after the funeral and requesting her Ladyship's
+medical advice, which the Dowager not only gave, but,
+wrapped up in a bed-gown and looking more like Lady
+Macbeth than ever, came privately in the night to Becky's
+room with a parcel of favourite tracts, and a medicine
+of her own composition, which she insisted that Mrs.
+Rawdon should take.
+
+Becky first accepted the tracts and began to examine
+them with great interest, engaging the Dowager in a
+conversation concerning them and the welfare of her soul,
+by which means she hoped that her body might escape
+medication.  But after the religious topics were exhausted,
+Lady Macbeth would not quit Becky's chamber until her
+cup of night-drink was emptied too; and poor Mrs. Rawdon
+was compelled actually to assume a look of gratitude, and
+to swallow the medicine under the unyielding old Dowager's
+nose, who left her victim finally with a benediction.
+
+It did not much comfort Mrs. Rawdon; her countenance
+was very queer when Rawdon came in and heard what
+had happened; and.  his explosions of laughter were as
+loud as usual, when Becky, with a fun which she could
+not disguise, even though it was at her own expense,
+described the occurrence and how she had been victimized
+by Lady Southdown.  Lord Steyne, and her son in
+London, had many a laugh over the story when Rawdon
+and his wife returned to their quarters in May Fair.  Becky
+acted the whole scene for them.  She put on a night-cap
+and gown.  She preached a great sermon in the true serious
+manner; she lectured on the virtue of the medicine
+which she pretended to administer, with a gravity of
+imitation so perfect that you would have thought it was
+the Countess's own Roman nose through which she snuffled.
+"Give us Lady Southdown and the black dose," was
+a constant cry amongst the folks in Becky's little
+drawing-room in May Fair.  And for the first time in her
+life the Dowager Countess of Southdown was made amusing.
+
+Sir Pitt remembered the testimonies of respect and
+veneration which Rebecca had paid personally to himself
+in early days, and was tolerably well disposed towards
+her.  The marriage, ill-advised as it was, had improved
+Rawdon very much--that was clear from the Colonel's
+altered habits and demeanour--and had it not been a
+lucky union as regarded Pitt himself? The cunning
+diplomatist smiled inwardly as he owned that he owed his
+fortune to it, and acknowledged that he at least ought not
+to cry out against it.  His satisfaction was not removed
+by Rebecca's own statements, behaviour, and
+conversation.
+
+She doubled the deference which before had charmed
+him, calling out his conversational powers in such a
+manner as quite to surprise Pitt himself, who, always
+inclined to respect his own talents, admired them the more
+when Rebecca pointed them out to him.  With her
+sister-in-law, Rebecca was satisfactorily able to prove that it
+was Mrs. Bute Crawley who brought about the marriage
+which she afterwards so calumniated; that it was Mrs.
+Bute's avarice--who hoped to gain all Miss Crawley's
+fortune and deprive Rawdon of his aunt's favour--which
+caused and invented all the wicked reports against
+Rebecca.  "She succeeded in making us poor," Rebecca
+said with an air of angelical patience; "but how can I
+be angry with a woman who has given me one of the best
+husbands in the world? And has not her own avarice
+been sufficiently punished by the ruin of her own hopes and
+the loss of the property by which she set so much
+store? Poor!" she cried.  "Dear Lady Jane, what care we
+for poverty? I am used to it from childhood, and I am
+often thankful that Miss Crawley's money has gone to
+restore the splendour of the noble old family of which
+I am so proud to be a member.  I am sure Sir Pitt will
+make a much better use of it than Rawdon would."
+
+All these speeches were reported to Sir Pitt by the
+most faithful of wives, and increased the favourable
+impression which Rebecca made; so much so that when,
+on the third day after the funeral, the family party were
+at dinner, Sir Pitt Crawley, carving fowls at the head of
+the table, actually said to Mrs. Rawdon, "Ahem!  Rebecca,
+may I give you a wing?"--a speech which made the little
+woman's eyes sparkle with pleasure.
+
+While Rebecca was prosecuting the above schemes and
+hopes, and Pitt Crawley arranging the funeral ceremonial
+and other matters connected with his future progress and
+dignity, and Lady Jane busy with her nursery, as far as
+her mother would let her, and the sun rising and setting,
+and the clock-tower bell of the Hall ringing to dinner and
+to prayers as usual, the body of the late owner of Queen's
+Crawley lay in the apartment which he had occupied,
+watched unceasingly by the professional attendants who
+were engaged for that rite.  A woman or two, and three
+or four undertaker's men, the best whom Southampton
+could furnish, dressed in black, and of a proper stealthy
+and tragical demeanour, had charge of the remains which
+they watched turn about, having the housekeeper's room
+for their place of rendezvous when off duty, where they
+played at cards in privacy and drank their beer.
+
+The members of the family and servants of the house
+kept away from the gloomy spot, where the bones of the
+descendant of an ancient line of knights and gentlemen
+lay, awaiting their final consignment to the family crypt.
+No regrets attended them, save those of the poor woman
+who had hoped to be Sir Pitt's wife and widow and who
+had fled in disgrace from the Hall over which she had so
+nearly been a ruler.  Beyond her and a favourite old pointer
+he had, and between whom and himself an attachment
+subsisted during the period of his imbecility, the old man
+had not a single friend to mourn him, having indeed,
+during the whole course of his life, never taken the least
+pains to secure one.  Could the best and kindest of us who
+depart from the earth have an opportunity of revisiting
+it, I suppose he or she (assuming that any Vanity Fair
+feelings subsist in the sphere whither we are bound)
+would have a pang of mortification at finding how soon
+our survivors were consoled.  And so Sir Pitt was
+forgotten--like the kindest and best of us--only a few
+weeks sooner.
+
+Those who will may follow his remains to the grave,
+whither they were borne on the appointed day, in the most
+becoming manner, the family in black coaches, with their
+handkerchiefs up to their noses, ready for the tears which
+did not come; the undertaker and his gentlemen in deep
+tribulation; the select tenantry mourning out of
+compliment to the new landlord; the neighbouring gentry's
+carriages at three miles an hour, empty, and in profound
+affliction; the parson speaking out the formula about "our
+dear brother departed." As long as we have a man's body,
+we play our Vanities upon it, surrounding it with
+humbug and ceremonies, laying it in state, and packing it
+up in gilt nails and velvet; and we finish our duty by
+placing over it a stone, written all over with lies.  Bute's
+curate, a smart young fellow from Oxford, and Sir Pitt
+Crawley composed between them an appropriate Latin
+epitaph for the late lamented Baronet, and the former
+preached a classical sermon, exhorting the survivors not
+to give way to grief and informing them in the most
+respectful terms that they also would be one day called
+upon to pass that gloomy and mysterious portal which had
+just closed upon the remains of their lamented brother.
+Then the tenantry mounted on horseback again, or stayed
+and refreshed themselves at the Crawley Arms.  Then,
+after a lunch in the servants' hall at Queen's Crawley,
+the gentry's carriages wheeled off to their different
+destinations:  then the undertaker's men, taking the ropes,
+palls, velvets, ostrich feathers, and other mortuary
+properties, clambered up on the roof of the hearse and rode
+off to Southampton.  Their faces relapsed into a natural
+expression as the horses, clearing the lodge-gates, got into
+a brisker trot on the open road; and squads of them
+might have been seen, speckling with black the
+public-house entrances, with pewter-pots flashing in the
+sunshine.  Sir Pitt's invalid chair was wheeled away into a
+tool-house in the garden; the old pointer used to howl
+sometimes at first, but these were the only accents of
+grief which were heard in the Hall of which Sir Pitt
+Crawley, Baronet, had been master for some threescore years.
+
+As the birds were pretty plentiful, and partridge shooting
+is as it were the duty of an English gentleman of
+statesmanlike propensities, Sir Pitt Crawley, the first shock of
+grief over, went out a little and partook of that diversion
+in a white hat with crape round it.  The sight of those fields
+of stubble and turnips, now his own, gave him many secret
+joys.  Sometimes, and with an exquisite humility, he
+took no gun, but went out with a peaceful bamboo cane;
+Rawdon, his big brother, and the keepers blazing away at
+his side.  Pitt's money and acres had a great effect upon
+his brother.  The penniless Colonel became quite obsequious
+and respectful to the head of his house, and despised
+the milksop Pitt no longer.  Rawdon listened with sympathy
+to his senior's prospects of planting and draining, gave
+his advice about the stables and cattle, rode
+over to Mudbury to look at a mare, which he thought
+would carry Lady Jane, and offered to break her,
+&c.:  the rebellious dragoon was quite humbled and
+subdued, and became a most creditable younger brother.  He
+had constant bulletins from Miss Briggs in London
+respecting little Rawdon, who was left behind there, who
+sent messages of his own.  "I am very well," he wrote.  "I
+hope you are very well.  I hope Mamma is very well.  The
+pony is very well.  Grey takes me to ride in the park.
+I can canter.  I met the little boy who rode before.  He
+cried when he cantered.  I do not cry." Rawdon read these
+letters to his brother and Lady Jane, who was delighted
+with them.  The Baronet promised to take charge of the lad
+at school, and his kind-hearted wife gave Rebecca a
+bank-note, begging her to buy a present with it for her little
+nephew.
+
+One day followed another, and the ladies of the house
+passed their life in those calm pursuits and amusements
+which satisfy country ladies.  Bells rang to meals and
+to prayers.  The young ladies took exercise on the
+pianoforte every morning after breakfast, Rebecca giving
+them the benefit of her instruction.  Then they put on thick
+shoes and walked in the park or shrubberies, or beyond
+the palings into the village, descending upon the cottages,
+with Lady Southdown's medicine and tracts for the
+sick people there.  Lady Southdown drove out in a
+pony-chaise, when Rebecca would take her place by the
+Dowager's side and listen to her solemn talk with the utmost
+interest.  She sang Handel and Haydn to the family of
+evenings, and engaged in a large piece of worsted work, as if
+she had been born to the business and as if this kind
+of life was to continue with her until she should sink to
+the grave in a polite old age, leaving regrets and a great
+quantity of consols behind her--as if there were not cares
+and duns, schemes, shifts, and poverty waiting outside
+the park gates, to pounce upon her when she issued into
+the world again.
+
+"It isn't difficult to be a country gentleman's wife,"
+Rebecca thought.  "I think I could be a good woman if
+I had five thousand a year.  I could dawdle about in the
+nursery and count the apricots on the wall.  I could water
+plants in a green-house and pick off dead leaves from the
+geraniums.  I could ask old women about their rheumatisms
+and order half-a-crown's worth of soup for
+the poor.  I shouldn't miss it much, out of five thousand
+a year.  I could even drive out ten miles to dine at a
+neighbour's, and dress in the fashions of the year before last.
+I could go to church and keep awake in the great family
+pew, or go to sleep behind the curtains, with my veil
+down, if I only had practice.  I could pay everybody, if
+I had but the money.  This is what the conjurors here
+pride themselves upon doing.  They look down with pity
+upon us miserable sinners who have none.  They think
+themselves generous if they give our children a five-pound
+note, and us contemptible if we are without one." And
+who knows but Rebecca was right in her speculations
+--and that it was only a question of money and fortune
+which made the difference between her and an honest
+woman? If you take temptations into account, who is to
+say that he is better than his neighbour? A comfortable
+career of prosperity, if it does not make people honest, at
+least keeps them so.  An alderman coming from a turtle
+feast will not step out of his carnage to steal a leg of
+mutton; but put him to starve, and see if he will not
+purloin a loaf.  Becky consoled herself by so balancing the
+chances and equalizing the distribution of good and evil
+in the world.
+
+The old haunts, the old fields and woods, the copses,
+ponds, and gardens, the rooms of the old house where
+she had spent a couple of years seven years ago, were all
+carefully revisited by her.  She had been young there, or
+comparatively so, for she forgot the time when she ever
+WAS young--but she remembered her thoughts and
+feelings seven years back and contrasted them with those
+which she had at present, now that she had seen the
+world, and lived with great people, and raised herself far
+beyond her original humble station.
+
+"I have passed beyond it, because I have brains," Becky
+thought, "and almost all the rest of the world are fools.
+I could not go back and consort with those people now,
+whom I used to meet in my father's studio.  Lords come up
+to my door with stars and garters, instead of poor
+artists with screws of tobacco in their pockets.  I have a
+gentleman for my husband, and an Earl's daughter for my
+sister, in the very house where I was little better than a
+servant a few years ago.  But am I much better to do now
+in the world than I was when I was the poor painter's
+daughter and wheedled the grocer round the corner for
+sugar and tea? Suppose I had married Francis who was
+so fond of me--I couldn't have been much poorer than
+I am now.  Heigho!  I wish I could exchange my position
+in society, and all my relations for a snug sum in the
+Three Per Cent.  Consols"; for so it was that Becky felt
+the Vanity of human affairs, and it was in those securities
+that she would have liked to cast anchor.
+
+It may, perhaps, have struck her that to have been
+honest and humble, to have done her duty, and to have
+marched straightforward on her way, would have brought
+her as near happiness as that path by which she was
+striving to attain it.  But--just as the children at Queen's
+Crawley went round the room where the body of their
+father lay--if ever Becky had these thoughts, she was
+accustomed to walk round them and not look in.  She
+eluded them and despised them--or at least she was
+committed to the other path from which retreat was now
+impossible.  And for my part I believe that remorse is the
+least active of all a man's moral senses--the very easiest to
+be deadened when wakened, and in some never wakened
+at all.  We grieve at being found out and at the idea of
+shame or punishment, but the mere sense of wrong makes
+very few people unhappy in Vanity Fair.
+
+So Rebecca, during her stay at Queen's Crawley, made as
+many friends of the Mammon of Unrighteousness as she
+could possibly bring under control.  Lady Jane and her
+husband bade her farewell with the warmest
+demonstrations of good-will.  They looked forward with
+pleasure to the time when, the family house in Gaunt
+Street being repaired and beautified, they were to meet
+again in London.  Lady Southdown made her up a packet of
+medicine and sent a letter by her to the Rev.  Lawrence
+Grills, exhorting that gentleman to save the brand who
+"honoured" the letter from the burning.  Pitt accompanied
+them with four horses in the carriage to Mudbury, having
+sent on their baggage in a cart previously, accompanied
+with loads of game.
+
+"How happy you will be to see your darling little boy
+again!" Lady Crawley said, taking leave of her kinswoman.
+
+"Oh so happy!" said Rebecca, throwing up the green eyes.
+She was immensely happy to be free of the place, and yet
+loath to go.  Queen's Crawley was abominably stupid, and
+yet the air there was somehow purer than that which she
+had been accustomed to breathe.  Everybody had been dull,
+but had been kind in their way.  "It is all the influence of a
+long course of Three Per Cents," Becky said to herself, and
+was right very likely.
+
+However, the London lamps flashed joyfully as the stage
+rolled into Piccadilly, and Briggs had made a beautiful fire
+in Curzon Street, and little Rawdon was up to welcome
+back his papa and mamma.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII
+
+
+Which Treats of the Osborne Family
+
+Considerable time has elapsed since we have seen our
+respectable friend, old Mr. Osborne of Russell Square.  He
+has not been the happiest of mortals since last we met him.
+Events have occurred which have not improved his
+temper, and in more in stances than one he has not been
+allowed to have his own way.  To be thwarted in this
+reasonable desire was always very injurious to the old
+gentleman; and resistance became doubly exasperating
+when gout, age, loneliness, and the force of many
+disappointments combined to weigh him down.  His stiff
+black hair began to grow quite white soon after his son's
+death; his-face grew redder; his hands trembled more and
+more as he poured out his glass of port wine.  He led his
+clerks a dire life in the City:  his family at home were not
+much happier.  I doubt if Rebecca, whom we have seen
+piously praying for Consols, would have exchanged her
+poverty and the dare-devil excitement and chances of her
+life for Osborne's money and the humdrum gloom which
+enveloped him.  He had proposed for Miss Swartz, but had
+been rejected scornfully by the partisans of that lady, who
+married her to a young sprig of Scotch nobility.  He was a
+man to have married a woman out of low life and bullied
+her dreadfully afterwards; but no person presented herself
+suitable to his taste, and, instead, he tyrannized over his
+unmarried daughter, at home.  She had a fine carriage and
+fine horses and sat at the head of a table loaded with the
+grandest plate.  She had a cheque-book, a prize footman to
+follow her when she walked, unlimited credit, and bows
+and compliments from all the tradesmen, and all the
+appurtenances of an heiress; but she spent a woeful time.
+The little charity-girls at the Foundling, the sweeperess at
+the crossing, the poorest under-kitchen-maid in the
+servants' hall, was happy compared to that unfortunate
+and now middle-aged young lady.
+
+Frederick Bullock, Esq., of the house of Bullock, Hulker, and
+Bullock, had married Maria Osborne, not without a great
+deal of difficulty and grumbling on Mr. Bullock's part.
+George being dead and cut out of his father's will,
+Frederick insisted that the half of the old gentleman's
+property should be settled upon his Maria, and indeed, for
+a long time, refused, "to come to the scratch" (it was Mr.
+Frederick's own expression) on any other terms.  Osborne
+said Fred had agreed to take his daughter with twenty
+thousand, and he should bind himself to no more.  "Fred
+might take it, and welcome, or leave it, and go and be
+hanged." Fred, whose hopes had been raised when George
+had been disinherited, thought himself infamously
+swindled by the old merchant, and for some time made as
+if he would break off the match altogether.  Osborne
+withdrew his account from Bullock and Hulker's, went on
+'Change with a horsewhip which he swore he would lay
+across the back of a certain scoundrel that should be
+nameless, and demeaned himself in his usual violent
+manner.  Jane Osborne condoled with her sister Maria
+during this family feud.  "I always told you, Maria, that it
+was your money he loved and not you," she said,
+soothingly.
+
+"He selected me and my money at any rate; he didn't
+choose you and yours," replied Maria, tossing up her head.
+
+The rapture was, however, only temporary.  Fred's father
+and senior partners counselled him to take Maria, even
+with the twenty thousand settled, half down, and half at
+the death of Mr. Osborne, with the chances of the further
+division of the property.  So he "knuckled down," again to
+use his own phrase, and sent old Hulker with peaceable
+overtures to Osborne.  It was his father, he said, who would
+not hear of the match, and had made the difficulties; he
+was most anxious to keep the engagement.  The excuse was
+sulkily accepted by Mr. Osborne.  Hulker and Bullock were
+a high family of the City aristocracy, and connected with
+the "nobs" at the West End.  It was something for the old
+man to be able to say, "My son, sir, of the house of Hulker,
+Bullock, and Co., sir; my daughter's cousin, Lady Mary
+Mango, sir, daughter of the Right Hon.  The Earl of
+Castlemouldy." In his imagination he saw his house
+peopled by the "nobs." So he forgave young Bullock and
+consented that the marriage should take place.
+
+It was a grand affair--the bridegroom's relatives giving the
+breakfast, their habitations being near St.  George's,
+Hanover Square, where the business took place.  The "nobs
+of the West End" were invited, and many of them signed
+the book.  Mr. Mango and Lady Mary Mango were there,
+with the dear young Gwendoline and Guinever Mango as
+bridesmaids; Colonel Bludyer of the Dragoon Guards (eldest
+son of the house of Bludyer Brothers, Mincing Lane),
+another cousin of the bridegroom, and the Honourable Mrs.
+Bludyer; the Honourable George Boulter, Lord Levant's son,
+and his lady, Miss Mango that was; Lord Viscount
+Castletoddy; Honourable James McMull and Mrs. McMull
+(formerly Miss Swartz); and a host of fashionables, who
+have all married into Lombard Street and done a great
+deal to ennoble Cornhill.
+
+The young couple had a house near Berkeley Square and a
+small villa at Roehampton, among the banking colony
+there.  Fred was considered to have made rather a
+mesalliance by the ladies of his family, whose grandfather
+had been in a Charity School, and who were allied through
+the husbands with some of the best blood in England.  And
+Maria was bound, by superior pride and great care in the
+composition of her visiting-book, to make up for the
+defects of birth, and felt it her duty to see her father and
+sister as little as possible.
+
+That she should utterly break with the old man, who had
+still so many scores of thousand pounds to give away, is
+absurd to suppose.  Fred Bullock would never allow her to
+do that.  But she was still young and incapable of hiding her
+feelings; and by inviting her papa and sister to her third-
+rate parties, and behaving very coldly to them when they
+came, and by avoiding Russell Square, and indiscreetly
+begging her father to quit that odious vulgar place, she did
+more harm than all Frederick's diplomacy could repair, and
+perilled her chance of her inheritance like a giddy heedless
+creature as she was.
+
+So Russell Square is not good enough for Mrs. Maria, hay?"
+said the old gentleman, rattling up the carriage windows as
+he and his daughter drove away one night from Mrs.
+Frederick Bullock's, after dinner.  "So she invites her father
+and sister to a second day's dinner (if those sides, or
+ontrys, as she calls 'em, weren't served yesterday, I'm
+d--d), and to meet City folks and littery men, and keeps
+the Earls and the Ladies, and the Honourables to herself.
+Honourables? Damn Honourables.  I am a plain British
+merchant I am, and could buy the beggarly hounds over
+and over.  Lords, indeed!--why, at one of her swarreys I
+saw one of 'em speak to a dam fiddler--a fellar I despise.
+And they won't come to Russell Square, won't they? Why,
+I'll lay my life I've got a better glass of wine, and pay a
+better figure for it, and can show a handsomer service of
+silver, and can lay a better dinner on my mahogany, than
+ever they see on theirs--the cringing, sneaking, stuck-up
+fools.  Drive on quick, James:  I want to get back to Russell
+Square--ha, ha!" and he sank back into the corner with a
+furious laugh.  With such reflections on his own superior
+merit, it was the custom of the old gentleman not
+unfrequently to console himself.
+
+Jane Osborne could not but concur in these opinions
+respecting her sister's conduct; and when Mrs. Frederick's
+first-born, Frederick Augustus Howard Stanley Devereux
+Bullock, was born, old Osborne, who was invited to the
+christening and to be godfather, contented himself with
+sending the child a gold cup, with twenty guineas inside it
+for the nurse.  "That's more than any of your Lords will
+give, I'LL warrant," he said and refused to attend at the
+ceremony.
+
+The splendour of the gift, however, caused great
+satisfaction to the house of Bullock.  Maria thought that her
+father was very much pleased with her, and Frederick
+augured the best for his little son and heir.
+
+One can fancy the pangs with which Miss Osborne in her
+solitude in Russell Square read the Morning Post, where
+her sister's name occurred every now and then, in the
+articles headed "Fashionable Reunions," and where she had
+an opportunity of reading a description of Mrs. F.  Bullock's
+costume, when presented at the drawing room by Lady
+Frederica Bullock.  Jane's own life, as we have said,
+admitted of no such grandeur.  It was an awful existence.
+She had to get up of black winter's mornings to make
+breakfast for her scowling old father, who would have
+turned the whole house out of doors if his tea had not been
+ready at half-past eight.  She remained silent opposite to
+him, listening to the urn hissing, and sitting in tremor
+while the parent read his paper and consumed his
+accustomed portion of muffins and tea.  At half-past nine
+he rose and went to the City, and she was almost free till
+dinner-time, to make visitations in the kitchen and to scold
+the servants; to drive abroad and descend upon the
+tradesmen, who were prodigiously respectful; to leave her
+cards and her papa's at the great glum respectable houses
+of their City friends; or to sit alone in the large drawing-
+room, expecting visitors; and working at a huge piece of
+worsted by the fire, on the sofa, hard by the great
+Iphigenia clock, which ticked and tolled with mournful
+loudness in the dreary room.  The great glass over the
+mantelpiece, faced by the other great console glass at the
+opposite end of the room, increased and multiplied
+between them the brown Holland bag in which the
+chandelier hung, until you saw these brown Holland bags
+fading away in endless perspectives, and this apartment of
+Miss Osborne's seemed the centre of a system of
+drawing-rooms.  When she removed the cordovan leather
+from the grand piano and ventured to play a few notes on
+it, it sounded with a mournful sadness, startling the dismal
+echoes of the house.  George's picture was gone, and laid
+upstairs in a lumber-room in the garret; and though there
+was a consciousness of him, and father and daughter often
+instinctively knew that they were thinking of him, no
+mention was ever made of the brave and once darling son.
+
+At five o'clock Mr. Osborne came back to his dinner, which
+he and his daughter took in silence (seldom broken, except
+when he swore and was savage, if the cooking was not to
+his liking), or which they shared twice in a month with a
+party of dismal friends of Osborne's rank and age.  Old Dr.
+Gulp and his lady from Bloomsbury Square; old Mr.
+Frowser, the attorney, from Bedford Row, a very great
+man, and from his business, hand-in-glove with the "nobs
+at the West End"; old Colonel Livermore, of the Bombay
+Army, and Mrs. Livermore, from Upper Bedford Place; old
+Sergeant Toffy and Mrs. Toffy; and sometimes old Sir
+Thomas Coffin and Lady Coffin, from Bedford Square.  Sir
+Thomas was celebrated as a hanging judge, and the
+particular tawny port was produced when he dined with
+Mr. Osborne.
+
+These people and their like gave the pompous Russell
+Square merchant pompous dinners back again.  They had
+solemn rubbers of whist, when they went upstairs after
+drinking, and their carriages were called at half past ten.
+Many rich people, whom we poor devils are in the habit of
+envying, lead contentedly an existence like that above
+described.  Jane Osborne scarcely ever met a man under
+sixty, and almost the only bachelor who appeared in their
+society was Mr. Smirk, the celebrated ladies' doctor.
+
+I can't say that nothing had occurred to disturb the
+monotony of this awful existence:  the fact is, there had
+been a secret in poor Jane's life which had made her father
+more savage and morose than even nature, pride, and
+over-feeding had made him.  This secret was connected
+with Miss Wirt, who had a cousin an artist, Mr. Smee, very
+celebrated since as a portrait-painter and R.A., but who
+once was glad enough to give drawing lessons to ladies of
+fashion.  Mr. Smee has forgotten where Russell Square is
+now, but he was glad enough to visit it in the year 1818,
+when Miss Osborne had instruction from him.
+
+Smee (formerly a pupil of Sharpe of Frith Street, a
+dissolute, irregular, and unsuccessful man, but a man with
+great knowledge of his art) being the cousin of Miss Wirt,
+we say, and introduced by her to Miss Osborne, whose
+hand and heart were still free after various incomplete
+love affairs, felt a great attachment for this lady, and it is
+believed inspired one in her bosom.  Miss Wirt was the
+confidante of this intrigue.  I know not whether she used to
+leave the room where the master and his pupil were
+painting, in order to give them an opportunity for
+exchanging those vows and sentiments which cannot be
+uttered advantageously in the presence of a third party; I
+know not whether she hoped that should her cousin
+succeed in carrying off the rich merchant's daughter, he
+would give Miss Wirt a portion of the wealth which she
+had enabled him to win--all that is certain is that Mr.
+Osborne got some hint of the transaction, came back from
+the City abruptly, and entered the drawing-room with his
+bamboo cane; found the painter, the pupil, and the
+companion all looking exceedingly pale there; turned the
+former out of doors with menaces that he would break
+every bone in his skin, and half an hour afterwards
+dismissed Miss Wirt likewise, kicking her trunks down the
+stairs, trampling on her bandboxes, and shaking his fist at
+her hackney coach as it bore her away.
+
+Jane Osborne kept her bedroom for many days.  She was
+not allowed to have a companion afterwards.  Her father
+swore to her that she should not have a shilling of his
+money if she made any match without his concurrence;
+and as he wanted a woman to keep his house, he did not
+choose that she should marry, so that she was obliged to
+give up all projects with which Cupid had any share.
+During her papa's life, then, she resigned herself to the
+manner of existence here described, and was content to be
+an old maid.  Her sister, meanwhile, was having children
+with finer names every year and the intercourse between
+the two grew fainter continually.  "Jane and I do not move
+in the same sphere of life," Mrs. Bullock said.  "I regard her
+as a sister, of course"--which means--what does it mean
+when a lady says that she regards Jane as a sister?
+
+It has been described how the Misses Dobbin lived with
+their father at a fine villa at Denmark Hill, where there
+were beautiful graperies and peach-trees which delighted
+little Georgy Osborne.  The Misses Dobbin, who drove often
+to Brompton to see our dear Amelia, came sometimes to
+Russell Square too, to pay a visit to their old acquaintance
+Miss Osborne.  I believe it was in consequence of the
+commands of their brother the Major in India (for whom
+their papa had a prodigious respect), that they paid
+attention to Mrs. George; for the Major, the godfather and
+guardian of Amelia's little boy, still hoped that the child's
+grandfather might be induced to relent towards him and
+acknowledge him for the sake of his son.  The Misses
+Dobbin kept Miss Osborne acquainted with the state of
+Amelia's affairs; how she was living with her father and
+mother; how poor they were; how they wondered what
+men, and such men as their brother and dear Captain
+Osborne, could find in such an insignificant little chit; how
+she was still, as heretofore, a namby-pamby milk-and-
+water affected creature--but how the boy was really the
+noblest little boy ever seen--for the hearts of all women
+warm towards young children, and the sourest spinster is
+kind to them.
+
+One day, after great entreaties on the part of the Misses
+Dobbin, Amelia allowed little George to go and pass a day
+with them at Denmark Hill--a part of which day she spent
+herself in writing to the Major in India.  She congratulated
+him on the happy news which his sisters had just
+conveyed to her.  She prayed for his prosperity and that of
+the bride he had chosen.  She thanked him for a thousand
+thousand kind offices and proofs of stead fast friendship to
+her in her affliction.  She told him the last news about little
+Georgy, and how he was gone to spend that very day with
+his sisters in the country.  She underlined the letter a great
+deal, and she signed herself affectionately his friend,
+Amelia Osborne.  She forgot to send any message of
+kindness to Lady O'Dowd, as her wont was--and did not
+mention Glorvina by name, and only in italics, as the
+Major's BRIDE, for whom she begged blessings.  But the
+news of the marriage removed the reserve which she had
+kept up towards him.  She was glad to be able to own and
+feel how warmly and gratefully she regarded him--and as
+for the idea of being jealous of Glorvina (Glorvina, indeed!),
+Amelia would have scouted it, if an angel from heaven had
+hinted it to her.  That night, when Georgy came back in the
+pony-carriage in which he rejoiced, and in which he was
+driven by Sir Wm.  Dobbin's old coachman, he had round
+his neck a fine gold chain and watch.  He said an old lady,
+not pretty, had given it him, who cried and kissed him a
+great deal.  But he didn't like her.  He liked grapes very
+much.  And he only liked his mamma.  Amelia shrank and
+started; the timid soul felt a presentiment of terror when
+she heard that the relations of the child's father had seen
+him.
+
+Miss Osborne came back to give her father his dinner.  He
+had made a good speculation in the City, and was rather in
+a good humour that day, and chanced to remark the
+agitation under which she laboured.  "What's the matter,
+Miss Osborne?" he deigned to say.
+
+The woman burst into tears.  "Oh, sir," she said, "I've seen
+little George.  He is as beautiful as an angel--and so like
+him!" The old man opposite to her did not say a word, but
+flushed up and began to tremble in every limb.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPIER XLIII
+
+In Which the Reader Has to Double the Cape
+
+The astonished reader must be called upon to transport
+himself ten thousand miles to the military station of
+Bundlegunge, in the Madras division of our Indian empire,
+where our gallant old friends of the --th regiment are
+quartered under the command of the brave Colonel,
+Sir Michael O'Dowd.  Time has dealt kindly with that
+stout officer, as it does ordinarily with men who have
+good stomachs and good tempers and are not perplexed
+over much by fatigue of the brain.  The Colonel plays a
+good knife and fork at tiffin and resumes those weapons
+with great success at dinner.  He smokes his hookah after
+both meals and puffs as quietly while his wife scolds
+him as he did under the fire of the French at Waterloo.  Age
+and heat have not diminished the activity or the eloquence
+of the descendant of the Malonys and the Molloys.  Her
+Ladyship, our old acquaintance, is as much at home at
+Madras as at Brussels in the cantonment as under the
+tents.  On the march you saw her at the head of the
+regiment seated on a royal elephant, a noble sight.
+Mounted on that beast, she has been into action with tigers
+in the jungle, she has been received by native princes, who
+have welcomed her and Glorvina into the recesses of their
+zenanas and offered her shawls and jewels which it went
+to her heart to refuse.  The sentries of all arms salute her
+wherever she makes her appearance, and she touches her
+hat gravely to their salutation.  Lady O'Dowd is one of the
+greatest ladies in the Presidency of Madras--her quarrel
+with Lady Smith, wife of Sir Minos Smith the puisne judge,
+is still remembered by some at Madras, when the Colonel's
+lady snapped her fingers in the Judge's lady's face and said
+SHE'D never walk behind ever a beggarly civilian.  Even
+now, though it is five-and-twenty years ago, people
+remember Lady O'Dowd performing a jig at Government
+House, where she danced down two Aides-de-Camp, a
+Major of Madras cavalry, and two gentlemen of the Civil
+Service; and, persuaded by Major Dobbin, C.B., second in
+command of the --th, to retire to the supper-room, lassata
+nondum satiata recessit.
+
+Peggy O'Dowd is indeed the same as ever, kind in act and
+thought; impetuous in temper; eager to command; a tyrant
+over her Michael; a dragon amongst all the ladies of the
+regiment; a mother to all the young men, whom she tends
+in their sickness, defends in all their scrapes, and with
+whom Lady Peggy is immensely popular.  But the
+Subalterns' and Captains' ladies (the Major is unmarried)
+cabal against her a good deal.  They say that Glorvina gives
+herself airs and that Peggy herself is ill tolerably
+domineering.  She interfered with a little congregation
+which Mrs. Kirk had got up and laughed the young men
+away from her sermons, stating that a soldier's wife had no
+business to be a parson--that Mrs. Kirk would be much
+better mending her husband's clothes; and, if the regiment
+wanted sermons, that she had the finest in the world, those
+of her uncle, the Dean.  She abruptly put a termination to a
+flirtation which Lieutenant Stubble of the regiment had
+commenced with the Surgeon's wife, threatening to come
+down upon Stubble for the money which he had borrowed
+from her (for the young fellow was still of an extravagant
+turn) unless he broke off at once and went to the Cape on
+sick leave.  On the other hand, she housed and sheltered
+Mrs. Posky, who fled from her bungalow one night,
+pursued by her infuriate husband, wielding his second
+brandy bottle, and actually carried Posky through the
+delirium tremens and broke him of the habit of drinking,
+which had grown upon that officer, as all evil habits will
+grow upon men.  In a word, in adversity she was the best
+of comforters, in good fortune the most troublesome of
+friends, having a perfectly good opinion of herself always
+and an indomitable resolution to have her own way.
+
+Among other points, she had made up her mind that
+Glorvina should marry our old friend Dobbin.  Mrs. O'Dowd
+knew the Major's expectations and appreciated his good
+qualities and the high character which he enjoyed in his
+profession.  Glorvina, a very handsome, fresh-coloured,
+black-haired, blue-eyed young lady, who could ride a
+horse, or play a sonata with any girl out of the County
+Cork, seemed to be the very person destined to insure
+Dobbin's happiness--much more than that poor good little
+weak-spur'ted Amelia, about whom he used to take on so.--
+"Look at Glorvina enter a room," Mrs. O'Dowd would say,
+"and compare her with that poor Mrs. Osborne, who
+couldn't say boo to a goose.  She'd be worthy of you, Major--
+you're a quiet man yourself, and want some one to talk for
+ye.  And though she does not come of such good blood as
+the Malonys or Molloys, let me tell ye, she's of an ancient
+family that any nobleman might be proud to marry into."
+
+But before she had come to such a resolution and determined to
+subjugate Major Dobbin by her endearments, it must be owned
+that Glorvina had practised them a good deal elsewhere.  She had
+had a season in Dublin, and who knows how many in Cork,
+Killarney, and Mallow? She had flirted with all the marriageable
+officers whom the depots of her country afforded, and all the
+bachelor squires who seemed eligible.  She had been
+engaged to be married a half-score times in Ireland,
+besides the clergyman at Bath who used her so ill.  She had
+flirted all the way to Madras with the Captain and chief
+mate of the Ramchunder East Indiaman, and had a season
+at the Presidency with her brother and Mrs. O'Dowd, who
+was staying there, while the Major of the regiment was in
+command at the station.  Everybody admired her there;
+everybody danced with her; but no one proposed who was
+worth the marrying--one or two exceedingly young
+subalterns sighed after her, and a beardless civilian or two,
+but she rejected these as beneath her pretensions--and
+other and younger virgins than Glorvina were married
+before her.  There are women, and handsome women too,
+who have this fortune in life.  They fall in love with the
+utmost generosity; they ride and walk with half the
+Army-list, though they draw near to forty, and yet the
+Misses O'Grady are the Misses O'Grady still:  Glorvina
+persisted that but for Lady O'Dowd's unlucky quarrel with
+the Judge's lady, she would have made a good match at
+Madras, where old Mr. Chutney, who was at the head of
+the civil service (and who afterwards married Miss Dolby,
+a young lady only thirteen years of age who had just
+arrived from school in Europe), was just at the point of
+proposing to her.
+
+Well, although Lady O'Dowd and Glorvina quarrelled a
+great number of times every day, and upon almost every
+conceivable subject--indeed, if Mick O'Dowd had not
+possessed the temper of an angel two such women
+constantly about his ears would have driven him out of his
+senses--yet they agreed between themselves on this point,
+that Glorvina should marry Major Dobbin, and were
+determined that the Major should have no rest until the
+arrangement was brought about.  Undismayed by forty or
+fifty previous defeats, Glorvina laid siege to him.  She sang
+Irish melodies at him unceasingly.  She asked him so
+frequently and pathetically, Will ye come to the bower?
+that it is a wonder how any man of feeling could have
+resisted the invitation.  She was never tired of inquiring, if
+Sorrow had his young days faded, and was ready to listen
+and weep like Desdemona at the stories of his dangers and
+his campaigns.  It has been
+said that our honest and dear old friend used to perform
+on the flute in private; Glorvina insisted upon having duets
+with him, and Lady O'Dowd would rise and artlessly quit
+the room when the young couple were so engaged.
+Glorvina forced the Major to ride with her of mornings.  The
+whole cantonment saw them set out and return.  She was
+constantly writing notes over to him at his house,
+borrowing his books, and scoring with her great
+pencil-marks such passages of sentiment or humour as
+awakened her sympathy.  She borrowed his horses, his
+servants, his spoons, and palanquin--no wonder that public
+rumour assigned her to him, and that the Major's sisters in
+England should fancy they were about to have a sister-in-
+law.
+
+Dobbin, who was thus vigorously besieged, was in the
+meanwhile in a state of the most odious tranquillity.  He
+used to laugh when the young fellows of the regiment
+joked him about Glorvina's manifest attentions to him.
+"Bah!" said he, "she is only keeping her hand in--she
+practises upon me as she does upon Mrs. Tozer's piano,
+because it's the most handy instrument in the station.  I am
+much too battered and old for such a fine young lady as
+Glorvina." And so he went on riding with her, and copying
+music and verses into her albums, and playing at chess
+with her very submissively; for it is with these simple
+amusements that some officers in India are accustomed to
+while away their leisure moments, while others of a less
+domestic turn hunt hogs, and shoot snipes, or gamble and
+smoke cheroots, and betake themselves to brandy-and-
+water.  As for Sir Michael O'Dowd, though his lady and her
+sister both urged him to call upon the Major to explain
+himself and not keep on torturing a poor innocent girl in
+that shameful way, the old soldier refused point-blank to
+have anything to do with the conspiracy.  "Faith, the Major's
+big enough to choose for himself," Sir Michael said; "he'll
+ask ye when he wants ye"; or else he would turn the
+matter off jocularly, declaring that "Dobbin was too young
+to keep house, and had written home to ask lave of his
+mamma." Nay, he went farther, and in private
+communications with his Major would caution and rally
+him, crying, "Mind your oi, Dob, my boy, them girls is bent
+on mischief--me Lady has just got a box of gowns from Europe, and there's a pink satin for Glorvina, which will finish ye, Dob, if it's in the power of woman or satin to move ye."
+
+But the truth is, neither beauty nor fashion could conquer
+him.  Our honest friend had but one idea of a woman in his
+head, and that one did not in the least resemble Miss
+Glorvina O'Dowd in pink satin.  A gentle little woman in black,
+with large eyes and brown hair, seldom speaking, save when
+spoken to, and then in a voice not the least resembling
+Miss Glorvina's--a soft young mother tending an infant
+and beckoning the Major up with a smile to look at him--a
+rosy-cheeked lass coming singing into the room in Russell
+Square or hanging on George Osborne's arm, happy and
+loving--there was but this image that filled our honest
+Major's mind, by day and by night, and reigned over it
+always.  Very likely Amelia was not like the portrait the
+Major had formed of her:  there was a figure in a book of
+fashions which his sisters had in England, and with which
+William had made away privately, pasting it into the lid
+of his desk, and fancying he saw some resemblance to
+Mrs. Osborne in the print, whereas I have seen it, and
+can vouch that it is but the picture of a high-waisted
+gown with an impossible doll's face simpering over it--
+and, perhaps, Mr. Dobbin's sentimental Amelia was no
+more like the real one than this absurd little print which
+he cherished.  But what man in love, of us, is better
+informed?--or is he much happier when he sees and owns his
+delusion? Dobbin was under this spell.  He did not bother
+his friends and the public much about his feelings, or
+indeed lose his natural rest or appetite on account
+of them.  His head has grizzled since we saw him last, and
+a line or two of silver may be seen in the soft brown hair
+likewise.  But his feelings are not in the least changed or
+oldened, and his love remains as fresh as a man's
+recollections of boyhood are.
+
+We have said how the two Misses Dobbin and Amelia, the
+Major's correspondents in Europe, wrote him letters from
+England, Mrs. Osborne congratulating him with great candour
+and cordiality upon his approaching nuptials with Miss O'Dowd.
+"Your sister has just kindly visited me," Amelia wrote
+in her letter, "and informed me of an INTERESTING EVENT,
+upon which I beg to offer my MOST SINCERE CONGRATULATIONS.
+I hope the young lady to whom I hear you are to
+be UNITED will in every respect prove worthy of one who
+is himself all kindness and goodness.  The poor widow has
+only her prayers to offer and her cordial cordial wishes
+for YOUR PROSPERITY!  Georgy sends his love to HIS DEAR GODPAPA
+and hopes that you will not forget him.  I tell
+him that you are about to form OTHER TIES, with one who
+I am sure merits ALL YOUR AFFECTION, but that, although
+such ties must of course be the strongest and most
+sacred, and supersede ALL OTHERS, yet that I am sure the
+widow and the child whom you have ever protected and
+loved will always HAVE A CORNER IN YOUR HEART" The letter,
+which has been before alluded to, went on in this
+strain, protesting throughout as to the extreme satisfaction
+of the writer.
+
+This letter, .which arrived by the very same ship which
+brought out Lady O'Dowd's box of millinery from London
+(and which you may be sure Dobbin opened before any
+one of the other packets which the mail brought him),
+put the receiver into such a state of mind that Glorvina,
+and her pink satin, and everything belonging to her became
+perfectly odious to him.  The Major cursed the talk
+of women, and the sex in general.  Everything annoyed
+him that day--the parade was insufferably hot and
+wearisome.  Good heavens! was a man of intellect to waste
+his life, day after day, inspecting cross-belts and putting
+fools through their manoeuvres? The senseless chatter
+of the young men at mess was more than ever jarring.
+What cared he, a man on the high road to forty, to
+know how many snipes Lieutenant Smith had shot, or
+what were the performances of Ensign Brown's mare? The
+jokes about the table filled him with shame.  He was too
+old to listen to the banter of the assistant surgeon and
+the slang of the youngsters, at which old O'Dowd, with
+his bald head and red face, laughed quite easily.  The
+old man had listened to those jokes any time these
+thirty years--Dobbin himself had been fifteen years hearing
+them.  And after the boisterous dulness of the mess-table,
+the quarrels and scandal of the ladies of the regiment!
+It was unbearable, shameful.  "O Amelia, Amelia,"
+he thought, "you to whom I have been so faithful--
+you reproach me!  It is because you cannot feel for me
+that I drag on this wearisome life.  And you reward me
+after years of devotion by giving me your blessing upon
+my marriage, forsooth, with this flaunting Irish girl!"
+Sick and sorry felt poor William; more than ever
+wretched and lonely.  He would like to have done with
+life and its vanity altogether--so bootless and unsatisfactory
+the struggle, so cheerless and dreary the prospect
+seemed to him.  He lay all that night sleepless, and
+yearning to go home.  Amelia's letter had fallen as a
+blank upon him.  No fidelity, no constant truth and passion,
+could move her into warmth.  She would not see
+that he loved her.  Tossing in his bed, he spoke out to her.
+"Good God, Amelia!" he said, "don't you know that I
+only love you in the world--you, who are a stone to me
+--you, whom I tended through months and months of
+illness and grief, and who bade me farewell with a smile
+on your face, and forgot me before the door shut between
+us!" The native servants lying outside his verandas beheld
+with wonder the Major, so cold and quiet ordinarily,
+at present so passionately moved and cast down.  Would
+she have pitied him had she seen him? He read over and
+over all the letters which he ever had from her--letters
+of business relative to the little property which he had
+made her believe her husband had left to her--brief notes
+of invitation--every scrap of writing that she had ever
+sent to him--how cold, how kind, how hopeless, how
+selfish they were!
+
+Had there been some kind gentle soul near at hand who
+could read and appreciate this silent generous heart, who
+knows but that the reign of Amelia might have been over,
+and that friend William's love might have flowed into a
+kinder channel? But there was only Glorvina of the jetty
+ringlets with whom his intercourse was familiar, and this
+dashing young woman was not bent upon loving the
+Major, but rather on making the Major admire HER--a
+most vain and hopeless task, too, at least considering
+the means that the poor girl possessed to carry
+it out.  She curled her hair and showed her shoulders
+at him, as much as to say, did ye ever see such jet
+ringlets and such a complexion? She grinned at him so
+that he might see that every tooth in her head was
+sound--and he never heeded all these charms.  Very soon
+after the arrival of the box of millinery, and perhaps indeed
+in honour of it, Lady O'Dowd and the ladies of
+the King's Regiment gave a ball to the Company's
+Regiments and the civilians at the station.  Glorvina
+sported the killing pink frock, and the Major, who attended
+the party and walked very ruefully up and down
+the rooms, never so much as perceived the pink garment.
+Glorvina danced past him in a fury with all the young
+subalterns of the station, and the Major was not in the
+least jealous of her performance, or angry because Captain
+Bangles of the Cavalry handed her to supper.  It was
+not jealousy, or frocks, or shoulders that could move him,
+and Glorvina had nothing more.
+
+So these two were each exemplifying the Vanity of this
+life, and each longing for what he or she could not get.
+Glorvina cried with rage at the failure.  She had set her
+mind on the Major "more than on any of the others,"
+she owned, sobbing.  "He'll break my heart, he will,
+Peggy," she would whimper to her sister-in-law when
+they were good friends; "sure every one of me frocks
+must be taken in--it's such a skeleton I'm growing."
+Fat or thin, laughing or melancholy, on horseback or the
+music-stool, it was all the same to the Major.  And the
+Colonel, puffing his pipe and listening to these complaints,
+would suggest that Glory should have some black frocks
+out in the next box from London, and told a mysterious
+story of a lady in Ireland who died of grief for the loss of
+her husband before she got ere a one.
+
+While the Major was going on in this tantalizing way,
+not proposing, and declining to fall in love, there came
+another ship from Europe bringing letters on board, and
+amongst them some more for the heartless man.  These
+were home letters bearing an earlier postmark than that
+of the former packets, and as Major Dobbin recognized
+among his the handwriting of his sister, who always
+crossed and recrossed her letters to her brother--gathered
+together all the possible bad news which she could
+collect, abused him and read him lectures with sisterly
+frankness, and always left him miserable for the day after
+"dearest William" had achieved the perusal of one of her
+epistles--the truth must be told that dearest William did
+not hurry himself to break the seal of Miss Dobbin's
+letter, but waited for a particularly favourable day and
+mood for doing so.  A fortnight before, moreover, he
+had written to scold her for telling those absurd stories
+to Mrs. Osborne, and had despatched a letter in reply
+to that lady, undeceiving her with respect to the reports
+concerning him and assuring her that "he had no sort of
+present intention of altering his condition."
+
+Two or three nights after the arrival of the second
+package of letters, the Major had passed the evening
+pretty cheerfully at Lady O'Dowd's house, where Glorvina
+thought that he listened with rather more attention
+than usual to the Meeting of the Wathers, the Minsthrel
+Boy, and one or two other specimens of song with which
+she favoured him (the truth is, he was no more listening
+to Glorvina than to the howling of the jackals in the
+moonlight outside, and the delusion was hers as usual),
+and having played his game at chess with her (cribbage
+with the surgeon was Lady O'Dowd's favourite evening
+pastime), Major Dobbin took leave of the Colonel's family
+at his usual hour and retired to his own house.
+
+There on his table, his sister's letter lay reproaching
+him.  He took it up, ashamed rather of his negligence
+regarding it, and prepared himself for a disagreeable hour's
+communing with that crabbed-handed absent relative.
+.  .  .  It may have been an hour after the Major's departure
+from the Colonel's house--Sir Michael was sleeping
+the sleep of the just; Glorvina had arranged her
+black ringlets in the innumerable little bits of paper, in
+which it was her habit to confine them; Lady O'Dowd,
+too, had gone to her bed in the nuptial chamber, on the
+ground-floor, and had tucked her musquito curtains
+round her fair form, when the guard at the gates of the
+Commanding-Officer's compound beheld Major Dobbin,
+in the moonlight, rushing towards the house with a swift
+step and a very agitated countenance, and he passed the
+sentinel and went up to the windows of the Colonel's
+bedchamber.
+
+"O'Dowd--Colonel!" said Dobbin and kept up a great
+shouting.
+
+"Heavens, Meejor!" said Glorvina of the curl-papers,
+putting out her head too, from her window.
+
+"What is it, Dob, me boy?" said the Colonel, expecting
+there was a fire in the station, or that the route had
+come from headquarters.
+
+"I--I must have leave of absence.  I must go to England
+--on the most urgent private affairs," Dobbin said.
+
+"Good heavens, what has happened!" thought Glorvina,
+trembling with all the papillotes.
+
+"I want to be off--now--to-night," Dobbin continued;
+and the Colonel getting up, came out to parley with him.
+
+In the postscript of Miss Dobbin's cross-letter, the
+Major had just come upon a paragraph, to the following
+effect:--"I drove yesterday to see your old ACQUAINTANCE,
+Mrs. Osborne.  The wretched place they live at, since
+they were bankrupts, you know--Mr. S., to judge from
+a BRASS PLATE on the door of his hut (it is little better)
+is a coal-merchant.  The little boy, your godson, is
+certainly a fine child, though forward, and inclined to be
+saucy and self-willed.  But we have taken notice of him
+as you wish it, and have introduced him to his aunt,
+Miss O., who was rather pleased with him.  Perhaps his
+grandpapa, not the bankrupt one, who is almost doting,
+but Mr. Osborne, of Russell Square, may be induced to
+relent towards the child of your friend, HIS ERRING AND
+SELF-WILLED SON.  And Amelia will not be ill-disposed to
+give him up.  The widow is CONSOLED, and is about to
+marry a reverend gentleman, the Rev.  Mr. Binny, one
+of the curates of Brompton.  A poor match.  But Mrs. O.
+is getting old, and I saw a great deal of grey in her hair--
+she was in very good spirits:  and your little godson overate
+himself at our house.  Mamma sends her love with
+that of your affectionate, Ann Dobbin."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIV
+
+
+A Round-about Chapter between London and
+Hampshire
+
+Our old friends the Crawleys' family house, in Great
+Gaunt Street, still bore over its front the hatchment which
+had been placed there as a token of mourning for Sir
+Pitt Crawley's demise, yet this heraldic emblem was in
+itself a very splendid and gaudy piece of furniture, and
+all the rest of the mansion became more brilliant than it
+had ever been during the late baronet's reign.  The black
+outer-coating of the bricks was removed, and they
+appeared with a cheerful, blushing face streaked with white:
+the old bronze lions of the knocker were gilt handsomely,
+the railings painted, and the dismallest house in Great
+Gaunt Street became the smartest in the whole quarter,
+before the green leaves in Hampshire had replaced those
+yellowing ones which were on the trees in Queen's Crawley
+Avenue when old Sir Pitt Crawley passed under them
+for the last time.
+
+A little woman, with a carriage to correspond, was
+perpetually seen about this mansion; an elderly spinster,
+accompanied by a little boy, also might be remarked
+coming thither daily.  It was Miss Briggs and little Rawdon,
+whose business it was to see to the inward renovation
+of Sir Pitt's house, to superintend the female band
+engaged in stitching the blinds and hangings, to poke
+and rummage in the drawers and cupboards crammed
+with the dirty relics and congregated trumperies of a
+couple of generations of Lady Crawleys, and to take
+inventories of the china, the glass, and other properties
+in the closets and store-rooms.
+
+Mrs. Rawdon Crawley was general-in-chief over these
+arrangements, with full orders from Sir Pitt to sell, barter,
+confiscate, or purchase furniture, and she enjoyed herself
+not a little in an occupation which gave full scope to her
+taste and ingenuity.  The renovation of the house was
+determined upon when Sir Pitt came to town in November
+to see his lawyers, and when he passed nearly a week in
+Curzon Street, under the roof of his affectionate brother
+and sister.
+
+He had put up at an hotel at first, but, Becky, as soon
+as she heard of the Baronet's arrival, went off alone to
+greet him, and returned in an hour to Curzon Street
+with Sir Pitt in the carriage by her side.  It was impossible
+sometimes to resist this artless little creature's hospitalities,
+so kindly were they pressed, so frankly and amiably
+offered.  Becky seized Pitt's hand in a transport of
+gratitude when he agreed to come.  "Thank you," she
+said, squeezing it and looking into the Baronet's eyes,
+who blushed a good deal; "how happy this will make
+Rawdon!" She bustled up to Pitt's bedroom, leading
+on the servants, who were carrying his trunks thither.  She
+came in herself laughing, with a coal-scuttle out of
+her own room.
+
+A fire was blazing already in Sir Pitt's apartment (it
+was Miss Briggs's room, by the way, who was sent
+upstairs to sleep with the maid).  "I knew I should bring
+you," she said with pleasure beaming in her glance.  Indeed,
+she was really sincerely happy at having him for a guest.
+
+Becky made Rawdon dine out once or twice on business,
+while Pitt stayed with them, and the Baronet passed
+the happy evening alone with her and Briggs.  She went
+downstairs to the kitchen and actually cooked little
+dishes for him.  "Isn't it a good salmi?" she said; "I
+made it for you.  I can make you better dishes than that,
+and will when you come to see me."
+
+"Everything you do, you do well," said the Baronet
+gallantly.  "The salmi is excellent indeed."
+
+"A poor man's wife," Rebecca replied gaily, "must
+make herself useful, you know"; on which her brother-
+in-law vowed that "she was fit to be the wife of an
+Emperor, and that to be skilful in domestic duties was
+surely one of the most charming of woman's qualities."
+And Sir Pitt thought, with something like mortification,
+of Lady Jane at home, and of a certain pie which she had
+insisted on making, and serving to him at dinner--a
+most abominable pie.
+
+Besides the salmi, which was made of Lord Steyne's
+pheasants from his lordship's cottage of Stillbrook, Becky
+gave her brother-in-law a bottle of white wine, some
+that Rawdon had brought with him from France, and had
+picked up for nothing, the little story-teller said; whereas
+the liquor was, in truth, some White Hermitage from
+the Marquis of Steyne's famous cellars, which brought fire
+into the Baronet's pallid cheeks and a glow into his feeble
+frame.
+
+Then when he had drunk up the bottle of petit vin
+blanc, she gave him her hand, and took him up to the
+drawing-room, and made him snug on the sofa by the
+fire, and let him talk as she listened with the tenderest
+kindly interest, sitting by him, and hemming a shirt
+for her dear little boy.  Whenever Mrs. Rawdon wished
+to be particularly humble and virtuous, this little shirt
+used to come out of her work-box.  It had got to be too
+small for Rawdon long before it was finished.
+
+Well, Rebecca listened to Pitt, she talked to him, she
+sang to him, she coaxed him, and cuddled him, so that
+he found himself more and more glad every day to get
+back from the lawyer's at Gray's Inn, to the blazing fire
+in Curzon Street--a gladness in which the men of law
+likewise participated, for Pitt's harangues were of the
+longest--and so that when he went away he felt quite a
+pang at departing.  How pretty she looked kissing her
+hand to him from the carriage and waving her handkerchief
+when he had taken his place in the mail!  She put
+the handkerchief to her eyes once.  He pulled his
+sealskin cap over his, as the coach drove away, and,
+sinking back, he thought to himself how she respected
+him and how he deserved it, and how Rawdon was a foolish
+dull fellow who didn't half-appreciate his wife; and
+how mum and stupid his own wife was compared to that
+brilliant little Becky.  Becky had hinted every one of these
+things herself, perhaps, but so delicately and gently that
+you hardly knew when or where.  And, before they
+parted, it was agreed that the house in London should be
+redecorated for the next season, and that the brothers'
+families should meet again in the country at Christmas.
+
+"I wish you could have got a little money out of
+him," Rawdon said to his wife moodily when the Baronet
+was gone.  "I should like to give something to old Raggles,
+hanged if I shouldn't.  It ain't right, you know, that the
+old fellow should be kept out of all his money.  It may be
+inconvenient, and he might let to somebody else besides
+us, you know."
+
+"Tell him," said Becky, "that as soon as Sir Pitt's
+affairs are settled, everybody will be paid, and give him a
+little something on account.  Here's a cheque that Pitt
+left for the boy," and she took from her bag and gave
+her husband a paper which his brother had handed over
+to her, on behalf of the little son and heir of the younger
+branch of the Crawleys.
+
+The truth is, she had tried personally the ground on
+which her husband expressed a wish that she should
+venture--tried it ever so delicately, and found it unsafe.
+Even at a hint about embarrassments, Sir Pitt Crawley was
+off and alarmed.  And he began a long speech, explaining
+how straitened he himself was in money matters; how
+the tenants would not pay; how his father's affairs, and
+the expenses attendant upon the demise of the old
+gentleman, had involved him; how he wanted to pay off
+incumbrances; and how the bankers and agents were
+overdrawn; and Pitt Crawley ended by making a
+compromise with his sister-in-law and giving her a very
+small sum for the benefit of her little boy.
+
+Pitt knew how poor his brother and his brother's family
+must be.  It could not have escaped the notice of such a
+cool and experienced old diplomatist that Rawdon's family
+had nothing to live upon, and that houses and carriages
+are not to be kept for nothing.  He knew very well that
+he was the proprietor or appropriator of the money,
+which, according to all proper calculation, ought to have fallen to his younger brother, and he had, we may be sure, some
+secret pangs of remorse within him, which warned
+him that he ought to perform some act of justice,
+or, let us say, compensation, towards these disappointed
+relations.  A just, decent man, not without brains,
+who said his prayers, and knew his catechism, and
+did his duty outwardly through life, he could not be
+otherwise than aware that something was due to his
+brother at his hands, and that morally he was Rawdon's
+debtor.
+
+But, as one reads in the columns of the Times newspaper
+every now and then, queer announcements from
+the Chancellor of the Exchequer, acknowledging the receipt
+of 50 pounds from A.  B., or 10 pounds from W.  T., as
+conscience-money, on account of taxes due by the said
+A.  B.  or W.  T., which payments the penitents beg the
+Right Honourable gentleman to acknowledge through the
+medium of the public press--so is the Chancellor no
+doubt, and the reader likewise, always perfectly sure that
+the above-named A.  B.  and W.  T.  are only paying a
+very small instalment of what they really owe, and that
+the man who sends up a twenty-pound note has very
+likely hundreds or thousands more for which he ought
+to account.  Such, at least, are my feelings, when I see
+A.  B.  or W.  T.'s insufficient acts of repentance.  And I
+have no doubt that Pitt Crawley's contrition, or kindness
+if you will, towards his younger brother, by whom
+he had so much profited, was only a very small dividend
+upon the capital sum in which he was indebted to Rawdon.
+Not everybody is willing to pay even so much.  To part
+with money is a sacrifice beyond almost all men endowed
+with a sense of order.  There is scarcely any man alive
+who does not think himself meritorious for giving
+his neighbour five pounds.  Thriftless gives, not from a
+beneficent pleasure in giving, but from a lazy delight in
+spending.  He would not deny himself one enjoyment; not
+his opera-stall, not his horse, not his dinner, not even
+the pleasure of giving Lazarus the five pounds.  Thrifty,
+who is good, wise, just, and owes no man a penny, turns
+from a beggar, haggles with a hackney-coachman, or
+denies a poor relation, and I doubt which is the most
+selfish of the two.  Money has only a different value in
+the eyes of each.
+
+So, in a word, Pitt Crawley thought he would do something
+for his brother, and then thought that he would think
+about it some other time.
+
+And with regard to Becky, she was not a woman who
+expected too much from the generosity of her
+neighbours, and so was quite content with all that Pitt Crawley
+had done for her.  She was acknowledged by the head
+of the family.  If Pitt would not give her anything, he
+would get something for her some day.  If she got no
+money from her brother-in-law, she got what was as good
+as money--credit.  Raggles was made rather easy in his
+mind by the spectacle of the union between the brothers,
+by a small payment on the spot, and by the promise of a
+much larger sum speedily to be assigned to him.  And
+Rebecca told Miss Briggs, whose Christmas dividend
+upon the little sum lent by her Becky paid with an air of
+candid joy, and as if her exchequer was brimming over
+with gold--Rebecca, we say, told Miss Briggs, in strict
+confidence that she had conferred with Sir Pitt, who was
+famous as a financier, on Briggs's special behalf, as to
+the most profitable investment of Miss B.'s remaining
+capital; that Sir Pitt, after much consideration, had
+thought of a most safe and advantageous way in which
+Briggs could lay out her money; that, being especially
+interested in her as an attached friend of the late Miss
+Crawley, and of the whole family, and that long before
+he left town, he had recommended that she should be
+ready with the money at a moment's notice, so as to
+purchase at the most favourable opportunity the shares
+which Sir Pitt had in his eye.  Poor Miss Briggs was very
+grateful for this mark of Sir Pitt's attention--it came so
+unsolicited, she said, for she never should have thought of
+removing the money from the funds--and the delicacy
+enhanced the kindness of the office; and she promised to
+see her man of business immediately and be ready with
+her little cash at the proper hour.
+
+And this worthy woman was so grateful for the
+kindness of Rebecca in the matter, and for that of her
+generous benefactor, the Colonel, that she went out and
+spent a great part of her half-year's dividend in the
+purchase of a black velvet coat for little Rawdon, who, by
+the way, was grown almost too big for black velvet now,
+and was of a size and age befitting him for the assumption
+of the virile jacket and pantaloons.
+
+He was a fine open-faced boy, with blue eyes and
+waving flaxen hair, sturdy in limb, but generous and soft in
+heart, fondly attaching himself to all who were good to
+him--to the pony--to Lord Southdown, who gave him
+the horse (he used to blush and glow all over when he
+saw that kind young nobleman)--to the groom who had
+charge of the pony--to Molly, the cook, who crammed
+him with ghost stories at night, and with good things from
+the dinner--to Briggs, whom he plagued and laughed at
+--and to his father especially, whose attachment
+towards the lad was curious too to witness.  Here, as he
+grew to be about eight years old, his attachments may
+be said to have ended.  The beautiful mother-vision had
+faded away after a while.  During near two years she had
+scarcely spoken to the child.  She disliked him.  He had
+the measles and the hooping-cough.  He bored her.  One
+day when he was standing at the landing-place, having
+crept down from the upper regions, attracted by the sound
+of his mother's voice, who was singing to Lord Steyne,
+the drawing room door opening suddenly, discovered the
+little spy, who but a moment before had been rapt in
+delight, and listening to the music.
+
+His mother came out and struck him violently a couple
+of boxes on the ear.  He heard a laugh from the Marquis
+in the inner room (who was amused by this free and
+artless exhibition of Becky's temper) and fled down below
+to his friends of the kitchen, bursting in an agony of
+grief.
+
+"It is not because it hurts me," little Rawdon gasped
+out--"only--only"--sobs and tears wound up the
+sentence in a storm.  It was the little boy's heart that was
+bleeding.  "Why mayn't I hear her singing? Why don't
+she ever sing to me--as she does to that baldheaded
+man with the large teeth?" He gasped out at various
+intervals these exclamations of rage and grief.  The cook
+looked at the housemaid, the housemaid looked
+knowingly at the footman--the awful kitchen inquisition which
+sits in judgement in every house and knows everything--
+sat on Rebecca at that moment.
+
+After this incident, the mother's dislike increased to
+hatred; the consciousness that the child was in the house
+was a reproach and a pain to her.  His very sight
+annoyed her.  Fear, doubt, and resistance sprang up, too,
+in the boy's own bosom.  They were separated from that
+day of the boxes on the ear.
+
+Lord Steyne also heartily disliked the boy.  When they
+met by mischance, he made sarcastic bows or remarks
+to the child, or glared at him with savage-looking eyes.
+Rawdon used to stare him in the face and double his
+little fists in return.  He knew his enemy, and this gentleman,
+of all who came to the house, was the one who
+angered him most.  One day the footman found him
+squaring his fists at Lord Steyne's hat in the hall.  The
+footman told the circumstance as a good joke to Lord
+Steyne's coachman; that officer imparted it to Lord
+Steyne's gentleman, and to the servants' hall in general.
+And very soon afterwards, when Mrs. Rawdon Crawley
+made her appearance at Gaunt House, the porter who
+unbarred the gates, the servants of all uniforms in the hall,
+the functionaries in white waistcoats, who bawled out
+from landing to landing the names of Colonel and Mrs.
+Rawdon Crawley, knew about her, or fancied they did.
+The man who brought her refreshment and stood behind
+her chair, had talked her character over with the large
+gentleman in motley-coloured clothes at his side.  Bon
+Dieu! it is awful, that servants' inquisition!  You see a
+woman in a great party in a splendid saloon, surrounded
+by faithful admirers, distributing sparkling glances,
+dressed to perfection, curled, rouged, smiling and happy
+--Discovery walks respectfully up to her, in the shape of
+a huge powdered man with large calves and a tray of ices
+--with Calumny (which is as fatal as truth) behind
+him, in the shape of the hulking fellow carrying the wafer-
+biscuits.  Madam, your secret will be talked over by those
+men at their club at the public-house to-night.  Jeames
+will tell Chawles his notions about you over their pipes
+and pewter beer-pots.  Some people ought to have mutes
+for servants in Vanity Fair--mutes who could not write.
+If you are guilty, tremble.  That fellow behind your chair
+may be a Janissary with a bow-string in his plush breeches
+pocket.  If you are not guilty, have a care of
+appearances, which are as ruinous as guilt.
+
+"Was Rebecca guilty or not?" the Vehmgericht of tho
+servants' hall had pronounced against her.
+
+And, I shame to say, she would not have got credit
+had they not believed her to be guilty.  It was the sight of
+the Marquis of Steyne's carriage-lamps at her door,
+contemplated by Raggles, burning in the blackness of
+midnight, "that kep him up," as he afterwards said, that
+even more than Rebecca's arts and coaxings.
+
+And so--guiltless very likely--she was writhing and
+pushing onward towards what they call "a position in
+society," and the servants were pointing at her as lost
+and ruined.  So you see Molly, the housemaid, of a morning,
+watching a spider in the doorpost lay his thread and
+laboriously crawl up it, until, tired of the sport, she
+raises her broom and sweeps away the thread and the
+artificer.
+
+A day or two before Christmas, Becky, her husband
+and her son made ready and went to pass the holidays
+at the seat of their ancestors at Queen's Crawley.  Becky
+would have liked to leave the little brat behind, and
+would have done so but for Lady Jane's urgent invitations
+to the youngster, and the symptoms of revolt and
+discontent which Rawdon manifested at her neglect of her
+son.  "He's the finest boy in England," the father said in a
+tone of reproach to her, "and you don't seem to care for
+him, Becky, as much as you do for your spaniel.  He
+shan't bother you much; at home he will be away from
+you in the nursery, and he shall go outside on the coach
+with me."
+
+"Where you go yourself because you want to smoke
+those filthy cigars," replied Mrs. Rawdon.
+
+"I remember when you liked 'em though," answered the
+husband.
+
+Becky laughed; she was almost always good-humoured.
+"That was when I was on my promotion, Goosey," she
+said.  "Take Rawdon outside with you and give him a cigar
+too if you like."
+
+Rawdon did not warm his little son for the winter's
+journey in this way, but he and Briggs wrapped up the
+child in shawls and comforters, and he was hoisted
+respectfully onto the roof of the coach in the.dark morning,
+under the lamps of the White Horse Cellar; and with
+no small delight he watched the dawn rise and made
+his first journey to the place which his father still called
+home.  It was a journey of infinite pleasure to the boy, to
+whom the incidents of the road afforded endless interest,
+his father answering to him all questions connected with it
+and telling him who lived in the great white house to the
+right, and whom the park belonged to.  His mother, inside
+the vehicle, with her maid and her furs, her wrappers, and
+her scent bottles, made such a to-do that you would have
+thought she never had been in a stage-coach before--
+much less, that she had been turned out of this very one
+to make room for a paying passenger on a certain
+journey performed some half-score years ago.
+
+It was dark again when little Rawdon was wakened up
+to enter his uncle's carriage at Mudbury, and he sat and
+looked out of it wondering as the great iron gates flew
+open, and at the white trunks of the limes as they swept
+by, until they stopped, at length, before the light windows
+of the Hall, which were blazing and comfortable with
+Christmas welcome.  The hall-door was flung open--a big
+fire was burning in the great old fire-place--a carpet was
+down over the chequered black flags--"It's the old Turkey
+one that used to be in the Ladies' Gallery," thought
+Rebecca, and the next instant was kissing Lady Jane.
+
+She and Sir Pitt performed the same salute with great
+gravity; but Rawdon, having been smoking, hung back
+rather from his sister-in-law, whose two children came
+up to their cousin; and, while Matilda held out her hand
+and kissed him, Pitt Binkie Southdown, the son and heir,
+stood aloof rather and examined him as a little dog does
+a big dog.
+
+Then the kind hostess conducted her guests to the snug
+apartments blazing with cheerful fires.  Then the young
+ladies came and knocked at Mrs. Rawdon's door, under
+the pretence that they were desirous to be useful, but in
+reality to have the pleasure of inspecting the contents of
+her band and bonnet-boxes, and her dresses which, though
+black, were of the newest London fashion.  And they told
+her how much the Hall was changed for the better, and
+how old Lady Southdown was gone, and how Pitt was
+taking his station in the county, as became a Crawley in
+fact.  Then the great dinner-bell having rung, the family
+assembled at dinner, at which meal Rawdon Junior was
+placed by his aunt, the good-natured lady of the house,
+Sir Pitt being uncommonly attentive to his sister-in-law at
+his own right hand.
+
+Little Rawdon exhibited a fine appetite and showed a
+gentlemanlike behaviour.
+
+"I like to dine here," he said to his aunt when he had
+completed his meal, at the conclusion of which, and
+after a decent grace by Sir Pitt, the younger son and
+heir was introduced, and was perched on a high chair
+by the Baronet's side, while the daughter took possession
+of the place and the little wine-glass prepared for her
+near her mother.  "I like to dine here," said Rawdon Minor,
+looking up at his relation's kind face.
+
+"Why?" said the good Lady Jane.
+
+"I dine in the kitchen when I am at home," replied
+Rawdon Minor, "or else with Briggs." But Becky was so
+engaged with the Baronet, her host, pouring out a flood of
+compliments and delights and raptures, and admiring
+young Pitt Binkie, whom she declared to be the most
+beautiful, intelligent, noble-looking little creature, and so
+like his father, that she did not hear the remarks of her
+own flesh and blood at the other end of the broad
+shining table.
+
+As a guest, and it being the first night of his arrival,
+Rawdon the Second was allowed to sit up until the hour
+when tea being over, and a great gilt book being laid on
+the table before Sir Pitt, all the domestics of the family
+streamed in, and Sir Pitt read prayers.  It was the first
+time the poor little boy had ever witnessed or heard of
+such a ceremonial.
+
+The house had been much improved even since the
+Baronet's brief reign, and was pronounced by Becky to be
+perfect, charming, delightful, when she surveyed it in
+his company.  As for little Rawdon, who examined it with
+the children for his guides, it seemed to him a perfect
+palace of enchantment and wonder.  There were long
+galleries, and ancient state bedrooms, there were
+pictures and old China, and armour.  There were the rooms
+in which Grandpapa died, and by which the children
+walked with terrified looks.  "Who was Grandpapa?" he
+asked; and they told him how he used to be very old, and
+used to be wheeled about in a garden-chair, and they
+showed him the garden-chair one day rotting in the
+out-house in which it had lain since the old gentleman had
+been wheeled away yonder to the church, of which the
+spire was glittering over the park elms.
+
+The brothers had good occupation for several mornings
+in examining the improvements which had been effected
+by Sir Pitt's genius and economy.  And as they walked
+or rode, and looked at them, they could talk without
+too much boring each other.  And Pitt took care to tell
+Rawdon what a heavy outlay of money these improvements
+had occasioned, and that a man of landed and funded
+property was often very hard pressed for twenty pounds.
+"There is that new lodge-gate," said Pitt, pointing to
+it humbly with the bamboo cane, "I can no more pay for it
+before the dividends in January than I can fly."
+
+"I can lend you, Pitt, till then," Rawdon answered rather
+ruefully; and they went in and looked at the restored lodge,
+where the family arms were just new scraped in stone,
+and where old Mrs. Lock, for the first time these many
+long years, had tight doors, sound roofs, and whole
+windows.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLV
+
+
+Between Hampshire and London
+
+Sir Pitt Crawley had done more than repair fences and
+restore dilapidated lodges on the Queen's Crawley estate.
+Like a wise man he had set to work to rebuild the
+injured popularity of his house and stop up the gaps and
+ruins in which his name had been left by his disreputable
+and thriftless old predecessor.  He was elected for the
+borough speedily after his father's demise; a magistrate,
+a member of parliament, a county magnate and representative
+of an ancient family, he made it his duty to show
+himself before the Hampshire public, subscribed
+handsomely to the county charities, called assiduously upon
+all the county folk, and laid himself out in a word to take
+that position in Hampshire, and in the Empire afterwards,
+to which he thought his prodigious talents justly
+entitled him.  Lady Jane was instructed to be friendly with
+the Fuddlestones, and the Wapshots, and the other
+famous baronets, their neighbours.  Their carriages might
+frequently be seen in the Queen's Crawley avenue now;
+they dined pretty frequently at the Hall (where the cookery
+was so good that it was clear Lady Jane very seldom
+had a hand in it), and in return Pitt and his wife most
+energetically dined out in all sorts of weather and at all
+sorts of distances.  For though Pitt did not care for joviality,
+being a frigid man of poor hearth and appetite, yet he
+considered that to be hospitable and condescending
+was quite incumbent on-his station, and every time that
+he got a headache from too long an after-dinner sitting,
+he felt that he was a martyr to duty.  He talked about
+crops, corn-laws, politics, with the best country gentlemen.
+He (who had been formerly inclined to be a sad
+free-thinker on these points) entered into poaching and
+game preserving with ardour.  He didn't hunt; he wasn't
+a hunting man; he was a man of books and peaceful
+habits; but he thought that the breed of horses must be
+kept up in the country, and that the breed of foxes must
+therefore be looked to, and for his part, if his friend,
+Sir Huddlestone Fuddlestone, liked to draw his country
+and meet as of old the F.  hounds used to do at Queen's
+Crawley, he should be happy to see him there, and the
+gentlemen of the Fuddlestone hunt.  And to Lady Southdown's
+dismay too he became more orthodox in his tendencies
+every day; gave up preaching in public and attending
+meeting-houses; went stoutly to church; called
+on the Bishop and all the Clergy at Winchester; and made
+no objection when the Venerable Archdeacon Trumper
+asked for a game of whist.  What pangs must have been
+those of Lady Southdown, and what an utter castaway she
+must have thought her son-in-law for permitting such
+a godless diversion!  And when, on the return of the family
+from an oratorio at Winchester, the Baronet announced
+to the young ladies that he should next year very
+probably take them to the "county balls," they worshipped
+him for his kindness.  Lady Jane was only too obedient, and
+perhaps glad herself to go.  The Dowager wrote off the
+direst descriptions of her daughter's worldly behaviour to
+the authoress of the Washerwoman of Finchley Common
+at the Cape; and her house in Brighton being about this
+time unoccupied, returned to that watering-place, her
+absence being not very much deplored by her children.
+We may suppose, too, that Rebecca, on paying a second
+visit to Queen's Crawley, did not feel particularly grieved
+at the absence of the lady of the medicine chest; though
+she wrote a Christmas letter to her Ladyship, in which she
+respectfully recalled herself to Lady Southdown's
+recollection, spoke with gratitude of the delight which her
+Ladyship's conversation had given her on the former
+visit, dilated on the kindness with which her Ladyship had
+treated her in sickness, and declared that everything at
+Queen's Crawley reminded her of her absent friend.
+
+A great part of the altered demeanour and popularity
+of Sir Pitt Crawley might have been traced to the counsels
+of that astute little lady of Curzon Street.  "You remain a
+Baronet--you consent to be a mere country gentleman,"
+she said to him, while he had been her guest in London.
+"No, Sir Pitt Crawley, I know you better.  I know your
+talents and your ambition.  You fancy you hide them
+both, but you can conceal neither from me.  I showed
+Lord Steyne your pamphlet on malt.  He was familiar
+with it, and said it was in the opinion of the whole Cabinet
+the most masterly thing that had appeared on the subject.
+The Ministry has its eye upon you, and I know what you
+want.  You want to distinguish yourself in Parliament;
+every one says you are the finest speaker in England
+(for your speeches at Oxford are still remembered).  You
+want to be Member for the County, where, with your own
+vote and your borough at your back, you can command
+anything.  And you want to be Baron Crawley of Queen's
+Crawley, and will be before you die.  I saw it all.  I could
+read your heart, Sir Pitt.  If I had a husband who
+possessed your intellect as he does your name, I sometimes
+think I should not be unworthy of him--but--but I am
+your kinswoman now," she added with a laugh.  "Poor
+little penniless, I have got a little interest--and who
+knows, perhaps the mouse may be able to aid the lion."
+Pitt Crawley was amazed and enraptured with her
+speech.  "How that woman comprehends me!" he said.
+"I never could get Jane to read three pages of the malt
+pamphlet.  She has no idea that I have commanding
+talents or secret ambition.  So they remember my speaking
+at Oxford, do they? The rascals!  Now that I represent
+my borough and may sit for the county, they begin to
+recollect me!  Why, Lord Steyne cut me at the levee last
+year; they are beginning to find out that Pitt Crawley is
+some one at last.  Yes, the man was always the same
+whom these people neglected:  it was only the opportunity
+that was wanting, and I will show them now that I can
+speak and act as well as write.  Achilles did not declare
+himself until they gave him the sword.  I hold it now, and
+the world shall yet hear of Pitt Crawley."
+
+Therefore it was that this roguish diplomatist has grown
+so hospitable; that he was so civil to oratorios and
+hospitals; so kind to Deans and Chapters; so generous in
+giving and accepting dinners; so uncommonly gracious to
+farmers on market-days; and so much interested about
+county business; and that the Christmas at the Hall was the
+gayest which had been known there for many a long day.
+
+On Christmas Day a great family gathering took place.
+All the Crawleys from the Rectory came to dine.  Rebecca
+was as frank and fond of Mrs. Bute as if the other had
+never been her enemy; she was affectionately interested
+in the dear girls, and surprised at the progress which they
+had made in music since her time, and insisted upon
+encoring one of the duets out of the great song-books
+which Jim, grumbling, had been forced to bring under his
+arm from the Rectory.  Mrs. Bute, perforce, was obliged
+to adopt a decent demeanour towards the little adventuress
+--of course being free to discourse with her daughters
+afterwards about the absurd respect with which Sir Pitt
+treated his sister-in-law.  But Jim, who had sat next to
+her at dinner, declared she was a trump, and one and all
+of the Rector's family agreed that the little Rawdon was a
+fine boy.  They respected a possible baronet in the boy,
+between whom and the title there was only the little
+sickly pale Pitt Binkie.
+
+The children were very good friends.  Pitt Binkie was too
+little a dog for such a big dog as Rawdon to play with; and
+Matilda being only a girl, of course not fit companion
+for a young gentleman who was near eight years old, and
+going into jackets very soon.  He took the command of
+this small party at once--the little girl and the little boy
+following him about with great reverence at such times
+as he condescended to sport with them.  His happiness
+and pleasure in the country were extreme.  The kitchen
+garden pleased him hugely, the flowers moderately, but
+the pigeons and the poultry, and the stables when he
+was allowed to visit them, were delightful objects to
+him.  He resisted being kissed by the Misses Crawley,
+but he allowed Lady Jane sometimes to embrace him, and
+it was by her side that he liked to sit when, the signal
+to retire to the drawing-room being given, the ladies
+left the gentlemen to their claret--by her side rather
+than by his mother.  For Rebecca, seeing that tenderness
+was the fashion, called Rawdon to her one evening and
+stooped down and kissed him in the presence of all the
+ladies.
+
+He looked her full in the face after the operation,
+trembling and turning very red, as his wont was when
+moved.  "You never kiss me at home, Mamma," he said,
+at which there was a general silence and consternation and
+a by no means pleasant look in Becky's eyes.
+
+Rawdon was fond of his sister-in-law, for her regard
+for his son.  Lady Jane and Becky did not get on quite so
+well at this visit as on occasion of the former one, when
+the Colonel's wife was bent upon pleasing.  Those two
+speeches of the child struck rather a chill.  Perhaps Sir
+Pitt was rather too attentive to her.
+
+But Rawdon, as became his age and size, was fonder
+of the society of the men than of the women, and never
+wearied of accompanying his sire to the stables, whither
+the Colonel retired to smoke his cigar--Jim, the Rector's
+son, sometimes joining his cousin in that and other amusements.
+He and the Baronet's keeper were very close
+friends, their mutual taste for "dawgs" bringing them
+much together.  On one day, Mr. James, the Colonel, and
+Horn, the keeper, went and shot pheasants, taking little
+Rawdon with them.  On another most blissful morning,
+these four gentlemen partook of the amusement of
+rat-hunting in a barn, than which sport Rawdon as yet had
+never seen anything more noble.  They stopped up the
+ends of certain drains in the barn, into the other openings
+of which ferrets were inserted, and then stood silently
+aloof, with uplifted stakes in their hands, and an anxious
+little terrier (Mr. James's celebrated "dawg" Forceps,
+indeed) scarcely breathing from excitement, listening
+motionless on three legs, to the faint squeaking of the
+rats below.  Desperately bold at last, the persecuted
+animals bolted above-ground--the terrier accounted for one,
+the keeper for another; Rawdon, from flurry and
+excitement, missed his rat, but on the other hand he
+half-murdered a ferret.
+
+But the greatest day of all was that on which Sir
+Huddlestone Fuddlestone's hounds met upon the lawn
+at Queen's Crawley.
+
+That was a famous sight for little Rawdon.  At half-past
+ten, Tom Moody, Sir Huddlestone Fuddlestone's
+huntsman, was seen trotting up the avenue, followed by the
+noble pack of hounds in a compact body--the rear being
+brought up by the two whips clad in stained scarlet
+frocks--light hard-featured lads on well-bred lean horses,
+possessing marvellous dexterity in casting the points of
+their long heavy whips at the thinnest part of any dog's
+skin who dares to straggle from the main body, or to
+take the slightest notice, or even so much as wink, at the
+hares and rabbits starting under their noses.
+
+Next comes boy Jack, Tom Moody's son, who weighs
+five stone, measures eight-and-forty inches, and will never
+be any bigger.  He is perched on a large raw-boned hunter,
+half-covered by a capacious saddle.  This animal is Sir
+Huddlestone Fuddlestone's favourite horse the Nob.
+Other horses, ridden by other small boys, arrive from
+time to time, awaiting their masters, who will come
+cantering on anon.
+
+Tom Moody rides up to the door of the Hall, where he
+is welcomed by the butler, who offers him drink, which he
+declines.  He and his pack then draw off into a sheltered
+corner of the lawn, where the dogs roll on the grass, and
+play or growl angrily at one another, ever and anon
+breaking out into furious fight speedily to be quelled by
+Tom's voice, unmatched at rating, or the snaky thongs
+of the whips.
+
+Many young gentlemen canter up on thoroughbred
+hacks, spatter-dashed to the knee, and enter the house to
+drink cherry-brandy and pay their respects to the ladies,
+or, more modest and sportsmanlike, divest themselves
+of their mud-boots, exchange their hacks for their hunters,
+and warm their blood by a preliminary gallop round the
+lawn.  Then they collect round the pack in the corner and
+talk with Tom Moody of past sport, and the merits of
+Sniveller and Diamond, and of the state of the country
+and of the wretched breed of foxes.
+
+Sir Huddlestone presently appears mounted on a clever
+cob and rides up to the Hall, where he enters and does the
+civil thing by the ladies, after which, being a man of
+few words, he proceeds to business.  The hounds are
+drawn up to the hall-door, and little Rawdon descends
+amongst them, excited yet half-alarmed by the caresses
+which they bestow upon him, at the thumps he receives
+from their waving tails, and at their canine bickerings,
+scarcely restrained by Tom Moody's tongue and lash.
+
+Meanwhile, Sir Huddlestone has hoisted himself
+unwieldily on the Nob:  "Let's try Sowster's Spinney, Tom,"
+says the Baronet, "Farmer Mangle tells me there are two
+foxes in it." Tom blows his horn and trots off, followed by
+the pack, by the whips, by the young gents from
+Winchester, by the farmers of the neighbourhood, by the
+labourers of the parish on foot, with whom the day is
+a great holiday, Sir Huddlestone bringing up the rear with
+Colonel Crawley, and the whole cortege disappears
+down the avenue.
+
+The Reverend Bute Crawley (who has been too modest
+to appear at the public meet before his nephew's
+windows), whom Tom Moody remembers forty years back
+a slender divine riding the wildest horses, jumping the
+widest brooks, and larking over the newest gates in the
+country--his Reverence, we say, happens to trot out from
+the Rectory Lane on his powerful black horse just as Sir
+Huddlestone passes; he joins the worthy Baronet.  Hounds
+and horsemen disappear, and little Rawdon remains on the
+doorsteps, wondering and happy.
+
+During the progress of this memorable holiday, little
+Rawdon, if he had got no special liking for his uncle,
+always awful and cold and locked up in his study, plunged
+in justice-business and surrounded by bailiffs and farmers
+--has gained the good graces of his married and maiden
+aunts, of the two little folks of the Hall, and of Jim of the
+Rectory, whom Sir Pitt is encouraging to pay his addresses
+to one of the young ladies, with an understanding doubtless
+that he shall be presented to the living when it shall
+be vacated by his fox-hunting old sire.  Jim has given up
+that sport himself and confines himself to a little harmless
+duck- or snipe-shooting, or a little quiet trifling with the
+rats during the Christmas holidays, after which he will
+return to the University and try and not be plucked, once
+more.  He has already eschewed green coats, red
+neckcloths, and other worldly ornaments, and is preparing
+himself for a change in his condition.  In this cheap and
+thrifty way Sir Pitt tries to pay off his debt to his family.
+
+Also before this merry Christmas was over, the Baronet
+had screwed up courage enough to give his brother
+another draft on his bankers, and for no less a sum than a
+hundred pounds, an act which caused Sir Pitt cruel pangs
+at first, but which made him glow afterwards to think
+himself one of the most generous of men.  Rawdon and his
+son went away with the utmost heaviness of heart.  Becky
+and the ladies parted with some alacrity, however, and our
+friend returned to London to commence those avocations
+with which we find her occupied when this chapter begins.
+Under her care the Crawley House in Great Gaunt Street
+was quite rejuvenescent and ready for the reception of
+Sir Pitt and his family, when the Baronet came to
+London to attend his duties in Parliament and to assume that
+position in the country for which his vast genius fitted
+him.
+
+For the first session, this profound dissembler hid his
+projects and never opened his lips but to present a
+petition from Mudbury.  But he attended assiduously in his
+place and learned thoroughly the routine and business of
+the House.  At home he gave himself up to the perusal of
+Blue Books, to the alarm and wonder of Lady Jane, who
+thought he was killing himself by late hours and intense
+application.  And he made acquaintance with the ministers,
+and the chiefs of his party, determining to rank as
+one of them before many years were over.
+
+Lady Jane's sweetness and kindness had inspired
+Rebecca with such a contempt for her ladyship as the little
+woman found no small difficulty in concealing.  That sort
+of goodness and simplicity which Lady Jane possessed
+annoyed our friend Becky, and it was impossible for her at
+times not to show, or to let the other divine, her scorn.
+Her presence, too, rendered Lady Jane uneasy.  Her
+husband talked constantly with Becky.  Signs of intelligence
+seemed to pass between them, and Pitt spoke with her on
+subjects on which he never thought of discoursing with
+Lady Jane.  The latter did not understand them, to be sure,
+but it was mortifying to remain silent; still more
+mortifying to know that you had nothing to say, and hear that
+little audacious Mrs. Rawdon dashing on from subject to
+subject, with a word for every man, and a joke always pat;
+and to sit in one's own house alone, by the fireside, and
+watching all the men round your rival.
+
+In the country, when Lady Jane was telling stories to
+the children, who clustered about her knees (little
+Rawdon into the bargain, who was very fond of her), and
+Becky came into the room, sneering with green scornful
+eyes, poor Lady Jane grew silent under those baleful
+glances.  Her simple little fancies shrank away tremulously,
+as fairies in the story-books, before a superior bad
+angel.  She could not go on, although Rebecca, with the
+smallest inflection of sarcasm in her voice, besought her
+to continue that charming story.  And on her side gentle
+thoughts and simple pleasures were odious to Mrs. Becky;
+they discorded with her; she hated people for liking them;
+she spurned children and children-lovers.  "I have no
+taste for bread and butter," she would say, when
+caricaturing Lady Jane and her ways to my Lord Steyne.
+
+"No more has a certain person for holy water," his
+lordship replied with a bow and a grin and a great jarring
+laugh afterwards.
+
+So these two ladies did not see much of each other
+except upon those occasions when the younger brother's
+wife, having an object to gain from the other, frequented
+her.  They my-loved and my-deared each other assiduously,
+but kept apart generally, whereas Sir Pitt, in the
+midst of his multiplied avocations, found daily time to
+see his sister-in-law.
+
+On the occasion of his first Speaker's dinner, Sir Pitt
+took the opportunity of appearing before his sister-in-law
+in his uniform--that old diplomatic suit which he had
+worn when attache to the Pumpernickel legation.
+
+Becky complimented him upon that dress and admired
+him almost as much as his own wife and children, to
+whom he displayed himself before he set out.  She said
+that it was only the thoroughbred gentleman who could
+wear the Court suit with advantage:  it was only your men
+of ancient race whom the culotte courte became.  Pitt
+looked down with complacency at his legs, which had not,
+in truth, much more symmetry or swell than the lean
+Court sword which dangled by his side--looked down
+at his legs, and thought in his heart that he was killing.
+
+When he was gone, Mrs. Becky made a caricature
+of his figure, which she showed to Lord Steyne when he
+arrived.  His lordship carried off the sketch, delighted
+with the accuracy of the resemblance.  He had done Sir
+Pitt Crawley the honour to meet him at Mrs. Becky's
+house and had been most gracious to the new Baronet
+and member.  Pitt was struck too by the deference with
+which the great Peer treated his sister-in-law, by her ease
+and sprightliness in the conversation, and by the delight
+with which the other men of the party listened to her talk.
+Lord Steyne made no doubt but that the Baronet had
+only commenced his career in public life, and expected
+rather anxiously to hear him as an orator; as they were
+neighbours (for Great Gaunt Street leads into Gaunt
+Square, whereof Gaunt House, as everybody knows, forms
+one side) my lord hoped that as soon as Lady Steyne
+arrived in London she would have the honour of making
+the acquaintance of Lady Crawley.  He left a card upon
+his neighbour in the course of a day or two, having never
+thought fit to notice his predecessor, though they had
+lived near each other for near a century past.
+
+In the midst of these intrigues and fine parties and
+wise and brilliant personages Rawdon felt himself more
+and more isolated every day.  He was allowed to go to
+the club more; to dine abroad with bachelor friends;
+to come and go when he liked, without any questions
+being asked.  And he and Rawdon the younger many a
+time would walk to Gaunt Street and sit with the lady
+and the children there while Sir Pitt was closeted with
+Rebecca, on his way to the House, or on  his return
+from it.
+
+The ex-Colonel would sit for hours in his brother's
+house very silent, and thinking and doing as little as
+possible.  He was glad to be employed of an errand; to
+go and make inquiries about a horse or a servant, or to
+carve the roast mutton for the dinner of the children.
+He was beat and cowed into laziness and submission.
+Delilah had imprisoned him and cut his hair off, too.  The
+bold and reckless young blood of ten-years back was
+subjugated and was turned into a torpid, submissive,
+middle-aged, stout gentleman.
+
+And poor Lady Jane was aware that Rebecca had
+captivated her husband, although she and Mrs. Rawdon
+my-deared and my-loved each other every day they met.
+                    
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVI
+
+
+Struggles and Trials
+
+Our friends at Brompton were meanwhile passing their
+Christmas after their fashion and in a manner by no
+means too cheerful.
+
+Out of the hundred pounds a year, which was about
+the amount of her income, the Widow Osborne had been
+in the habit of giving up nearly three-fourths to her
+father and mother, for the expenses of herself and her
+little boy.  With #120 more, supplied by Jos, this family
+of four people, attended by a single Irish servant who
+also did for Clapp and his wife, might manage to live
+in decent comfort through the year, and hold up their
+heads yet, and be able to give a friend a dish of tea still,
+after the storms and disappointments of their early life.
+Sedley still maintained his ascendency over the family of
+Mr. Clapp, his ex-clerk.  Clapp remembered the time
+when, sitting on the edge of the chair, he tossed off a
+bumper to the health of "Mrs. S--, Miss Emmy, and
+Mr. Joseph in India," at the merchant's rich table in
+Russell Square.  Time magnified the splendour of those
+recollections in the honest clerk's bosom.  Whenever he came
+up from the kitchen-parlour to the drawing-room and
+partook of tea or gin-and-water with Mr. Sedley, he
+would say, "This was not what you was accustomed to
+once, sir," and as gravely and reverentially drink the
+health of the ladies as he had done in the days of their
+utmost prosperity.  He thought Miss 'Melia's playing the
+divinest music ever performed, and her the finest lady.
+He never would sit down before Sedley at the club even,
+nor would he have that gentleman's character abused by
+any member of the society.  He had seen the first men in
+London shaking hands with Mr. S--; he said, "He'd
+known him in times when Rothschild might be seen on
+'Change with him any day, and he owed him personally
+everythink."
+
+Clapp, with the best of characters and handwritings,
+had been able very soon after his master's disaster to find
+other employment for himself.  "Such a little fish as me
+can swim in any bucket," he used to remark, and a
+member of the house from which old Sedley had seceded was
+very glad to make use of Mr. Clapp's services and to
+reward them with a comfortable salary.  In fine, all Sedley's
+wealthy friends had dropped off one by one, and this
+poor ex-dependent still remained faithfully attached to
+him.
+
+Out of the small residue of her income which Amelia
+kept back for herself, the widow had need of all the
+thrift and care possible in order to enable her to keep
+her darling boy dressed in such a manner as became
+George Osborne's son, and to defray the expenses of the
+little school to which, after much misgiving and
+reluctance and many secret pangs and fears on her own
+part, she had been induced to send the lad.  She had sat up
+of nights conning lessons and spelling over crabbed
+grammars and geography books in order to teach them to
+Georgy.  She had worked even at the Latin accidence,
+fondly hoping that she might be capable of instructing
+him in that language.  To part with him all day, to send
+him out to the mercy of a schoolmaster's cane and his
+schoolfellows' roughness, was almost like weaning him
+over again to that weak mother, so tremulous and full of
+sensibility.  He, for his part, rushed off to the school with
+the utmost happiness.  He was longing for the change.
+That childish gladness wounded his mother, who was
+herself so grieved to part with him.  She would rather have
+had him more sorry, she thought, and then was deeply
+repentant within herself for daring to be so selfish as to
+wish her own son to be unhappy.
+
+Georgy made great progress in the school, which was
+kept by a friend of his mother's constant admirer, the
+Rev.  Mr. Binny.  He brought home numberless prizes and
+testimonials of ability.  He told his mother countless stories
+every night about his school-companions:  and what a
+fine fellow Lyons was, and what a sneak Sniffin was, and
+how Steel's father actually supplied the meat for the
+establishment, whereas Golding's mother came in a
+carriage to fetch him every Saturday, and how Neat had
+straps to his trowsers--might he have straps?--and how
+Bull Major was so strong (though only in Eutropius) that
+it was believed he could lick the Usher, Mr. Ward,
+himself.  So Amelia learned to know every one of the boys
+in that school as well as Georgy himself, and of nights
+she used to help him in his exercises and puzzle her little
+head over his lessons as eagerly as if she was herself
+going in the morning into the presence of the master.
+Once, after a certain combat with Master Smith, George
+came home to his mother with a black eye, and bragged
+prodigiously to his parent and his delighted old
+grandfather about his valour in the fight, in which, if the
+truth was known he did not behave with particular heroism,
+and in which he decidedly had the worst.  But Amelia
+has never forgiven that Smith to this day, though he is
+now a peaceful apothecary near Leicester Square.
+
+In these quiet labours and harmless cares the gentle
+widow's life was passing away, a silver hair or two marking
+the progress of time on her head and a line deepening
+ever so little on her fair forehead.  She used to smile at
+these marks of time.  "What matters it," she asked, "For
+an old woman like me?" All she hoped for was to live to
+see her son great, famous, and glorious, as he deserved
+to be.  She kept his copy-books, his drawings, and
+compositions, and showed them about in her little circle as
+if they were miracles of genius.  She confided some of
+these specimens to Miss Dobbin, to show them to Miss
+Osborne, George's aunt, to show them to Mr. Osborne
+himself--to make that old man repent of his cruelty and
+ill feeling towards him who was gone.  All her husband's
+faults and foibles she had buried in the grave with him:
+she only remembered the lover, who had married her at
+all sacrifices, the noble husband, so brave and beautiful,
+in whose arms she had hung on the morning when he had
+gone away to fight, and die gloriously for his king.  From
+heaven the hero must be smiling down upon that paragon
+of a boy whom he had left to comfort and console her.
+We have seen how one of George's grandfathers (Mr.
+Osborne), in his easy chair in Russell Square, daily grew
+more violent and moody, and how his daughter, with her
+fine carriage, and her fine horses, and her name on half
+the public charity-lists of the town, was a lonely, miserable, persecuted old maid.  She thought again and again
+of the beautiful little boy, her brother's son, whom she
+had seen.  She longed to be allowed to drive in the fine
+carriage to the house in which he lived, and she used
+to look out day after day as she took her solitary drive
+in the park, in hopes that she might see him.  Her sister,
+the banker's lady, occasionally condescended to pay her
+old home and companion a visit in Russell Square.  She
+brought a couple of sickly children attended by a prim
+nurse, and in a faint genteel giggling tone cackled to her
+sister about her fine acquaintance, and how her little
+Frederick was the image of Lord Claud Lollypop and
+her sweet Maria had been noticed by the Baroness as they
+were driving in their donkey-chaise at Roehampton.  She
+urged her to make her papa do something for the darlings.
+Frederick she had determined should go into the Guards;
+and if they made an elder son of him (and Mr. Bullock
+was positively ruining and pinching himself to death to
+buy land), how was the darling girl to be provided for?
+"I expect YOU, dear," Mrs. Bullock would say, "for of
+course my share of our Papa's property must go to the
+head of the house, you know.  Dear Rhoda McMull will
+disengage the whole of the Castletoddy property as soon
+as poor dear Lord Castletoddy dies, who is quite
+epileptic; and little Macduff McMull will be Viscount
+Castletoddy.  Both the Mr. Bludyers of Mincing Lane have
+settled their fortunes on Fanny Bludyer's little boy.  My
+darling Frederick must positively be an eldest son; and--
+and do ask Papa to bring us back his account in
+Lombard Street, will you, dear? It doesn't look well, his going
+to Stumpy and Rowdy's." After which kind of speeches,
+in which fashion and the main chance were blended
+together, and after a kiss, which was like the contact of an
+oyster--Mrs. Frederick Bullock would gather her
+starched nurslings and simper back into her carriage.
+
+Every visit which this leader of ton paid to her family
+was more unlucky for her.  Her father paid more money
+into Stumpy and Rowdy's.  Her patronage became more
+and more insufferable.  The poor widow in the little
+cottage at Brompton, guarding her treasure there, little
+knew how eagerly some people coveted it.
+
+On that night when Jane Osborne had told her father
+that she had seen his grandson, the old man had made
+her no reply, but he had shown no anger--and had bade
+her good-night on going himself to his room in rather a
+kindly voice.  And he must have meditated on what she
+said and have made some inquiries of the Dobbin family
+regarding her visit, for a fortnight after it took place, he
+asked her where was her little French watch and chain
+she used to wear?
+
+"I bought it with my money, sir," she said in a great
+fright.
+
+"Go and order another like it, or a better if you can
+get it," said the old gentleman and lapsed again into
+silence.
+
+Of late the Misses Dobbin more than once repeated
+their entreaties to Amelia, to allow George to visit them.
+His aunt had shown her inclination; perhaps his
+grandfather himself, they hinted, might be disposed to be
+reconciled to him.  Surely, Amelia could not refuse such
+advantageous chances for the boy.  Nor could she, but
+she acceded to their overtures with a very heavy and
+suspicious heart, was always uneasy during the child's
+absence from her, and welcomed him back as if he was
+rescued out of some danger.  He brought back money and
+toys, at which the widow looked with alarm and jealousy;
+she asked him always if he had seen any gentleman--
+"Only old Sir William, who drove him about in the four-
+wheeled chaise, and Mr. Dobbin, who arrived on the
+beautiful bay horse in the afternoon--in the green coat
+and pink neck-cloth, with the gold-headed whip, who
+promised to show him the Tower of London and take
+him out with the Surrey hounds." At last, he said, "There
+was an old gentleman, with thick eyebrows, and a broad
+hat, and large chain and seals." He came one day as the
+coachman was lunging Georgy round the lawn on the
+gray pony.  "He looked at me very much.  He shook very
+much.  I said 'My name is Norval' after dinner.  My aunt
+began to cry.  She is always crying." Such was George's
+report on that night.
+
+Then Amelia knew that the boy had seen his
+grandfather; and looked out feverishly for a proposal
+which she was sure would follow, and which came, in fact,
+in a few days afterwards.  Mr. Osborne formally offered to
+take the boy and make him heir to the fortune which he
+had intended that his father should inherit.  He would
+make Mrs. George Osborne an allowance, such as to
+assure her a decent competency.  If Mrs. George Osborne
+proposed to marry again, as Mr. O.  heard was her
+intention, he would not withdraw that allowance.  But it
+must be understood that the child would live entirely with
+his grandfather in Russell Square, or at whatever other
+place Mr. O.  should select, and that he would be
+occasionally permitted to see Mrs. George Osborne at her
+own residence.  This message was brought or read to her
+in a letter one day, when her mother was from home
+and her father absent as usual in the City.
+
+She was never seen angry but twice or thrice in her
+life, and it was in one of these moods that Mr. Osborne's
+attorney had the fortune to behold her.  She rose up
+trembling and flushing very much as soon as, after
+reading the letter, Mr. Poe handed it to her, and she tore the
+paper into a hundred fragments, which she trod on.  "I
+marry again!  I take money to part from my child!  Who
+dares insult me by proposing such a thing? Tell Mr.
+Osborne it is a cowardly letter, sir--a cowardly letter--
+I will not answer it.  I wish you good morning, sir--and
+she bowed me out of the room like a tragedy Queen,"
+said the lawyer who told the story.
+
+Her parents never remarked her agitation on that day,
+and she never told them of the interview.  They had their
+own affairs to interest them, affairs which deeply
+interested this innocent and unconscious lady.  The old
+gentleman, her father, was always dabbling in speculation.
+We have seen how the wine company and the coal
+company had failed him.  But, prowling about the City
+always eagerly and restlessly still, he lighted upon some
+other scheme, of which he thought so well that he
+embarked in it in spite of the remonstrances of Mr. Clapp,
+to whom indeed he never dared to tell how far he had
+engaged himself in it.  And as it was always Mr. Sedley's
+maxim not to talk about money matters before women,
+they had no inkling of the misfortunes that were in store
+for them until the unhappy old gentleman was forced to
+make gradual confessions.
+
+The bills of the little household, which had been settled
+weekly, first fell into arrear.  The remittances had not
+arrived from India, Mr. Sedley told his wife with a disturbed
+face.  As she had paid her bills very regularly hitherto,
+one or two of the tradesmen to whom the poor lady was
+obliged to go round asking for time were very angry at
+a delay to which they were perfectly used from more
+irregular customers.  Emmy's contribution, paid over
+cheerfully without any questions, kept the little company
+in half-rations however.  And the first six months passed
+away pretty easily, old Sedley still keeping up with the
+notion that his shares must rise and that all would be
+well.
+
+No sixty pounds, however, came to help the household
+at the end of the half year, and it fell deeper and deeper
+into trouble--Mrs. Sedley, who was growing infirm and
+was much shaken, remained silent or wept a great deal
+with Mrs. Clapp in the kitchen.  The butcher was
+particularly surly, the grocer insolent:  once or twice little
+Georgy had grumbled about the dinners, and Amelia, who
+still would have been satisfied with a slice of bread for
+her own dinner, could not but perceive that her son was
+neglected and purchased little things out of her private
+purse to keep the boy in health.
+
+At last they told her, or told her such a garbled story
+as people in difficulties tell.  One day, her own money
+having been received, and Amelia about to pay it over,
+she, who had kept an account of the moneys expended
+by her, proposed to keep a certain portion back out of
+her dividend, having contracted engagements for a new
+suit for Georgy.
+
+Then it came out that Jos's remittances were not paid,
+that the house was in difficulties, which Amelia ought to
+have seen before, her mother said, but she cared for
+nothing or nobody except Georgy.  At this she passed all
+her money across the table, without a word, to her
+mother, and returned to her room to cry her eyes out.
+She had a great access of sensibility too that day, when
+obliged to go and countermand the clothes, the darling
+clothes on which she had set her heart for Christmas
+Day, and the cut and fashion of which she had arranged
+in many conversations with a small milliner, her friend.
+
+Hardest of all, she had to break the matter to Georgy,
+who made a loud outcry.  Everybody had new clothes at
+Christmas.  The others would laugh at him.  He would
+have new clothes.  She had promised them to him.  The
+poor widow had only kisses to give him.  She darned the
+old suit in tears.  She cast about among her little ornaments
+to see if she could sell anything to procure the desired
+novelties.  There was her India shawl that Dobbin had
+sent her.  She remembered in former days going with her
+mother to a fine India shop on Ludgate Hill, where the
+ladies had all sorts of dealings and bargains in these
+articles.  Her cheeks flushed and her eyes shone with
+pleasure as she thought of this resource, and she kissed
+away George to school in the morning, smiling brightly
+after him.  The boy felt that there was good news in her
+look.
+
+Packing up her shawl in a handkerchief (another of
+the gifts of the good Major), she hid them under her
+cloak and walked flushed and eager all the way to
+Ludgate Hill, tripping along by the park wall and running
+over the crossings, so that many a man turned as she
+hurried by him and looked after her rosy pretty face.  She
+calculated how she should spend the proceeds of her
+shawl--how, besides the clothes, she would buy the books
+that he longed for, and pay his half-year's schooling; and
+how she would buy a cloak for her father instead of
+that old great-coat which he wore.  She was not mistaken
+as to the value of the Major's gift.  It was a very fine and
+beautiful web, and the merchant made a very good
+bargain when he gave her twenty guineas for her shawl.
+
+She ran on amazed and flurried with her riches to
+Darton's shop, in St.  Paul's Churchyard, and there
+purchased the Parents' Assistant and the Sandford and
+Merton Georgy longed for, and got into the coach there
+with her parcel, and went home exulting.  And she pleased
+herself by writing in the fly-leaf in her neatest little
+hand, "George Osborne, A Christmas gift from his
+affectionate-mother." The books are extant to this day,
+with the fair delicate superscription.
+
+She was going from her own room with the books in
+her hand to place them on George's table, where he
+might find them on his return from school, when in
+the passage, she and her mother met.  The gilt bindings
+of the seven handsome little volumes caught the old lady's
+eye.
+
+"What are those?" she said.
+
+"Some books for Georgy," Amelia replied--I--I
+promised them to him at Christmas."
+
+"Books!" cried the elder lady indignantly, "Books,
+when the whole house wants bread!  Books, when to keep
+you and your son in luxury, and your dear father out of
+gaol, I've sold every trinket I had, the India shawl from
+my back even down to the very spoons, that our tradesmen
+mightn't insult us, and that Mr. Clapp, which indeed
+he is justly entitled, being not a hard landlord, and a
+civil man, and a father, might have his rent.  Oh, Amelia!
+you break my heart with your books and that boy of
+yours, whom you are ruining, though part with him you
+will not.  Oh, Amelia, may God send you a more dutiful
+child than I have had!  There's Jos, deserts his father in
+his old age; and there's George, who might be provided
+for, and who might be rich, going to school like a lord,
+with a gold watch and chain round his neck--while my
+dear, dear old man is without a sh--shilling." Hysteric
+sobs and cries ended Mrs. Sedley's speech--it echoed
+through every room in the small house, whereof the other
+female inmates heard every word of the colloquy.
+
+"Oh, Mother, Mother!" cried poor Amelia in reply.
+"You told me nothing--I--I promised him the books.
+I--I only sold my shawl this morning.  Take the money
+--take everything"--and with quivering hands she took
+out her silver, and her sovereigns--her precious golden
+sovereigns, which she thrust into the hands of her
+mother, whence they overflowed and tumbled, rolling
+down the stairs.
+
+And then she went into her room, and sank down in
+despair and utter misery.  She saw it all now.  Her
+selfishness was sacrificing the boy.  But for her he might have
+wealth, station, education, and his father's place, which
+the elder George had forfeited for her sake.  She had but
+to speak the words, and her father was restored to
+competency and the boy raised to fortune.  Oh, what a
+conviction it was to that tender and stricken heart!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVII
+
+
+Gaunt House
+
+All the world knows that Lord Steyne's town palace
+stands in Gaunt Square, out of which Great Gaunt Street
+leads, whither we first conducted Rebecca, in the time
+of the departed Sir Pitt Crawley.  Peering over the railings
+and through the black trees into the garden of the
+Square, you see a few miserable governesses with
+wan-faced pupils wandering round and round it, and round
+the dreary grass-plot in the centre of which rises the
+statue of Lord Gaunt, who fought at Minden, in a
+three-tailed wig, and otherwise habited like a Roman
+Emperor.  Gaunt House occupies nearly a side of the Square.
+The remaining three sides are composed of mansions that
+have passed away into dowagerism--tall, dark houses,
+with window-frames of stone, or picked out of a lighter
+red.  Little light seems to be behind those lean,
+comfortless casements now, and hospitality to have passed
+away from those doors as much as the laced lacqueys
+and link-boys of old times, who used to put out their
+torches in the blank iron extinguishers that still flank the
+lamps over the steps.  Brass plates have penetrated into
+the square--Doctors, the Diddlesex Bank Western
+Branch--the English and European Reunion, &c.--it has
+a dreary look--nor is my Lord Steyne's palace less
+dreary.  All I have ever seen of it is the vast wall in
+front, with the rustic columns at the great gate, through
+which an old porter peers sometimes with a fat and
+gloomy red face--and over the wall the garret and
+bedroom windows, and the chimneys, out of which there
+seldom comes any smoke now.  For the present Lord
+Steyne lives at Naples, preferring the view of the Bay
+and Capri and Vesuvius to the dreary aspect of the wall
+in Gaunt Square.
+
+A few score yards down New Gaunt Street, and leading
+into Gaunt Mews indeed, is a little modest back
+door, which you would not remark from that of any of
+the other stables.  But many a little close carriage has
+stopped at that door, as my informant (little Tom Eaves,
+who knows everything, and who showed me the place)
+told me.  "The Prince and Perdita have been in and out
+of that door, sir," he had often told me; "Marianne
+Clarke has entered it with the Duke of --.  It conducts
+to the famous petits appartements of Lord Steyne--one,
+sir, fitted up all in ivory and white satin, another in
+ebony and black velvet; there is a little banqueting-room
+taken from Sallust's house at Pompeii, and painted by
+Cosway--a little private kitchen, in which every saucepan
+was silver and all the spits were gold.  It was there
+that Egalite Orleans roasted partridges on the night
+when he and the Marquis of Steyne won a hundred
+thousand from a great personage at ombre.  Half of the
+money went to the French Revolution, half to purchase
+Lord Gaunt's Marquisate and Garter--and the
+remainder--" but it forms no part of our scheme to tell
+what became of the remainder, for every shilling of
+which, and a great deal more, little Tom Eaves, who
+knows everybody's affairs, is ready to account.
+
+Besides his town palace, the Marquis had castles and
+palaces in various quarters of the three kingdoms,
+whereof the descriptions may be found in the road-books
+--Castle Strongbow, with its woods, on the Shannon
+shore; Gaunt Castle, in Carmarthenshire, where Richard
+II was taken prisoner--Gauntly Hall in Yorkshire, where
+I have been informed there were two hundred silver
+teapots for the breakfasts of the guests of the house, with
+everything to correspond in splendour; and Stillbrook in
+Hampshire, which was my lord's farm, an humble place
+of residence, of which we all remember the wonderful
+furniture which was sold at my lord's demise by a late
+celebrated auctioneer.
+
+The Marchioness of Steyne was of the renowned and
+ancient family of the Caerlyons, Marquises of Camelot,
+who have preserved the old faith ever since the
+conversion of the venerable Druid, their first ancestor, and
+whose pedigree goes far beyond the date of the arrival of
+King Brute in these islands.  Pendragon is the title of the
+eldest son of the house.  The sons have been called
+Arthurs, Uthers, and Caradocs, from immemorial time.
+Their heads have fallen in many a loyal conspiracy.
+Elizabeth chopped off the head of the Arthur of her day,
+who had been Chamberlain to Philip and Mary, and
+carried letters between the Queen of Scots and her uncles
+the Guises.  A cadet of the house was an officer of the
+great Duke and distinguished in the famous Saint
+Bartholomew conspiracy.  During the whole of Mary's
+confinement, the house of Camelot conspired in her behalf.
+It was as much injured by its charges in fitting out an
+armament against the Spaniards, during the time of the
+Armada, as by the fines and confiscations levied on it
+by Elizabeth for harbouring of priests, obstinate
+recusancy, and popish misdoings.  A recreant of James's time
+was momentarily perverted from his religion by the
+arguments of that great theologian, and the fortunes of the
+family somewhat restored by his timely weakness.  But
+the Earl of Camelot, of the reign of Charles, returned to
+the old creed of his family, and they continued to fight
+for it, and ruin themselves for it, as long as there was a
+Stuart left to head or to instigate a rebellion.
+
+Lady Mary Caerlyon was brought up at a Parisian
+convent; the Dauphiness Marie Antoinette was her
+godmother.  In the pride of her beauty she had been
+married--sold, it was said--to Lord Gaunt, then at Paris,
+who won vast sums from the lady's brother at some of
+Philip of Orleans's banquets.  The Earl of Gaunt's famous
+duel with the Count de la Marche, of the Grey
+Musqueteers, was attributed by common report to the
+pretensions of that officer (who had been a page, and
+remained a favourite of the Queen) to the hand of the
+beautiful Lady Mary Caerlyon.  She was married to Lord
+Gaunt while the Count lay ill of his wound, and came to
+dwell at Gaunt House, and to figure for a short time in
+the splendid Court of the Prince of Wales.  Fox had
+toasted her.  Morris and Sheridan had written songs about
+her.  Malmesbury had made her his best bow; Walpole
+had pronounced her charming; Devonshire had been
+almost jealous of her; but she was scared by the wild
+pleasures and gaieties of the society into which she was
+flung, and after she had borne a couple of sons, shrank
+away into a life of devout seclusion.  No wonder that
+my Lord Steyne, who liked pleasure and cheerfulness,
+was not often seen after their marriage by the side of
+this trembling, silent, superstitious, unhappy lady.
+
+The before-mentioned Tom Eaves (who has no part
+in this history, except that he knew all the great folks in
+London, and the stories and mysteries of each family)
+had further information regarding my Lady Steyne,
+which may or may not be true.  "The humiliations," Tom
+used to say, "which that woman has been made to
+undergo, in her own house, have been frightful; Lord
+Steyne has made her sit down to table with women with
+whom I would rather die than allow Mrs. Eaves to 
+associate--with Lady Crackenbury, with Mrs. Chippenham,
+with Madame de la Cruchecassee, the French secretary's
+wife (from every one of which ladies Tom Eaves--
+who would have sacrificed his wife for knowing them--
+was too glad to get a bow or a dinner) with the REIGNING
+FAVOURITE in a word.  And do you suppose that that
+woman, of that family, who are as proud as the Bourbons,
+and to whom the Steynes are but lackeys, mushrooms of
+yesterday (for after all, they are not of the Old Gaunts,
+but of a minor and doubtful branch of the house); do
+you suppose, I say (the reader must bear in mind that
+it is always Tom Eaves who speaks) that the Marchioness
+of Steyne, the haughtiest woman in England, would
+bend down to her husband so submissively if there were
+not some cause? Pooh!  I tell you there are secret reasons.
+I tell you that, in the emigration, the Abbe de la
+Marche who was here and was employed in the
+Quiberoon business with Puisaye and Tinteniac, was the
+same Colonel of Mousquetaires Gris with whom Steyne
+fought in the year '86--that he and the Marchioness met
+again--that it was after the Reverend Colonel was shot
+in Brittany that Lady Steyne took to those extreme
+practices of devotion which she carries on now; for she is
+closeted with her director every day--she is at service
+at Spanish Place, every morning, I've watched her there
+--that is, I've happened to be passing there--and
+depend on it, there's a mystery in her case.  People are not
+so unhappy unless they have something to repent of,"
+added Tom Eaves with a knowing wag of his head; "and
+depend on it, that woman would not be so submissive
+as she is if the Marquis had not some sword to hold
+over her."
+
+So, if Mr. Eaves's information be correct, it is very
+likely that this lady, in her high station, had to submit
+to many a private indignity and to hide many secret
+griefs under a calm face.  And let us, my brethren who
+have not our names in the Red Book, console ourselves
+by thinking comfortably how miserable our betters may
+be, and that Damocles, who sits on satin cushions and
+is served on gold plate, has an awful sword hanging
+over his head in the shape of a bailiff, or an hereditary
+disease, or a family secret, which peeps out every now
+and then from the embroidered arras in a ghastly
+manner, and will be sure to drop one day or the other in the
+right place.
+
+In comparing, too, the poor man's situation with that
+of the great, there is (always according to Mr. Eaves)
+another source of comfort for the former.  You who have
+little or no patrimony to bequeath or to inherit, may be
+on good terms with your father or your son, whereas the
+heir of a great prince, such as my Lord Steyne, must
+naturally be angry at being kept out of his kingdom, and
+eye the occupant of it with no very agreeable glances.
+"Take it as a rule," this sardonic old Laves would say,
+"the fathers and elder sons of all great families hate each
+other.  The Crown Prince is always in opposition to the
+crown or hankering after it.  Shakespeare knew the world,
+my good sir, and when he describes Prince Hal (from
+whose family the Gaunts pretend to be descended, though
+they are no more related to John of Gaunt than you are)
+trying on his father's coronet, he gives you a natural
+description of all heirs apparent.  If you were heir to a
+dukedom and a thousand pounds a day, do you mean to
+say you would not wish for possession? Pooh!  And it
+stands to reason that every great man, having experienced
+this feeling towards his father, must be aware that his
+son entertains it towards himself; and so they can't but
+be suspicious and hostile.
+
+"Then again, as to the feeling of elder towards younger
+sons.  My dear sir, you ought to know that every elder
+brother looks upon the cadets of the house as his natural
+enemies, who deprive him of so much ready money which
+ought to be his by right.  I have often heard George Mac
+Turk, Lord Bajazet's eldest son, say that if he had his
+will when he came to the title, he would do what the
+sultans do, and clear the estate by chopping off all his
+younger brothers' heads at once; and so the case is,
+more or less, with them all.  I tell you they are all Turks
+in their hearts.  Pooh! sir, they know the world." And
+here, haply, a great man coming up, Tom Eaves's hat
+would drop off his head, and he would rush forward with
+a bow and a grin, which showed that he knew the world
+too--in the Tomeavesian way, that is.  And having laid
+out every shilling of his fortune on an annuity, Tom
+could afford to bear no malice to his nephews and nieces,
+and to have no other feeling with regard to his betters
+but a constant and generous desire to dine with them.
+
+Between the Marchioness and the natural and tender
+regard of mother for children, there was that cruel
+barrier placed of difference of faith.  The very love which she
+might feel for her sons only served to render the timid
+and pious lady more fearful and unhappy.  The gulf which
+separated them was fatal and impassable.  She could not
+stretch her weak arms across it, or draw her children
+over to that side away from which her belief told her
+there was no safety.  During the youth of his sons, Lord
+Steyne, who was a good scholar and amateur casuist,
+had no better sport in the evening after dinner in the
+country than in setting the boys' tutor, the Reverend
+Mr. Trail (now my Lord Bishop of Ealing) on her
+ladyship's director, Father Mole, over their wine, and in
+pitting Oxford against St.  Acheul.  He cried "Bravo,
+Latimer!  Well said, Loyola!" alternately; he promised
+Mole a bishopric if he would come over, and vowed he
+would use all his influence to get Trail a cardinal's hat
+if he would secede.  Neither divine allowed himself to be
+conquered, and though the fond mother hoped that her
+youngest and favourite son would be reconciled to her
+church--his mother church--a sad and awful disappointment
+awaited the devout lady--a disappointment which
+seemed to be a judgement upon her for the sin of her
+marriage.
+
+My Lord Gaunt married, as every person who frequents
+the Peerage knows, the Lady Blanche Thistlewood,
+a daughter of the noble house of Bareacres, before
+mentioned in this veracious history.  A wing of
+Gaunt House was assigned to this couple; for the head
+of the family chose to govern it, and while he reigned to
+reign supreme; his son and heir, however, living little at
+home, disagreeing with his wife, and borrowing upon
+post-obits such moneys as he required beyond the very
+moderate sums which his father was disposed to allow
+him.  The Marquis knew every shilling of his son's debts.
+At his lamented demise, he was found himself to be
+possessor of many of his heir's bonds, purchased for their
+benefit, and devised by his Lordship to the children of
+his younger son.
+
+As, to my Lord Gaunt's dismay, and the chuckling
+delight of his natural enemy and father, the Lady Gaunt
+had no children--the Lord George Gaunt was desired to
+return from Vienna, where he was engaged in waltzing
+and diplomacy, and to contract a matrimonial alliance
+with the Honourable Joan, only daughter of John Johnes,
+First Baron Helvellyn, and head of the firm of Jones,
+Brown, and Robinson, of Threadneedle Street, Bankers;
+from which union sprang several sons and daughters,
+whose doings do not appertain to this story.
+
+The marriage at first was a happy and prosperous one.
+My Lord George Gaunt could not only read, but write
+pretty correctly.  He spoke French with considerable
+fluency; and was one of the finest waltzers in Europe.  With
+these talents, and his interest at home, there was little
+doubt that his lordship would rise to the highest dignities
+in his profession.  The lady, his wife, felt that courts were
+her sphere, and her wealth enabled her to receive
+splendidly in those continental towns whither her husband's
+diplomatic duties led him.  There was talk of appointing
+him minister, and bets were laid at the Travellers' that
+he would be ambassador ere long, when of a sudden,
+rumours arrived of the secretary's extraordinary behaviour.
+At a grand diplomatic dinner given by his chief, he
+had started up and declared that a pate de foie gras was
+poisoned.  He went to a ball at the hotel of the Bavarian
+envoy, the Count de Springbock-Hohenlaufen, with his
+head shaved and dressed as a Capuchin friar.  It was not
+a masked ball, as some folks wanted to persuade you.  It
+was something queer, people whispered.  His grandfather
+was so.  It was in the family.
+
+His wife and family returned to this country and took
+up their abode at Gaunt House.  Lord George gave up
+his post on the European continent, and was gazetted to
+Brazil.  But people knew better; he never returned from
+that Brazil expedition--never died there--never lived
+there--never was there at all.  He was nowhere; he was
+gone out altogether.  "Brazil," said one gossip to another,
+with a grin--"Brazil is St.  John's Wood.  Rio de Janeiro
+is a cottage surrounded by four walls, and George Gaunt
+is accredited to a keeper, who has invested him with the
+order of the Strait-Waistcoat." These are the kinds of
+epitaphs which men pass over one another in Vanity
+Fair.
+
+Twice or thrice in a week, in the earliest morning, the
+poor mother went for her sins and saw the poor invalid.
+Sometimes he laughed at her (and his laughter was more
+pitiful than to hear him cry); sometimes she found the
+brilliant dandy diplomatist of the Congress of Vienna
+dragging about a child's toy, or nursing the keeper's
+baby's doll.  Sometimes he knew her and Father Mole,
+her director and companion; oftener he forgot her, as he
+had done wife, children, love, ambition, vanity.  But he
+remembered his dinner-hour, and used to cry if his
+wine-and-water was not strong enough.
+
+It was the mysterious taint of the blood; the poor
+mother had brought it from her own ancient race.  The
+evil had broken out once or twice in the father's family,
+long before Lady Steyne's sins had begun, or her fasts
+and tears and penances had been offered in their
+expiation.  The pride of the race was struck down as the
+first-born of Pharaoh.  The dark mark of fate and doom was
+on the threshold--the tall old threshold surmounted by
+coronets and caned heraldry.
+
+The absent lord's children meanwhile prattled and
+grew on quite unconscious that the doom was over them
+too.  First they talked of their father and devised plans
+against his return.  Then the name of the living dead man
+was less frequently in their mouth--then not mentioned
+at all.  But the stricken old grandmother trembled to think
+that these too were the inheritors of their father's shame
+as well as of his honours, and watched sickening for the
+day when the awful ancestral curse should come down
+on them.
+
+This dark presentiment also haunted Lord Steyne.  He
+tried to lay the horrid bedside ghost in Red Seas of wine
+and jollity, and lost sight of it sometimes in the crowd
+and rout of his pleasures.  But it always came back to
+him when alone, and seemed to grow more threatening
+with years.  "I have taken your son," it said, "why not
+you? I may shut you up in a prison some day like your
+son George.  I may tap you on the head to-morrow, and
+away go pleasure and honours, feasts and beauty, friends,
+flatterers, French cooks, fine horses and houses--in
+exchange for a prison, a keeper, and a straw mattress like
+George Gaunt's." And then my lord would defy the ghost
+which threatened him, for he knew of a remedy by which
+he could baulk his enemy.
+
+So there was splendour and wealth, but no great
+happiness perchance, behind the tall caned portals of Gaunt
+House with its smoky coronets and ciphers.  The feasts
+there were of the grandest in London, but there was not
+overmuch content therewith, except among the guests
+who sat at my lord's table.  Had he not been so great a
+Prince very few possibly would have visited him; but in
+Vanity Fair the sins of very great personages are looked
+at indulgently.  "Nous regardons a deux fois" (as the
+French lady said) before we condemn a person of my
+lord's undoubted quality.  Some notorious carpers and
+squeamish moralists might be sulky with Lord Steyne,
+but they were glad enough to come when he asked them.
+
+"Lord Steyne is really too bad," Lady Slingstone said,
+"but everybody goes, and of course I shall see that my
+girls come to no harm." "His lordship is a man to whom
+I owe much, everything in life," said the Right Reverend
+Doctor Trail, thinking that the Archbishop was rather
+shaky, and Mrs. Trail and the young ladies would as
+soon have missed going to church as to one of his
+lordship's parties.  "His morals are bad," said little Lord
+Southdown to his sister, who meekly expostulated,
+having heard terrific legends from her mamma with respect
+to the doings at Gaunt House; "but hang it, he's got the
+best dry Sillery in Europe!" And as for Sir Pitt Crawley,
+Bart.--Sir Pitt that pattern of decorum, Sir Pitt who
+had led off at missionary meetings--he never for one
+moment thought of not going too.  "Where you see such
+persons as the Bishop of Ealing and the Countess of
+Slingstone, you may be pretty sure, Jane," the Baronet
+would say, "that we cannot be wrong.  The great rank
+and station of Lord Steyne put him in a position to
+command people in our station in life.  The Lord Lieutenant
+of a County, my dear, is a respectable man.  Besides,
+George Gaunt and I were intimate in early life; he was
+my junior when we were attaches at Pumpernickel
+together."
+
+In a word everybody went to wait upon this great man
+--everybody who was asked, as you the reader (do not
+say nay) or I the writer hereof would go if we had an
+invitation.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVIII
+
+
+In Which the Reader Is Introduced to the Very
+Best of Company
+
+At last Becky's kindness and attention to the chief of
+her husband's family were destined to meet with an
+exceeding great reward, a reward which, though certainly
+somewhat unsubstantial, the little woman coveted with
+greater eagerness than more positive benefits.  If she did
+not wish to lead a virtuous life, at least she desired to
+enjoy a character for virtue, and we know that no lady
+in the genteel world can possess this desideratum, until
+she has put on a train and feathers and has been
+presented to her Sovereign at Court.  From that august
+interview they come out stamped as honest women.  The
+Lord Chamberlain gives them a certificate of virtue.  And
+as dubious goods or letters are passed through an oven
+at quarantine, sprinkled with aromatic vinegar, and then
+pronounced clean, many a lady, whose reputation would
+be doubtful otherwise and liable to give infection, passes
+through the wholesome ordeal of the Royal presence and
+issues from it free from all taint.
+
+It might be very well for my Lady Bareacres, my
+Lady Tufto, Mrs. Bute Crawley in the country, and other
+ladies who had come into contact with Mrs. Rawdon
+Crawley to cry fie at the idea of the odious little
+adventuress making her curtsey before the Sovereign, and
+to declare that, if dear good Queen Charlotte had been
+alive, she never would have admitted such an extremely
+ill-regulated personage into her chaste drawing-room.  But
+when we consider that it was the First Gentleman in
+Europe in whose high presence Mrs. Rawdon passed her
+examination, and as it were, took her degree in reputation,
+it surely must be flat disloyalty to doubt any more
+about her virtue.  I, for my part, look back with love and
+awe to that Great Character in history.  Ah, what a high
+and noble appreciation of Gentlewomanhood there must
+have been in Vanity Fair, when that revered and august
+being was invested, by the universal acclaim of the
+refined and educated portion of this empire, with the title
+of Premier Gentilhomme of his Kingdom.  Do you
+remember, dear M--, oh friend of my youth, how one
+blissful night five-and-twenty years since, the "Hypocrite"
+being acted, Elliston being manager, Dowton and Liston
+performers, two boys had leave from their loyal masters
+to go out from Slaughter-House School where they were
+educated and to appear on Drury Lane stage, amongst a
+crowd which assembled there to greet the king.  THE
+KING? There he was.  Beefeaters were before the
+august box; the Marquis of Steyne (Lord of the Powder
+Closet) and other great officers of state were behind the
+chair on which he sat, HE sat--florid of face, portly of
+person, covered with orders, and in a rich curling head of
+hair--how we sang God save him!  How the house rocked
+and shouted with that magnificent music.  How they
+cheered, and cried, and waved handkerchiefs.  Ladies
+wept; mothers clasped their children; some fainted with
+emotion.  People were suffocated in the pit, shrieks and
+groans rising up amidst the writhing and shouting mass
+there of his people who were, and indeed showed them-
+selves almost to be, ready to die for him.  Yes, we saw
+him.  Fate cannot deprive us of THAT.  Others have seen
+Napoleon.  Some few still exist who have beheld Frederick
+the Great, Doctor Johnson, Marie Antoinette, &c.--be it
+our reasonable boast to our children, that we saw George
+the Good, the Magnificent, the Great.
+
+Well, there came a happy day in Mrs. Rawdon Crawley's
+existence when this angel was admitted into the
+paradise of a Court which she coveted, her sister-in-law
+acting as her godmother.  On the appointed day, Sir Pitt
+and his lady, in their great family carriage (just newly
+built, and ready for the Baronet's assumption of the
+office of High Sheriff of his county), drove up to the little
+house in Curzon Street, to the edification of Raggles, who
+was watching from his greengrocer's shop, and saw fine
+plumes within, and enormous bunches of flowers in the
+breasts of the new livery-coats of the footmen.
+
+Sir Pitt, in a glittering uniform, descended and went
+into Curzon Street, his sword between his legs.  Little
+Rawdon stood with his face against the parlour window-
+panes, smiling and nodding with all his might to his aunt
+in the carriage within; and presently Sir Pitt issued forth
+from the house again, leading forth a lady with grand
+feathers, covered in a white shawl, and holding up
+daintily a train of magnificent brocade.  She stepped into the
+vehicle as if she were a princess and accustomed all her
+life to go to Court, smiling graciously on the footman at
+the door and on Sir Pitt, who followed her into the
+carriage.
+
+Then Rawdon followed in his old Guards' uniform,
+which had grown woefully shabby, and was much too
+tight.  He was to have followed the procession and waited
+upon his sovereign in a cab, but that his good-natured
+sister-in-law insisted that they should be a family party.
+The coach was large, the ladies not very big, they would
+hold their trains in their laps--finally, the four went
+fraternally together, and their carriage presently joined
+the line of royal equipages which was making its way
+down Piccadilly and St.  James's Street, towards the old
+brick palace where the Star of Brunswick was in waiting
+to receive his nobles and gentlefolks.
+
+Becky felt as if she could bless the people out of the
+carriage windows, so elated was she in spirit, and so
+strong a sense had she of the dignified position which
+she had at last attained in life.  Even our Becky had her
+weaknesses, and as one often sees how men pride
+themselves upon excellences which others are slow to
+perceive:  how, for instance, Comus firmly believes that he
+is the greatest tragic actor in England; how Brown, the
+famous novelist, longs to be considered, not a man of
+genius, but a man of fashion; while Robinson, the great
+lawyer, does not in the least care about his reputation in
+Westminster Hall, but believes himself incomparable
+across country and at a five-barred gate--so to be, and
+to be thought, a respectable woman was Becky's aim in
+life, and she got up the genteel with amazing assiduity,
+readiness, and success.  We have said, there were times
+when she believed herself to be a fine lady and forgot
+that there was no money in the chest at home--duns
+round the gate, tradesmen to coax and wheedle--no
+ground to walk upon, in a word.  And as she went to
+Court in the carriage, the family carriage, she adopted a
+demeanour so grand, self-satisfied, deliberate, and
+imposing that it made even Lady Jane laugh.  She walked
+into the royal apartments with a toss of the head which
+would have befitted an empress, and I have no doubt had
+she been one, she would have become the character
+perfectly.
+
+We are authorized to state that Mrs. Rawdon Crawley's
+costume de cour on the occasion of her presentation
+to the Sovereign was of the most elegant and brilliant
+description.  Some ladies we may have seen--we
+who wear stars and cordons and attend the St.  James's
+assemblies, or we, who, in muddy boots, dawdle up and
+down Pall Mall and peep into the coaches as they drive
+up with the great folks in their feathers--some ladies of
+fashion, I say, we may have seen, about two o'clock of
+the forenoon of a levee day, as the laced-jacketed band
+of the Life Guards are blowing triumphal marches seated
+on those prancing music-stools, their cream-coloured
+chargers--who are by no means lovely and enticing
+objects at that early period of noon.  A stout countess of
+sixty, decolletee, painted, wrinkled with rouge up to her
+drooping eyelids, and diamonds twinkling in her wig, is a
+wholesome and edifying, but not a pleasant sight.  She
+has the faded look of a St.  James's Street illumination, as
+it may be seen of an early morning, when half the lamps
+are out, and the others are blinking wanly, as if they
+were about to vanish like ghosts before the dawn.  Such
+charms as those of which we catch glimpses while her
+ladyship's carriage passes should appear abroad at night
+alone.  If even Cynthia looks haggard of an afternoon, as
+we may see her sometimes in the present winter season,
+with Phoebus staring her out of countenance from the
+opposite side of the heavens, how much more can old
+Lady Castlemouldy keep her head up when the sun is
+shining full upon it through the chariot windows, and
+showing all the chinks and crannies with which time has
+marked her face!  No.  Drawing-rooms should be
+announced for November, or the first foggy day, or the
+elderly sultanas of our Vanity Fair should drive up in
+closed litters, descend in a covered way, and make their
+curtsey to the Sovereign under the protection of lamplight.
+
+Our beloved Rebecca had no need, however, of any
+such a friendly halo to set off her beauty.  Her complexion
+could bear any sunshine as yet, and her dress, though if
+you were to see it now, any present lady of Vanity Fair
+would pronounce it to be the most foolish and preposterous
+attire ever worn, was as handsome in her eyes
+and those of the public, some five-and-twenty years since,
+as the most brilliant costume of the most famous beauty
+of the present season.  A score of years hence that too,
+that milliner's wonder, will have passed into the domain
+of the absurd, along with all previous vanities.  But we
+are wandering too much.  Mrs. Rawdon's dress was
+pronounced to be charmante on the eventful day of her
+presentation.  Even good little Lady Jane was forced to
+acknowledge this effect, as she looked at her kinswoman,
+and owned sorrowfully to herself that she was quite
+inferior in taste to Mrs. Becky.
+
+She did not know how much care, thought, and genius
+Mrs. Rawdon had bestowed upon that garment.  Rebecca
+had as good taste as any milliner in Europe, and such a
+clever way of doing things as Lady Jane little understood.
+The latter quickly spied out the magnificence of the
+brocade of Becky's train, and the splendour of the lace on
+her dress.
+
+The brocade was an old remnant, Becky said; and as
+for the lace, it was a great bargain.  She had had it these
+hundred years.
+
+"My dear Mrs. Crawley, it must have cost a little
+fortune," Lady Jane said, looking down at her own lace,
+which was not nearly so good; and then examining the
+quality of the ancient brocade which formed the
+material of Mrs. Rawdon's Court dress, she felt inclined to
+say that she could not afford such fine clothing, but
+checked that speech, with an effort, as one uncharitable
+to her kinswoman.
+
+And yet, if Lady Jane had known all, I think even her
+kindly temper would have failed her.  The fact is, when
+she was putting Sir Pitt's house in order, Mrs. Rawdon
+had found the lace and the brocade in old wardrobes,
+the property of the former ladies of the house, and had
+quietly carried the goods home, and had suited them to
+her own little person.  Briggs saw her take them, asked
+no questions, told no stories; but I believe quite
+sympathised with her on this matter, and so would
+many another honest woman.
+ 
+And the diamonds--"Where the doose did you get the
+diamonds, Becky?" said her husband, admiring some
+jewels which he had never seen before and which sparkled
+in her ears and on her neck with brilliance and profusion.
+ 
+Becky blushed a little and looked at him hard for a
+moment.  Pitt Crawley blushed a little too, and looked
+out of window.  The fact is, he had given her a very
+small portion of the brilliants; a pretty diamond clasp,
+which confined a pearl necklace which she wore- and the
+Baronet had omitted to mention the circumstance to
+his lady.
+
+Becky looked at her husband, and then at Sir Pitt,
+with an air of saucy triumph--as much as to say, "Shall
+I betray you?"
+
+"Guess!" she said to her husband.  "Why, you silly
+man," she continued, "where do you suppose I got them?
+--all except the little clasp, which a dear friend of mine
+gave me long ago.  I hired them, to be sure.  I hired them
+at Mr. Polonius's, in Coventry Street.  You don't suppose
+that all the diamonds which go to Court belong to the
+wearers; like those beautiful stones which Lady Jane has,
+and which are much handsomer than any which I have,
+I am certain."
+
+"They are family jewels," said Sir Pitt, again looking
+uneasy.  And in this family conversation the carriage
+rolled down the street, until its cargo was finally
+discharged at the gates of the palace where the Sovereign
+was sitting in state.
+
+The diamonds, which had created Rawdon's admiration,
+never went back to Mr. Polonius, of Coventry Street, and
+that gentleman never applied for their restoration, but
+they retired into a little private repository, in an old desk,
+which Amelia Sedley had given her years and years ago,
+and in which Becky kept a number of useful and,
+perhaps, valuable things, about which her husband
+knew nothing.  To know nothing, or little, is in the
+nature of some husbands.  To hide, in the nature of how
+many women? Oh, ladies! how many of you have
+surreptitious milliners' bills? How many of you have gowns
+and bracelets which you daren't show, or which you wear
+trembling?--trembling, and coaxing with smiles the
+husband by your side, who does not know the new velvet
+gown from the old one, or the new bracelet from last
+year's, or has any notion that the ragged-looking yellow
+lace scarf cost forty guineas and that Madame Bobinot is
+writing dunning letters every week for the money!
+
+Thus Rawdon knew nothing about the brilliant diamond
+ear-rings, or the superb brilliant ornament which
+decorated the fair bosom of his lady; but Lord Steyne,
+who was in his place at Court, as Lord of the Powder
+Closet, and one of the great dignitaries and illustrious
+defences of the throne of England, and came up with all
+his stars, garters, collars, and cordons, and paid particular
+attention to the little woman, knew whence the jewels
+came and who paid for them.
+
+As he bowed over her he smiled, and quoted the
+hackneyed and beautiful lines from The Rape of the Lock
+about Belinda's diamonds, "which Jews might kiss and
+infidels adore."
+
+"But I hope your lordship is orthodox," said the little
+lady with a toss of her head.  And many ladies round
+about whispered and talked, and many gentlemen nodded
+and whispered, as they saw what marked attention the
+great nobleman was paying to the little adventuress.
+
+What were the circumstances of the interview between
+Rebecca Crawley, nee Sharp, and her Imperial Master,
+it does not become such a feeble and inexperienced pen
+as mine to attempt to relate.  The dazzled eyes close
+before that Magnificent Idea.  Loyal respect and decency tell
+even the imagination not to look too keenly and audaciously
+about the sacred audience-chamber, but to back away
+rapidly, silently, and respectfully, making profound
+bows out of the August Presence.
+
+This may be said, that in all London there was no
+more loyal heart than Becky's after this interview.  The
+name of her king was always on her lips, and he was
+proclaimed by her to be the most charming of men.  She
+went to Colnaghi's and ordered the finest portrait of him
+that art had produced, and credit could supply.  She chose
+that famous one in which the best of monarchs is
+represented in a frock-coat with a fur collar, and breeches
+and silk stockings, simpering on a sofa from under his
+curly brown wig.  She had him painted in a brooch and
+wore it--indeed she amused and somewhat pestered her
+acquaintance with her perpetual talk about his urbanity
+and beauty.  Who knows!  Perhaps the little woman
+thought she might play the part of a Maintenon or a
+Pompadour.
+
+But the finest sport of all after her presentation was to
+hear her talk virtuously.  She had a few female acquaintances,
+not, it must be owned, of the very highest reputation
+in Vanity Fair.  But being made an honest woman of,
+so to speak, Becky would not consort any longer with
+these dubious ones, and cut Lady Crackenbury when the
+latter nodded to her from her opera-box, and gave Mrs.
+Washington White the go-by in the Ring.  "One must, my
+dear, show one is somebody," she said.  "One mustn't be
+seen with doubtful people.  I pity Lady Crackenbury from
+my heart, and Mrs. Washington White may be a very
+good-natured person.  YOU may go and dine with them,
+as you like your rubber.  But I mustn't, and won't; and
+you will have the goodness to tell Smith to say I am not
+at home when either of them calls."
+
+The particulars of Becky's costume were in the newspapers
+--feathers, lappets, superb diamonds, and all the
+rest.  Lady Crackenbury read the paragraph in bitterness
+of spirit and discoursed to her followers about the airs
+which that woman was giving herself.  Mrs. Bute Crawley
+and her young ladies in the country had a copy of the
+Morning Post from town, and gave a vent to their honest
+indignation.  "If you had been sandy-haired, green-eyed,
+and a French rope-dancer's daughter," Mrs. Bute said
+to her eldest girl (who, on the contrary, was a very
+swarthy, short, and snub-nosed young lady), "You might
+have had superb diamonds forsooth, and have been
+presented at Court by your cousin, the Lady Jane.  But you're
+only a gentlewoman, my poor dear child.  You have only
+some of the best blood in England in your veins, and
+good principles and piety for your portion.  I, myself,
+the wife of a Baronet's younger brother, too, never
+thought of such a thing as going to Court--nor would
+other people, if good Queen Charlotte had been alive."
+In this way the worthy Rectoress consoled herself, and
+her daughters sighed and sat over the Peerage all night.
+
+A few days after the famous presentation, another
+great and exceeding honour was vouchsafed to the
+virtuous Becky.  Lady Steyne's carriage drove up to Mr.
+Rawdon Crawley's door, and the footman, instead of driving
+down the front of the house, as by his tremendous
+knocking he appeared to be inclined to do, relented and only
+delivered in a couple of cards, on which were engraven
+the names of the Marchioness of Steyne and the
+Countess of Gaunt.  If these bits of pasteboard had been
+beautiful pictures, or had had a hundred yards of Malines lace
+rolled round them, worth twice the number of guineas,
+Becky could not have regarded them with more pleasure.
+You may be sure they occupied a conspicuous place in
+the china bowl on the drawing-room table, where Becky
+kept the cards of her visitors.  Lord! lord! how poor
+Mrs. Washington White's card and Lady Crackenbury's
+card--which our little friend had been glad enough to
+get a few months back, and of which the silly little
+creature was rather proud once--Lord! lord! I say, how soon
+at the appearance of these grand court cards, did those
+poor little neglected deuces sink down to the bottom of
+the pack.  Steyne!  Bareacres, Johnes of Helvellyn!  and
+Caerylon of Camelot! we may be sure that Becky and
+Briggs looked out those august names in the Peerage,
+and followed the noble races up through all the
+ramifications of the family tree.
+
+My Lord Steyne coming to call a couple of hours
+afterwards, and looking about him, and observing
+everything as was his wont, found his ladies' cards already
+ranged as the trumps of Becky's hand, and grinned, as
+this old cynic always did at any naive display of human
+weakness.  Becky came down to him presently; whenever
+the dear girl expected his lordship, her toilette was
+prepared, her hair in perfect order, her mouchoirs, aprons,
+scarfs, little morocco slippers, and other female
+gimcracks arranged, and she seated in some artless and
+agreeable posture ready to receive him--whenever she
+was surprised, of course, she had to fly to her apartment
+to take a rapid survey of matters in the glass, and
+to trip down again to wait upon the great peer.
+
+She found him grinning over the bowl.  She was
+discovered, and she blushed a little.  "Thank you,
+Monseigneur," she said.  "You see your ladies have
+been here.  How good of you!  I couldn't come before
+--I was in the kitchen making a pudding."
+
+"I know you were, I saw you through the area-railings
+as I drove up," replied the old gentleman.
+
+"You see everything," she replied.
+
+"A few things, but not that, my pretty lady," he said
+good-naturedly.  "You silly little fibster!  I heard you in
+the room overhead, where I have no doubt you were
+putting a little rouge on--you must give some of yours to
+my Lady Gaunt, whose complexion is quite preposterous
+--and I heard the bedroom door open, and then you
+came downstairs."
+
+"Is it a crime to try and look my best when YOU come
+here?" answered Mrs. Rawdon plaintively, and she rubbed
+her cheek with her handkerchief as if to show there was
+no rouge at all, only genuine blushes and modesty in her
+case.  About this who can tell? I know there is some
+rouge that won't come off on a pocket-handkerchief,
+and some so good that even tears will not disturb it.
+
+"Well," said the old gentleman, twiddling round his
+wife's card, "you are bent on becoming a fine lady.
+You pester my poor old life out to get you into the
+world.  You won't be able to hold your own there, you
+silly little fool.  You've got no money."
+
+"You will get us a place," interposed Becky, "as quick
+as possible."
+
+"You've got no money, and you want to compete with
+those who have.  You poor little earthenware pipkin, you
+want to swim down the stream along with the great cop-
+per kettles.  All women are alike.  Everybody is striving
+for what is not worth the having!  Gad!  I dined with the
+King yesterday, and we had neck of mutton and turnips.
+A dinner of herbs is better than a stalled ox very often.
+You will go to Gaunt House.  You give an old fellow no
+rest until you get there.  It's not half so nice as here.
+You'll be bored there.  I am.  My wife is as gay as Lady
+Macbeth, and my daughters as cheerful as Regan and
+Goneril.  I daren't sleep in what they call my bedroom.
+The bed is like the baldaquin of St.  Peter's, and the
+pictures frighten me.  I have a little brass bed in a
+dressing-room, and a little hair mattress like an anchorite.
+I am an anchorite.  Ho!  ho!  You'll be asked to dinner next
+week.  And gare aux femmes, look out and hold your
+own!  How the women will bully you!" This was a very
+long speech for a man of few words like my Lord Steyne;
+nor was it the first which he uttered for Becky's benefit
+on that day.
+
+Briggs looked up from the work-table at which she
+was seated in the farther room and gave a deep sigh
+as she heard the great Marquis speak so lightly of her sex.
+
+"If you don't turn off that abominable sheep-dog," said
+Lord Steyne, with a savage look over his shoulder at
+her, "I will have her poisoned."
+
+"I always give my dog dinner from my own plate,"
+said Rebecca, laughing mischievously; and having
+enjoyed for some time the discomfiture of my lord, who
+hated poor Briggs for interrupting his tete-a-tete
+with the fair Colonel's wife, Mrs. Rawdon at length had
+pity upon her admirer, and calling to Briggs, praised the
+fineness of the weather to her and bade her to take out
+the child for a walk.
+
+"I can't send her away," Becky said presently, after
+a pause, and in a very sad voice.  Her eyes filled with
+tears as she spoke, and she turned away her head.
+
+"You owe her her wages, I suppose?" said the Peer.
+
+"Worse than that," said Becky, still casting down her
+eyes; "I have ruined her."
+
+"Ruined her? Then why don't you turn her out?" the
+gentleman asked.
+
+"Men do that," Becky answered bitterly.  "Women are
+not so bad as you.  Last year, when we were reduced
+to our last guinea, she gave us everything.  She shall
+never leave me, until we are ruined utterly ourselves,
+which does not seem far off, or until I can pay her the
+utmost farthing."
+
+--it, how much is it?" said the Peer with an oath.
+And Becky, reflecting on the largeness of his means,
+mentioned not only the sum which she had borrowed from
+Miss Briggs, but one of nearly double the amount.
+
+This caused the Lord Steyne to break out in another
+brief and energetic expression of anger, at which Rebecca
+held down her head the more and cried bitterly.  "I could
+not help it.  It was my only chance.  I dare not tell my
+husband.  He would kill me if I told him what I have
+done.  I have kept it a secret from everybody but you
+--and you forced it from me.  Ah, what shall I do, Lord
+Steyne? for I am very, very unhappy!"
+
+Lord Steyne made no reply except by beating the
+devil's tattoo and biting his nails.  At last he clapped
+his hat on his head and flung out of the room.  Rebecca
+did not rise from her attitude of misery until the door
+slammed upon him and his carriage whirled away.  Then
+she rose up with the queerest expression of victorious
+mischief glittering in her green eyes.  She burst out laughing
+once or twice to herself, as she sat at work, and
+sitting down to the piano, she rattled away a triumphant
+voluntary on the keys, which made the people pause
+under her window to listen to her brilliant music.
+
+That night, there came two notes from Gaunt House
+for the little woman, the one containing a card of
+invitation from Lord and Lady Steyne to a dinner at Gaunt
+House next Friday, while the other enclosed a slip of
+gray paper bearing Lord Steyne's signature and the
+address of Messrs.  Jones, Brown, and Robinson, Lombard
+Street.
+
+Rawdon heard Becky laughing in the night once or
+twice.  It was only her delight at going to Gaunt House
+and facing the ladies there, she said, which amused her
+so.  But the truth was that she was occupied with a great
+number of other thoughts.  Should she pay off old Briggs
+and give her her conge? Should she astonish Raggles
+by settling his account? She turned over all these thoughts
+on her pillow, and on the next day, when Rawdon went
+out to pay his morning visit to the Club, Mrs. Crawley
+(in a modest dress with a veil on) whipped off in a
+hackney-coach to the City:  and being landed at Messrs.
+Jones and Robinson's bank, presented a document there
+to the authority at the desk, who, in reply, asked her
+"How she would take it?"
+
+She gently said "she would take a hundred and fifty
+pounds in small notes and the remainder in one note":
+and passing through St.  Paul's Churchyard stopped there
+and bought the handsomest black silk gown for Briggs
+which money could buy; and which, with a kiss and the
+kindest speeches, she presented to the simple old
+spinster.
+
+Then she walked to Mr. Raggles, inquired about his
+children affectionately, and gave him fifty pounds on
+account.  Then she went to the livery-man from whom
+she jobbed her carriages and gratified him with a similar
+sum.  "And I hope this will be a lesson to you, Spavin,"
+she said, "and that on the next drawing-room day my
+brother, Sir Pitt, will not be inconvenienced by being
+obliged to take four of us in his carriage to wait upon
+His Majesty, because my own carriage is not forthcoming."
+It appears there had been a difference on the last
+drawing-room day.  Hence the degradation which the
+Colonel had almost suffered, of being obliged to enter
+the presence of his Sovereign in a hack cab.
+
+These arrangements concluded, Becky paid a visit
+upstairs to the before-mentioned desk, which Amelia
+Sedley had given her years and years ago, and which
+contained a number of useful and valuable little things--in
+which private museum she placed the one note which
+Messrs.  Jones and Robinson's cashier had given her.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIX
+
+
+In Which We Enjoy Three Courses and a Dessert
+
+When the ladies of Gaunt House were at breakfast that
+morning, Lord Steyne (who took his chocolate in private
+and seldom disturbed the females of his household,
+or saw them except upon public days, or when they
+crossed each other in the hall, or when from his
+pit-box at the opera he surveyed them in their box on the
+grand tier) his lordship, we say, appeared among the
+ladies and the children who were assembled over the
+tea and toast, and a battle royal ensued apropos of
+Rebecca.
+
+"My Lady Steyne," he said, "I want to see the list
+for your dinner on Friday; and I want you, if you please,
+to write a card for Colonel and Mrs. Crawley."
+
+"Blanche writes them," Lady Steyne said in a flutter.
+"Lady Gaunt writes them."
+
+"I will not write to that person," Lady Gaunt said,
+a tall and stately lady, who looked up for an instant
+and then down again after she had spoken.  It was not
+good to meet Lord Steyne's eyes for those who had
+offended him.
+
+"Send the children out of the room.  Go!" said he
+pulling at the bell-rope.  The urchins, always frightened
+before him, retired:  their mother would have followed
+too.  "Not you," he said.  "You stop."
+
+"My Lady Steyne," he said, "once more will you have
+the goodness to go to the desk and write that card for
+your dinner on Friday?"
+
+"My Lord, I will not be present at it," Lady Gaunt
+said; "I will go home."
+
+"I wish you would, and stay there.  You will find
+the bailiffs at Bareacres very pleasant company, and I
+shall be freed from lending money to your relations and
+from your own damned tragedy airs.  Who are you to
+give orders here? You have no money.  You've got no
+brains.  You were here to have children, and you have
+not had any.  Gaunt's tired of you, and George's wife
+is the only person in the family who doesn't wish you
+were dead.  Gaunt would marry again if you were."
+
+"I wish I were," her Ladyship answered with tears
+and rage in her eyes.
+
+"You, forsooth, must give yourself airs of virtue, while
+my wife, who is an immaculate saint, as everybody knows,
+and never did wrong in her life, has no objection to meet
+my young friend Mrs. Crawley.  My Lady Steyne knows
+that appearances are sometimes against the best of
+women; that lies are often told about the most innocent
+of them.  Pray, madam, shall I tell you some little
+anecdotes about my Lady Bareacres, your mamma?"
+
+"You may strike me if you like, sir, or hit any cruel
+blow," Lady Gaunt said.  To see his wife and daughter
+suffering always put his Lordship into a good humour.
+
+"My sweet Blanche," he said, "I am a gentleman, and
+never lay my hand upon a woman, save in the way of
+kindness.  I only wish to correct little faults in your
+character.  You women are too proud, and sadly lack
+humility, as Father Mole, I'm sure, would tell my Lady
+Steyne if he were here.  You mustn't give yourselves airs;
+you must be meek and humble, my blessings.  For all
+Lady Steyne knows, this calumniated, simple, good-
+humoured Mrs. Crawley is quite innocent--even more
+innocent than herself.  Her husband's character is not
+good, but it is as good as Bareacres', who has played
+a little and not paid a great deal, who cheated you out
+of the only legacy you ever had and left you a pauper
+on my hands.  And Mrs. Crawley is not very well-born,
+but she is not worse than Fanny's illustrious ancestor,
+the first de la Jones."
+
+"The money which I brought into the family, sir," Lady
+George cried out--
+
+"You purchased a contingent reversion with it," the
+Marquis said darkly.  "If Gaunt dies, your husband may
+come to his honours; your little boys may inherit them,
+and who knows what besides? In the meanwhile, ladies,
+be as proud and virtuous as you like abroad, but don't
+give ME any airs.  As for Mrs. Crawley's character, I
+shan't demean myself or that most spotless and perfectly
+irreproachable lady by even hinting that it requires a
+defence.  You will be pleased to receive her with the
+utmost cordiality, as you will receive all persons whom
+I present in this house.  This house?" He broke out with
+a laugh.  "Who is the master of it? and what is it?
+This Temple of Virtue belongs to me.  And if I invite all
+Newgate or all Bedlam here, by -- they shall be
+welcome."
+
+After this vigorous allocution, to one of which sort
+Lord Steyne treated his "Hareem" whenever symptoms
+of insubordination appeared in his household, the
+crestfallen women had nothing for it but to obey.  Lady Gaunt
+wrote the invitation which his Lordship required, and
+she and her mother-in-law drove in person, and with
+bitter and humiliated hearts, to leave the cards on Mrs.
+Rawdon, the reception of which caused that innocent
+woman so much pleasure.
+
+There were families in London who would have
+sacrificed a year's income to receive such an honour at the
+hands of those great ladies.  Mrs. Frederick Bullock, for
+instance, would have gone on her knees from May Fair
+to Lombard Street, if Lady Steyne and Lady Gaunt had
+been waiting in the City to raise her up and say, "Come
+to us next Friday"--not to one of the great crushes and
+grand balls of Gaunt House, whither everybody went, but
+to the sacred, unapproachable, mysterious, delicious
+entertainments, to be admitted to one of which was a
+privilege, and an honour, and a blessing indeed.
+
+Severe, spotless, and beautiful, Lady Gaunt held the
+very highest rank in Vanity Fair.  The distinguished
+courtesy with which Lord Steyne treated her charmed
+everybody who witnessed his behaviour, caused the severest
+critics to admit how perfect a gentleman he was, and to
+own that his Lordship's heart at least was in the right
+place.
+
+The ladies of Gaunt House called Lady Bareacres in to
+their aid, in order to repulse the common enemy.  One
+of Lady Gaunt's carriages went to Hill Street for her
+Ladyship's mother, all whose equipages were in the hands
+of the bailiffs, whose very jewels and wardrobe, it was
+said, had been seized by those inexorable Israelites.
+Bareacres Castle was theirs, too, with all its costly
+pictures, furniture, and articles of vertu--the magnificent
+Vandykes; the noble Reynolds pictures; the Lawrence
+portraits, tawdry and beautiful, and, thirty years ago,
+deemed as precious as works of real genius; the matchless
+Dancing Nymph of Canova, for which Lady Bareacres
+had sat in her youth--Lady Bareacres splendid then,
+and radiant in wealth, rank, and beauty--a toothless,
+bald, old woman now--a mere rag of a former robe of
+state.  Her lord, painted at the same time by Lawrence,
+as waving his sabre in front of Bareacres Castle, and
+clothed in his uniform as Colonel of the Thistlewood
+Yeomanry, was a withered, old, lean man in a
+greatcoat and a Brutus wig, slinking about Gray's Inn of
+mornings chiefly and dining alone at clubs.  He did not
+like to dine with Steyne now.  They had run races of
+pleasure together in youth when Bareacres was the
+winner.  But Steyne had more bottom than he and had lasted
+him out.  The Marquis was ten times a greater man now
+than the young Lord Gaunt of '85, and Bareacres
+nowhere in the race--old, beaten, bankrupt, and broken
+down.  He had borrowed too much money of Steyne to
+find it pleasant to meet his old comrade often.  The latter,
+whenever he wished to be merry, used jeeringly to ask
+Lady Gaunt why her father had not come to see her.
+"He has not been here for four months," Lord Steyne
+would say.  "I can always tell by my cheque-book
+afterwards, when I get a visit from Bareacres.  What a
+comfort it is, my ladies, I bank with one of my sons'
+fathers-in-law, and the other banks with me!"
+
+Of the other illustrious persons whom Becky had the
+honour to encounter on this her first presentation to the
+grand world, it does not become the present historian
+to say much.  There was his Excellency the Prince of
+Peterwaradin, with his Princess--a nobleman tightly
+girthed, with a large military chest, on which the plaque
+of his order shone magnificently, and wearing the red
+collar of the Golden Fleece round his neck.  He was the
+owner of countless flocks.  "Look at his face.  I think he
+must be descended from a sheep," Becky whispered to
+Lord Steyne.  Indeed, his Excellency's countenance, long,
+solemn, and white, with the ornament round his neck,.
+bore some resemblance to that of a venerable bell-wether.
+
+There was Mr. John Paul Jefferson Jones, titularly
+attached to the American Embassy and correspondent
+of the New York Demagogue, who, by way of making
+himself agreeable to the company, asked Lady Steyne,
+during a pause in the conversation at dinner, how his
+dear friend, George Gaunt, liked the Brazils? He and
+George had been most intimate at Naples and had gone
+up Vesuvius together.  Mr. Jones wrote a full and
+particular account of the dinner, which appeared duly in
+the Demagogue.  He mentioned the names and titles of
+all the guests, giving biographical sketches of the principal
+people.  He described the persons of the ladies with
+great eloquence; the service of the table; the size and
+costume of the servants; enumerated the dishes and wines
+served; the ornaments of the sideboard; and the probable
+value of the plate.  Such a dinner he calculated could not
+be dished up under fifteen or eighteen dollars per head.
+And he was in the habit, until very lately, of sending
+over proteges, with letters of recommendation to the
+present Marquis of Steyne, encouraged to do so by the
+intimate terms on which he had lived with his dear
+friend, the late lord.  He was most indignant that a
+young and insignificant aristocrat, the Earl of Southdown,
+should have taken the pas of him in their procession to
+the dining-room.  "Just as I was stepping up to offer my
+hand to a very pleasing and witty fashionable, the
+brilliant and exclusive Mrs. Rawdon Crawley,"--he wrote
+--"the young patrician interposed between me and the
+lady and whisked my Helen off without a word of apology.
+I was fain to bring up the rear with the Colonel, the
+lady's husband, a stout red-faced warrior who
+distinguished himself at Waterloo, where he had better luck
+than befell some of his brother redcoats at New Orleans."
+
+The Colonel's countenance on coming into this polite
+society wore as many blushes as the face of a boy of
+sixteen assumes when he is confronted with his sister's
+schoolfellows.  It has been told before that honest Rawdon
+had not been much used at any period of his life to
+ladies' company.  With the men at the Club or the mess
+room, he was well enough; and could ride, bet, smoke,
+or play at billiards with the boldest of them.  He had had
+his time for female friendships too, but that was twenty
+years ago, and the ladies were of the rank of those with
+whom Young Marlow in the comedy is represented as
+having been familiar before he became abashed in the
+presence of Miss Hardcastle.  The times are such that
+one scarcely dares to allude to that kind of company
+which thousands of our young men in Vanity Fair are
+frequenting every day, which nightly fills casinos and
+dancing-rooms, which is known to exist as well as the
+Ring in Hyde Park or the Congregation at St.  James's
+--but which the most squeamish if not the most moral
+of societies is determined to ignore.  In a word, although
+Colonel Crawley was now five-and-forty years of age,
+it had not been his lot in life to meet with a half dozen
+good women, besides his paragon of a wife.  All except
+her and his kind sister Lady Jane, whose gentle nature
+had tamed and won him, scared the worthy Colonel,
+and on occasion of his first dinner at Gaunt House he
+was not heard to make a single remark except to state
+that the weather was very hot.  Indeed Becky would have
+left him at home, but that virtue ordained that her 
+husband should be by her side to protect the timid and
+fluttering little creature on her first appearance in polite
+society.
+
+On her first appearance Lord Steyne stepped forward,
+taking her hand, and greeting her with great courtesy,
+and presenting her to Lady Steyne, and their ladyships,
+her daughters.  Their ladyships made three stately curtsies,
+and the elder lady to be sure gave her hand to the
+newcomer, but it was as cold and lifeless as marble.
+
+Becky took it, however, with grateful humility, and
+performing a reverence which would have done credit
+to the best dancer-master, put herself at Lady Steyne's
+feet, as it were, by saying that his Lordship had been
+her father's earliest friend and patron, and that she,
+Becky, had learned to honour and respect the Steyne
+family from the days of her childhood.  The fact is that Lord
+Steyne had once purchased a couple of pictures of the
+late Sharp, and the affectionate orphan could never
+forget her gratitude for that favour.
+ 
+The Lady Bareacres then came under Becky's cognizance
+--to whom the Colonel's lady made also a most respectful
+obeisance:  it was returned with severe dignity by the
+exalted person in question.
+
+"I had the pleasure of making your Ladyship's
+acquaintance at Brussels, ten years ago," Becky said in
+the most winning manner.  "I had the good fortune to
+meet Lady Bareacres at the Duchess of Richmond's ball,
+the night before the Battle of Waterloo.  And I recollect
+your Ladyship, and my Lady Blanche, your daughter,
+sitting in the carriage in the porte-cochere at the Inn,
+waiting for horses.  I hope your Ladyship's diamonds are
+safe."
+
+Everybody's eyes looked into their neighbour's.  The
+famous diamonds had undergone a famous seizure, it
+appears, about which Becky, of course, knew nothing.
+Rawdon Crawley retreated with Lord Southdown into a
+window, where the latter was heard to laugh immoderately,
+as Rawdon told him the story of Lady Bareacres
+wanting horses and "knuckling down by Jove," to Mrs.
+Crawley.  "I think I needn't be afraid of THAT woman,"
+Becky thought.  Indeed, Lady Bareacres exchanged
+terrified and angry looks with her daughter and retreated
+to a table, where she began to look at pictures with
+great energy.
+
+When the Potentate from the Danube made his appearance,
+the conversation was carried on in the French language,
+and the Lady Bareacres and the younger ladies
+found, to their farther mortification, that Mrs. Crawley
+was much better acquainted with that tongue, and spoke
+it with a much better accent than they.  Becky had met
+other Hungarian magnates with the army in France in
+1816-17.  She asked after her friends with great interest
+The foreign personages thought that she was a lady of
+great distinction, and the Prince and the Princess asked
+severally of Lord Steyne and the Marchioness, whom
+they conducted to dinner, who was that petite dame who
+spoke so well?
+
+Finally, the procession being formed in the order
+described by the American diplomatist, they marched into
+the apartment where the banquet was served, and which,
+as I have promised the reader he shall enjoy it, he shall
+have the liberty of ordering himself so as to suit his
+fancy.
+
+But it was when the ladies were alone that Becky
+knew the tug of war would come.  And then indeed the
+little woman found herself in such a situation as made
+her acknowledge the correctness of Lord Steyne's
+caution to her to beware of the society of ladies above her
+own sphere.  As they say, the persons who hate Irishmen
+most are Irishmen; so, assuredly, the greatest tyrants
+over women are women.  When poor little Becky,
+alone with the ladies, went up to the fire-place whither
+the great ladies had repaired, the great ladies marched
+away and took possession of a table of drawings.  When
+Becky followed them to the table of drawings, they
+dropped off one by one to the fire again.  She tried to
+speak to one of the children (of whom she was
+commonly fond in public places), but Master George Gaunt
+was called away by his mamma; and the stranger was
+treated with such cruelty finally, that even Lady Steyne
+herself pitied her and went up to speak to the friendless
+little woman.
+
+"Lord Steyne," said her Ladyship, as her wan cheeks
+glowed with a blush, "says you sing and play very
+beautifully, Mrs. Crawley--I wish you would do me the
+kindness to sing to me."
+
+"I will do anything that may give pleasure to my Lord
+Steyne or to you," said Rebecca, sincerely grateful, and
+seating herself at the piano, began to sing.
+
+She sang religious songs of Mozart, which had been
+early favourites of Lady Steyne, and with such sweetness
+and tenderness that the lady, lingering round the piano,
+sat down by its side and listened until the tears rolled
+down her eyes.  It is true that the opposition ladies at
+the other end of the room kept up a loud and ceaseless
+buzzing and talking, but the Lady Steyne did not hear
+those rumours.  She was a child again--and had
+wandered back through a forty years' wilderness to her
+convent garden.  The chapel organ had pealed the same tones,
+the organist, the sister whom she loved best of the
+community, had taught them to her in those early happy
+days.  She was a girl once more, and the brief period of
+her happiness bloomed out again for an hour--she
+started when the jarring doors were flung open, and with
+a loud laugh from Lord Steyne, the men of the party
+entered full of gaiety.
+
+He saw at a glance what had happened in his absence,
+and was grateful to his wife for once.  He went
+and spoke to her, and called her by her Christian name,
+so as again to bring blushes to her pale face--"My wife
+says you have been singing like an angel," he said to
+Becky.  Now there are angels of two kinds, and both sorts,
+it is said, are charming in their way.
+
+Whatever the previous portion of the evening had
+been, the rest of that night was a great triumph for
+Becky.  She sang her very best, and it was so good that
+every one of the men came and crowded round the
+piano.  The women, her enemies, were left quite alone.
+And Mr. Paul Jefferson Jones thought he had made a
+conquest of Lady Gaunt by going up to her Ladyship
+and praising her delightful friend's first-rate singing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER L
+
+
+Contains a Vulgar Incident
+
+The Muse, whoever she be, who presides over this
+Comic History must now descend from the genteel heights
+in which she has been soaring and have the goodness
+to drop down upon the lowly roof of John Sedley at
+Brompton, and describe what events are taking place
+there.  Here, too, in this humble tenement, live care, and
+distrust, and dismay.  Mrs. Clapp in the kitchen is
+grumbling in secret to her husband about the rent, and
+urging the good fellow to rebel against his old friend
+and patron and his present lodger.  Mrs. Sedley has
+ceased to visit her landlady in the lower regions now,
+and indeed is in a position to patronize Mrs. Clapp
+no longer.  How can one be condescending to a lady to
+whom one owes a matter of forty pounds, and who is
+perpetually throwing out hints for the money? The Irish
+maidservant has not altered in the least in her kind and
+respectful behaviour; but Mrs. Sedley fancies that she
+is growing insolent and ungrateful, and, as the guilty
+thief who fears each bush an officer, sees threatening
+innuendoes and hints of capture in all the girl's speeches
+and answers.  Miss Clapp, grown quite a young woman
+now, is declared by the soured old lady to be an unbearable
+and impudent little minx.  Why Amelia can be so
+fond of her, or have her in her room so much, or walk
+out with her so constantly, Mrs. Sedley cannot conceive.
+The bitterness of poverty has poisoned the life of the
+once cheerful and kindly woman.  She is thankless for
+Amelia's constant and gentle bearing towards her; carps
+at her for her efforts at kindness or service; rails at her
+for her silly pride in her child and her neglect of her
+parents.  Georgy's house is not a very lively one since
+Uncle Jos's annuity has been withdrawn and the little
+family are almost upon famine diet.
+
+Amelia thinks, and thinks, and racks her brain, to find
+some means of increasing the small pittance upon which
+the household is starving.  Can she give lessons in
+anything? paint card-racks? do fine work? She finds that
+women are working hard, and better than she can, for
+twopence a day.  She buys a couple of begilt Bristol
+boards at the Fancy Stationer's and paints her very best
+upon them--a shepherd with a red waistcoat on one, and
+a pink face smiling in the midst of a pencil landscape
+--a shepherdess on the other, crossing a little bridge,
+with a little dog, nicely shaded.  The man of the Fancy
+Repository and Brompton Emporium of Fine Arts (of
+whom she bought the screens, vainly hoping that he
+would repurchase them when ornamented by her hand)
+can hardly hide the sneer with which he examines these
+feeble works of art.  He looks askance at the lady who
+waits in the shop, and ties up the cards again in their
+envelope of whitey-brown paper, and hands them to the
+poor widow and Miss Clapp, who had never seen such
+beautiful things in her life, and had been quite
+confident that the man must give at least two guineas for
+the screens.  They try at other shops in the interior of
+London, with faint sickening hopes.  "Don't want 'em,"
+says one.  "Be off," says another fiercely.  Three-and-sixpence
+has been spent in vain--the screens retire to Miss
+Clapp's bedroom, who persists in thinking them lovely.
+
+She writes out a little card in her neatest hand, and
+after long thought and labour of composition, in which the
+public is informed that "A Lady who has some time at
+her disposal, wishes to undertake the education of some
+little girls, whom she would instruct in English, in French,
+in Geography, in History, and in Music--address A.  O.,
+at Mr. Brown's"; and she confides the card to the gentleman
+of the Fine Art Repository, who consents to allow
+it to lie upon the counter, where it grows dingy and
+fly-blown.  Amelia passes the door wistfully many a time,
+in hopes that Mr. Brown will have some news to give
+her, but he never beckons her in.  When she goes to
+make little purchases, there is no news for her.  Poor
+simple lady, tender and weak--how are you to battle
+with the struggling violent world?
+
+She grows daily more care-worn and sad, fixing upon
+her child alarmed eyes, whereof the little boy cannot
+interpret the expression.  She starts up of a night and
+peeps into his room stealthily, to see that he is sleeping
+and not stolen away.  She sleeps but little now.  A
+constant thought and terror is haunting her.  How she
+weeps and prays in the long silent nights--how she tries
+to hide from herself the thought which will return to her,
+that she ought to part with the boy, that she is the only
+barrier between him and prosperity.  She can't, she can't.
+Not now, at least.  Some other day.  Oh! it is too hard to
+think of and to bear.
+
+A thought comes over her which makes her blush and
+turn from herself--her parents might keep the annuity
+--the curate would marry her and give a home to her
+and the boy.  But George's picture and dearest memory
+are there to rebuke her.  Shame and love say no to the
+sacrifice.  She shrinks from it as from something unholy,
+and such thoughts never found a resting-place in that
+pure and gentle bosom.
+
+The combat, which we describe in a sentence or two,
+lasted for many weeks in poor Amelia's heart, during
+which she had no confidante; indeed, she could never
+have one, as she would not allow to herself the
+possibility of yielding, though she was giving way daily
+before the enemy with whom she had to battle.  One truth
+after another was marshalling itself silently against her
+and keeping its ground.  Poverty and misery for all, want
+and degradation for her parents, injustice to the boy--
+one by one the outworks of the little citadel were taken,
+in which the poor soul passionately guarded her only
+love and treasure.
+
+At the beginning of the struggle, she had written off a
+letter of tender supplication to her brother at Calcutta,
+imploring him not to withdraw the support which he had
+granted to their parents and painting in terms of artless
+pathos their lonely and hapless condition.  She did not
+know the truth of the matter.  The payment of Jos's
+annuity was still regular, but it was a money-lender in the
+City who was receiving it:  old Sedley had sold it for a
+sum of money wherewith to prosecute his bootless
+schemes.  Emmy was calculating eagerly the time that
+would elapse before the letter would arrive and be
+answered.  She had written down the date in her pocket-
+book of the day when she dispatched it.  To her son's
+guardian, the good Major at Madras, she had not
+communicated any of her griefs and perplexities.  She had
+not written to him since she wrote to congratulate him on
+his approaching marriage.  She thought with sickening
+despondency, that that friend--the only one, the one
+who had felt such a regard for her--was fallen away.
+
+One day, when things had come to a very bad pass
+--when the creditors were pressing, the mother in
+hysteric grief, the father in more than usual gloom, the
+inmates of the family avoiding each other, each secretly
+oppressed with his private unhappiness and notion of
+wrong--the father and daughter happened to be left
+alone together, and Amelia thought to comfort her father
+by telling him what she had done.  She had written to
+Joseph--an answer must come in three or four months.
+He was always generous, though careless.  He could not
+refuse, when he knew how straitened were the
+circumstances of his parents.
+
+Then the poor old gentleman revealed the whole truth
+to her--that his son was still paying the annuity, which
+his own imprudence had flung away.  He had not dared
+to tell it sooner.  He thought Amelia's ghastly and terrified
+look, when, with a trembling, miserable voice he made
+the confession, conveyed reproaches to him for his
+concealment.  "Ah!" said he with quivering lips and turning
+away, "you despise your old father now!"
+
+"Oh, papal it is not that," Amelia cried out, falling
+on his neck and kissing him many times.  "You are
+always good and kind.  You did it for the best.  It is not
+for the money--it is--my God! my God! have mercy
+upon me, and give me strength to bear this trial"; and
+she kissed him again wildly and went away.
+
+Still the father did not know what that explanation
+meant, and the burst of anguish with which the poor
+girl left him.  It was that she was conquered.  The sentence
+was passed.  The child must go from her--to others--to
+forget her.  Her heart and her treasure--her joy, hope,
+love, worship--her God, almost!  She must give him up,
+and then--and then she would go to George, and they
+would watch over the child and wait for him until he
+came to them in Heaven.
+
+She put on her bonnet, scarcely knowing what she did,
+and went out to walk in the lanes by which George used
+to come back from school, and where she was in the
+habit of going on his return to meet the boy.  It was
+May, a half-holiday.  The leaves were all coming out,
+the weather was brilliant; the boy came running to her
+flushed with health, singing, his bundle of school-books
+hanging by a thong.  There he was.  Both her arms were
+round him.  No, it was impossible.  They could not be
+going to part.  "What is the matter, Mother?" said he;
+"you look very pale."
+
+"Nothing, my child," she said and stooped down and
+kissed him.
+
+That night Amelia made the boy read the story of
+Samuel to her, and how Hannah, his mother, having
+weaned him, brought him to Eli the High Priest to
+minister before the Lord.  And he read the song of gratitude
+which Hannah sang, and which says, who it is who
+maketh poor and maketh rich, and bringeth low and
+exalteth--how the poor shall be raised up out of the
+dust, and how, in his own might, no man shall be strong.
+Then he read how Samuel's mother made him a little
+coat and brought it to him from year to year when she
+came up to offer the yearly sacrifice.  And then, in her
+sweet simple way, George's mother made commentaries
+to the boy upon this affecting story.  How Hannah, though
+she loved her son so much, yet gave him up because
+of her vow.  And how she must always have thought of
+him as she sat at home, far away, making the little
+coat; and Samuel, she was sure, never forgot his mother;
+and how happy she must have been as the time came
+(and the years pass away very quick) when she should
+see her boy and how good and wise he had grown.  This
+little sermon she spoke with a gentle solemn voice, and
+dry eyes, until she came to the account of their
+meeting--then the discourse broke off suddenly, the tender
+heart overflowed, and taking the boy to her breast, she
+rocked him in her arms and wept silently over him in
+a sainted agony of tears.
+
+Her mind being made up, the widow began to take
+such measures as seemed right to her for advancing the
+end which she proposed.  One day, Miss Osborne, in
+Russell Square (Amelia had not written the name or number
+of the house for ten years--her youth, her early story
+came back to her as she wrote the superscription) one
+day Miss Osborne got a letter from Amelia which made
+her blush very much and look towards her father, sitting
+glooming in his place at the other end of the table.
+
+In simple terms, Amelia told her the reasons which
+had induced her to change her mind respecting her boy.
+Her father had met with fresh misfortunes which had
+entirely ruined him.  Her own pittance was so small that
+it would barely enable her to support her parents and
+would not suffice to give George the advantages which
+were his due.  Great as her sufferings would be at parting
+with him she would, by God's help, endure them for the
+boy's sake.  She knew that those to whom he was going
+would do all in their power to make him happy.  She
+described his disposition, such as she fancied it--quick
+and impatient of control or harshness, easily to be moved
+by love and kindness.  In a postscript, she stipulated that
+she should have a written agreement, that she should
+see the child as often as she wished--she could not
+part with him under any other terms.
+
+"What? Mrs. Pride has come down, has she?" old
+Osborne said, when with a tremulous eager voice Miss
+Osborne read him the letter.  "Reg'lar starved out, hey?
+Ha, ha!  I knew she would." He tried to keep his dignity
+and to read his paper as usual--but he could not follow
+it.  He chuckled and swore to himself behind the sheet.
+
+At last he flung it down and, scowling at his daughter,
+as his wont was, went out of the room into his study
+adjoining, from whence he presently returned with a
+key.  He flung it to Miss Osborne.
+
+"Get the room over mine--his room that was--ready,"
+he said.  "Yes, sir," his daughter replied in a tremble.
+It was George's room.  It had not been opened for more
+than ten years.  Some of his clothes, papers, handkerchiefs,
+whips and caps, fishing-rods and sporting gear,
+were still there.  An Army list of 1814, with his name
+written on the cover; a little dictionary he was wont to
+use in writing; and the Bible his mother had given him,
+were on the mantelpiece, with a pair of spurs and a
+dried inkstand covered with the dust of ten years.  Ah!
+since that ink was wet, what days and people had passed
+away!  The writing-book, still on the table, was blotted
+with his hand.
+
+Miss Osborne was much affected when she first
+entered this room with the servants under her.  She sank
+quite pale on the little bed.  "This is blessed news, m'am
+--indeed, m'am," the housekeeper said; "and the good
+old times is returning, m'am.  The dear little feller, to be
+sure, m'am; how happy he will be!  But some folks in
+May Fair, m'am, will owe him a grudge, m'am"; and
+she clicked back the bolt which held the window-sash
+and let the air into the chamber.
+
+"You had better send that woman some money," Mr.
+Osborne said, before he went out.  "She shan't want for
+nothing.  Send her a hundred pound."
+
+"And I'll go and see her to-morrow?" Miss Osborne
+asked.
+
+"That's your look out.  She don't come in here, mind.
+No, by --, not for all the money in London.  But she
+mustn't want now.  So look out, and get things right." With
+which brief speeches Mr. Osborne took leave of his
+daughter and went on his accustomed way into the City.
+
+"Here, Papa, is some money," Amelia said that
+night, kissing the old man, her father, and putting a bill
+for a hundred pounds into his hands.  "And--and, Mamma,
+don't be harsh with Georgy.  He--he is not going to stop
+with us long." She could say nothing more, and walked
+away silently to her room.  Let us close it upon her
+prayers and her sorrow.  I think we had best speak little
+about so much love and grief.
+
+Miss Osborne came the next day, according to the
+promise contained in her note, and saw Amelia.  The
+meeting between them was friendly.  A look and a few words
+from Miss Osborne showed the poor widow that, with
+regard to this woman at least, there need be no fear
+lest she should take the first place in her son's affection.
+She was cold, sensible, not unkind.  The mother had
+not been so well pleased, perhaps, had the rival been
+better looking, younger, more affectionate, warmer-
+hearted.  Miss Osborne, on the other hand, thought of old
+times and memories and could not but be touched with
+the poor mother's pitiful situation.  She was conquered,
+and laying down her arms, as it were, she humbly
+submitted.  That day they arranged together the
+preliminaries of the treaty of capitulation.
+
+George was kept from school the next day, and saw
+his aunt.  Amelia left them alone together and went to
+her room.  She was trying the separation--as that poor
+gentle Lady Jane Grey felt the edge of the axe that was
+to come down and sever her slender life.  Days were
+passed in parleys, visits, preparations.  The widow broke
+the matter to Georgy with great caution; she looked to
+see him very much affected by the intelligence.  He was
+rather elated than otherwise, and the poor woman
+turned sadly away.  He bragged about the news that day
+to the boys at school; told them how he was going to
+live with his grandpapa his father's father, not the one
+who comes here sometimes; and that he would be very
+rich, and have a carriage, and a pony, and go to a much
+finer school, and when he was rich he would buy Leader's
+pencil-case and pay the tart-woman.  The boy was the
+image of his father, as his fond mother thought.
+
+Indeed I have no heart, on account of our dear
+Amelia's sake, to go through the story of George's last
+days at home.
+
+At last the day came, the carriage drove up, the little
+humble packets containing tokens of love and remembrance
+were ready and disposed in the hall long since
+--George was in his new suit, for which the tailor had
+come previously to measure him.  He had sprung up with
+the sun and put on the new clothes, his mother hearing
+him from the room close by, in which she had been
+lying, in speechless grief and watching.  Days before she
+had been making preparations for the end, purchasing
+little stores for the boy's use, marking his books and
+linen, talking with him and preparing him for the change
+--fondly fancying that he needed preparation.
+
+So that he had change, what cared he? He was longing
+for it.  By a thousand eager declarations as to what
+he would do, when he went to live with his grandfather,
+he had shown the poor widow how little the idea of
+parting had cast him down.  "He would come and see
+his mamma often on the pony," he said.  "He would
+come and fetch her in the carriage; they would drive
+in the park, and she should have everything she wanted."
+The poor mother was fain to content herself with these
+selfish demonstrations of attachment, and tried to
+convince herself how sincerely her son loved her.  He must
+love her.  All children were so:  a little anxious for novelty,
+and--no, not selfish, but self-willed.  Her child must
+have his enjoyments and ambition in the world.  She
+herself, by her own selfishness and imprudent love for him
+had denied him his just rights and pleasures hitherto.
+
+I know few things more affecting than that timorous
+debasement and self-humiliation of a woman.  How she
+owns that it is she and not the man who is guilty; how
+she takes all the faults on her side; how she courts in a
+manner punishment for the wrongs which she has not
+committed and persists in shielding the real culprit!  It
+is those who injure women who get the most kindness
+from them--they are born timid and tyrants and
+maltreat those who are humblest before them.
+
+So poor Amelia had been getting ready in silent misery
+for her son's departure, and had passed many and many
+a long solitary hour in making preparations for the end.
+George stood by his mother, watching her arrangements
+without the least concern.  Tears had fallen into his boxes;
+passages had been scored in his favourite books; old toys,
+relics, treasures had been hoarded away for him, and
+packed with strange neatness and care--and of all these
+things the boy took no note.  The child goes away smiling
+as the mother breaks her heart.  By heavens it is pitiful,
+the bootless love of women for children in Vanity Fair.
+
+A few days are past, and the great event of Amelia's
+life is consummated.  No angel has intervened.  The child
+is sacrificed and offered up to fate, and the widow is
+quite alone.
+
+The boy comes to see her often, to be sure.  He rides
+on a pony with a coachman behind him, to the delight
+of his old grandfather, Sedley, who walks proudly down
+the lane by his side.  She sees him, but he is not her boy
+any more.  Why, he rides to see the boys at the little
+school, too, and to show off before them his new wealth
+and splendour.  In two days he has adopted a slightly
+imperious air and patronizing manner.  He was born to
+command, his mother thinks, as his father was before
+him.
+
+It is fine weather now.  Of evenings on the days when
+he does not come, she takes a long walk into London
+--yes, as far as Russell Square, and rests on the stone
+by the railing of the garden opposite Mr. Osborne's house.
+It is so pleasant and cool.  She can look up and see the
+drawing-room windows illuminated, and, at about nine
+o'clock, the chamber in the upper story where Georgy
+sleeps.  She knows--he has told her.  She prays there
+as the light goes out, prays with an humble heart,
+and walks home shrinking and silent.  She is very tired
+when she comes home.  Perhaps she will sleep the better
+for that long weary walk, and she may dream about
+Georgy.
+
+One Sunday she happened to be walking in Russell
+Square, at some distance from Mr. Osborne's house (she
+could see it from a distance though) when all the bells
+of Sabbath were ringing, and George and his aunt came
+out to go to church; a little sweep asked for charity,
+and the footman, who carried the books, tried to drive
+him away; but Georgy stopped and gave him money.  May
+God's blessing be on the boy!  Emmy ran round the square
+and, coming up to the sweep, gave him her mite too.
+All the bells of Sabbath were ringing, and she followed
+them until she came to the Foundling Church, into which
+she went.  There she sat in a place whence she could
+see the head of the boy under his father's tombstone.
+Many hundred fresh children's voices rose up there and
+sang hymns to the Father Beneficent, and little George's
+soul thrilled with delight at the burst of glorious
+psalmody.  His mother could not see him for awhile,
+through the mist that dimmed her eyes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LI
+
+
+
+In Which a Charade Is Acted Which May or May
+Not Puzzle the Reader
+
+After Becky's appearance at my Lord Steyne's private
+and select parties, the claims of that estimable woman
+as regards fashion were settled, and some of the very
+greatest and tallest doors in the metropolis were
+speedily opened to her--doors so great and tall that the
+beloved reader and writer hereof may hope in vain to
+enter at them.  Dear brethren, let us tremble before
+those august portals.  I fancy them guarded by grooms
+of the chamber with flaming silver forks with which they
+prong all those who have not the right of the entree.
+They say the honest newspaper-fellow who sits in the
+hall and takes down the names of the great ones who
+are admitted to the feasts dies after a little time.  He
+can't survive the glare of fashion long.  It scorches him
+up, as the presence of Jupiter in full dress wasted that
+poor imprudent Semele--a giddy moth of a creature who
+ruined herself by venturing out of her natural atmosphere.
+Her myth ought to be taken to heart amongst the
+Tyburnians, the Belgravians--her story, and perhaps
+Becky's too.  Ah, ladies!--ask the Reverend Mr. Thurifer
+if Belgravia is not a sounding brass and Tyburnia a
+tinkling cymbal.  These are vanities.  Even these will pass
+away.  And some day or other (but it will be after our
+time, thank goodness) Hyde Park Gardens will be no
+better known than the celebrated horticultural outskirts
+of Babylon, and Belgrave Square will be as desolate as
+Baker Street, or Tadmor in the wilderness.
+
+Ladies, are you aware that the great Pitt lived in Baker
+Street? What would not your grandmothers have given
+to be asked to Lady Hester's parties in that now
+decayed mansion? I have dined in it--moi qui vous parle,
+I peopled the chamber with ghosts of the mighty dead.
+As we sat soberly drinking claret there with men of
+to-day, the spirits of the departed came in and took their
+places round the darksome board.  The pilot who
+weathered the storm tossed off great bumpers of spiritual
+port; the shade of Dundas did not leave the ghost of a
+heeltap.  Addington sat bowing and smirking in a ghastly
+manner, and would not be behindhand when the
+noiseless bottle went round; Scott, from under bushy eyebrows,
+winked at the apparition of a beeswing; Wilberforce's
+eyes went up to the ceiling, so that he did not seem to
+know how his glass went up full to his mouth and came
+down empty; up to the ceiling which was above us only
+yesterday, and which the great of the past days have all
+looked at.  They let the house as a furnished lodging
+now.  Yes, Lady Hester once lived in Baker Street, and
+lies asleep in the wilderness.  Eothen saw her there--
+not in Baker Street, but in the other solitude.
+
+It is all vanity to be sure, but who will not own to
+liking a little of it? I should like to know what well-
+constituted mind, merely because it is transitory, dislikes
+roast beef? That is a vanity, but may every man who
+reads this have a wholesome portion of it through life,
+I beg:  aye, though my readers were five hundred
+thousand.  Sit down, gentlemen, and fall to, with a good hearty
+appetite; the fat, the lean, the gravy, the horse-radish
+as you like it--don't spare it.  Another glass of wine,
+Jones, my boy--a little bit of the Sunday side.  Yes, let
+us eat our fill of the vain thing and be thankful therefor.
+And let us make the best of Becky's aristocratic
+pleasures likewise--for these too, like all other mortal
+delights, were but transitory.
+
+The upshot of her visit to Lord Steyne was that His
+Highness the Prince of Peterwaradin took occasion to
+renew his acquaintance with Colonel Crawley, when
+they met on the next day at the Club, and to compliment
+Mrs. Crawley in the Ring of Hyde Park with a
+profound salute of the hat.  She and her husband were
+invited immediately to one of the Prince's small parties
+at Levant House, then occupied by His Highness during
+the temporary absence from England of its noble
+proprietor.  She sang after dinner to a very little comite.
+The Marquis of Steyne was present, paternally
+superintending the progress of his pupil.
+
+At Levant House Becky met one of the finest gentlemen
+and greatest ministers that Europe has produced--
+the Duc de la Jabotiere, then Ambassador from the Most
+Christian King, and subsequently Minister to that
+monarch.  I declare I swell with pride as these august names
+are transcribed by my pen, and I think in what brilliant
+company my dear Becky is moving.  She became a
+constant guest at the French Embassy, where no party was
+considered to be complete without the presence of the
+charming Madame Ravdonn Cravley.
+
+Messieurs de Truffigny (of the Perigord family) and
+Champignac, both attaches of the Embassy, were
+straightway smitten by the charms of the fair Colonel's
+wife, and both declared, according to the wont of their
+nation (for who ever yet met a Frenchman, come out of
+England, that has not left half a dozen families miserable,
+and brought away as many hearts in his pocket-book?),
+both, I say, declared that they were au mieux with the
+charming Madame Ravdonn.
+
+But I doubt the correctness of the assertion.  Champignac
+was very fond of ecarte, and made many parties
+with the Colonel of evenings, while Becky was singing to
+Lord Steyne in the other room; and as for Truffigny, it is
+a well-known fact that he dared not go to the Travellers',
+where he owed money to the waiters, and if he had not
+had the Embassy as a dining-place, the worthy young
+gentleman must have starved.  I doubt, I say, that Becky
+would have selected either of these young men as a
+person on whom she would bestow her special regard.  They
+ran of her messages, purchased her gloves and flowers,
+went in debt for opera-boxes for her, and made
+themselves amiable in a thousand ways.  And they talked
+English with adorable simplicity, and to the constant
+amusement of Becky and my Lord Steyne, she would mimic
+one or other to his face, and compliment him on his
+advance in the English language with a gravity which never
+failed to tickle the Marquis, her sardonic old patron.
+Truffigny gave Briggs a shawl by way of winning over
+Becky's confidante, and asked her to take charge of a
+letter which the simple spinster handed over in public
+to the person to whom it was addressed, and the
+composition of which amused everybody who read it greatly.
+Lord Steyne read it, everybody but honest Rawdon, to
+whom it was not necessary to tell everything that passed
+in the little house in May Fair.
+
+Here, before long, Becky received not only "the best"
+foreigners (as the phrase is in our noble and admirable
+society slang), but some of the best English people too.
+I don't mean the most virtuous, or indeed the least
+virtuous, or the cleverest, or the stupidest, or the richest, or
+the best born, but "the best,"--in a word, people about
+whom there is no question--such as the great Lady Fitz-
+Willis, that Patron Saint of Almack's, the great Lady
+Slowbore, the great Lady Grizzel Macbeth (she was
+Lady G.  Glowry, daughter of Lord Grey of Glowry),
+and the like.  When the Countess of Fitz-Willis (her
+Ladyship is of the Kingstreet family, see Debrett and
+Burke) takes up a person, he or she is safe.  There is no
+question about them any more.  Not that my Lady Fitz-
+Willis is any better than anybody else, being, on the
+contrary, a faded person, fifty-seven years of age, and
+neither handsome, nor wealthy, nor entertaining; but it is
+agreed on all sides that she is of the "best people."
+Those who go to her are of the best:  and from an old
+grudge probably to Lady Steyne (for whose coronet her
+ladyship, then the youthful Georgina Frederica, daughter
+of the Prince of Wales's favourite, the Earl of Portansherry,
+had once tried), this great and famous leader of
+the fashion chose to acknowledge Mrs. Rawdon
+Crawley; made her a most marked curtsey at the assembly
+over which she presided; and not only encouraged her
+son, St.  Kitts (his lordship got his place through Lord
+Steyne's interest), to frequent Mrs. Crawley's house, but
+asked her to her own mansion and spoke to her twice in
+the most public and condescending manner during
+dinner.  The important fact was known all over London that
+night.  People who had been crying fie about Mrs.
+Crawley were silent.  Wenham, the wit and lawyer, Lord
+Steyne's right-hand man, went about everywhere praising
+her:  some who had hesitated, came forward at once
+and welcomed her; little Tom Toady, who had warned
+Southdown about visiting such an abandoned woman,
+now besought to be introduced to her.  In a word, she
+was admitted to be among the "best" people.  Ah, my
+beloved readers and brethren, do not envy poor Becky
+prematurely--glory like this is said to be fugitive.  It is
+currently reported that even in the very inmost circles,
+they are no happier than the poor wanderers outside the
+zone; and Becky, who penetrated into the very centre of
+fashion and saw the great George IV face to face, has
+owned since that there too was Vanity.
+
+We must be brief in descanting upon this part of her
+career.  As I cannot describe the mysteries of freemasonry,
+although I have a shrewd idea that it is a humbug,
+so an uninitiated man cannot take upon himself to
+portray the great world accurately, and had best keep his
+opinions to himself, whatever they are.
+
+Becky has often spoken in subsequent years of this
+season of her life, when she moved among the very
+greatest circles of the London fashion.  Her success
+excited, elated, and then bored her.  At first no occupation
+was more pleasant than to invent and procure (the latter
+a work of no small trouble and ingenuity, by the way, in
+a person of Mrs. Rawdon Crawley's very narrow means)
+--to procure, we say, the prettiest new dresses and
+ornaments; to drive to fine dinner parties, where she was
+welcomed by great people; and from the fine dinner
+parties to fine assemblies, whither the same people came
+with whom she had been dining, whom she had met the
+night before, and would see on the morrow--the young
+men faultlessly appointed, handsomely cravatted, with
+the neatest glossy boots and white gloves--the elders
+portly, brass-buttoned, noble-looking, polite, and prosy
+--the young ladies blonde, timid, and in pink--the
+mothers grand, beautiful, sumptuous, solemn, and in
+diamonds.  They talked in English, not in bad French, as
+they do in the novels.  They talked about each others'
+houses, and characters, and families--just as the Joneses
+do about the Smiths.  Becky's former acquaintances hated
+and envied her; the poor woman herself was yawning in
+spirit.  "I wish I were out of it," she said to herself.  "I
+would rather be a parson's wife and teach a Sunday
+school than this; or a sergeant's lady and ride in the
+regimental waggon; or, oh, how much gayer it would be
+to wear spangles and trousers and dance before a booth
+at a fair."
+
+"You would do it very well," said Lord Steyne, laughing.
+She used to tell the great man her ennuis and
+perplexities in her artless way--they amused him.
+
+"Rawdon would make a very good Ecuyer--Master of
+the Ceremonies--what do you call him--the man in the
+large boots and the uniform, who goes round the ring
+cracking the whip? He is large, heavy, and of a military
+figure.  I recollect," Becky continued pensively, "my
+father took me to see a show at Brookgreen Fair when I
+was a child, and when we came home, I made myself a
+pair of stilts and danced in the studio to the wonder of
+all the pupils."
+
+"I should have liked to see it," said Lord Steyne.
+
+"I should like to do it now," Becky continued.  "How
+Lady Blinkey would open her eyes, and Lady Grizzel
+Macbeth would stare!  Hush! silence! there is Pasta
+beginning to sing." Becky always made a point of being
+conspicuously polite to the professional ladies and
+gentlemen who attended at these aristocratic parties--of
+following them into the corners where they sat in silence,
+and shaking hands with them, and smiling in the view of
+all persons.  She was an artist herself, as she said very
+truly; there was a frankness and humility in the manner
+in which she acknowledged her origin, which provoked,
+or disarmed, or amused lookers-on, as the case might
+be.  "How cool that woman is," said one; "what airs of
+independence she assumes, where she ought to sit still
+and be thankful if anybody speaks to her!" "What an
+honest and good-natured soul she is!" said another.
+"What an artful little minx" said a third.  They were all
+right very likely, but Becky went her own way, and so
+fascinated the professional personages that they would
+leave off their sore throats in order to sing at her parties
+and give her lessons for nothing.
+
+Yes, she gave parties in the little house in Curzon
+Street.  Many scores of carriages, with blazing lamps,
+blocked up the street, to the disgust of No.  100, who
+could not rest for the thunder of the knocking, and of
+102, who could not sleep for envy.  The gigantic footmen
+who accompanied the vehicles were too big to be
+contained in Becky's little hall, and were billeted off in the
+neighbouring public-houses, whence, when they were
+wanted, call-boys summoned them from their beer.
+Scores of the great dandies of London squeezed and
+trod on each other on the little stairs, laughing to find
+themselves there; and many spotless and severe ladies of
+ton were seated in the little drawing-room, listening to
+the professional singers, who were singing according to
+their wont, and as if they wished to blow the windows
+down.  And the day after, there appeared among the
+fashionable reunions in the Morning Post a paragraph
+to the following effect:
+
+"Yesterday, Colonel and Mrs. Crawley entertained a
+select party at dinner at their house in May Fair.  Their
+Excellencies the Prince and Princess of Peterwaradin,
+H.  E.  Papoosh Pasha, the Turkish Ambassador (attended
+by Kibob Bey, dragoman of the mission), the Marquess
+of Steyne, Earl of Southdown, Sir Pitt and Lady
+Jane Crawley, Mr. Wagg, &c.  After dinner Mrs. Crawley
+had an assembly which was attended by the Duchess
+(Dowager) of Stilton, Duc de la Gruyere, Marchioness
+of Cheshire, Marchese Alessandro Strachino, Comte de
+Brie, Baron Schapzuger, Chevalier Tosti, Countess of
+Slingstone, and Lady F.  Macadam, Major-General and
+Lady G.  Macbeth, and (2) Miss Macbeths; Viscount
+Paddington, Sir Horace Fogey, Hon.  Sands Bedwin,
+Bobachy Bahawder," and an &c., which the reader may fill
+at his pleasure through a dozen close lines of small type.
+
+And in her commerce with the great our dear friend
+showed the same frankness which distinguished her
+transactions with the lowly in station.  On one occasion,
+when out at a very fine house, Rebecca was (perhaps
+rather ostentatiously) holding a conversation in the
+French language with a celebrated tenor singer of that
+nation, while the Lady Grizzel Macbeth looked over her
+shoulder scowling at the pair.
+
+"How very well you speak French," Lady Grizzel said,
+who herself spoke the tongue in an Edinburgh accent
+most remarkable to hear.
+
+"I ought to know it," Becky modestly said, casting
+down her eyes.  "I taught it in a school, and my mother
+was a Frenchwoman."
+
+Lady Grizzel was won by her humility and was
+mollified towards the little woman.  She deplored the fatal
+levelling tendencies of the age, which admitted persons
+of all classes into the society of their superiors, but her
+ladyship owned that this one at least was well behaved
+and never forgot her place in life.  She was a very good
+woman:  good to the poor; stupid, blameless, unsuspicious.
+It is not her ladyship's fault that she fancies herself
+better than you and me.  The skirts of her ancestors'
+garments have been kissed for centuries; it is a thousand
+years, they say, since the tartans of the head of the
+family were embraced by the defunct Duncan's lords and
+councillors, when the great ancestor of the House
+became King of Scotland.
+
+Lady Steyne, after the music scene, succumbed before
+Becky, and perhaps was not disinclined to her.  The
+younger ladies of the house of Gaunt were also
+compelled into submission.  Once or twice they set people at
+her, but they failed.  The brilliant Lady Stunnington tried
+a passage of arms with her, but was routed with great
+slaughter by the intrepid little Becky.  When attacked
+sometimes, Becky had a knack of adopting a demure
+ingenue air, under which she was most dangerous.  She
+said the wickedest things with the most simple unaffected
+air when in this mood, and would take care artlessly to
+apologize for her blunders, so that all the world should
+know that she had made them.
+
+Mr. Wagg, the celebrated wit, and a led captain and
+trencher-man of my Lord Steyne, was caused by the
+ladies to charge her; and the worthy fellow, leering at his
+patronesses and giving them a wink, as much as to say,
+"Now look out for sport," one evening began an assault
+upon Becky, who was unsuspiciously eating her dinner.
+The little woman, attacked on a sudden, but never
+without arms, lighted up in an instant, parried and riposted
+with a home-thrust, which made Wagg's face tingle with
+shame; then she returned to her soup with the most
+perfect calm and a quiet smile on her face.  Wagg's great
+patron, who gave him dinners and lent him a little money
+sometimes, and whose election, newspaper, and other
+jobs Wagg did, gave the luckless fellow such a savage
+glance with the eyes as almost made him sink under the
+table and burst into tears.  He looked piteously at my
+lord, who never spoke to him during dinner, and at the
+ladies, who disowned him.  At last Becky herself took
+compassion upon him and tried to engage him in talk.
+He was not asked to dinner again for six weeks; and
+Fiche, my lord's confidential man, to whom Wagg
+naturally paid a good deal of court, was instructed to tell
+him that if he ever dared to say a rude thing to Mrs.
+Crawley again, or make her the butt of his stupid jokes,
+Milor would put every one of his notes of hand into his
+lawyer's hands and sell him up without mercy.  Wagg
+wept before Fiche and implored his dear friend to intercede
+for him.  He wrote a poem in favour of Mrs. R.  C.,
+which appeared in the very next number of the Harum-
+scarum Magazine, which he conducted.  He implored her
+good-will at parties where he met her.  He cringed and
+coaxed Rawdon at the club.  He was allowed to come back
+to Gaunt House after a while.  Becky was always good to
+him, always amused, never angry.
+
+His lordship's vizier and chief confidential servant
+(with a seat in parliament and at the dinner table), Mr.
+Wenham, was much more prudent in his behaviour and
+opinions than Mr. Wagg.  However much he might be
+disposed to hate all parvenus (Mr. Wenham himself was a
+staunch old True Blue Tory, and his father a small coal-
+merchant in the north of England), this aide-de-camp of
+the Marquis never showed any sort of hostility to the
+new favourite, but pursued her with stealthy kindnesses
+and a sly and deferential politeness which somehow
+made Becky more uneasy than other people's overt
+hostilities.
+
+How the Crawleys got the money which was spent
+upon the entertainments with which they treated the
+polite world was a mystery which gave rise to some
+conversation at the time, and probably added zest to these
+little festivities.  Some persons averred that Sir Pitt Crawley
+gave his brother a handsome allowance; if he did,
+Becky's power over the Baronet must have been
+extraordinary indeed, and his character greatly changed in his
+advanced age.  Other parties hinted that it was Becky's
+habit to levy contributions on all her husband's friends:
+going to this one in tears with an account that there was
+an execution in the house; falling on her knees to that
+one and declaring that the whole family must go to gaol
+or commit suicide unless such and such a bill could be
+paid.  Lord Southdown, it was said, had been induced to
+give many hundreds through these pathetic representations.
+Young Feltham, of the --th Dragoons (and son of the firm of
+Tiler and Feltham, hatters and army accoutrement makers),
+and whom the Crawleys introduced into fashionable
+life, was also cited as one of Becky's victims in the
+pecuniary way.  People declared that she got money
+from various simply disposed persons, under pretence of
+getting them confidential appointments under Government.
+Who knows what stories were or were not told of
+our dear and innocent friend? Certain it is that if she had
+had all the money which she was said to have begged or
+borrowed or stolen, she might have capitalized and been
+honest for life, whereas,--but this is advancing matters.
+
+The truth is, that by economy and good management--
+by a sparing use of ready money and by paying scarcely
+anybody--people can manage, for a time at least, to
+make a great show with very little means:  and it is our
+belief that Becky's much-talked-of parties, which were
+not, after all was said, very numerous, cost this lady very
+little more than the wax candles which lighted the walls.
+Stillbrook and Queen's Crawley supplied her with game
+and fruit in abundance.  Lord Steyne's cellars were at her
+disposal, and that excellent nobleman's famous cooks
+presided over her little kitchen, or sent by my lord's
+order the rarest delicacies from their own.  I protest it is
+quite shameful in the world to abuse a simple creature,
+as people of her time abuse Becky, and I warn the
+public against believing one-tenth of the stories against her.
+If every person is to be banished from society who runs
+into debt and cannot pay--if we are to be peering into
+everybody's private life, speculating upon their income,
+and cutting them if we don't approve of their expenditure
+--why, what a howling wilderness and intolerable dwelling
+Vanity Fair would be!  Every man's hand would be
+against his neighbour in this case, my dear sir, and the
+benefits of civilization would be done away with.  We
+should be quarrelling, abusing, avoiding one another.  Our
+houses would become caverns, and we should go in rags
+because we cared for nobody.  Rents would go down.
+Parties wouldn't be given any more.  All the tradesmen
+of the town would be bankrupt.  Wine, wax-lights,
+comestibles, rouge, crinoline-petticoats, diamonds, wigs,
+Louis-Quatorze gimcracks, and old china, park hacks, and
+splendid high-stepping carriage horses--all the delights
+of life, I say,--would go to the deuce, if people did but
+act upon their silly principles and avoid those whom they
+dislike and abuse.  Whereas, by a little charity and mutual
+forbearance, things are made to go on pleasantly
+enough:  we may abuse a man as much as we like, and
+call him the greatest rascal unhanged--but do we wish
+to hang him therefore? No.  We shake hands when we
+meet.  If his cook is good we forgive him and go and dine
+with him, and we expect he will do the same by us.  Thus
+trade flourishes--civilization advances; peace is kept;
+new dresses are wanted for new assemblies every week;
+and the last year's vintage of Lafitte will remunerate the
+honest proprietor who reared it.
+
+At the time whereof we are writing, though the Great
+George was on the throne and ladies wore gigots and
+large combs like tortoise-shell shovels in their hair,
+instead of the simple sleeves and lovely wreaths which are
+actually in fashion, the manners of the very polite world
+were not, I take it, essentially different from those of the
+present day:  and their amusements pretty similar.  To us,
+from the outside, gazing over the policeman's shoulders
+at the bewildering beauties as they pass into Court or
+ball, they may seem beings of unearthly splendour and in
+the enjoyment of an exquisite happiness by us unattainable.
+It is to console some of these dissatisfied beings
+that we are narrating our dear Becky's struggles, and
+triumphs, and disappointments, of all of which, indeed,
+as is the case with all persons of merit, she had her share.
+
+At this time the amiable amusement of acting charades
+had come among us from France, and was considerably
+in vogue in this country, enabling the many ladies
+amongst us who had beauty to display their charms, and
+the fewer number who had cleverness to exhibit their wit.
+My Lord Steyne was incited by Becky, who perhaps
+believed herself endowed with both the above qualifications,
+to give an entertainment at Gaunt House, which should
+include some of these little dramas--and we must take
+leave to introduce the reader to this brilliant reunion,
+and, with a melancholy welcome too, for it will be among
+the very last of the fashionable entertainments to which
+it will be our fortune to conduct him.
+
+A portion of that splendid room, the picture gallery of
+Gaunt House, was arranged as the charade theatre.  It
+had been so used when George III was king; and a
+picture of the Marquis of Gaunt is still extant, with his hair
+in powder and a pink ribbon, in a Roman shape, as it
+was called, enacting the part of Cato in Mr. Addison's
+tragedy of that name, performed before their Royal
+Highnesses the Prince of Wales, the Bishop of Osnaburgh,
+and Prince William Henry, then children like the actor.
+One or two of the old properties were drawn out of the
+garrets, where they had lain ever since, and furbished up
+anew for the present festivities.
+
+Young Bedwin Sands, then an elegant dandy and Eastern
+traveller, was manager of the revels.  An Eastern traveller
+was somebody in those days, and the adventurous
+Bedwin, who had published his quarto and passed some
+months under the tents in the desert, was a personage of
+no small importance.  In his volume there were several
+pictures of Sands in various oriental costumes; and he
+travelled about with a black attendant of most
+unprepossessing appearance, just like another Brian de Bois
+Guilbert.  Bedwin, his costumes, and black man, were
+hailed at Gaunt House as very valuable acquisitions.
+
+He led off the first charade.  A Turkish officer with an
+immense plume of feathers (the Janizaries were
+supposed to be still in existence, and the tarboosh had not
+as yet displaced the ancient and majestic head-dress of
+the true believers) was seen couched on a divan, and
+making believe to puff at a narghile, in which, however,
+for the sake of the ladies, only a fragrant pastille was
+allowed to smoke.  The Turkish dignitary yawns and
+expresses signs of weariness and idleness.  He claps his hands
+and Mesrour the Nubian appears, with bare arms,
+bangles, yataghans, and every Eastern ornament--gaunt,
+tall, and hideous.  He makes a salaam before my lord the
+Aga.
+
+A thrill of terror and delight runs through the assembly.
+The ladies whisper to one another.  The black slave
+was given to Bedwin Sands by an Egyptian pasha in
+exchange for three dozen of Maraschino.  He has sewn up
+ever so many odalisques in sacks and tilted them into
+the Nile.
+
+"Bid the slave-merchant enter," says the Turkish
+voluptuary with a wave of his hand.  Mesrour conducts the
+slave-merchant into my lord's presence; he brings a
+veiled female with him.  He removes the veil.  A thrill of
+applause bursts through the house.  It is Mrs. Winkworth
+(she was a Miss Absolom) with the beautiful eyes and
+hair.  She is in a gorgeous oriental costume; the black
+braided locks are twined with innumerable jewels; her
+dress is covered over with gold piastres.  The odious
+Mahometan expresses himself charmed by her beauty.  She
+falls down on her knees and entreats him to restore her
+to the mountains where she was born, and where her
+Circassian lover is still deploring the absence of his Zuleikah.
+No entreaties will move the obdurate Hassan.  He
+laughs at the notion of the Circassian bridegroom.
+Zuleikah covers her face with her hands and drops down in
+an attitude of the most beautiful despair.  There seems to
+be no hope for her, when--when the Kislar Aga appears.
+
+The Kislar Aga brings a letter from the Sultan.  Hassan
+receives and places on his head the dread firman.  A
+ghastly terror seizes him, while on the Negro's face (it is
+Mesrour again in another costume) appears a ghastly
+joy.  "Mercy!  mercy!" cries the Pasha:  while the Kislar
+Aga, grinning horribly, pulls out--a bow-string.
+
+The curtain draws just as he is going to use that awful
+weapon.  Hassan from within bawls out, "First two
+syllables"--and Mrs. Rawdon Crawley, who is going to act in
+the charade, comes forward and compliments Mrs.
+Winkworth on the admirable taste and beauty of her
+costume.
+
+The second part of the charade takes place.  It is still
+an Eastern scene.  Hassan, in another dress, is in an
+attitude by Zuleikah, who is perfectly reconciled to him.
+The Kislar Aga has become a peaceful black slave.  It is
+sunrise on the desert, and the Turks turn their heads
+eastwards and bow to the sand.  As there are no dromedaries
+at hand, the band facetiously plays "The Camels
+are coming." An enormous Egyptian head figures in the
+scene.  It is a musical one--and, to the surprise of the
+oriental travellers, sings a comic song, composed by Mr.
+Wagg.  The Eastern voyagers go off dancing, like
+Papageno and the Moorish King in The Magic Flute.  "Last
+two syllables," roars the head.
+
+The last act opens.  It is a Grecian tent this time.  A
+tall and stalwart man reposes on a couch there.  Above
+him hang his helmet and shield.  There is no need for
+them now.  Ilium is down.  Iphigenia is slain.  Cassandra is
+a prisoner in his outer halls.  The king of men (it is
+Colonel Crawley, who, indeed, has no notion about the sack
+of Ilium or the conquest of Cassandra), the anax andron
+is asleep in his chamber at Argos.  A lamp casts the
+broad shadow of the sleeping warrior flickering on the
+wall--the sword and shield of Troy glitter in its light.
+The band plays the awful music of Don Juan, before the
+statue enters.
+
+Aegisthus steals in pale and on tiptoe.  What is that
+ghastly face looking out balefully after him from behind
+the arras? He raises his dagger to strike the sleeper, who
+turns in his bed, and opens his broad chest as if for the
+blow.  He cannot strike the noble slumbering chieftain.
+Clytemnestra glides swiftly into the room like an
+apparition--her arms are bare and white--her tawny hair
+floats down her shoulders--her face is deadly pale--and
+her eyes are lighted up with a smile so ghastly that
+people quake as they look at her.
+
+A tremor ran through the room.  "Good God!" somebody
+said, "it's Mrs. Rawdon Crawley."
+
+Scornfully she snatches the dagger out of Aegisthus's
+hand and advances to the bed.  You see it shining over
+her head in the glimmer of the lamp, and--and the lamp
+goes out, with a groan, and all is dark.
+
+The darkness and the scene frightened people.  Rebecca
+performed her part so well, and with such ghastly
+truth, that the spectators were all dumb, until, with a
+burst, all the lamps of the hall blazed out again, when
+everybody began to shout applause.  "Brava!  brava!" old
+Steyne's strident voice was heard roaring over all the
+rest.  "By--, she'd do it too," he said between his teeth.
+The performers were called by the whole house, which
+sounded with cries of "Manager!  Clytemnestra!"
+Agamemnon could not be got to show in his classical
+tunic, but stood in the background with Aegisthus and
+others of the performers of the little play.  Mr. Bedwin
+Sands led on Zuleikah and Clytemnestra.  A great
+personage insisted on being presented to the charming
+Clytemnestra.  "Heigh ha? Run him through the body.
+Marry somebody else, hay?" was the apposite remark
+made by His Royal Highness.
+
+"Mrs. Rawdon Crawley was quite killing in the part,"
+said Lord Steyne.  Becky laughed, gay and saucy looking,
+and swept the prettiest little curtsey ever seen.
+
+Servants brought in salvers covered with numerous cool
+dainties, and the performers disappeared to get ready
+for the second charade-tableau.
+
+The three syllables of this charade were to be depicted
+in pantomime, and the performance took place in the
+following wise:
+
+First syllable.  Colonel Rawdon Crawley, C.B., with a
+slouched hat and a staff, a great-coat, and a lantern
+borrowed from the stables, passed across the stage bawling
+out, as if warning the inhabitants of the hour.  In the
+lower window are seen two bagmen playing apparently
+at the game of cribbage, over which they yawn much.
+To them enters one looking like Boots (the Honourable
+G.  Ringwood), which character the young gentleman
+performed to perfection, and divests them of their lower
+coverings; and presently Chambermaid (the Right
+Honourable Lord Southdown) with two candlesticks, and a
+warming-pan.  She ascends to the upper apartment and
+warms the bed.  She uses the warming-pan as a weapon
+wherewith she wards off the attention of the bagmen.
+She exits.  They put on their night-caps and pull down
+the blinds.  Boots comes out and closes the shutters of
+the ground-floor chamber.  You hear him bolting and
+chaining the door within.  All the lights go out.  The music
+plays Dormez, dormez, chers Amours.  A voice from
+behind the curtain says, "First syllable."
+
+Second syllable.  The lamps are lighted up all of a
+sudden.  The music plays the old air from John of Paris,
+Ah quel plaisir d'etre en voyage.  It is the same scene.
+Between the first and second floors of the house
+represented, you behold a sign on which the Steyne arms
+are painted.  All the bells are ringing all over the house.
+In the lower apartment you see a man with a long slip of
+paper presenting it to another, who shakes his fists,
+threatens and vows that it is monstrous.  "Ostler, bring
+round my gig," cries another at the door.  He chucks
+Chambermaid (the Right Honourable Lord Southdown)
+under the chin; she seems to deplore his absence, as
+Calypso did that of that other eminent traveller Ulysses.
+Boots (the Honourable G.  Ringwood) passes with a
+wooden box, containing silver flagons, and cries "Pots"
+with such exquisite humour and naturalness that the
+whole house rings with applause, and a bouquet is thrown
+to him.  Crack, crack, crack, go the whips.   Landlord,
+chambermaid, waiter rush to the door, but just as some
+distinguished guest is arriving, the curtains close, and the
+invisible theatrical manager cries out "Second syllable."
+
+"I think it must be 'Hotel,' " says Captain Grigg of the
+Life Guards; there is a general laugh at the Captain's
+cleverness.  He is not very far from the mark.
+
+While the third syllable is in preparation, the band
+begins a nautical medley--"All in the Downs," "Cease Rude
+Boreas," "Rule Britannia," "In the Bay of Biscay O!"--
+some maritime event is about to take place.  A ben is
+heard ringing as the curtain draws aside.  "Now, gents,
+for the shore!" a voice exclaims.  People take leave of
+each other.  They point anxiously as if towards the clouds,
+which are represented by a dark curtain, and they nod
+their heads in fear.  Lady Squeams (the Right Honourable
+Lord Southdown), her lap-dog, her bags, reticules, and
+husband sit down, and cling hold of some ropes.  It is
+evidently a ship.
+
+The Captain (Colonel Crawley, C.B.), with a cocked
+hat and a telescope, comes in, holding his hat on his
+head, and looks out; his coat tails fly about as if in the
+wind.  When he leaves go of his hat to use his telescope,
+his hat flies off, with immense applause.  It is blowing
+fresh.  The music rises and whistles louder and louder;
+the mariners go across the stage staggering, as if the ship
+was in severe motion.  The Steward (the Honourable G.
+Ringwood) passes reeling by, holding six basins.  He puts
+one rapidly by Lord Squeams--Lady Squeams, giving a
+pinch to her dog, which begins to howl piteously, puts
+her pocket-handkerchief to her face, and rushes away as
+for the cabin.  The music rises up to the wildest pitch of
+stormy excitement, and the third syllable is concluded.
+
+There was a little ballet, "Le Rossignol," in which
+Montessu and Noblet used to be famous in those days,
+and which Mr. Wagg transferred to the English stage as
+an opera, putting his verse, of which he was a skilful
+writer, to the pretty airs of the ballet.  It was dressed in
+old French costume, and little Lord Southdown now
+appeared admirably attired in the disguise of an old woman
+hobbling about the stage with a faultless crooked stick.
+
+Trills of melody were heard behind the scenes, and
+gurgling from a sweet pasteboard cottage covered with
+roses and trellis work.  "Philomele, Philomele," cries
+the old woman, and Philomele comes out.
+
+More applause--it is Mrs. Rawdon Crawley in powder
+and patches, the most ravissante little Marquise in the
+world.
+
+She comes in laughing, humming, and frisks about the
+stage with all the innocence of theatrical youth--she
+makes a curtsey.  Mamma says "Why, child, you are
+always laughing and singing," and away she goes, with--
+
+THE ROSE UPON MY BALCONY
+
+The rose upon my balcony the morning air perfuming
+Was leafless all the winter time and pining for the spring;
+You ask me why her breath is sweet and why her cheek is
+  blooming,
+It is because the sun is out and birds begin to sing.
+
+The nightingale, whose melody is through the greenwood
+  ringing,
+Was silent when the boughs were bare and winds were
+  blowing keen:
+And if, Mamma, you ask of me the reason of his singing,
+It is because the sun is out and all the leaves are green.
+
+Thus each performs his part, Mamma, the birds have found
+  their voices,
+The blowing rose a flush, Mamma, her bonny cheek to
+  dye;
+And there's sunshine in my heart, Mamma, which wakens
+  and rejoices,
+And so I sing and blush, Mamma, and that's the reason
+  why.
+
+During the intervals of the stanzas of this ditty, the
+good-natured personage addressed as Mamma by the
+singer, and whose large whiskers appeared under her cap,
+seemed very anxious to exhibit her maternal affection
+by embracing the innocent creature who performed the
+daughter's part.  Every caress was received with loud
+acclamations of laughter by the sympathizing audience.
+At its conclusion (while the music was performing a
+symphony as if ever so many birds were warbling) the
+whole house was unanimous for an encore:  and applause
+and bouquets without end were showered upon the
+Nightingale of the evening.  Lord Steyne's voice of
+applause was loudest of all.  Becky, the nightingale, took
+the flowers which he threw to her and pressed them to
+her heart with the air of a consummate comedian.  Lord
+Steyne was frantic with delight.  His guests' enthusiasm
+harmonized with his own.  Where was the beautiful
+black-eyed Houri whose appearance in the first charade had
+caused such delight? She was twice as handsome as
+Becky, but the brilliancy of the latter had quite eclipsed
+her.  All voices were for her.  Stephens, Caradori, Ronzi
+de Begnis, people compared her to one or the other, and
+agreed with good reason, very likely, that had she been
+an actress none on the stage could have surpassed her.
+She had reached her culmination:  her voice rose trilling
+and bright over the storm of applause, and soared as
+high and joyful as her triumph.  There was a ball after
+the dramatic entertainments, and everybody pressed
+round Becky as the great point of attraction of the
+evening.  The Royal Personage declared with an oath that
+she was perfection, and engaged her again and again in
+conversation.  Little Becky's soul swelled with pride and
+delight at these honours; she saw fortune, fame, fashion
+before her.  Lord Steyne was her slave, followed her
+everywhere, and scarcely spoke to any one in the room
+beside, and paid her the most marked compliments and
+attention.  She still appeared in her Marquise costume
+and danced a minuet with Monsieur de Truffigny,
+Monsieur Le Duc de la Jabotiere's attache; and the
+Duke, who had all the traditions of the ancient court,
+pronounced that Madame Crawley was worthy to have
+been a pupil of Vestris, or to have figured at Versailles.
+Only a feeling of dignity, the gout, and the strongest
+sense of duty and personal sacrifice prevented his
+Excellency from dancing with her himself, and he declared
+in public that a lady who could talk and dance like Mrs.
+Rawdon was fit to be ambassadress at any court in
+Europe.  He was only consoled when he heard that she
+was half a Frenchwoman by birth.  "None but a
+compatriot," his Excellency declared, "could have performed
+that majestic dance in such a way."
+
+Then she figured in a waltz with Monsieur de
+Klingenspohr, the Prince of Peterwaradin's cousin and
+attache.  The delighted Prince, having less retenue than
+his French diplomatic colleague, insisted upon taking a
+turn with the charming creature, and twirled round the
+ball-room with her, scattering the diamonds out of his
+boot-tassels and hussar jacket until his Highness was fairly
+out of breath.  Papoosh Pasha himself would have liked
+to dance with her if that amusement had been the custom
+of his country.  The company made a circle round her
+and applauded as wildly as if she had been a Noblet or
+a Taglioni.  Everybody was in ecstacy; and Becky too,
+you may be sure.  She passed by Lady Stunnington with
+a look of scorn.  She patronized Lady Gaunt and her
+astonished and mortified sister-in-law--she ecrased all
+rival charmers.  As for poor Mrs. Winkworth, and her
+long hair and great eyes, which had made such an effect
+at the commencement of the evening--where was she
+now? Nowhere in the race.  She might tear her long hair
+and cry her great eyes out, but there was not a person
+to heed or to deplore the discomfiture.
+
+The greatest triumph of all was at supper time.  She
+was placed at the grand exclusive table with his Royal
+Highness the exalted personage before mentioned, and
+the rest of the great guests.  She was served on gold
+plate.  She might have had pearls melted into her
+champagne if she liked--another Cleopatra--and the potentate
+of Peterwaradin would have given half the brilliants off
+his jacket for a kind glance from those dazzling eyes.
+Jabotiere wrote home about her to his government.  The
+ladies at the other tables, who supped off mere silver and
+marked Lord Steyne's constant attention to her, vowed
+it was a monstrous infatuation, a gross insult to ladies of
+rank.  If sarcasm could have killed, Lady Stunnington
+would have slain her on the spot.
+
+Rawdon Crawley was scared at these triumphs.  They
+seemed to separate his wife farther than ever from him
+somehow.  He thought with a feeling very like pain how
+immeasurably she was his superior.
+
+When the hour of departure came, a crowd of young
+men followed her to her carriage, for which the people
+without bawled, the cry being caught up by the link-men
+who were stationed outside the tall gates of Gaunt
+House, congratulating each person who issued from the
+gate and hoping his Lordship had enjoyed this noble
+party.
+
+Mrs. Rawdon Crawley's carriage, coming up to the
+gate after due shouting, rattled into the illuminated
+court-yard and drove up to the covered way.  Rawdon
+put his wife into the carriage, which drove off.  Mr.
+Wenham had proposed to him to walk home, and offered
+the Colonel the refreshment of a cigar.
+
+They lighted their cigars by the lamp of one of the
+many link-boys outside, and Rawdon walked on with his
+friend Wenham.  Two persons separated from the crowd
+and followed the two gentlemen; and when they had
+walked down Gaunt Square a few score of paces, one
+of the men came up and, touching Rawdon on the shoulder,
+said, "Beg your pardon, Colonel, I vish to speak to
+you most particular." This gentleman's acquaintance
+gave a loud whistle as the latter spoke, at which signal a
+cab came clattering up from those stationed at the gate
+of Gaunt House--and the aide-de-camp ran round and
+placed himself in front of Colonel Crawley.
+
+That gallant officer at once knew what had befallen
+him.  He was in the hands of the bailiffs.  He started back,
+falling against the man who had first touched him.
+
+"We're three on us--it's no use bolting," the man
+behind said.
+
+"It's you, Moss, is it?" said the Colonel, who appeared
+to know his interlocutor.  "How much is it?"
+
+"Only a small thing," whispered Mr. Moss, of Cursitor
+Street, Chancery Lane, and assistant officer to the Sheriff
+of Middlesex--"One hundred and sixty-six, six and eight-
+pence, at the suit of Mr. Nathan."
+
+"Lend me a hundred, Wenham, for God's sake," poor
+Rawdon said--"I've got seventy at home."
+
+"I've not got ten pounds in the world," said poor Mr.
+Wenham--"Good night, my dear fellow."
+
+"Good night," said Rawdon ruefully.  And Wenham
+walked away--and Rawdon Crawley finished his cigar
+as the cab drove under Temple Bar.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LII
+
+
+In Which Lord Steyne Shows Himself in a Most Amiable Light
+
+When Lord Steyne was benevolently disposed, he did
+nothing by halves, and his kindness towards the Crawley
+family did the greatest honour to his benevolent
+discrimination.  His lordship extended his good-will to little
+Rawdon:  he pointed out to the boy's parents the necessity
+of sending him to a public school, that he was of
+an age now when emulation, the first principles of the
+Latin language, pugilistic exercises, and the society of
+his fellow-boys would be of the greatest benefit to the
+boy.  His father objected that he was not rich enough to
+send the child to a good public school; his mother that
+Briggs was a capital mistress for him, and had brought
+him on (as indeed was the fact) famously in English,
+the Latin rudiments, and in general learning:  but all these
+objections disappeared before the generous perseverance
+of the Marquis of Steyne.  His lordship was one of the
+governors of that famous old collegiate institution called
+the Whitefriars.  It had been a Cistercian Convent in old
+days, when the Smithfield, which is contiguous to it, was
+a tournament ground.  Obstinate heretics used to be
+brought thither convenient for burning hard by.  Henry
+VIII, the Defender of the Faith, seized upon the
+monastery and its possessions and hanged and tortured some
+of the monks who could not accommodate themselves to
+the pace of his reform.  Finally, a great merchant bought
+the house and land adjoining, in which, and with the help
+of other wealthy endowments of land and money, he
+established a famous foundation hospital for old men
+and children.  An extern school grew round the old almost
+monastic foundation, which subsists still with its
+middle-age costume and usages--and all Cistercians pray
+that it may long flourish.
+
+Of this famous house, some of the greatest noblemen,
+prelates, and dignitaries in England are governors:  and
+as the boys are very comfortably lodged, fed, and
+educated, and subsequently inducted to good scholarships
+at the University and livings in the Church, many little
+gentlemen are devoted to the ecclesiastical profession
+from their tenderest years, and there is considerable
+emulation to procure nominations for the foundation.  It
+was originally intended for the sons of poor and
+deserving clerics and laics, but many of the noble governors
+of the Institution, with an enlarged and rather capricious
+benevolence, selected all sorts of objects for their bounty.
+To get an education for nothing, and a future livelihood
+and profession assured, was so excellent a scheme that
+some of the richest people did not disdain it; and not
+only great men's relations, but great men themselves, sent
+their sons to profit by the chance--Right Rev.  prelates
+sent their own kinsmen or the sons of their clergy, while,
+on the other hand, some great noblemen did not disdain
+to patronize the children of their confidential servants--
+so that a lad entering this establishment had every
+variety of youthful society wherewith to mingle.
+
+Rawdon Crawley, though the only book which he studied
+was the Racing Calendar, and though his chief
+recollections of polite learning were connected with the
+floggings which he received at Eton in his early youth,
+had that decent and honest reverence for classical learning
+which all English gentlemen feel, and was glad to think
+that his son was to have a provision for life, perhaps,
+and a certain opportunity of becoming a scholar.  And
+although his boy was his chief solace and companion, and
+endeared to him by a thousand small ties, about which
+he did not care to speak to his wife, who had all along
+shown the utmost indifference to their son, yet Rawdon
+agreed at once to part with him and to give up his own
+greatest comfort and benefit for the sake of the welfare
+of the little lad.  He did not know how fond he was of
+the child until it became necessary to let him go away.
+When he was gone, he felt more sad and downcast than
+he cared to own--far sadder than the boy himself, who
+was happy enough to enter a new career and find
+companions of his own age.  Becky burst out laughing once
+or twice when the Colonel, in his clumsy, incoherent way,
+tried to express his sentimental sorrows at the boy's
+departure.  The poor fellow felt that his dearest pleasure
+and closest friend was taken from him.  He looked often
+and wistfully at the little vacant bed in his dressing-room,
+where the child used to sleep.  He missed him sadly of
+mornings and tried in vain to walk in the park without
+him.  He did not know how solitary he was until little
+Rawdon was gone.  He liked the people who were fond of
+him, and would go and sit for long hours with his
+good-natured sister Lady Jane, and talk to her about
+the virtues, and good looks, and hundred good qualities
+of the child.
+
+Young Rawdon's aunt, we have said, was very fond
+of him, as was her little girl, who wept copiously when
+the time for her cousin's departure came.  The elder
+Rawdon was thankful for the fondness of mother and
+daughter.  The very best and honestest feelings of the
+man came out in these artless outpourings of paternal
+feeling in which he indulged in their presence, and
+encouraged by their sympathy.  He secured not only Lady
+Jane's kindness, but her sincere regard, by the feelings
+which he manifested, and which he could not show to his
+own wife.  The two kinswomen met as seldom as possible.
+Becky laughed bitterly at Jane's feelings and softness;
+the other's kindly and gentle nature could not but revolt
+at her sister's callous behaviour.
+
+It estranged Rawdon from his wife more than he knew
+or acknowledged to himself.  She did not care for the
+estrangement.  Indeed, she did not miss him or anybody.
+She looked upon him as her errand-man and humble
+slave.  He might be ever so depressed or sulky, and she
+did not mark his demeanour, or only treated it with a
+sneer.  She was busy thinking about her position, or her
+pleasures, or her advancement in society; she ought to
+have held a great place in it, that is certain.
+
+It was honest Briggs who made up the little kit for the
+boy which he was to take to school.  Molly, the housemaid,
+blubbered in the passage when he went away--
+Molly kind and faithful in spite of a long arrear of
+unpaid wages.  Mrs. Becky could not let her husband have
+the carriage to take the boy to school.  Take the horses
+into the City!--such a thing was never heard of.  Let a
+cab be brought.  She did not offer to kiss him when he
+went, nor did the child propose to embrace her; but
+gave a kiss to old Briggs (whom, in general, he was very
+shy of caressing), and consoled her by pointing out that
+he was to come home on Saturdays, when she would
+have the benefit of seeing him.  As the cab rolled towards
+the City, Becky's carriage rattled off to the park.  She
+was chattering and laughing with a score of young dandies
+by the Serpentine as the father and son entered at the
+old gates of the school--where Rawdon left the child
+and came away with a sadder purer feeling in his heart
+than perhaps that poor battered fellow had ever known
+since he himself came out of the nursery.
+
+He walked all the way home very dismally, and dined
+alone with Briggs.  He was very kind to her and grateful
+for her love and watchfulness over the boy.  His
+conscience smote him that he had borrowed Briggs's money
+and aided in deceiving her.  They talked about little
+Rawdon a long time, for Becky only came home to dress
+and go out to dinner--and then he went off uneasily to
+drink tea with Lady Jane, and tell her of what had
+happened, and how little Rawdon went off like a trump, and
+how he was to wear a gown and little knee-breeches, and
+how young Blackball, Jack Blackball's son, of the old
+regiment, had taken him in charge and promised to be
+kind to him.
+
+In the course of a week, young Blackball had
+constituted little Rawdon his fag, shoe-black, and breakfast
+toaster; initiated him into the mysteries of the Latin
+Grammar; and thrashed him three or four times, but not
+severely.  The little chap's good-natured honest face won
+his way for him.  He only got that degree of beating which
+was, no doubt, good for him; and as for blacking shoes,
+toasting bread, and fagging in general, were these offices
+not deemed to be necessary parts of every young English
+gentleman's education?
+
+Our business does not lie with the second generation
+and Master Rawdon's life at school, otherwise the present
+tale might be carried to any indefinite length.  The Colonel
+went to see his son a short time afterwards and found
+the lad sufficiently well and happy, grinning and laughing
+in his little black gown and little breeches.
+
+His father sagaciously tipped Blackball, his master, a
+sovereign, and secured that young gentleman's good-will
+towards his fag.  As a protege of the great Lord Steyne,
+the nephew of a County member, and son of a Colonel
+and C.B., whose name appeared in some of the most
+fashionable parties in the Morning Post, perhaps the
+school authorities were disposed not to look unkindly on
+the child.  He had plenty of pocket-money, which he
+spent in treating his comrades royally to raspberry tarts,
+and he was often allowed to come home on Saturdays
+to his father, who always made a jubilee of that day.
+When free, Rawdon would take him to the play, or send
+him thither with the footman; and on Sundays he went to
+church with Briggs and Lady Jane and his cousins.
+Rawdon marvelled over his stories about school, and
+fights, and fagging.  Before long, he knew the names of all
+the masters and the principal boys as well as little
+Rawdon himself.  He invited little Rawdon's crony from
+school, and made both the children sick with pastry, and
+oysters, and porter after the play.  He tried to look knowing
+over the Latin grammar when little Rawdon showed
+him what part of that work he was "in." "Stick to it, my
+boy," he said to him with much gravity, "there's nothing
+like a good classical education!  Nothing!"
+
+Becky's contempt for her husband grew greater every
+day.  "Do what you like--dine where you please--go and
+have ginger-beer and sawdust at Astley's, or psalm-
+singing with Lady Jane--only don't expect me to busy
+myself with the boy.  I have your interests to attend to,
+as you can't attend to them yourself.  I should like to
+know where you would have been now, and in what sort
+of a position in society, if I had not looked after you."
+Indeed, nobody wanted poor old Rawdon at the parties
+whither Becky used to go.  She was often asked without
+him now.  She talked about great people as if she had the
+fee-simple of May Fair, and when the Court went into
+mourning, she always wore black.
+
+Little Rawdon being disposed of, Lord Steyne, who
+took such a parental interest in the affairs of this amiable
+poor family, thought that their expenses might be very
+advantageously curtailed by the departure of Miss Briggs,
+and that Becky was quite clever enough to take the
+management of her own house.  It has been narrated in a
+former chapter how the benevolent nobleman had given
+his protegee money.to pay off her little debt to Miss
+Briggs, who however still remained behind with her
+friends; whence my lord came to the painful conclusion
+that Mrs. Crawley had made some other use of the
+money confided to her than that for which her generous
+patron had given the loan.  However, Lord Steyne was
+not so rude as to impart his suspicions upon this head to
+Mrs. Becky, whose feelings might be hurt by any
+controversy on the money-question, and who might have a
+thousand painful reasons for disposing otherwise of his
+lordship's generous loan.  But he determined to satisfy
+himself of the real state of the case, and instituted the
+necessary inquiries in a most cautious and delicate
+manner.
+
+In the first place he took an early opportunity of
+pumping Miss Briggs.  That was not a difficult operation.
+A very little encouragement would set that worthy woman
+to talk volubly and pour out all within her.  And one day
+when Mrs. Rawdon had gone out to drive (as Mr. Fiche,
+his lordship's confidential servant, easily learned at the
+livery stables where the Crawleys kept their carriage and
+horses, or rather, where the livery-man kept a carriage
+and horses for Mr. and Mrs. Crawley)--my lord dropped
+in upon the Curzon Street house--asked Briggs for a cup
+of coffee--told her that he had good accounts of the little
+boy at school--and in five minutes found out from her
+that Mrs. Rawdon had given her nothing except a black
+silk gown, for which Miss Briggs was immensely grateful.
+
+He laughed within himself at this artless story.  For the
+truth is, our dear friend Rebecca had given him a most
+circumstantial narration of Briggs's delight at receiving
+her money--eleven hundred and twenty-five pounds--
+and in what securities she had invested it; and what a
+pang Becky herself felt in being obliged to pay away such
+a delightful sum of money.  "Who knows," the dear
+woman may have thought within herself, "perhaps he
+may give me a little more?" My lord, however, made no
+such proposal to the little schemer--very likely thinking
+that he had been sufficiently generous already.
+
+He had the curiosity, then, to ask Miss Briggs about
+the state of her private affairs--and she told his lordship
+candidly what her position was--how Miss Crawley had
+left her a legacy--how her relatives had had part of it
+--how Colonel Crawley had put out another portion, for
+which she had the best security and interest--and how
+Mr. and Mrs. Rawdon had kindly busied themselves with
+Sir Pitt, who was to dispose of the remainder most
+advantageously for her, when he had time.  My lord asked
+how much the Colonel had already invested for her, and
+Miss Briggs at once and truly told him that the sum was
+six hundred and odd pounds.
+
+But as soon as she had told her story, the voluble
+Briggs repented of her frankness and besought my lord
+not to tell Mr. Crawley of the confessions which she had
+made.  "The Colonel was so kind--Mr. Crawley might
+be offended and pay back the money, for which she
+could get no such good interest anywhere else." Lord
+Steyne, laughing, promised he never would divulge their
+conversation, and when he and Miss Briggs parted he
+laughed still more.
+
+"What an accomplished little devil it is!" thought he.
+"What a splendid actress and manager!  She had almost
+got a second supply out of me the other day; with her
+coaxing ways.  She beats all the women I have ever seen
+in the course of all my well-spent life.  They are babies
+compared to her.  I am a greenhorn myself, and a fool in
+her hands--an old fool.  She is unsurpassable in lies."
+His lordship's admiration for Becky rose immeasurably
+at this proof of her cleverness.  Getting the money was
+nothing--but getting double the sum she wanted, and
+paying nobody--it was a magnificent stroke.  And Crawley,
+my lord thought--Crawley is not such a fool as he
+looks and seems.  He has managed the matter cleverly
+enough on his side.  Nobody would ever have supposed
+from his face and demeanour that he knew anything
+about this money business; and yet he put her up to it,
+and has spent the money, no doubt.  In this opinion my
+lord, we know, was mistaken, but it influenced a good
+deal his behaviour towards Colonel Crawley, whom he
+began to treat with even less than that semblance of
+respect which he had formerly shown towards that
+gentleman.  It never entered into the head of Mrs.
+Crawley's patron that the little lady might be making a
+purse for herself; and, perhaps, if the truth must be told,
+he judged of Colonel Crawley by his experience of other
+husbands, whom he had known in the course of the long
+and well-spent life which had made him acquainted with
+a great deal of the weakness of mankind.  My lord had
+bought so many men during his life that he was surely
+to be pardoned for supposing that he had found the price
+of this one.
+
+He taxed Becky upon the point on the very first occasion
+when he met her alone, and he complimented her,
+good-humouredly, on her cleverness in getting more than
+the money which she required.  Becky was only a little
+taken aback.  It was not the habit of this dear creature
+to tell falsehoods, except when necessity compelled, but
+in these great emergencies it was her practice to lie very
+freely; and in an instant she was ready with another neat
+plausible circumstantial story which she administered to
+her patron.  The previous statement which she had made
+to him was a falsehood--a wicked falsehood--she
+owned it.  But who had made her tell it? "Ah, my Lord,"
+she said, "you don't know all I have to suffer and bear
+in silence; you see me gay and happy before you--you
+little know what I have to endure when there is no
+protector near me.  It was my husband, by threats and
+the most savage treatment, forced me to ask for that
+sum about which I deceived you.  It was he who,
+foreseeing that questions might be asked regarding the
+disposal of the money, forced me to account for it as I
+did.  He took the money.  He told me he had paid Miss
+Briggs; I did not want, I did not dare to doubt him.
+Pardon the wrong which a desperate man is forced to
+commit, and pity a miserable, miserable woman." She
+burst into tears as she spoke.  Persecuted virtue never
+looked more bewitchingly wretched.
+
+They had a long conversation, driving round and round
+the Regent's Park in Mrs. Crawley's carriage together,
+a conversation of which it is not necessary to repeat
+the details, but the upshot of it was that, when Becky
+came home, she flew to her dear Briggs with a smiling
+face and announced that she had some very good news
+for her.  Lord Steyne had acted in the noblest and most
+generous manner.  He was always thinking how and when
+he could do good.  Now that little Rawdon was gone to
+school, a dear companion and friend was no longer
+necessary to her.  She was grieved beyond measure to part
+with Briggs, but her means required that she should
+practise every retrenchment, and her sorrow was
+mitigated by the idea that her dear Briggs would be far
+better provided for by her generous patron than in her
+humble home.  Mrs. Pilkington, the housekeeper at Gauntly
+Hall, was growing exceedingly old, feeble, and rheumatic:
+she was not equal to the work of superintending
+that vast mansion, and must be on the look out for a
+successor.  It was a splendid position.  The family did not
+go to Gauntly once in two years.  At other times the
+housekeeper was the mistress of the magnificent
+mansion--had four covers daily for her table; was visited by
+the clergy and the most respectable people of the county
+--was the lady of Gauntly, in fact; and the two last
+housekeepers before Mrs. Pilkington had married rectors
+of Gauntly--but Mrs. P.  could not, being the aunt of
+the present Rector.  The place was not to be hers yet,
+but she might go down on a visit to Mrs. Pilkington and
+see whether she would like to succeed her.
+
+What words can paint the ecstatic gratitude of Briggs!
+All she stipulated for was that little Rawdon should be
+allowed to come down and see her at the Hall.  Becky
+promised this--anything.  She ran up to her husband when
+he came home and told him the joyful news.  Rawdon
+was glad, deuced glad; the weight was off his conscience
+about poor Briggs's money.  She was provided for, at any
+rate, but--but his mind was disquiet.  He did not seem
+to be all right, somehow.  He told little Southdown what
+Lord Steyne had done, and the young man eyed Crawley
+with an air which surprised the latter.
+
+He told Lady Jane of this second proof of Steyne's
+bounty, and she, too, looked odd and alarmed; so did
+Sir Pitt.  "She is too clever and--and gay to be allowed
+to go from party to party without a companion," both
+said.  "You must go with her, Rawdon, wherever she
+goes, and you must have somebody with her--one of the
+girls from Queen's Crawley, perhaps, though they were
+rather giddy guardians for her."
+
+Somebody Becky should have.  But in the meantime
+it was clear that honest Briggs must not lose her chance
+of settlement for life, and so she and her bags were
+packed, and she set off on her journey.  And so two of
+Rawdon's out-sentinels were in the hands of the enemy.
+
+Sir Pitt went and expostulated with his sister-in-law
+upon the subject of the dismissal of Briggs and other
+matters of delicate family interest.  In vain she pointed
+out to him how necessary was the protection of Lord
+Steyne for her poor husband; how cruel it would be on
+their part to deprive Briggs of the position offered to her.
+Cajolements, coaxings, smiles, tears could not satisfy Sir
+Pitt, and he had something very like a quarrel with his
+once admired Becky.  He spoke of the honour of the
+family, the unsullied reputation of the Crawleys;
+expressed himself in indignant tones about her receiving
+those young Frenchmen--those wild young men of fashion,
+my Lord Steyne himself, whose carriage was always
+at her door, who passed hours daily in her company,
+and whose constant presence made the world talk about
+her.  As the head of the house he implored her to be
+more prudent.  Society was already speaking lightly of
+her.  Lord Steyne, though a nobleman of the greatest
+station and talents, was a man whose attentions would
+compromise any woman; he besought, he implored, he
+commanded his sister-in-law to be watchful in her
+intercourse with that nobleman.
+
+Becky promised anything and everything Pitt wanted;
+but Lord Steyne came to her house as often as ever,
+and Sir Pitt's anger increased.  I wonder was Lady Jane
+angry or pleased that her husband at last found fault
+with his favourite Rebecca? Lord Steyne's visits
+continuing, his own ceased, and his wife was for refusing
+all further intercourse with that nobleman and declining
+the invitation to the charade-night which the marchioness
+sent to her; but Sir Pitt thought it was necessary to
+accept it, as his Royal Highness would be there.
+
+Although he went to the party in question, Sir Pitt
+quitted it very early, and his wife, too, was very glad
+to come away.  Becky hardly so much as spoke to him or
+noticed her sister-in-law.  Pitt Crawley declared her
+behaviour was monstrously indecorous, reprobated in
+strong terms the habit of play-acting and fancy dressing
+as highly unbecoming a British female, and after the
+charades were over, took his brother Rawdon severely
+to task for appearing himself and allowing his wife to
+join in such improper exhibitions.
+
+Rawdon said she should not join in any more such
+amusements--but indeed, and perhaps from hints from
+his elder brother and sister, he had already become a
+very watchful and exemplary domestic character.  He left
+off his clubs and billiards.  He never left home.  He took
+Becky out to drive; he went laboriously with her to all
+her parties.  Whenever my Lord Steyne called, he was
+sure to find the Colonel.  And when Becky proposed to
+go out without her husband, or received invitations for
+herself, he peremptorily ordered her to refuse them:  and
+there was that in the gentleman's manner which enforced
+obedience.  Little Becky, to do her justice, was charmed
+with Rawdon's gallantry.  If he was surly, she never was.
+Whether friends were present or absent, she had always
+a kind smile for him and was attentive to his pleasure
+and comfort.  It was the early days of their marriage over
+again:  the same good humour, prevenances, merriment,
+and artless confidence and regard.  "How much pleasanter
+it is," she would say, "to have you by my side in the
+carriage than that foolish old Briggs!  Let us always go on
+so, dear Rawdon.  How nice it would be, and how happy
+we should always be, if we had but the money!" He
+fell asleep after dinner in his chair; he did not see the
+face opposite to him, haggard, weary, and terrible; it
+lighted up with fresh candid smiles when he woke.  It
+kissed him gaily.  He wondered that he had ever had
+suspicions.  No, he never had suspicions; all those dumb
+doubts and surly misgivings which had been gathering on
+his mind were mere idle jealousies.  She was fond of him;
+she always had been.  As for her shining in society, it
+was no fault of hers; she was formed to shine there.
+Was there any woman who could talk, or sing, or do
+anything like her? If she would but like the boy!
+Rawdon thought.  But the mother and son never could be
+brought together.
+
+And it was while Rawdon's mind was agitated with
+these doubts and perplexities that the incident occurred
+which was mentioned in the last chapter, and the
+unfortunate Colonel found himself a prisoner away from
+home.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIII
+
+
+
+Friend Rawdon drove on then to Mr. Moss's mansion
+in Cursitor Street, and was duly inducted into that
+dismal place of hospitality.  Morning was breaking
+over the cheerful house-tops of Chancery Lane as the
+rattling cab woke up the echoes there.  A little
+pink-eyed Jew-boy, with a head as ruddy as the rising
+morn, let the party into the house, and Rawdon was
+welcomed to the ground-floor apartments by Mr. Moss, his
+travelling companion and host, who cheerfully asked him
+if he would like a glass of something warm after his drive.
+
+The Colonel was not so depressed as some mortals
+would be, who, quitting a palace and a placens uxor,
+find themselves barred into a spunging-house; for, if the
+truth must be told, he had been a lodger at Mr. Moss's
+establishment once or twice before.  We have not thought
+it necessary in the previous course of this narrative to
+mention these trivial little domestic incidents:  but the
+reader may be assured that they can't unfrequently occur
+in the life of a man who lives on nothing a year.
+
+Upon his first visit to Mr. Moss, the Colonel, then
+a bachelor, had been liberated by the generosity of his
+aunt; on the second mishap, little Becky, with the greatest
+spirit and kindness, had borrowed a sum of money from
+Lord Southdown and had coaxed her husband's creditor
+(who was her shawl, velvet-gown, lace pocket-handkerchief,
+trinket, and gim-crack purveyor, indeed) to take
+a portion of the sum claimed and Rawdon's promissory
+note for the remainder:  so on both these occasions the
+capture and release had been conducted with the utmost
+gallantry on all sides, and Moss and the Colonel were
+therefore on the very best of terms.
+
+"You'll find your old bed, Colonel, and everything
+comfortable," that gentleman said, "as I may honestly say.
+You may be pretty sure its kep aired, and by the best
+of company, too.  It was slep in the night afore last by
+the Honorable Capting Famish, of the Fiftieth Dragoons,
+whose Mar took him out, after a fortnight, jest to punish
+him, she said.  But, Law bless you, I promise you, he
+punished my champagne, and had a party ere every night
+--reglar tip-top swells, down from the clubs and the
+West End--Capting Ragg, the Honorable Deuceace, who
+lives in the Temple, and some fellers as knows a good
+glass of wine, I warrant you.  I've got a Doctor of
+Diwinity upstairs, five gents in the coffee-room, and Mrs.
+Moss has a tably-dy-hoty at half-past five, and a little
+cards or music afterwards, when we shall be most happy
+to see you."
+
+"I'll ring when I want anything," said Rawdon and
+went quietly to his bedroom.  He was an old soldier,
+we have said, and not to be disturbed by any little shocks
+of fate.  A weaker man would have sent off a letter to his
+wife on the instant of his capture.  "But what is the use
+of disturbing her night's rest?" thought Rawdon.  "She
+won't know whether I am in my room or not.  It will
+be time enough to write to her when she has had her
+sleep out, and I have had mine.  It's only a hundred-
+and-seventy, and the deuce is in it if we can't raise
+that." And so, thinking about little Rawdon (whom he
+would not have know that he was in such a queer place),
+the Colonel turned into the bed lately occupied by
+Captain Famish and fell asleep.  It was ten o'clock when
+he woke up, and the ruddy-headed youth brought him,
+with conscious pride, a fine silver dressing-case, wherewith
+he might perform the operation of shaving.  Indeed
+Mr. Moss's house, though somewhat dirty, was splendid
+throughout.  There were dirty trays, and wine-coolers en
+permanence on the sideboard, huge dirty gilt cornices,
+with dingy yellow satin hangings to the barred windows
+which looked into Cursitor Street--vast and dirty gilt
+picture frames surrounding pieces sporting and sacred, all
+of which works were by the greatest masters--and fetched
+the greatest prices, too, in the bill transactions, in the
+course of which they were sold and bought over and
+over again.  The Colonel's breakfast was served to him
+in the same dingy and gorgeous plated ware.  Miss Moss,
+a dark-eyed maid in curl-papers, appeared with the
+teapot, and, smiling, asked the Colonel how he had slep?
+And she brought him in the Morning Post, with the
+names of all the great people who had figured at Lord
+Steyne's entertainment the night before.  It contained a
+brilliant account of the festivities and of the beautiful
+and accomplished Mrs. Rawdon Crawley's admirable
+personifications.
+
+After a lively chat with this lady (who sat on the
+edge of the breakfast table in an easy attitude displaying
+the drapery of her stocking and an ex-white satin shoe,
+which was down at heel), Colonel Crawley called for
+pens and ink, and paper, and being asked how many
+sheets, chose one which was brought to him between
+Miss Moss's own finger and thumb.  Many a sheet had
+that dark-eyed damsel brought in; many a poor fellow
+had scrawled and blotted hurried lines of entreaty and
+paced up and down that awful room until his messenger
+brought back the reply.  Poor men always use messengers
+instead of the post.  Who has not had their letters, with
+the wafers wet, and the announcement that a person
+is waiting in the hall?
+
+Now on the score of his application, Rawdon had not
+many misgivings.
+
+DEAR BECKY, (Rawdon wrote)
+
+I HOPE YOU SLEPT WELL.  Don't be FRIGHTENED if I don't
+bring you in your COFFY.  Last night as I was coming
+home smoaking, I met with an ACCADENT.  I was NABBED
+by Moss of Cursitor Street--from whose GILT AND SPLENDID
+PARLER I write this--the same that had me this time
+two years.  Miss Moss brought in my tea--she is grown
+very FAT, and, as usual, had her STOCKENS DOWN AT HEAL.
+
+It's Nathan's business--a hundred-and-fifty--with
+costs, hundred-and-seventy.  Please send me my desk and
+some CLOTHS--I'm in pumps and a white tye (something
+like Miss M's stockings)--I've seventy in it.  And as
+soon as you get this, Drive to Nathan's--offer him
+seventy-five down, and ASK HIM TO RENEW--say I'll take
+wine--we may as well have some dinner sherry; but not
+PICTURS, they're too dear.
+
+If he won't stand it.  Take my ticker and such of your
+things as you can SPARE, and send them to Balls--we
+must, of coarse, have the sum to-night.  It won't do to
+let it stand over, as to-morrow's Sunday; the beds here
+are not very CLEAN, and there may be other things out
+against me--I'm glad it an't Rawdon's Saturday for
+coming home.  God bless you.
+
+Yours in haste,
+R.  C.
+P.S.  Make haste and come.
+
+This letter, sealed with a wafer, was dispatched by
+one of the messengers who are always hanging about
+Mr. Moss's establishment, and Rawdon, having seen him
+depart, went out in the court-yard and smoked his cigar
+with a tolerably easy mind--in spite of the bars
+overhead--for Mr. Moss's court-yard is railed in like a cage,
+lest the gentlemen who are boarding with him should
+take a fancy to escape from his hospitality.
+
+Three hours, he calculated, would be the utmost time
+required, before Becky should arrive and open his prison
+doors, and he passed these pretty cheerfully in smoking,
+in reading the paper, and in the coffee-room with an
+acquaintance, Captain Walker, who happened to be there,
+and with whom he cut for sixpences for some hours,
+with pretty equal luck on either side.
+
+But the day passed away and no messenger returned--
+no Becky.  Mr. Moss's tably-dy-hoty was served at the
+appointed hour of half-past five, when such of the gentlemen
+lodging in the house as could afford to pay for the
+banquet came and partook of it in the splendid front
+parlour before described, and with which Mr. Crawley's
+temporary lodging communicated, when Miss M.  (Miss
+Hem, as her papa called her) appeared without the curl-
+papers of the morning, and Mrs. Hem did the honours
+of a prime boiled leg of mutton and turnips, of which
+the Colonel ate with a very faint appetite.  Asked whether
+he would "stand" a bottle of champagne for the
+company, he consented, and the ladies drank to his 'ealth,
+and Mr. Moss, in the most polite manner, "looked towards
+him."
+
+In the midst of this repast, however, the doorbell was
+heard--young Moss of the ruddy hair rose up with the
+keys and answered the summons, and coming back, told
+the Colonel that the messenger had returned with a bag,
+a desk and a letter, which he gave him.  "No ceramony,
+Colonel, I beg," said Mrs. Moss with a wave of her
+hand, and he opened the letter rather tremulously.  It
+was a beautiful letter, highly scented, on a pink paper,
+and with a light green seal.
+
+MON PAUVRE CHER PETIT, (Mrs. Crawley wrote)
+
+I could not sleep ONE WINK for thinking of what had
+become of my odious old monstre, and only got to rest
+in the morning after sending for Mr. Blench (for I was
+in a fever), who gave me a composing draught and left
+orders with Finette that I should be disturbed ON NO
+ACCOUNT.  So that my poor old man's messenger, who had
+bien mauvaise mine Finette says, and sentoit le Genievre,
+remained in the hall for some hours waiting my bell.
+You may fancy my state when I read your poor dear
+old ill-spelt letter.
+
+Ill as I was, I instantly called for the carriage, and
+as soon as I was dressed (though I couldn't drink a drop
+of chocolate--I assure you I couldn't without my
+monstre to bring it to me), I drove ventre a terre to
+Nathan's.  I saw him--I wept--I cried--I fell at hi~
+odious knees.  Nothing would mollify the horrid man.
+He would have all the money, he said, or keep my poor
+monstre in prison.  I drove home with the intention of
+paying that triste visite chez mon oncle (when every
+trinket I have should be at your disposal though they
+would not fetch a hundred pounds, for some, you know,
+are with ce cher oncle already), and found Milor there
+with the Bulgarian old sheep-faced monster, who had
+come to compliment me upon last night's performances.
+Paddington came in, too, drawling and lisping and
+twiddling his hair; so did Champignac, and his chef--
+everybody with foison of compliments and pretty speeches
+--plaguing poor me, who longed to be rid of them, and
+was thinking every moment of the time of mon pauvre
+prisonnier.
+
+When they were gone, I went down on my knees to
+Milor; told him we were going to pawn everything, and
+begged and prayed him to give me two hundred pounds.
+He pish'd and psha'd in a fury--told me not to be such
+a fool as to pawn--and said he would see whether he
+could lend me the money.  At last he went away,
+promising that he would send it me in the morning:  when
+I will bring it to my poor old monster with a kiss fro
+his affectionate
+
+BECKY
+I am writing in bed.  Oh I have such a headache and
+such a heartache!
+
+When Rawdon read over this letter, he turned so red
+and looked so savage that the company at the table
+d'hote easily perceived that bad news had reached
+him.  All his suspicions, which he had been trying to
+banish, returned upon him.  She could not even go out
+and sell her trinkets to free him.  She could laugh and
+talk about compliments paid to her, whilst he was in
+prison.  Who had put him there? Wenham had walked
+with him.  Was there....  He could hardly bear to think
+of what he suspected.  Leaving the room hurriedly, he ran
+into his own--opened his desk, wrote two hurried lines,
+which he directed to Sir Pitt or Lady Crawley, and
+bade the messenger carry them at once to Gaunt Street,
+bidding him to take a cab, and promising him a guinea
+if he was back in an hour.
+
+In the note he besought his dear brother and sister,
+for the sake of God, for the sake of his dear child and
+his honour, to come to him and relieve him from his
+difficulty.  He was in prison, he wanted a hundred pounds
+to set him free--he entreated them to come to him.
+
+He went back to the dining-room after dispatching his
+messenger and called for more wine.  He laughed and
+talked with a strange boisterousness, as the people
+thought.  Sometimes he laughed madly at his own fears
+and went on drinking for an hour, listening all the while
+for the carriage which was to bring his fate back.
+
+At the expiration of that time, wheels were heard
+whirling up to the gate--the young janitor went out
+with his gate-keys.  It was a lady whom he let in at the
+bailiff's door.
+
+"Colonel Crawley," she said, trembling very much.  He,
+with a knowing look, locked the outer door upon her--
+then unlocked and opened the inner one, and calling out,
+"Colonel, you're wanted," led her into the back parlour,
+which he occupied.
+
+Rawdon came in from the dining-parlour where all
+those people were carousing, into his back room; a flare
+of coarse light following him into the apartment where
+the lady stood, still very nervous.
+
+"It is I, Rawdon," she said in a timid voice, which
+she strove to render cheerful.  "It is Jane." Rawdon was
+quite overcome by that kind voice and presence.  He ran
+up to her--caught her in his arms--gasped out some
+inarticulate words of thanks and fairly sobbed on her
+shoulder.  She did not know the cause of his emotion.
+
+The bills of Mr. Moss were quickly settled, perhaps
+to the disappointment of that gentleman, who had counted
+on having the Colonel as his guest over Sunday at least;
+and Jane, with beaming smiles and happiness in her eyes,
+carried away Rawdon from the bailiff's house, and they
+went homewards in the cab in which she had hastened
+to his release.  "Pitt was gone to a parliamentary dinner,"
+she said, "when Rawdon's note came, and so, dear
+Rawdon, I--I came myself"; and she put her kind hand in
+his.  Perhaps it was well for Rawdon Crawley that Pitt
+was away at that dinner.  Rawdon thanked his sister a
+hundred times, and with an ardour of gratitude which
+touched and almost alarmed that soft-hearted woman.
+"Oh," said he, in his rude, artless way, "you--you don't
+know how I'm changed since I've known you, and--and
+little Rawdy.  I--I'd like to change somehow.  You see
+I want--I want--to be--" He did- not finish the
+sentence, but she could interpret it.  And that night after he
+left her, and as she sat by her own little boy's bed, she
+prayed humbly for that poor way-worn sinner.
+
+Rawdon left her and walked home rapidly.  It was nine
+o'clock at night.  He ran across the streets and the great
+squares of Vanity Fair, and at length came up breathless
+opposite his own house.  He started back and fell against
+the railings, trembling as he looked up.  The drawing-
+room windows were blazing with light.  She had said that
+she was in bed and ill.  He stood there for some time,
+the light from the rooms on his pale face.
+
+He took out his door-key and let himself into the
+house.  He could hear laughter in the upper rooms.  He
+was in the ball-dress in which he had been captured the
+night before.  He went silently up the stairs, leaning
+against the banisters at the stair-head.  Nobody was
+stirring in the house besides--all the servants had been sent
+away.  Rawdon heard laughter within--laughter and singing.
+Becky was singing a snatch of the song of the night
+before; a hoarse voice shouted "Brava!  Brava!"--it was
+Lord Steyne's.
+
+Rawdon opened the door and went in.  A little table
+with a dinner was laid out--and wine and plate.  Steyne
+was hanging over the sofa on which Becky sat.  The
+wretched woman was in a brilliant full toilette, her arms
+and all her fingers sparkling with bracelets and rings,
+and the brilliants on her breast which Steyne had given
+her.  He had her hand in his, and was bowing over it
+to kiss it, when Becky started up with a faint scream
+as she caught sight of Rawdon's white face.  At the next
+instant she tried a smile, a horrid smile, as if to
+welcome her husband; and Steyne rose up, grinding
+his teeth, pale, and with fury in his looks.
+
+He, too, attempted a laugh--and came forward holding
+out his hand.  "What, come back!  How d'ye do, Crawley?"
+he said, the nerves of his mouth twitching as he
+tried to grin at the intruder.
+
+There was that in Rawdon's face which caused Becky
+to fling herself before him.  "I am innocent, Rawdon,"
+she said; "before God, I am innocent." She clung hold
+of his coat, of his hands; her own were all covered with
+serpents, and rings, and baubles.  "I am innocent.  Say I
+am innocent," she said to Lord Steyne.
+
+He thought a trap had been laid for him, and was as
+furious with the wife as with the husband.  "You
+innocent!  Damn you," he screamed out.  "You innocent!  Why
+every trinket you have on your body is paid for by me.
+I have given you thousands of pounds, which this fellow
+has spent and for which he has sold you.  Innocent,
+by --!  You're as innocent as your mother, the ballet-
+girl, and your husband the bully.  Don't think to frighten
+me as you have done others.  Make way, sir, and let me
+pass"; and Lord Steyne seized up his hat, and, with
+flame in his eyes, and looking his enemy fiercely in the
+face, marched upon him, never for a moment doubting
+that the other would give way.
+
+But Rawdon Crawley springing out, seized him by the
+neckcloth, until Steyne, almost strangled, writhed and
+bent under his arm.  "You lie, you dog!" said Rawdon.
+"You lie, you coward and villain!" And he struck the
+Peer twice over the face with his open hand and flung
+him bleeding to the ground.  It was all done before
+Rebecca could interpose.  She stood there trembling before
+him.  She admired her husband, strong, brave, and
+victorious.
+
+"Come here," he said.  She came up at once.
+
+"Take off those things." She began, trembling, pulling
+the jewels from her arms, and the rings from her shaking
+fingers, and held them all in a heap, quivering and looking
+up at him.  "Throw them down," he said, and she
+dropped them.  He tore the diamond ornament out of her
+breast and flung it at Lord Steyne.  It cut him on his
+bald forehead.  Steyne wore the scar to his dying day.
+
+"Come upstairs," Rawdon said to his wife.  "Don't kill
+me, Rawdon," she said.  He laughed savagely.  "I want
+to see if that man lies about the money as he has about
+me.  Has he given you any?"
+
+"No," said Rebecca, "that is--"
+
+"Give me your keys," Rawdon answered, and they
+went out together.
+
+Rebecca gave him all the keys but one, and she was in
+hopes that he would not have remarked the absence of
+that.  It belonged to the little desk which Amelia had
+given her in early days, and which she kept in a secret
+place.  But Rawdon flung open boxes and wardrobes,
+throwing the multifarious trumpery of their contents here
+and there, and at last he found the desk.  The woman was
+forced to open it.  It contained papers, love-letters many
+years old--all sorts of small trinkets and woman's
+memoranda.  And it contained a pocket-book with bank-notes.
+Some of these were dated ten years back, too, and one
+was quite a fresh one--a note for a thousand pounds
+which Lord Steyne had given her.
+
+"Did he give you this?" Rawdon said.
+
+"Yes," Rebecca answered.
+
+"I'll send it to him to-day," Rawdon said (for day had
+dawned again, and many hours had passed in this search),
+"and I will pay Briggs, who was kind to the boy, and
+some of the debts.  You will let me know where I shall
+send the rest to you.  You might have spared me a
+hundred pounds, Becky, out of all this--I have always
+shared with you."
+
+"I am innocent," said Becky.  And he left her without
+another word.
+
+What were her thoughts when he left her? She
+remained for hours after he was gone, the sunshine
+pouring into the room, and Rebecca sitting alone on the
+bed's edge.  The drawers were all opened and their contents
+scattered about--dresses and feathers, scarfs and trinkets,
+a heap of tumbled vanities lying in a wreck.  Her hair
+was falling over her shoulders; her gown was torn where
+Rawdon had wrenched the brilliants out of it.  She heard
+him go downstairs a few minutes after he left her, and
+the door slamming and closing on him.  She knew he
+would never come back.  He was gone forever.  Would
+he kill himself?--she thought--not until after he had
+met Lord Steyne.  She thought of her long past life, and
+all the dismal incidents of it.  Ah, how dreary it seemed,
+how miserable, lonely and profitless!  Should she take
+laudanum, and end it, to have done with all hopes,
+schemes, debts, and triumphs? The French maid found
+her in this position--sitting in the midst of her miserable
+ruins with clasped hands and dry eyes.  The woman was
+her accomplice and in Steyne's pay.  "Mon Dieu,
+madame, what has happened?" she asked.
+
+What had happened? Was she guilty or not? She said
+not, but who could tell what was truth which came from
+those lips, or if that corrupt heart was in this case pure?
+
+All her lies and her schemes, an her selfishness and her
+wiles, all her wit and genius had come to this
+bankruptcy.  The woman closed the curtains and, with some
+entreaty and show of kindness, persuaded her mistress
+to lie down on the bed.  Then she went below and
+gathered up the trinkets which had been lying on the floor
+since Rebecca dropped them there at her husband's
+orders, and Lord Steyne went away.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIV
+
+
+Sunday After the Battle
+
+The mansion of Sir Pitt Crawley, in Great Gaunt Street,
+was just beginning to dress itself for the day, as Rawdon,
+in his evening costume, which he had now worn
+two days, passed by the scared female who was scouring
+the steps and entered into his brother's study.  Lady
+Jane, in her morning-gown, was up and above stairs in
+the nursery superintending the toilettes of her children
+and listening to the morning prayers which the little
+creatures performed at her knee.  Every morning she and
+they performed this duty privately, and before the public
+ceremonial at which Sir Pitt presided and at which all the
+people of the household were expected to assemble.
+Rawdon sat down in the study before the Baronet's table,
+set out with the orderly blue books and the letters, the
+neatly docketed bills and symmetrical pamphlets, the
+locked account-books, desks, and dispatch boxes, the
+Bible, the Quarterly Review, and the Court Guide, which
+all stood as if on parade awaiting the inspection of their
+chief.
+
+A book of family sermons, one of which Sir Pitt was
+in the habit of administering to his family on Sunday
+mornings, lay ready on the study table, and awaiting his
+judicious selection.  And by the sermon-book was the
+Observer newspaper, damp and neatly folded, and for
+Sir Pitt's own private use.  His gentleman alone took the
+opportunity of perusing the newspaper before he laid it
+by his master's desk.  Before he had brought it into the
+study that morning, he had read in the journal a flaming
+account of "Festivities at Gaunt House," with the names
+of all the distinguished personages invited by tho Marquis
+of Steyne to meet his Royal Highness.  Having made
+comments upon this entertainment to the housekeeper
+and her niece as they were taking early tea and hot
+buttered toast in the former lady's apartment, and
+wondered how the Rawding Crawleys could git on, the valet
+had damped and folded the paper once more, so that it
+looked quite fresh and innocent against the arrival of
+the master of the house.
+
+Poor Rawdon took up the paper and began to try and
+read it until his brother should arrive.  But the print fell
+blank upon his eyes, and he did not know in the least
+what he was reading.  The Government news and
+appointments (which Sir Pitt as a public man was bound
+to peruse, otherwise he would by no means permit the
+introduction of Sunday papers into his household), the
+theatrical criticisms, the fight for a hundred pounds
+a side between the Barking Butcher and the Tutbury
+Pet, the Gaunt House chronicle itself, which contained a
+most complimentary though guarded account of the
+famous charades of which Mrs. Becky had been the
+heroine--all these passed as in a haze before Rawdon, as he
+sat waiting the arrival of the chief of the family.
+
+Punctually, as the shrill-toned bell of the black marble
+study clock began to chime nine, Sir Pitt made his
+appearance, fresh, neat, smugly shaved, with a waxy clean
+face, and stiff shirt collar, his scanty hair combed and
+oiled, trimming his nails as he descended the stairs
+majestically, in a starched cravat and a grey flannel
+dressing-gown--a real old English gentleman, in a word--
+a model of neatness and every propriety.  He started when
+he saw poor Rawdon in his study in tumbled clothes, with
+blood-shot eyes, and his hair over his face.  He thought
+his brother was not sober, and had been out all night on
+some orgy.  "Good gracious, Rawdon," he said, with a
+blank face, "what brings you here at this time of the
+morning? Why ain't you at home?"
+
+"Home," said Rawdon with a wild laugh.  "Don't be
+frightened, Pitt.  I'm not drunk.  Shut the door; I want to
+speak to you."
+
+Pitt closed the door and came up to the table, where
+he sat down in the other arm-chair--that one placed for
+the reception of the steward, agent, or confidential
+visitor who came to transact business with the Baronet--
+and trimmed his nails more vehemently than ever.
+
+"Pitt, it's all over with me," the Colonel said after a
+pause.  "I'm done."
+
+"I always said it would come to this," the Baronet
+cried peevishly, and beating a tune with his clean-
+trimmed nails.  "I warned you a thousand times.  I can't
+help you any more.  Every shilling of my money is tied
+up.  Even the hundred pounds that Jane took you last
+night were promised to my lawyer to-morrow morning,
+and the want of it will put me to great inconvenience.
+I don't mean to say that I won't assist you ultimately.
+But as for paying your creditors in full, I might as well
+hope to pay the National Debt.  It is madness, sheer
+madness, to think of such a thing.  You must come to a
+compromise.  It's a painful thing for the family, but everybody
+does it.  There was George Kitely, Lord Ragland's son,
+went through the Court last week, and was what they
+call whitewashed, I believe.  Lord Ragland would not pay
+a shilling for him, and--"
+
+"It's not money I want," Rawdon broke in.  "I'm not
+come to you about myself.  Never mind what happens to
+me "
+
+"What is the matter, then?" said Pitt, somewhat
+relieved.
+
+"It's the boy," said Rawdon in a husky voice.  "I want
+you to promise me that you will take charge of him
+when I'm gone.  That dear good wife of yours has always
+been good to him; and he's fonder of her than he is of
+his .  .  .--Damn it.  Look here, Pitt--you know that I
+was to have had Miss Crawley's money.  I wasn't brought
+up like a younger brother, but was always encouraged to
+be extravagant and kep idle.  But for this I might have
+been quite a different man.  I didn't do my duty with the
+regiment so bad.  You know how I was thrown over
+about the money, and who got it."
+
+"After the sacrifices I have made, and the manner in
+which I have stood by you, I think this sort of reproach
+is useless," Sir Pitt said.  "Your marriage was your own
+doing, not mine."
+
+"That's over now," said Rawdon.  "That's over now."
+And the words were wrenched from him with a groan,
+which made his brother start.
+
+"Good God!  is she dead?" Sir Pitt said with a voice
+of genuine alarm and commiseration.
+
+"I wish I was," Rawdon replied.  "If it wasn't for little
+Rawdon I'd have cut my throat this morning--and that
+damned villain's too."
+
+Sir Pitt instantly guessed the truth and surmised that
+Lord Steyne was the person whose life Rawdon wished to
+take.  The Colonel told his senior briefly, and in broken
+accents, the circumstances of the case.  "It was a regular
+plan between that scoundrel and her," he said.  "The
+bailiffs were put upon me; I was taken as I was going
+out of his house; when I wrote to her for money, she
+said she was ill in bed and put me off to another day.
+And when I got home I found her in diamonds and
+sitting with that villain alone." He then went on to describe
+hurriedly the personal conflict with Lord Steyne.  To an
+affair of that nature, of course, he said, there was but
+one issue, and after his conference with his brother, he
+was going away to make the necessary arrangements for
+the meeting which must ensue.  "And as it may end
+fatally with me," Rawdon said with a broken voice, "and
+as the boy has no mother, I must leave him to you and
+Jane, Pitt--only it will be a comfort to me if you will
+promise me to be his friend."
+
+The elder brother was much affected, and shook
+Rawdon's hand with a cordiality seldom exhibited by him.
+Rawdon passed his hand over his shaggy eyebrows.
+"Thank you, brother," said he.  "I know I can trust your
+word."
+
+"I will, upon my honour," the Baronet said.  And thus,
+and almost mutely, this bargain was struck between
+them.
+
+Then Rawdon took out of his pocket the little
+pocket-book which he had discovered in Becky's desk, and from
+which he drew a bundle of the notes which it contained.
+"Here's six hundred," he said--"you didn't know I was
+so rich.  I want you to give the money to Briggs, who lent
+it to us--and who was kind to the boy--and I've always
+felt ashamed of having taken the poor old woman's
+money.  And here's some more--I've only kept back a
+few pounds--which Becky may as well have, to get on
+with." As he spoke he took hold of the other notes to
+give to his brother, but his hands shook, and he was so
+agitated that the pocket-book fell from him, and out of
+it the thousand-pound note which had been the last of
+the unlucky Becky's winnings.
+
+Pitt stooped and picked them up, amazed at so much
+wealth.  "Not that," Rawdon said.  "I hope to put a bullet
+into the man whom that belongs to." He had thought to
+himself, it would be a fine revenge to wrap a ball in the
+note and kill Steyne with it.
+
+After this colloquy the brothers once more shook
+hands and parted.  Lady Jane had heard of the Colonel's
+arrival, and was waiting for her husband in the adjoining
+dining-room, with female instinct, auguring evil.  The
+door of the dining-room happened to be left open, and
+the lady of course was issuing from it as the two brothers
+passed out of the study.  She held out her hand to
+Rawdon and said she was glad he was come to breakfast,
+though she could perceive, by his haggard unshorn face
+and the dark looks of her husband, that there was very
+little question of breakfast between them.  Rawdon
+muttered some excuses about an engagement, squeezing hard
+the timid little hand which his sister-in-law reached out
+to him.  Her imploring eyes could read nothing but
+calamity in his face, but he went away without another
+word.  Nor did Sir Pitt vouchsafe her any explanation.
+The children came up to salute him, and he kissed them
+in his usual frigid manner.  The mother took both of them
+close to herself, and held a hand of each of them as they
+knelt down to prayers, which Sir Pitt read to them, and
+to the servants in their Sunday suits or liveries, ranged
+upon chairs on the other side of the hissing tea-urn.
+Breakfast was so late that day, in consequence of the
+delays which had occurred, that the church-bells began
+to ring whilst they were sitting over their meal; and
+Lady Jane was too ill, she said, to go to church, though
+her thoughts had been entirely astray during the period
+of family devotion.
+
+Rawdon Crawley meanwhile hurried on from Great
+Gaunt Street, and knocking at the great bronze
+Medusa's head which stands on the portal of Gaunt House,
+brought out the purple Silenus in a red and silver
+waistcoat who acts as porter of that palace.  The man was
+scared also by the Colonel's dishevelled appearance, and
+barred the way as if afraid that the other was going to
+force it.  But Colonel Crawley only took out a card and
+enjoined him particularly to send it in to Lord Steyne,
+and to mark the address written on it, and say that
+Colonel Crawley would be all day after one o'clock at the
+Regent Club in St.  James's Street--not at home.  The fat
+red-faced man looked after him with astonishment as he
+strode away; so did the people in their Sunday clothes
+who were out so early; the charity-boys with shining
+faces, the greengrocer lolling at his door, and the publican
+shutting his shutters in the sunshine, against service
+commenced.  The people joked at the cab-stand about
+his appearance, as he took a carriage there, and told the
+driver to drive him to Knightsbridge Barracks.
+
+All the bells were jangling and tolling as he reached
+that place.  He might have seen his old acquaintance
+Amelia on her way from Brompton to Russell Square,
+had he been looking out.  Troops of schools were on
+their march to church, the shiny pavement and outsides
+of coaches in the suburbs were thronged with people out
+upon their Sunday pleasure; but the Colonel was much
+too busy to take any heed of these phenomena, and,
+arriving at Knightsbridge, speedily made his way up to the
+room of his old friend and comrade Captain Macmurdo,
+who Crawley found, to his satisfaction, was in barracks.
+
+Captain Macmurdo, a veteran officer and Waterloo
+man, greatly liked by his regiment, in which want of
+money alone prevented him from attaining the highest
+ranks, was enjoying the forenoon calmly in bed.  He had
+been at a fast supper-party, given the night before by
+Captain the Honourable George Cinqbars, at his house
+in Brompton Square, to several young men of the
+regiment, and a number of ladies of the corps de ballet, and
+old Mac, who was at home with people of all ages and
+ranks, and consorted with generals, dog-fanciers, opera-
+dancers, bruisers, and every kind of person, in a word,
+was resting himself after the night's labours, and, not
+being on duty, was in bed.
+
+His room was hung round with boxing, sporting, and
+dancing pictures, presented to him by comrades as they
+retired from the regiment, and married and settled into
+quiet life.  And as he was now nearly fifty years of age,
+twenty-four of which he had passed in the corps, he had
+a singular museum.  He was one of the best shots in
+England, and, for a heavy man, one of the best riders;
+indeed, he and Crawley had been rivals when the latter
+was in the Army.  To be brief, Mr. Macmurdo was lying
+in bed, reading in Bell's Life an account of that very
+fight between the Tutbury Pet and the Barking Butcher,
+which has been before mentioned--a venerable bristly
+warrior, with a little close-shaved grey head, with a silk
+nightcap, a red face and nose, and a great dyed
+moustache.
+
+When Rawdon told the Captain he wanted a friend, the
+latter knew perfectly well on what duty of friendship he
+was called to act, and indeed had conducted scores of
+affairs for his acquaintances with the greatest prudence
+and skill.  His Royal Highness the late lamented
+Commander-in-Chief had had the greatest regard for
+Macmurdo on this account, and he was the common refuge
+of gentlemen in trouble.
+
+"What's the row about, Crawley, my boy?" said the
+old warrior.  "No more gambling business, hay, like that
+when we shot Captain Marker?"
+
+"It's about--about my wife," Crawley answered,
+casting down his eyes and turning very red.
+
+The other gave a whistle.  "I always said she'd throw
+you over," he began--indeed there were bets in the
+regiment and at the clubs regarding the probable fate of
+Colonel Crawley, so lightly was his wife's character
+esteemed by his comrades and the world; but seeing the
+savage look with which Rawdon answered the expression
+of this opinion, Macmurdo did not think fit to enlarge
+upon it further.
+
+"Is there no way out of it, old boy?" the Captain
+continued in a grave tone.  "Is it only suspicion, you know,
+or--or what is it? Any letters? Can't you keep it quiet?
+Best not make any noise about a thing of that sort if you
+can help it." "Think of his only finding her out now," the
+Captain thought to himself, and remembered a hundred
+particular conversations at the mess-table, in which Mrs.
+Crawley's reputation had been torn to shreds.
+
+"There's no way but one out of it," Rawdon replied--
+"and there's only a way out of it for one of us, Mac--do
+you understand? I was put out of the way--arrested--I
+found 'em alone together.  I told him he was a liar and a
+coward, and knocked him down and thrashed him."
+
+"Serve him right," Macmurdo said.  "Who is it?"
+
+Rawdon answered it was Lord Steyne.
+
+"The deuce!  a Marquis!  they said he--that is, they
+said you--"
+
+"What the devil do you mean?" roared out Rawdon;
+"do you mean that you ever heard a fellow doubt about
+my wife and didn't tell me, Mac?"
+
+"The world's very censorious, old boy," the other
+replied.  "What the deuce was the good of my telling you
+what any tom-fools talked about?"
+
+"It was damned unfriendly, Mac," said Rawdon, quite
+overcome; and, covering his face with his hands, he gave
+way to an emotion, the sight of which caused the tough
+old campaigner opposite him to wince with sympathy.
+"Hold up, old boy," he said; "great man or not, we'll put
+a bullet in him, damn him.  As for women, they're all so."
+
+"You don't know how fond I was of that one,"
+Rawdon said, half-inarticulately.  "Damme, I followed her like
+a footman.  I gave up everything I had to her.  I'm a
+beggar because I would marry her.  By Jove, sir, I've pawned
+my own watch in order to get her anything she fancied;
+and she she's been making a purse for herself all the
+time, and grudged me a hundred pound to get me out of
+quod." He then fiercely and incoherently, and with an
+agitation under which his counsellor had never before
+seen him labour, told Macmurdo the circumstances of
+the story.  His adviser caught at some stray hints in it.
+"She may be innocent, after all," he said.  "She says
+so.  Steyne has been a hundred times alone with her in
+the house before."
+
+"It may be so," Rawdon answered sadly, "but this don't
+look very innocent":  and he showed the Captain the
+thousand-pound note which he had found in Becky's
+pocket-book.  "This is what he gave her, Mac, and she
+kep it unknown to me; and with this money in the house,
+she refused to stand by me when I was locked up." The
+Captain could not but own that the secreting of the
+money had a very ugly look.
+
+Whilst they were engaged in their conference, Rawdon
+dispatched Captain Macmurdo's servant to Curzon Street,
+with an order to the domestic there to give up a bag of
+clothes of which the Colonel had great need.  And during
+the man's absence, and with great labour and a Johnson's
+Dictionary, which stood them in much stead, Rawdon
+and his second composed a letter, which the latter
+was to send to Lord Steyne.  Captain Macmurdo had the
+honour of waiting upon the Marquis of Steyne, on the part
+of Colonel Rawdon Crawley, and begged to intimate that
+he was empowered by the Colonel to make any arrangements
+for the meeting which, he had no doubt, it was his
+Lordship's intention to demand, and which the circumstances
+of the morning had rendered inevitable.  Captain
+Macmurdo begged Lord Steyne, in the most polite
+manner, to appoint a friend, with whom he (Captain M'M.)
+might communicate, and desired that the meeting might
+take place with as little delay as possible.
+
+In a postscript the Captain stated that he had in his
+possession a bank-note for a large amount, which
+Colonel Crawley had reason to suppose was the property of
+the Marquis of Steyne.  And he was anxious, on the
+Colonel's behalf, to give up the note to its owner.
+
+By the time this note was composed, the Captain's
+servant returned from his mission to Colonel Crawley's
+house in Curzon Street, but without the carpet-bag and
+portmanteau, for which he had been sent, and with a
+very puzzled and odd face.
+
+"They won't give 'em up," said the man; "there's a
+regular shinty in the house, and everything at sixes and
+sevens.  The landlord's come in and took possession.  The
+servants was a drinkin' up in the drawingroom.  They
+said--they said you had gone off with the plate,
+Colonel"--the man added after a pause--"One of the
+servants is off already.  And Simpson, the man as was very
+noisy and drunk indeed, says nothing shall go out of the
+house until his wages is paid up."
+
+The account of this little revolution in May Fair
+astonished and gave a little gaiety to an otherwise very
+triste conversation.  The two officers laughed at Rawdon's
+discomfiture.
+
+"I'm glad the little 'un isn't at home," Rawdon said,
+biting his nails.  "You remember him, Mac, don't you, in
+the Riding School? How he sat the kicker to be sure!
+didn't he?"
+
+"That he did, old boy," said the good-natured Captain.
+
+Little Rawdon was then sitting, one of fifty gown boys,
+in the Chapel of Whitefriars School, thinking, not about
+the sermon, but about going home next Saturday, when
+his father would certainly tip him and perhaps would
+take him to the play.
+
+"He's a regular trump, that boy," the father went on,
+still musing about his son.  "I say, Mac, if anything goes
+wrong--if I drop--I should like you to--to go and see
+him, you know, and say that I was very fond of him, and
+that.  And--dash it--old chap, give him these gold sleeve-
+buttons:  it's all I've got." He covered his face with his
+black hands, over which the tears rolled and made
+furrows of white.  Mr. Macmurdo had also occasion to take
+off his silk night-cap and rub it across his eyes.
+
+"Go down and order some breakfast," he said to his
+man in a loud cheerful voice.  "What'll you have, Crawley?
+Some devilled kidneys and a herring--let's say.  And,
+Clay, lay out some dressing things for the Colonel:  we
+were always pretty much of a size, Rawdon, my boy, and
+neither of us ride so light as we did when we first
+entered the corps." With which, and leaving the Colonel to
+dress himself, Macmurdo turned round towards the wall,
+and resumed the perusal of Bell's Life, until such time as
+his friend's toilette was complete and he was at liberty
+to commence his own.
+
+This, as he was about to meet a lord, Captain
+Macmurdo performed with particular care.  He waxed his
+mustachios into a state of brilliant polish and put on a
+tight cravat and a trim buff waistcoat, so that all the
+young officers in the mess-room, whither Crawley had
+preceded his friend, complimented Mac on his appearance
+at breakfast and asked if he was going to be married
+that Sunday.
+
+
+
+CHAPIER LV
+
+In Which the Same Subject is Pursued
+
+Becky did not rally from the state of stupor and confusion
+in which the events of the previous night had plunged
+her intrepid spirit until the bells of the Curzon Street
+Chapels were ringing for afternoon service, and rising
+from her bed she began to ply her own bell, in order to
+summon the French maid who had left her some hours
+before.
+
+Mrs. Rawdon Crawley rang many times in vain; and
+though, on the last occasion, she rang with such
+vehemence as to pull down the bell-rope, Mademoiselle
+Fifine did not make her appearance--no, not though her
+mistress, in a great pet, and with the bell-rope in her hand,
+came out to the landing-place with her hair over her
+shoulders and screamed out repeatedly for her attendant.
+
+The truth is, she had quitted the premises for many
+hours, and upon that permission which is called French
+leave among us After picking up the trinkets in the
+drawing-room, Mademoiselle had ascended to her own
+apartments, packed and corded her own boxes there,
+tripped out and called a cab for herself, brought down
+her trunks with her own hand, and without ever so much
+as asking the aid of any of the other servants, who would
+probably have refused it, as they hated her cordially,
+and without wishing any one of them good-bye, had
+made her exit from Curzon Street.
+
+The game, in her opinion, was over in that little
+domestic establishment.  Fifine went off in a cab, as we
+have known more exalted persons of her nation to do
+under similar circumstances:  but, more provident or
+lucky than these, she secured not only her own property,
+but some of her mistress's (if indeed that lady could be
+said to have any property at all)--and not only carried
+off the trinkets before alluded to, and some favourite
+dresses on which she had long kept her eye, but four
+richly gilt Louis Quatorze candlesticks, six gilt albums,
+keepsakes, and Books of Beauty, a gold enamelled
+snuff-box which had once belonged to Madame du Barri, and
+the sweetest little inkstand and mother-of-pearl blotting
+book, which Becky used when she composed her charming
+little pink notes, had vanished from the premises in
+Curzon Street together with Mademoiselle Fifine, and all
+the silver laid on the table for the little festin which
+Rawdon interrupted.  The plated ware Mademoiselle left
+behind her was too cumbrous, probably for which
+reason, no doubt, she also left the fire irons, the
+chimney-glasses, and the rosewood cottage piano.
+
+A lady very like her subsequently kept a milliner's
+shop in the Rue du Helder at Paris, where she lived with
+great credit and enjoyed the patronage of my Lord
+Steyne.  This person always spoke of England as of the
+most treacherous country in the world, and stated to her
+young pupils that she had been affreusement vole by
+natives of that island.  It was no doubt compassion for
+her misfortunes which induced the Marquis of Steyne to
+be so very kind to Madame de Saint-Amaranthe.  May
+she flourish as she deserves--she appears no more in our
+quarter of Vanity Fair.
+
+Hearing a buzz and a stir below, and indignant at the
+impudence of those servants who would not answer her
+summons, Mrs. Crawley flung her morning robe round
+her and descended majestically to the drawing-room,
+whence the noise proceeded.
+
+The cook was there with blackened face, seated on the
+beautiful chintz sofa by the side of Mrs. Raggles, to whom
+she was administering Maraschino.  The page with the
+sugar-loaf buttons, who carried about Becky's pink
+notes, and jumped about her little carriage with such
+alacrity, was now engaged putting his fingers into a
+cream dish; the footman was talking to Raggles, who
+had a face full of perplexity and woe--and yet, though
+the door was open, and Becky had been screaming a
+half-dozen of times a few feet off, not one of her
+attendants had obeyed her call.  "Have a little drop, do'ee
+now, Mrs. Raggles," the cook was saying as Becky
+entered, the white cashmere dressing-gown flouncing
+around her.
+
+"Simpson!  Trotter!" the mistress of the house cried in
+great wrath.  "How dare you stay here when you heard
+me call? How dare you sit down in my presence? Where's
+my maid?" The page withdrew his fingers from his mouth
+with a momentary terror, but the cook took off a glass
+of Maraschino, of which Mrs. Raggles had had enough,
+staring at Becky over the little gilt glass as she drained
+its contents.  The liquor appeared to give the odious rebel
+courage.
+
+"YOUR sofy, indeed!" Mrs. Cook said.  "I'm a settin' on
+Mrs. Raggles's sofy.  Don't you stir, Mrs. Raggles, Mum.
+I'm a settin' on Mr. and Mrs. Raggles's sofy, which they
+bought with honest money, and very dear it cost 'em,
+too.  And I'm thinkin' if I set here until I'm paid my
+wages, I shall set a precious long time, Mrs. Raggles;
+and set I will, too--ha!  ha!" and with this she filled
+herself another glass of the liquor and drank it with a more
+hideously satirical air.
+
+"Trotter!  Simpson!  turn that drunken wretch out,"
+screamed Mrs. Crawley.
+
+"I shawn't," said Trotter the footman; "turn out
+yourself.  Pay our selleries, and turn me out too.  WE'LL
+go fast enough."
+
+"Are you all here to insult me?" cried Becky in a fury;
+"when Colonel Crawley comes home I'll--"
+
+At this the servants burst into a horse haw-haw, in
+which, however, Raggles, who still kept a most melancholy countenance, did not join.  "He ain't a coming back,"
+Mr. Trotter resumed.  "He sent for his things, and I
+wouldn't let 'em go, although Mr. Raggles would; and I
+don't b'lieve he's no more a Colonel than I am.  He's
+hoff, and I suppose you're a goin' after him.  You're no
+better than swindlers, both on you.  Don't be a bullyin'
+ME.  I won't stand it.  Pay us our selleries, I say.  Pay us
+our selleries." It was evident, from Mr. Trotter's flushed
+countenance and defective intonation, that he, too, had
+had recourse to vinous stimulus.
+
+"Mr. Raggles," said Becky in a passion of vexation,
+"you will not surely let me be insulted by that drunken
+man?" "Hold your noise, Trotter; do now," said Simpson
+the page.  He was affected by his mistress's deplorable
+situation, and succeeded in preventing an outrageous
+denial of the epithet "drunken" on the footman's part.
+
+"Oh, M'am," said Raggles, "I never thought to live to
+see this year day:  I've known the Crawley family ever
+since I was born.  I lived butler with Miss Crawley for
+thirty years; and I little thought one of that family was
+a goin' to ruing me--yes, ruing me"--said the poor fellow
+with tears in his eyes.  "Har you a goin' to pay me? You've
+lived in this 'ouse four year.  You've 'ad my substance:
+my plate and linning.  You ho me a milk and butter bill
+of two 'undred pound, you must 'ave noo laid heggs for
+your homlets, and cream for your spanil dog."
+
+"She didn't care what her own flesh and blood had,"
+interposed the cook.  "Many's the time, he'd have starved
+but for me."
+
+"He's a charaty-boy now, Cooky," said Mr. Trotter,
+with a drunken "ha!  ha!"--and honest Raggles continued,
+in a lamentable tone, an enumeration of his griefs.  All he
+said was true.  Becky and her husband had ruined him.
+He had bills coming due next week and no means to meet
+them.  He would be sold up and turned out of his shop
+and his house, because he had trusted to the Crawley
+family.  His tears and lamentations made Becky more
+peevish than ever.
+
+"You all seem to be against me," she said bitterly.
+"What do you want? I can't pay you on Sunday.  Come
+back to-morrow and I'll pay you everything.  I thought
+Colonel Crawley had settled with you.  He will to-morrow.
+I declare to you upon my honour that he left home this
+morning with fifteen hundred pounds in his pocket-book.
+He has left me nothing.  Apply to him.  Give me a bonnet
+and shawl and let me go out and find him.  There was a
+difference between us this morning.  You all seem to
+know it.  I promise you upon my word that you shall all
+be paid.  He has got a good appointment.  Let me go out
+and find him.''
+
+This audacious statement caused Raggles and the other
+personages present to look at one another with a wild
+surprise, and with it Rebecca left them.  She went upstairs
+and dressed herself this time without the aid of her French
+maid.  She went into Rawdon's room, and there saw that
+a trunk and bag were packed ready for removal, with a
+pencil direction that they should be given when called
+for; then she went into the Frenchwoman's garret;
+everything was clean, and all the drawers emptied there.
+She bethought herself of the trinkets which had been left on
+the ground and felt certain that the woman had fled.
+"Good Heavens!  was ever such ill luck as mine?" she
+said; "to be so near, and to lose all.  Is it all too late?"
+No; there was one chance more.
+
+She dressed herself and went away unmolested this
+time, but alone.  It was four o'clock.  She went swiftly
+down the streets (she had no money to pay for a
+carriage), and never stopped until she came to Sir Pitt
+Crawley's door, in Great Gaunt Street.  Where was Lady
+Jane Crawley? She was at church.  Becky was not sorry.
+Sir Pitt was in his study, and had given orders not to be
+disturbed--she must see him--she slipped by the sentinel
+in livery at once, and was in Sir Pitt's room before the
+astonished Baronet had even laid down the paper.
+
+He turned red and started back from her with a look
+of great alarm and horror.
+
+"Do not look so," she said.  "I am not guilty, Pitt, dear
+Pitt; you were my friend once.  Before God, I am not
+guilty.  I seem so.  Everything is against me.  And oh!  at
+such a moment!  just when all my hopes were about to be
+realized:  just when happiness was in store for us."
+
+"Is this true, what I see in the paper then?" Sir Pitt
+said--a paragraph in which had greatly surprised him.
+
+"It is true.  Lord Steyne told me on Friday night, the
+night of that fatal ball.  He has been promised an
+appointment any time these six months.  Mr. Martyr, the
+Colonial Secretary, told him yesterday that it was made out.
+That unlucky arrest ensued; that horrible meeting.  I was only
+guilty of too much devotedness to Rawdon's service.  I
+have received Lord Steyne alone a hundred times before.
+I confess I had money of which Rawdon knew nothing.
+Don't you know how careless he is of it, and could I dare
+to confide it to him?" And so she went on with a
+perfectly connected story, which she poured into the ears
+of her perplexed kinsman.
+
+It was to the following effect.  Becky owned, and with
+prefect frankness, but deep contrition, that having
+remarked Lord Steyne's partiality for her (at the mention
+of which Pitt blushed), and being secure of her own
+virtue, she had determined to turn the great peer's
+attachment to the advantage of herself and her family.  "I
+looked for a peerage for you, Pitt," she said (the brother-
+in-law again turned red).  "We have talked about it.  Your
+genius and Lord Steyne's interest made it more than
+probable, had not this dreadful calamity come to put an
+end to all our hopes.  But, first, I own that it was my
+object to rescue my dear husband--him whom I love in
+spite of all his ill usage and suspicions of me--to remove
+him from the poverty and ruin which was impending over
+us.  I saw Lord Steyne's partiality for me," she said,
+casting down her eyes.  "I own that I did everything in
+my power to make myself pleasing to him, and as far as
+an honest woman may, to secure his--his esteem.  It was
+only on Friday morning that the news arrived of the
+death of the Governor of Coventry Island, and my Lord
+instantly secured the appointment for my dear husband.
+It was intended as a surprise for him--he was to see it in
+the papers to-day.  Even after that horrid arrest took
+place (the expenses of which Lord Steyne generously
+said he would settle, so that I was in a manner prevented
+from coming to my husband's assistance), my Lord was
+laughing with me, and saying that my dearest Rawdon
+would be consoled when he read of his appointment in
+the paper, in that shocking spun--bailiff's house.  And
+then--then he came home.  His suspicions were excited,
+--the dreadful scene took place between my Lord and
+my cruel, cruel Rawdon--and, O my God, what will
+happen next? Pitt, dear Pitt!  pity me, and reconcile us!"
+And as she spoke she flung herself down on her knees,
+and bursting into tears, seized hold of Pitt's hand, which
+she kissed passionately.
+
+It was in this very attitude that Lady Jane, who,
+returning from church, ran to her husband's room directly
+she heard Mrs. Rawdon Crawley was closeted there,
+found the Baronet and his sister-in-law.
+
+"I am surprised that woman has the audacity to enter
+this house," Lady Jane said, trembling in every limb
+and turning quite pale.  (Her Ladyship had sent out her
+maid directly after breakfast, who had communicated
+with Raggles and Rawdon Crawley's household, who had
+told her all, and a great deal more than they knew, of
+that story, and many others besides).  "How dare Mrs.
+Crawley to enter the house of--of an honest family?"
+
+Sir Pitt started back, amazed at his wife's display of
+vigour.  Becky still kept her kneeling posture and clung
+to Sir Pitt's hand.
+
+"Tell her that she does not know all:  Tell her that I
+am innocent, dear Pitt," she whimpered out.
+
+"Upon-my word, my love, I think you do Mrs. Crawley
+injustice," Sir Pitt said; at which speech Rebecca was
+vastly relieved.  "Indeed I believe her to be--"
+
+"To be what?" cried out Lady Jane, her clear voice
+thrilling and, her heart beating violently as she spoke.
+"To be a wicked woman--a heartless mother, a false
+wife? She never loved her dear little boy, who used to
+fly here and tell me of her cruelty to him.  She never
+came into a family but she strove to bring misery with
+her and to weaken the most sacred affections with her
+wicked flattery and falsehoods.  She has deceived her
+husband, as she has deceived everybody; her soul is black
+with vanity, worldliness, and all sorts of crime.  I tremble
+when I touch her.  I keep my children out of her sight.
+
+"Lady Jane!" cried Sir Pitt, starting up, "this is really
+language--"
+
+"I have been a true and faithful wife to you, Sir
+Pitt," Lady Jane continued, intrepidly; "I have kept my
+marriage vow as I made it to God and have been
+obedient and gentle as a wife should.  But righteous
+obedience has its limits, and I declare that I will not bear
+that--that woman again under my roof; if she enters it,
+I and my children will leave it.  She is not worthy to sit
+down with Christian people.  You--you must choose, sir,
+between her and me"; and with this my Lady swept out
+of the room, fluttering with her own audacity, and leaving
+Rebecca and Sir Pitt not a little astonished at it.
+
+As for Becky, she was not hurt; nay, she was pleased.
+"It was the diamond-clasp you gave me," she said to Sir
+Pitt, reaching him out her hand; and before she left him
+(for which event you may be sure my Lady Jane was
+looking out from her dressing-room window in the upper
+story) the Baronet had promised to go and seek out his
+brother, and endeavour to bring about a reconciliation.
+
+Rawdon found some of the young fellows of the regiment
+seated in the mess-room at breakfast, and was
+induced without much difficulty to partake of that meal,
+and of the devilled legs of fowls and soda-water with
+which these young gentlemen fortified themselves.  Then
+they had a conversation befitting the day and their time
+of life:  about the next pigeon-match at Battersea, with
+relative bets upon Ross and Osbaldiston; about
+Mademoiselle Ariane of the French Opera, and who had left
+her, and how she was consoled by Panther Carr; and
+about the fight between the Butcher and the Pet, and the
+probabilities that it was a cross.  Young Tandyman, a
+hero of seventeen, laboriously endeavouring to get up a
+pair of mustachios, had seen the fight, and spoke in the
+most scientific manner about the battle and the condition
+of the men.  It was he who had driven the Butcher on to
+the ground in his drag and passed the whole of the
+previous night with him.  Had there not been foul play
+he must have won it.  All the old files of the Ring were in
+it; and Tandyman wouldn't pay; no, dammy, he wouldn't
+pay.  It was but a year since the young Cornet, now so
+knowing a hand in Cribb's parlour, had a still lingering
+liking for toffy, and used to be birched at Eton.
+
+So they went on talking about dancers, fights, drinking,
+demireps, until Macmurdo came down and joined the
+boys and the conversation.  He did not appear to think
+that any especial reverence was due to their boyhood;
+the old fellow cut in with stories, to the full as choice
+as any the youngest rake present had to tell--nor did his
+own grey hairs nor their smooth faces detain him.  Old
+Mac was famous for his good stories.  He was not exactly
+a lady's man; that is, men asked him to dine rather at
+the houses of their mistresses than of their mothers.
+There can scarcely be a life lower, perhaps, than his,
+but he was quite contented with it, such as it was, and
+led it in perfect good nature, simplicity, and modesty of
+demeanour.
+
+By the time Mac had finished a copious breakfast,
+most of the others had concluded their meal.  Young Lord
+Varinas was smoking an immense Meerschaum pipe,
+while Captain Hugues was employed with a cigar:  that
+violent little devil Tandyman, with his little bull-terrier
+between his legs, was tossing for shillings with all his
+might (that fellow was always at some game or other)
+against Captain Deuceace; and Mac and Rawdon walked
+off to the Club, neither, of course, having given any hint
+of the business which was occupying their minds.  Both,
+on the other hand, had joined pretty gaily in the
+conversation, for why should they interrupt it? Feasting,
+drinking, ribaldry, laughter, go on alongside of all sorts
+of other occupations in Vanity Fair--the crowds were
+pouring out of church as Rawdon and his friend passed
+down St.  James's Street and entered into their Club.
+
+The old bucks and habitues, who ordinarily stand
+gaping and grinning out of the great front window of the
+Club, had not arrived at their posts as yet--the
+newspaper-room was almost empty.  One man was present
+whom Rawdon did not know; another to whom he owed
+a little score for whist, and whom, in consequence, he
+did not care to meet; a third was reading the Royalist
+(a periodical famous for its scandal and its attachment
+to Church and King) Sunday paper at the table, and
+looking up at Crawley with some interest, said, "Crawley,
+I congratulate you."
+
+"What do you mean?" said the Colonel.
+
+"It's in the Observer and the Royalist too," said Mr.
+Smith.
+
+"What?" Rawdon cried, turning very red.  He thought
+that the affair with Lord Steyne was already in the
+public prints.  Smith looked up wondering and smiling
+at the agitation which the Colonel exhibited as he took
+up the paper and, trembling, began to read.
+
+Mr. Smith and Mr. Brown (the gentleman with .whom
+Rawdon had the outstanding whist account) had been
+talking about the Colonel just before he came in.
+
+"It is come just in the nick of time," said Smith.  "I
+suppose Crawley had not a shilling in the world."
+
+"It's a wind that blows everybody good," Mr. Brown
+said.  "He can't go away without paying me a pony he
+owes me."
+
+"What's the salary?" asked Smith.
+
+"Two or three thousand," answered the other.  "But
+the climate's so infernal, they don't enjoy it long.
+Liverseege died after eighteen months of it, and the
+man before went off in six weeks, I hear."
+
+"Some people say his brother is a very clever man.  I
+always found him a d-- bore," Smith ejaculated.  "He
+must have good interest, though.  He must have got the
+Colonel the place."
+
+"He!" said Brown.  with a sneer.  "Pooh.  It was Lord
+Steyne got it.
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband,"
+answered the other enigmatically, and went to read his
+papers.
+
+Rawdon, for his part, read in the Royalist the following
+astonishing paragraph:
+
+GOVERNORSHIP OF COVENTRY ISLAND.--H.M.S.
+Yellowjack, Commander Jaunders, has brought letters and
+papers from Coventry Island.  H.  E.  Sir Thomas
+Liverseege had fallen a victim to the prevailing fever at
+Swampton.  His loss is deeply felt in the flourishing
+colony.  We hear that the Governorship has been offered to
+Colonel Rawdon Crawley, C.B., a distinguished Waterloo
+officer.  We need not only men of acknowledged
+bravery, but men of administrative talents to superintend
+the affairs of our colonies, and we have no doubt
+that the gentleman selected by the Colonial Office to
+fill the lamented vacancy which has occurred at
+Coventry Island is admirably calculated for the post which
+he is about to occupy."
+
+"Coventry Island!  Where was it? Who had appointed
+him to the government? You must take me out as your
+secretary, old boy," Captain Macmurdo said laughing;
+and as Crawley and his friend sat wondering and
+perplexed over the announcement, the Club waiter brought
+in to the Colonel a card on which the name of Mr.
+Wenham was engraved, who begged to see Colonel
+Crawley.
+
+The Colonel and his aide-de-camp went out to meet
+the gentleman, rightly conjecturing that he was an
+emissary of Lord Steyne.  "How d'ye do, Crawley? I am
+glad to see you," said Mr. Wenham with a bland smile,
+and grasping Crawley's hand with great cordiality.
+
+"You come, I suppose, from-- "
+
+"Exactly," said Mr. Wenham.
+
+"Then this is my friend Captain Macmurdo, of the Life
+Guards Green."
+
+"Delighted to know Captain Macmurdo, I'm sure," Mr.
+Wenham said and tendered another smile and shake of
+the hand to the second, as he had done to the principal.
+Mac put out one finger, armed with a buckskin glove,
+and made a very frigid bow to Mr. Wenham over his
+tight cravat.  He was, perhaps, discontented at being put
+in communication with a pekin, and thought that Lord
+Steyne should have sent him a Colonel at the very least.
+
+"As Macmurdo acts for me, and knows what I mean,"
+Crawley said, "I had better retire and leave you together."
+
+"Of course," said Macmurdo.
+
+"By no means, my dear Colonel," Mr. Wenham said;
+"the interview which I had the honour of requesting was
+with you personally, though the company of Captain
+Macmurdo cannot fail to be also most pleasing.  In fact,
+Captain, I hope that our conversation will lead to none
+but the most agreeable results, very different from those
+which my friend Colonel Crawley appears to anticipate."
+
+"Humph!" said Captain Macmurdo.  Be hanged to these
+civilians, he thought to himself, they are always for
+arranging and speechifying.  Mr. Wenham took a chair
+which was not offered to him--took a paper from his
+pocket, and resumed--
+
+"You have seen this gratifying announcement in the
+papers this morning, Colonel? Government has secured
+a most valuable servant, and you, if you accept office, as
+I presume you will, an excellent appointment.  Three
+thousand a year, delightful climate, excellent government-
+house, all your own way in the Colony, and a certain
+promotion.  I congratulate you with all my heart.  I
+presume you know, gentlemen, to whom my friend is
+indebted for this piece of patronage?"
+
+"Hanged if I know," the Captain said; his principal
+turned very red.
+
+"To one of the most generous and kindest men in the
+world, as he is one of the greatest--to my excellent
+friend, the Marquis of Steyne."
+
+"I'll see him d-- before I take his place," growled
+out Rawdon.
+
+"You are irritated against my noble friend," Mr.
+Wenham calmly resumed; "and now, in the name of
+common sense and justice, tell me why?"
+
+"WHY?" cried Rawdon in surprise.
+
+"Why? Dammy!" said the Captain, ringing his stick
+on the ground.
+
+"Dammy, indeed," said Mr. Wenham with the most
+agreeable smile; "still, look at the matter as a man of
+the world--as an honest man--and see if you have not
+been in the wrong.  You come home from a journey, and
+find--what?--my Lord Steyne supping at your house in
+Curzon Street with Mrs. Crawley.  Is the circumstance
+strange or novel? Has he not been a hundred times
+before in the same position? Upon my honour and word
+as a gentleman"--Mr. Wenham here put his hand on
+his waistcoat with a parliamentary air--"I declare I think
+that your suspicions are monstrous and utterly
+unfounded, and that they injure an honourable gentleman
+who has proved his good-will towards you by a thousand
+benefactions--and a most spotless and innocent lady."
+
+"You don't mean to say that--that Crawley's
+mistaken?" said Mr. Macmurdo.
+
+"I believe that Mrs. Crawley is as innocent as my
+wife, Mrs. Wenham," Mr. Wenham said with great
+energy.  "I believe that, misled by an infernal jealousy,
+my friend here strikes a blow against not only an infirm
+and old man of high station, his constant friend and
+benefactor, but against his wife, his own dearest honour,
+his son's future reputation, and his own prospects in
+life."
+
+"I will tell you what happened," Mr. Wenham
+continued with great solemnity; "I was sent for this
+morning by my Lord Steyne, and found him in a pitiable state,
+as, I need hardly inform Colonel Crawley, any man of
+age and infirmity would be after a personal conflict with
+a man of your strength.  I say to your face; it was a
+cruel advantage you took of that strength, Colonel
+Crawley.  It was not only the body of my noble and
+excellent friend which was wounded--his heart, sir, was
+bleeding.  A man whom he had loaded with benefits and
+regarded with affection had subjected him to the foulest
+indignity.  What was this very appointment, which appears
+in the journals of to-day, but a proof of his kindness to
+you? When I saw his Lordship this morning I found him
+in a state pitiable indeed to see, and as anxious as you
+are to revenge the outrage committed upon him, by
+blood.  You know he has given his proofs, I presume,
+Colonel Crawley?"
+
+"He has plenty of pluck," said the Colonel.  "Nobody
+ever said he hadn't."
+
+"His first order to me was to write a letter of
+challenge, and to carry it to Colonel Crawley.  One or
+other of us," he said, "must not survive the outrage
+of last night."
+
+Crawley nodded.  "You're coming to the point,
+Wenham," he said.
+
+"I tried my utmost to calm Lord Steyne.  Good God!
+sir," I said, "how I regret that Mrs. Wenham and myself
+had not accepted Mrs. Crawley's invitation to sup with
+her!"
+
+"She asked you to sup with her?" Captain Macmurdo
+said.
+
+"After the opera.  Here's the note of invitation--stop
+--no, this is another paper--I thought I had h, but it's
+of no consequence, and I pledge you my word to the
+fact.  If we had come--and it was only one of Mrs.
+Wenham's headaches which prevented us--she suffers
+under them a good deal, especially in the spring--if we
+had come, and you had returned home, there would have
+been no quarrel, no insult, no suspicion--and so it is
+positively because my poor wife has a headache that you
+are to bring death down upon two men of honour and
+plunge two of the most excellent and ancient families
+in the kingdom into disgrace and sorrow."
+
+Mr. Macmurdo looked at his principal with the air
+of a man profoundly puzzled, and Rawdon felt with a
+kind of rage that his prey was escaping him.  He did not
+believe a word of the story, and yet, how discredit or
+disprove it?
+
+Mr. Wenham continued with the same fluent oratory,
+which in his place in Parliament he had so often
+practised--"I sat for an hour or more by Lord Steyne's
+bedside, beseeching, imploring Lord Steyne to forego his
+intention of demanding a meeting.  I pointed out to him
+that the circumstances were after all suspicious--they
+were suspicious.  I acknowledge it--any man in your
+position might have been taken in--I said that a man
+furious with jealousy is to all intents and purposes a
+madman, and should be as such regarded--that a duel
+between you must lead to the disgrace of all parties
+concerned--that a man of his Lordship's exalted station had
+no right in these days, when the most atrocious
+revolutionary principles, and the most dangerous levelling
+doctrines are preached among the vulgar, to create a
+public scandal; and that, however innocent, the common
+people would insist that he was guilty.  In fine, I
+implored him not to send the challenge."
+
+"I don't believe one word of the whole story," said
+Rawdon, grinding his teeth.  "I believe it a d-- lie, and
+that you're in it, Mr. Wenham.  If the challenge don't
+come from him, by Jove it shall come from me."
+
+Mr. Wenham turned deadly pale at this savage
+interruption of the Colonel and looked towards the door.
+
+But he found a champion in Captain Macmurdo.  That
+gentleman rose up with an oath and rebuked Rawdon
+for his language.  "You put the affair into my hands, and
+you shall act as I think fit, by Jove, and not as you do.
+You have no right to insult Mr. Wenham with this sort
+of language; and dammy, Mr. Wenham, you deserve an
+apology.  And as for a challenge to Lord Steyne, you
+may get somebody else to carry it, I won't.  If my lord,
+after being thrashed, chooses to sit still, dammy let him.
+And as for the affair with--with Mrs. Crawley, my
+belief is, there's nothing proved at all:  that your wife's
+innocent, as innocent as Mr. Wenham says she is; and at
+any rate that you would be a d--fool not to take the
+place and hold your tongue."
+
+"Captain Macmurdo, you speak like a man of sense,"
+Mr. Wenham cried out, immensely relieved--"I forget
+any words that Colonel Crawley has used in the
+irritation of the moment."
+
+"I thought you would," Rawdon said with a sneer.
+
+"Shut your mouth, you old stoopid," the Captain said
+good-naturedly.  "Mr. Wenham ain't a fighting man; and
+quite right, too."
+
+"This matter, in my belief," the Steyne emissary cried,
+"ought to be buried in the most profound oblivion.  A
+word concerning it should never pass these doors.  I
+speak in the interest of my friend, as well as of Colonel
+Crawley, who persists in considering me his enemy."
+
+"I suppose Lord Steyne won't talk about it very
+much," said Captain Macmurdo; "and I don't see why
+our side should.  The affair ain't a very pretty one, any
+way you take it, and the less said about it the better.
+It's you are thrashed, and not us; and if you are satisfied,
+why, I think, we should be."
+
+Mr. Wenham took his hat, upon this, and Captain
+Macmurdo following him to the door, shut it upon
+himself and Lord Steyne's agent, leaving Rawdon chafing
+within.  When the two were on the other side, Macmurdo
+looked hard at the other ambassador and with an
+expression of anything but respect on his round jolly face.
+
+"You don't stick at a trifle, Mr. Wenham," he said.
+
+"You flatter me, Captain Macmurdo," answered the
+other with a smile.  "Upon my honour and conscience
+now, Mrs. Crawley did ask us to sup after the opera."
+
+"Of course; and Mrs. Wenham had one of her head-
+aches.  I say, I've got a thousand-pound note here, which
+I will give you if you will give me a receipt, please; and
+I will put the note up in an envelope for Lord Steyne.
+My man shan't fight him.  But we had rather not take
+his money."
+
+"It was all a mistake--all a mistake, my dear sir," the
+other said with the utmost innocence of manner; and was
+bowed down the Club steps by Captain Macmurdo, just
+as Sir Pitt Crawley ascended them.  There was a slight
+acquaintance between these two gentlemen, and the
+Captain, going back with the Baronet to the room where the
+latter's brother was, told Sir Pitt, in confidence, that he
+had made the affair all right between Lord Steyne and
+the Colonel.
+
+Sir Pitt was well pleased, of course, at this intelligence,
+and congratulated his brother warmly upon the peaceful
+issue of the affair, making appropriate moral remarks
+upon the evils of duelling and the unsatisfactory nature
+of that sort of settlement of disputes.
+
+And after this preface, he tried with all his eloquence
+to effect a reconciliation between Rawdon and his wife.
+He recapitulated the statements which Becky had made,
+pointed out the probabilities of their truth, and asserted
+his own firm belief in her innocence.
+
+But Rawdon would not hear of it.  "She has kep money
+concealed from me these ten years," he said "She swore,
+last night only, she had none from Steyne.  She knew it
+was all up, directly I found it.  If she's not guilty, Pitt,
+she's as bad as guilty, and I'll never see her again--
+never." His head sank down on his chest as he spoke
+the words, and he looked quite broken and sad.
+
+"Poor old boy," Macmurdo said, shaking his head.
+
+Rawdon Crawley resisted for some time the idea of
+taking the place which had been procured for him by so
+odious a patron, and was also for removing the boy
+from the school where Lord Steyne's interest had placed
+him.  He was induced, however, to acquiesce in these
+benefits by the entreaties of his brother and Macmurdo,
+but mainly by the latter, pointing out to him what a
+fury Steyne would be in to think that his enemy's
+fortune was made through his means.
+
+When the Marquis of Steyne came abroad after his
+accident, the Colonial Secretary bowed up to him and
+congratulated himself and the Service upon having made
+so excellent an appointment.  These congratulations were
+received with a degree of gratitude which may be
+imagined on the part of Lord Steyne.
+
+The secret of the rencontre between him and Colonel
+Crawley was buried in the profoundest oblivion, as
+Wenham said; that is, by the seconds and the principals.
+But before that evening was over it was talked of at fifty
+dinner-tables in Vanity Fair.  Little Cackleby himself
+went to seven evening parties and told the story with
+comments and emendations at each place.  How Mrs.
+Washington White revelled in it!  The Bishopess of Ealing
+was shocked beyond expression; the Bishop went and
+wrote his name down in the visiting-book at Gaunt House
+that very day.  Little Southdown was sorry; so you may
+be sure was his sister Lady Jane, very sorry.  Lady
+Southdown wrote it off to her other daughter at the Cape of
+Good Hope.  It was town-talk for at least three days,
+and was only kept out of the newspapers by the exertions
+of Mr. Wagg, acting upon a hint from Mr. Wenham.
+
+The bailiffs and brokers seized upon poor Raggles in
+Curzon Street, and the late fair tenant of that poor little
+mansion was in the meanwhile--where? Who cared!  Who
+asked after a day or two? Was she guilty or not? We all
+know how charitable the world is, and how the verdict
+of Vanity Fair goes when there is a doubt.  Some people
+said she had gone to Naples in pursuit of Lord Steyne,
+whilst others averred that his Lordship quitted that city
+and fled to Palermo on hearing of Becky's arrival; some
+said she was living in Bierstadt, and had become a dame
+d'honneur to the Queen of Bulgaria; some that she was
+at Boulogne; and others, at a boarding-house at
+Cheltenham.
+
+Rawdon made her a tolerable annuity, and we may
+be sure that she was a woman who could make a little
+money go a great way, as the saying is.  He would have
+paid his debts on leaving England, could he have got any
+Insurance Office to take his life, but the climate of
+Coventry Island was so bad that he could borrow no
+money on the strength of his salary.  He remitted,
+however, to his brother punctually, and wrote to his little
+boy regularly every mail.  He kept Macmurdo in cigars
+and sent over quantities of shells, cayenne pepper, hot
+pickles, guava jelly, and colonial produce to Lady Jane.
+He sent his brother home the Swamp Town Gazette,
+in which the new Governor was praised with immense
+enthusiasm; whereas the Swamp Town Sentinel, whose
+wife was not asked to Government House, declared that
+his Excellency was a tyrant, compared to whom Nero
+was an enlightened philanthropist.  Little Rawdon used
+to like to get the papers and read about his Excellency.
+
+His mother never made any movement to see the child.
+He went home to his aunt for Sundays and holidays; he
+soon knew every bird's nest about Queen's Crawley, and
+rode out with Sir Huddlestone's hounds, which he
+admired so on his first well-remembered visit to
+Hampshire.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVI
+
+
+Georgy is Made a Gentleman
+
+Georgy Osborne was now fairly established in his
+grandfather's mansion in Russell Square, occupant of his
+father's room in the house and heir apparent of all the
+splendours there.  The good looks, gallant bearing, and
+gentlemanlike appearance of the boy won the grandsire's
+heart for him.  Mr. Osborne was as proud of him as ever
+he had been of the elder George.
+
+The child had many more luxuries and indulgences than
+had been awarded his father.  Osborne's commerce had
+prospered greatly of late years.  His wealth and
+importance in the City had very much increased.  He had
+been glad enough in former days to put the elder George
+to a good private school; and a commission in the army
+for his son had been a source of no small pride to
+him; for little George and his future prospects the old
+man looked much higher.  He would make a gentleman
+of the little chap, was Mr. Osborne's constant saying
+regarding little Georgy.  He saw him in his mind's eye, a
+collegian, a Parliament man, a Baronet, perhaps.  The
+old man thought he would die contented if he could see
+his grandson in a fair way to such honours.  He would
+have none but a tip-top college man to educate him--
+none of your quacks and pretenders--no, no.  A few years
+before, he used to be savage, and inveigh against all
+parsons, scholars, and the like declaring that they were
+a pack of humbugs, and quacks that weren't fit to get
+their living but by grinding Latin and Greek, and a set
+of supercilious dogs that pretended to look down upon
+British merchants and gentlemen, who could buy up half
+a hundred of 'em.  He would mourn now, in a very
+solemn manner, that his own education had been neglected,
+and repeatedly point out, in pompous orations to Georgy,
+the necessity and excellence of classical acquirements.
+
+When they met at dinner the grandsire used to ask
+the lad what he had been reading during the day, and
+was greatly interested at the report the boy gave of his
+own studies, pretending to understand little George
+when he spoke regarding them.  He made a hundred
+blunders and showed his ignorance many a time.  It did not
+increase the respect which the child had for his senior.
+A quick brain and a better education elsewhere showed
+the boy very soon that his grandsire was a dullard, and
+he began accordingly to command him and to look down
+upon him; for his previous education, humble and
+contracted as it had been, had made a much better
+gentleman of Georgy than any plans of his grandfather could
+make him.  He had been brought up by a kind, weak,
+and tender woman, who had no pride about anything
+but about him, and whose heart was so pure and whose
+bearing was so meek and humble that she could not but
+needs be a true lady.  She busied herself in gentle offices
+and quiet duties; if she never said brilliant things, she
+never spoke or thought unkind ones; guileless and artless,
+loving and pure, indeed how could our poor little Amelia
+be other than a real gentlewoman!
+
+Young Georgy lorded over this soft and yielding
+nature; and the contrast of its simplicity and delicacy with
+the coarse pomposity of the dull old man with whom
+he next came in contact made him lord over the latter
+too.  If he had been a Prince Royal he could not have
+been better brought up to think well of himself.
+
+Whilst his mother was yearning after him at home, and
+I do believe every hour of the day, and during most
+hours of the sad lonely nights, thinking of him, this young
+gentleman had a number of pleasures and consolations
+administered to him, which made him for his part bear
+the separation from Amelia very easily.  Little boys who
+cry when they are going to school cry because they
+are going to a very uncomfortable place.  It is only a
+few who weep from sheer affection.  When you think
+that the eyes of your childhood dried at the sight of a
+piece of gingerbread, and that a plum cake was a
+compensation for the agony of parting with your mamma
+and sisters, oh my friend and brother, you need not be
+too confident of your own fine feelings.
+
+Well, then, Master George Osborne had every comfort
+and luxury that a wealthy and lavish old grandfather
+thought fit to provide.  The coachman was instructed to
+purchase for him the handsomest pony which could be
+bought for money, and on this George was taught to
+ride, first at a riding-school, whence, after having
+performed satisfactorily without stirrups, and over the
+leaping-bar, he was conducted through the New Road to
+Regent's Park, and then to Hyde Park, where he rode
+in state with Martin the coachman behind him.  Old
+Osborne, who took matters more easily in the City now,
+where he left his affairs to his junior partners, would
+often ride out with Miss O.  in the same fashionable direction.
+As little Georgy came cantering up with his dandified
+air and his heels down, his grandfather would nudge
+the lad's aunt and say, "Look, Miss O." And he would
+laugh, and his face would grow red with pleasure, as
+he nodded out of the window to the boy, as the groom
+saluted the carriage, and the footman saluted Master
+George.  Here too his aunt, Mrs. Frederick Bullock
+(whose chariot might daily be seen in the Ring, with
+bullocks or emblazoned on the panels and harness, and
+three pasty-faced little Bullocks, covered with cockades
+and feathers, staring from the windows) Mrs. Frederick
+Bullock, I say, flung glances of the bitterest hatred at
+the little upstart as he rode by with his hand on his side
+and his hat on one ear, as proud as a lord.
+
+Though he was scarcely eleven years of age, Master
+George wore straps and the most beautiful little boots
+like a man.  He had gilt spurs, and a gold-headed whip,
+and a fine pin in his handkerchief, and the neatest little
+kid gloves which Lamb's Conduit Street could furnish.
+His mother had given him a couple of neckcloths, and
+carefully hemmed and made some little shirts for him;
+but when her Eli came to see the widow, they were
+replaced by much finer linen.  He had little jewelled buttons
+in the lawn shirt fronts.  Her humble presents had been put
+aside--I believe Miss Osborne had given them to the
+coachman's boy.  Amelia tried to think she was pleased
+at the change.  Indeed, she was happy and charmed to
+see the boy looking so beautiful.
+
+She had had a little black profile of him done for a
+shilling, and this was hung up by the side of another
+portrait over her bed.  One day the boy came on his
+accustomed visit, galloping down the little street at
+Brompton, and bringing, as usual, all the inhabitants to the
+windows to admire his splendour, and with great eagerness
+and a look of triumph in his face, he pulled a case
+out of his great-coat--it was a natty white great-coat,
+with a cape and a velvet collar--pulled out a red
+morocco case, which he gave her.
+
+"I bought it with my own money, Mamma," he said.
+"I thought you'd like it."
+
+Amelia opened the case, and giving a little cry of
+delighted affection, seized the boy and embraced him a
+hundred times.  It was a miniature-of himself, very prettily
+done (though not half handsome enough, we may be
+sure, the widow thought).  His grandfather had wished
+to have a picture of him by an artist whose works,
+exhibited in a shop-window, in Southampton Row, had
+caught the old gentleman's eye; and George, who had
+plenty of money, bethought him of asking the painter
+how much a copy of the little portrait would cost, saying
+that he would pay for it out of his own money and
+that he wanted to give it to his mother.  The pleased
+painter executed it for a small price, and old Osborne
+himself, when he heard of the incident, growled out his
+satisfaction and gave the boy twice as many sovereigns
+as he paid for the miniature.
+
+But what was the grandfather's pleasure compared to
+Amelia's ecstacy? That proof of the boy's affection
+charmed her so that she thought no child in the world
+was like hers for goodness.  For long weeks after, the
+thought of his love made her happy.  She slept better
+with the picture under her pillow, and how many many
+times did she kiss it and weep and pray over it!  A
+small kindness from those she loved made that timid
+heart grateful.  Since her parting with George she had had
+no such joy and consolation.
+
+At his new home Master George ruled like a lord;
+at dinner he invited the ladies to drink wine with the
+utmost coolness, and took off his champagne in a way
+which charmed his old grandfather.  "Look at him," the
+old man would say, nudging his neighbour with a
+delighted purple face, "did you ever see such a chap?
+Lord, Lord!  he'll be ordering a dressing-case next, and
+razors to shave with; I'm blessed if he won't."
+
+The antics of the lad did not, however, delight Mr.
+Osborne's friends so much as they pleased the old
+gentleman.  It gave Mr. Justice Coffin no pleasure to hear
+Georgy cut into the conversation and spoil his stories.
+Colonel Fogey was not interested in seeing the little boy
+half tipsy.  Mr. Sergeant Toffy's lady felt no particular
+gratitude, when, with a twist of his elbow, he tilted a
+glass of port-wine over her yellow satin and laughed at
+the disaster; nor was she better pleased, although old
+Osborne was highly delighted, when Georgy "whopped"
+her third boy (a young gentleman a year older than
+Georgy, and by chance home for the holidays from Dr.
+Tickleus's at Ealing School) in Russell Square.  George's
+grandfather gave the boy a couple of sovereigns for that
+feat and promised to reward him further for every boy
+above his own size and age whom he whopped in a
+similar manner.  It is difficult to say what good the old man
+saw in these combats; he had a vague notion that
+quarrelling made boys hardy, and that tyranny was a useful
+accomplishment for them to learn.  English youth have
+been so educated time out of mind, and we have
+hundreds of thousands of apologists and admirers of
+injustice, misery, and brutality, as perpetrated among
+children.  Flushed with praise and victory over Master Toffy,
+George wished naturally to pursue his conquests further,
+and one day as he was strutting about in prodigiously
+dandified new clothes, near St.  Pancras, and a young
+baker's boy made sarcastic comments upon his appearance,
+the youthful patrician pulled off his dandy jacket
+with great spirit, and giving it in charge to the friend
+who accompanied him (Master Todd, of Great Coram
+Street, Russell Square, son of the junior partner of the
+house of Osborne and Co.), George tried to whop the
+little baker.  But the chances of war were unfavourable
+this time, and the little baker whopped Georgy, who
+came home with a rueful black eye and all his fine shirt
+frill dabbled with the claret drawn from his own little
+nose.  He told his grandfather that he had been in
+combat with a giant, and frightened his poor mother at
+Brompton with long, and by no means authentic,
+accounts of the battle.
+
+This young Todd, of Coram Street, Russell Square,
+was Master George's great friend and admirer.  They both
+had a taste for painting theatrical characters; for
+hardbake and raspberry tarts; for sliding and skating in the
+Regent's Park and the Serpentine, when the weather
+permitted; for going to the play, whither they were often
+conducted, by Mr. Osborne's orders, by Rowson, Master
+George's appointed body-servant, with whom they sat in
+great comfort in the pit.
+
+In the company of this gentleman they visited all the
+principal theatres of the metropolis; knew the names of
+all the actors from Drury Lane to Sadler's Wells; and
+performed, indeed, many of the plays to the Todd family
+and their youthful friends, with West's famous characters,
+on their pasteboard theatre.  Rowson, the footman, who
+was of a generous disposition, would not unfrequently,
+when in cash, treat his young master to oysters after
+the play, and to a glass of rum-shrub for a night-cap.
+We may be pretty certain that Mr. Rowson profited in
+his turn by his young master's liberality and gratitude
+for the pleasures to which the footman inducted him.
+
+A famous tailor from the West End of the town--
+Mr. Osborne would have none of your City or Holborn
+bunglers, he said, for the boy (though a City tailor was
+good enough for HIM)--was summoned to ornament little
+George's person, and was told to spare no expense in so
+doing.  So, Mr. Woolsey, of Conduit Street, gave a loose
+to his imagination and sent the child home fancy trousers,
+fancy waistcoats, and fancy jackets enough to furnish a
+school of little dandies.  Georgy had little white
+waistcoats for evening parties, and little cut velvet waistcoats
+for dinners, and a dear little darling shawl dressing-gown,
+for all the world like a little man.  He dressed for dinner
+every day, "like a regular West End swell," as his
+grandfather remarked; one of the domestics was affected to
+his special service, attended him at his toilette,
+answered his bell, and brought him his letters always on a
+silver tray.
+
+Georgy, after breakfast, would sit in the arm-chair in
+the dining-room and read the Morning Post, just like a
+grown-up man.  "How he DU dam and swear," the
+servants would cry, delighted at his precocity.  Those who
+remembered the Captain his father, declared Master
+George was his Pa, every inch of him.  He made the house
+lively by his activity, his imperiousness, his scolding, and
+his good-nature.
+
+George's education was confided to a neighbouring
+scholar and private pedagogue who "prepared young
+noblemen and gentlemen for the Universities, the senate,
+and the learned professions:  whose system did not
+embrace the degrading corporal severities still practised at
+the ancient places of education, and in whose family the
+pupils would find the elegances of refined society and
+the confidence and affection of a home." It was in this
+way that the Reverend Lawrence Veal of Hart Street,
+Bloomsbury, and domestic Chaplain to the Earl of
+Bareacres, strove with Mrs. Veal his wife to entice pupils.
+
+By thus advertising and pushing sedulously, the
+domestic Chaplain and his Lady generally succeeded in
+having one or two scholars by them--who paid a high
+figure and were thought to be in uncommonly comfortable
+quarters.  There was a large West Indian, whom
+nobody came to see, with a mahogany complexion, a woolly
+head, and an exceedingly dandyfied appearance; there
+was another hulking boy of three-and-twenty whose
+education had been neglected and whom Mr. and Mrs. Veal
+were to introduce into the polite world; there were two
+sons of Colonel Bangles of the East India Company's
+Service:  these four sat down to dinner at Mrs. Veal's
+genteel board, when Georgy was introduced to her
+establishment.
+
+Georgy was, like some dozen other pupils, only a
+day boy; he arrived in the morning under the
+guardianship of his friend Mr. Rowson, and if it was fine,
+would ride away in the afternoon on his pony, followed by
+the groom.  The wealth of his grandfather was reported
+in the school to be prodigious.  The Rev.  Mr. Veal used
+to compliment Georgy upon it personally, warning him
+that he was destined for a high station; that it became
+him to prepare, by sedulity and docility in youth, for the
+lofty duties to which he would be called in mature age;
+that obedience in the child was the best preparation for
+command in the man; and that he therefore begged George
+would not bring toffee into the school and ruin the health
+of the Masters Bangles, who had everything they wanted
+at the elegant and abundant table of Mrs. Veal.
+
+With respect to learning, "the Curriculum," as Mr.
+Veal loved to call it, was of prodigious extent, and the
+young gentlemen in Hart Street might learn a
+something of every known science.  The Rev.  Mr. Veal had
+an orrery, an electrifying machine, a turning lathe, a
+theatre (in the wash-house), a chemical apparatus, and
+what he called a select library of all the works of the
+best authors of ancient and modern times and languages.
+He took the boys to the British Museum and descanted
+upon the antiquities and the specimens of natural history
+there, so that audiences would gather round him as he
+spoke, and all Bloomsbury highly admired him as a
+prodigiously well-informed man.  And whenever he spoke
+(which he did almost always), he took care to produce the
+very finest and longest words of which the vocabulary
+gave him the use, rightly judging that it was as cheap to
+employ a handsome, large, and sonorous epithet, as to
+use a little stingy one.
+
+Thus he would say to George in school, "I observed
+on my return home from taking the indulgence of an
+evening's scientific conversation with my excellent friend
+Doctor Bulders--a true archaeologian, gentlemen, a true
+archaeologian--that the windows of your venerated
+grandfather's almost princely mansion in Russell Square were
+illuminated as if for the purposes of festivity.  Am I right
+in my conjecture that Mr. Osborne entertained a society
+of chosen spirits round his sumptuous board last night?"
+
+Little Georgy, who had considerable humour, and used
+to mimic Mr. Veal to his face with great spirit and
+dexterity, would reply that Mr. V.  was quite correct
+in his surmise.
+
+"Then those friends who had the honour of partaking
+of Mr. Osborne's hospitality, gentlemen, had no reason,
+I will lay any wager, to complain of their repast.  I
+myself have been more than once so favoured.  (By the way,
+Master Osborne, you came a little late this morning, and
+have been a defaulter in this respect more than once.)
+I myself, I say, gentlemen, humble as I am, have been
+found not unworthy to share Mr. Osborne's elegant
+hospitality.  And though I have feasted with the great and
+noble of the world--for I presume that I may call my
+excellent friend and patron, the Right Honourable George
+Earl of Bareacres, one of the number--yet I assure you
+that the board of the British merchant was to the full
+as richly served, and his reception as gratifying and
+noble.  Mr. Bluck, sir, we will resume, if you please,
+that passage of Eutropis, which was interrupted by the
+late arrival of Master Osborne."
+
+To this great man George's education was for some
+time entrusted.  Amelia was bewildered by his phrases,
+but thought him a prodigy of learning.  That poor widow
+made friends of Mrs. Veal, for reasons of her own.  She
+liked to be in the house and see Georgy coming to school
+there.  She liked to be asked to Mrs. Veal's conversazioni,
+which took place once a month (as you were informed on
+pink cards, with AOHNH engraved on them), and where
+the professor welcomed his pupils and their friends to weak
+tea and scientific conversation.  Poor little Amelia never
+missed one of these entertainments and thought them
+delicious so long as she might have Georgy sitting by her.
+And she would walk from Brompton in any weather,
+and embrace Mrs. Veal with tearful gratitude for the
+delightful evening she had passed, when, the company
+having retired and Georgy gone off with Mr. Rowson, his
+attendant, poor Mrs. Osborne put on her cloaks and
+her shawls preparatory to walking home.
+
+As for the learning which Georgy imbibed under this
+valuable master of a hundred sciences, to judge from
+the weekly reports which the lad took home to his
+grandfather, his progress was remarkable.  The names of a
+score or more of desirable branches of knowledge were
+printed in a table, and the pupil's progress in each was
+marked by the professor.  In Greek Georgy was
+pronounced aristos, in Latin optimus, in French tres bien,
+and so forth; and everybody had prizes for everything
+at the end of the year.  Even Mr. Swartz, the wooly-
+headed young gentleman, and half-brother to the
+Honourable Mrs. Mac Mull, and Mr. Bluck, the neglected
+young pupil of three-and-twenty from the agricultural
+district, and that idle young scapegrace of a Master Todd
+before mentioned, received little eighteen-penny books,
+with "Athene" engraved on them, and a pompous Latin
+inscription from the professor to his young friends.
+
+The family of this Master Todd were hangers-on of
+the house of Osborne.  The old gentleman had advanced
+Todd from being a clerk to be a junior partner in his
+establishment.
+
+Mr. Osborne was the godfather of young Master Todd
+(who in subsequent life wrote Mr. Osborne Todd on his
+cards and became a man of decided fashion), while Miss
+Osborne had accompanied Miss Maria Todd to the font,
+and gave her protegee a prayer-book, a collection of
+tracts, a volume of very low church poetry, or some
+such memento of her goodness every year.  Miss O.  drove
+the Todds out in her carriage now and then; when they
+were ill, her footman, in large plush smalls and
+waistcoat, brought jellies and delicacies from Russell Square to
+Coram Street.  Coram Street trembled and looked up to
+Russell Square indeed, and Mrs. Todd, who had a pretty
+hand at cutting out paper trimmings for haunches of
+mutton, and could make flowers, ducks, &c., out of turnips
+and carrots in a very creditable manner, would go to "the
+Square," as it was called, and assist in the preparations
+incident to a great dinner, without even so much as
+thinking of sitting down to the banquet.  If any guest failed at
+the eleventh hour, Todd was asked to dine.  Mrs. Todd and
+Maria came across in the evening, slipped in with a muffled
+knock, and were in the drawing-room by the time Miss
+Osborne and the ladies under her convoy reached that
+apartment--and ready to fire off duets and sing until
+the gentlemen came up.  Poor Maria Todd; poor young
+lady!  How she had to work and thrum at these duets
+and sonatas in the Street, before they appeared in public
+in the Square!
+
+Thus it seemed to be decreed by fate that Georgy
+was to domineer over everybody with whom he came in
+contact, and that friends, relatives, and domestics were
+all to bow the knee before the little fellow.  It must
+be owned that he accommodated himself very willingly
+to this arrangement.  Most people do so.  And Georgy
+liked to play the part of master and perhaps had a
+natural aptitude for it.
+
+In Russell Square everybody was afraid of Mr. Osborne,
+and Mr. Osborne was afraid of Georgy.  The boy's
+dashing manners, and offhand rattle about books and
+learning, his likeness to his father (dead unreconciled in
+Brussels yonder) awed the old gentleman and gave the
+young boy the mastery.  The old man would start at
+some hereditary feature or tone unconsciously used by
+the little lad, and fancy that George's father was again
+before him.  He tried by indulgence to the grandson to
+make up for harshness to the elder George.  People were
+surprised at his gentleness to the boy.  He growled and
+swore at Miss Osborne as usual, and would smile when
+George came down late for breakfast.
+
+Miss Osborne, George's aunt, was a faded old spinster,
+broken down by more than forty years of dulness and
+coarse usage.  It was easy for a lad of spirit to master her.
+And whenever George wanted anything from her, from the
+jam-pots in her cupboards to the cracked and dry old
+colours in her paint-box (the old paint-box which she
+had had when she was a pupil of Mr. Smee and was
+still almost young and blooming), Georgy took possession
+of the object of his desire, which obtained, he took no
+further notice of his aunt.
+
+For his friends and cronies, he had a pompous old
+schoolmaster, who flattered him, and a toady, his senior,
+whom he could thrash.  It was dear Mrs. Todd's delight to
+leave him with her youngest daughter, Rosa Jemima, a
+darling child of eight years old.  The little pair looked so
+well together, she would say (but not to the folks in "the
+Square," we may be sure) "who knows what might
+happen? Don't they make a pretty little couple?" the
+fond mother thought.
+
+The broken-spirited, old, maternal grandfather was
+likewise subject to the little tyrant.  He could not help
+respecting a lad who had such fine clothes and rode with
+a groom behind him.  Georgy, on his side, was in the
+constant habit of hearing coarse abuse and vulgar satire
+levelled at John Sedley by his pitiless old enemy, Mr.
+Osborne.  Osborne used to call the other the old pauper,
+the old coal-man, the old bankrupt, and by many other
+such names of brutal contumely.  How was little George
+to respect a man so prostrate? A few months after he
+was with his paternal grandfather, Mrs. Sedley died.
+There had been little love between her and the child.
+He did not care to show much grief.  He came down to
+visit his mother in a fine new suit of mourning, and was
+very angry that he could not go to a play upon which
+he had set his heart.
+
+The illness of that old lady had been the occupation
+and perhaps the safeguard of Amelia.  What do men know
+about women's martyrdoms? We should go mad had
+we to endure the hundredth part of those daily pains
+which are meekly borne by many women.  Ceaseless
+slavery meeting with no reward; constant gentleness and
+kindness met by cruelty as constant; love, labour, patience,
+watchfulness, without even so much as the acknowledgement
+of a good word; all this, how many of them have
+to bear in quiet, and appear abroad with cheerful faces
+as if they felt nothing.  Tender slaves that they are, they
+must needs be hypocrites and weak.
+
+From her chair Amelia's mother had taken to her bed,
+which she had never left, and from which Mrs. Osborne
+herself was never absent except when she ran to see
+George.  The old lady grudged her even those rare visits;
+she, who had been a kind, smiling, good-natured mother
+once, in the days of her prosperity, but whom poverty
+and infirmities had broken down.  Her illness or estrangement
+did not affect Amelia.  They rather enabled her to
+support the other calamity under which she was suffering,
+and from the thoughts of which she was kept by the
+ceaseless calls of the invalid.  Amelia bore her harshness
+quite gently; smoothed the uneasy pillow; was always
+ready with a soft answer to the watchful, querulous
+voice; soothed the sufferer with words of hope, such as
+her pious simple heart could best feel and utter, and
+closed the eyes that had once looked so tenderly upon
+her.
+
+Then all her time and tenderness were devoted to the
+consolation and comfort of the bereaved old father, who
+was stunned by the blow which had befallen him, and
+stood utterly alone in the world.  His wife, his honour,
+his fortune, everything he loved best had fallen away
+from him.  There was only Amelia to stand by and support
+with her gentle arms the tottering, heart-broken old man.
+We are not going to write the history:  it would be too
+dreary and stupid.  I can see Vanity Fair yawning over it
+d'avance.
+
+One day as the young gentlemen were assembled
+in the study at the Rev.  Mr. Veal's, and the domestic
+chaplain to the Right Honourable the Earl of Bareacres
+was spouting away as usual, a smart carriage drove up
+to the door decorated with the statue of Athene, and two
+gentlemen stepped out.  The young Masters Bangles rushed
+to the window with a vague notion that their father
+might have arrived from Bombay.  The great hulking
+scholar of three-and-twenty, who was crying secretly over a
+passage of Eutropius, flattened his neglected nose against
+the panes and looked at the drag, as the laquais de place
+sprang from the box and let out the persons in the carriage.
+
+"It's a fat one and a thin one," Mr. Bluck said as a
+thundering knock came to the door.
+
+Everybody was interested, from the domestic chaplain
+himself, who hoped he saw the fathers of some future
+pupils, down to Master Georgy, glad of any pretext for
+laying his book down.
+
+The boy in the shabby livery with the faded copper
+buttons, who always thrust himself into the tight coat
+to open the door, came into the study and said, "Two
+gentlemen want to see Master Osborne." The professor
+had had a trifling altercation in the morning with that
+young gentleman, owing to a difference about the
+introduction of crackers in school-time; but his face
+resumed its habitual expression of bland courtesy as he
+said, "Master Osborne, I give you full permission to go
+and see your carriage friends--to whom I beg you to
+convey the respectful compliments of myself and Mrs.
+Veal."
+
+Georgy went into the reception-room and saw two
+strangers, whom he looked at with his head up, in his
+usual haughty manner.  One was fat, with mustachios,
+and the other was lean and long, in a blue frock-coat,
+with a brown face and a grizzled head.
+
+"My God, how like he is!" said the long gentleman
+with a start.  "Can you guess who we are, George?"
+
+The boy's face flushed up, as it did usually when he
+was moved, and his eyes brightened.  "I don't know the
+other," he said, "but I should think you must be Major
+Dobbin."
+
+Indeed it was our old friend.  His voice trembled
+with pleasure as he greeted the boy, and taking both the
+other's hands in his own, drew the lad to him.
+
+"Your mother has talked to you about me--has
+she?" he said.
+
+"That she has," Georgy answered, "hundreds and
+hundreds of times."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVII
+
+
+Eothen
+
+It was one of the many causes for personal pride
+with which old Osborne chose to recreate himself
+that Sedley, his ancient rival, enemy, and benefactor,
+was in his last days so utterly defeated and humiliated
+as to be forced to accept pecuniary obligations at the
+hands of the man who had most injured and insulted
+him.  The successful man of the world cursed the old
+pauper and relieved him from time to time.  As he
+furnished George with money for his mother, he gave
+the boy to understand by hints, delivered in his brutal,
+coarse way, that George's maternal grandfather was
+but a wretched old bankrupt and dependant, and that
+John Sedley might thank the man to whom he already
+owed ever so much money for the aid which his generosity
+now chose to administer.  George carried the pompous
+supplies to his mother and the shattered old widower whom
+it was now the main business of her life to tend and
+comfort.  The little fellow patronized the feeble and
+disappointed old man.
+
+It may have shown a want of "proper pride" in
+Amelia that she chose to accept these money benefits at
+the hands of her father's enemy.  But proper pride and
+this poor lady had never had much acquaintance together.
+A disposition naturally simple and demanding protection;
+a long course of poverty and humility, of daily privations,
+and hard words, of kind offices and no returns, had been
+her lot ever since womanhood almost, or since her
+luckless marriage with George Osborne.  You who see your
+betters bearing up under this shame every day, meekly
+suffering under the slights of fortune, gentle and unpitied,
+poor, and rather despised for their poverty, do you ever
+step down from your prosperity and wash the feet of
+these poor wearied beggars? The very thought of them is
+odious and low.  "There must be classes--there must be
+rich and poor," Dives says, smacking his claret (it is
+well if he even sends the broken meat out to Lazarus
+sitting under the window).  Very true; but think how
+mysterious and often unaccountable it is--that lottery
+of life which gives to this man the purple and fine linen
+and sends to the other rags for garments and dogs for
+comforters.
+
+So I must own that, without much repining, on the
+contrary with something akin to gratitude, Amelia took the
+crumbs that her father-in-law let drop now and then,
+and with them fed her own parent.  Directly she understood
+it to be her duty, it was this young woman's nature
+(ladies, she is but thirty still, and we choose to call her
+a young woman even at that age) it was, I say, her
+nature to sacrifice herself and to fling all that she had at
+the feet of the beloved object.  During what long thankless
+nights had she worked out her fingers for little Georgy
+whilst at home with her; what buffets, scorns, privations,
+poverties had she endured for father and mother!  And
+in the midst of all these solitary resignations and unseen
+sacrifices, she did not respect herself any more than the
+world respected her, but I believe thought in her heart
+that she was a poor-spirited, despicable little creature,
+whose luck in life was only too good for her merits.  O
+you poor women!  O you poor secret martyrs and victims,
+whose life is a torture, who are stretched on racks in
+your bedrooms, and who lay your heads down on the
+block daily at the drawing-room table; every man who
+watches your pains, or peers into those dark places where
+the torture is administered to you, must pity you--and
+--and thank God that he has a beard.  I recollect seeing,
+years ago, at the prisons for idiots and madmen at
+Bicetre, near Paris, a poor wretch bent down under
+the bondage of his imprisonment and his personal
+infirmity, to whom one of our party gave a halfpenny worth
+of snuff in a cornet or "screw" of paper.  The kindness
+was too much for the poor epileptic creature.  He cried
+in an anguish of delight and gratitude:  if anybody gave
+you and me a thousand a year, or saved our lives, we
+could not be so affected.  And so, if you properly tyrannize
+over a woman, you will find a h'p'orth of kindness act
+upon her and bring tears into her eyes, as though you
+were an angel benefiting her.
+
+Some such boons as these were the best which Fortune
+allotted to poor little Amelia.  Her life, begun not
+unprosperously, had come down to this--to a mean prison
+and a long, ignoble bondage.  Little George visited her
+captivity sometimes and consoled it with feeble gleams
+of encouragement.  Russell Square was the boundary of
+her prison:  she might walk thither occasionally, but was
+always back to sleep in her cell at night; to perform
+cheerless duties; to watch by thankless sick-beds; to
+suffer the harassment and tyranny of querulous
+disappointed old age.  How many thousands of people are
+there, women for the most part, who are doomed to endure
+this long slavery?--who are hospital nurses without
+wages--sisters of Charity, if you like, without the
+romance and the sentiment of sacrifice--who strive, fast,
+watch, and suffer, unpitied, and fade away ignobly and
+unknown.
+
+The hidden and awful Wisdom which apportions the
+destinies of mankind is pleased so to humiliate and cast
+down the tender, good, and wise, and to set up the selfish,
+the foolish, or the wicked.  Oh, be humble, my brother,
+in your prosperity!  Be gentle with those who are less
+lucky, if not more deserving.  Think, what right have you
+to be scornful, whose virtue is a deficiency of temptation,
+whose success may be a chance, whose rank may be
+an ancestor's accident, whose prosperity is very likely
+a satire.
+
+They buried Amelia's mother in the churchyard at
+Brompton, upon just such a rainy, dark day as Amelia
+recollected when first she had been there to marry George.
+Her little boy sat by her side in pompous new sables.
+She remembered the old pew-woman and clerk.  Her
+thoughts were away in other times as the parson read.
+But that she held George's hand in her own, perhaps she
+would have liked to change places with....  Then, as
+usual, she felt ashamed of her selfish thoughts and prayed
+inwardly to be strengthened to do her duty.
+
+So she determined with all her might and strength to
+try and make her old father happy.  She slaved, toiled,
+patched, and mended, sang and played backgammon, read
+out the newspaper, cooked dishes, for old Sedley, walked
+him out sedulously into Kensington Gardens or the Brompton
+Lanes, listened to his stories with untiring smiles and
+affectionate hypocrisy, or sat musing by his side and
+communing with her own thoughts and reminiscences,
+as the old man, feeble and querulous, sunned himself on
+the garden benches and prattled about his wrongs or his
+sorrows.  What sad, unsatisfactory thoughts those of the
+widow were!  The children running up and down the
+slopes and broad paths in the gardens reminded her of
+George, who was taken from her; the first George was
+taken from her; her selfish, guilty love, in both instances,
+had been rebuked and bitterly chastised.  She strove to
+think it was right that she should be so punished.  She
+was such a miserable wicked sinner.  She was quite
+alone in the world.
+
+I know that the account of this kind of solitary
+imprisonment is insufferably tedious, unless there is some
+cheerful or humorous incident to enliven it--a tender gaoler,
+for instance, or a waggish commandant of the fortress,
+or a mouse to come out and play about Latude's beard
+and whiskers, or a subterranean passage under the castle,
+dug by Trenck with his nails and a toothpick:  the historian
+has no such enlivening incident to relate in the narrative
+of Amelia's captivity.  Fancy her, if you please, during this
+period, very sad, but always ready to smile when spoken
+to; in a very mean, poor, not to say vulgar position of
+life; singing songs, making puddings, playing cards,
+mending stockings, for her old father's benefit.  So, never
+mind, whether she be a heroine or no; or you and I, however
+old, scolding, and bankrupt--may we have in our last days
+a kind soft shoulder on which to lean and a gentle hand
+to soothe our gouty old pillows.
+
+Old Sedley grew very fond of his daughter after his
+wife's death, and Amelia had her consolation in doing her
+duty by the old man.
+
+But we are not going to leave these two people long in
+such a low and ungenteel station of life.  Better days, as
+far as worldly prosperity went, were in store for both.
+Perhaps the ingenious reader has guessed who was the
+stout gentleman who called upon Georgy at his school in
+company with our old friend Major Dobbin.  It was
+another old acquaintance returned to England, and at a time
+when his presence was likely to be of great comfort to
+his relatives there.
+
+Major Dobbin having easily succeeded in getting leave
+from his good-natured commandant to proceed to
+Madras, and thence probably to Europe, on urgent private
+affairs, never ceased travelling night and day until he
+reached his journey's end, and had directed his march
+with such celerity that he arrived at Madras in a high
+fever.  His servants who accompanied him brought him
+to the house of the friend with whom he had resolved to
+stay until his departure for Europe in a state of delirium;
+and it was thought for many, many days that he would
+never travel farther than the burying-ground of the church
+of St.  George's, where the troops should fire a salvo over
+his grave, and where many a gallant officer lies far away
+from his home.
+
+Here, as the poor fellow lay tossing in his fever, the
+people who watched him might have heard him raving
+about Amelia.  The idea that he should never see her again
+depressed him in his lucid hours.  He thought his last day
+was come, and he made his solemn preparations for
+departure, setting his affairs in this world in order and
+leaving the little property of which he was possessed to
+those whom he most desired to benefit.  The friend in
+whose house he was located witnessed his testament.  He
+desired to be buried with a little brown hair-chain which
+he wore round his neck and which, if the truth must be
+known, he had got from Amelia's maid at Brussels, when
+the young widow's hair was cut off, during the fever
+which prostrated her after the death of George Osborne
+on the plateau at Mount St.  John.
+
+He recovered, rallied, relapsed again, having undergone
+such a process of blood-letting and calomel as
+showed the strength of his original constitution.  He was
+almost a skeleton when they put him on board the
+Ramchunder East Indiaman, Captain Bragg, from Calcutta,
+touching at Madras, and so weak and prostrate that his
+friend who had tended him through his illness prophesied
+that the honest Major would never survive the voyage,
+and that he would pass some morning, shrouded in
+flag and hammock, over the ship's side, and carrying
+down to the sea with him the relic that he wore at his
+heart.  But whether it was the sea air, or the hope which
+sprung up in him afresh, from the day that the ship
+spread her canvas and stood out of the roads towards
+home, our friend began to amend, and he was quite
+well (though as gaunt as a greyhound) before they
+reached the Cape.  "Kirk will be disappointed of his
+majority this time," he said with a smile; "he will
+expect to find himself gazetted by the time the regiment
+reaches home." For it must be premised that while the
+Major was lying ill at Madras, having made such
+prodigious haste to go thither, the gallant --th, which had
+passed many years abroad, which after its return from
+the West Indies had been baulked of its stay at home by
+the Waterloo campaign, and had been ordered from
+Flanders to India, had received orders home; and the Major
+might have accompanied his comrades, had he chosen to
+wait for their arrival at Madras.
+
+Perhaps he was not inclined to put himself in his
+exhausted state again under the guardianship of Glorvina.
+"I think Miss O'Dowd would have done for me," he said
+laughingly to a fellow-passenger, "if we had had her on
+board, and when she had sunk me, she would have fallen
+upon you, depend upon it, and carried you in as a prize
+to Southampton, Jos, my boy."
+
+For indeed it was no other than our stout friend
+who was also a passenger on board the Ramchunder.  He
+had passed ten years in Bengal.  Constant dinners, tiffins,
+pale ale and claret, the prodigious labour of cutcherry,
+and the refreshment of brandy-pawnee which he was
+forced to take there, had their effect upon Waterloo Sedley.
+A voyage to Europe was pronounced necessary for him--
+and having served his full time in India and had fine
+appointments which had enabled him to lay by a considerable
+sum of money, he was free to come home and stay
+with a good pension, or to return and resume that rank
+in the service to which his seniority and his vast talents
+entitled him.
+
+He was rather thinner than when we last saw him,
+but had gained in majesty and solemnity of demeanour.
+He had resumed the mustachios to which his services at
+Waterloo entitled him, and swaggered about on deck in a
+magnificent velvet cap with a gold band and a profuse
+ornamentation of pins and jewellery about his person.
+He took breakfast in his cabin and dressed as solemnly to
+appear on the quarter-deck as if he were going to turn out
+for Bond Street, or the Course at Calcutta.  He brought a
+native servant with him, who was his valet and pipe-
+bearer and who wore the Sedley crest in silver on his
+turban.  That oriental menial had a wretched life under
+the tyranny of Jos Sedley.  Jos was as vain of his person
+as a woman, and took as long a time at his toilette as
+any fading beauty.  The youngsters among the
+passengers, Young Chaffers of the 150th, and poor little
+Ricketts, coming home after his third fever, used to draw
+out Sedley at the cuddy-table and make him tell
+prodigious stories about himself and his exploits against tigers
+and Napoleon.  He was great when he visited the
+Emperor's tomb at Longwood, when to these gentlemen and
+the young officers of the ship, Major Dobbin not being by,
+he described the whole battle of Waterloo and all but
+announced that Napoleon never would have gone to Saint
+Helena at all but for him, Jos Sedley.
+
+After leaving St.  Helena he became very generous,
+disposing of a great quantity of ship stores, claret,
+preserved meats, and great casks packed with soda-water,
+brought out for his private delectation.  There were no
+ladies on board; the Major gave the pas of precedency
+to the civilian, so that he was the first dignitary at
+table, and treated by Captain Bragg and the officers of
+the Ramchunder with the respect which his rank
+warranted.  He disappeared rather in a panic during a two-
+days' gale, in which he had the portholes of his cabin
+battened down, and remained in his cot reading the
+Washerwoman of Finchley Common, left on board the
+Ramchunder by the Right Honourable the Lady Emily
+Hornblower, wife of the Rev.  Silas Hornblower, when on
+their passage out to the Cape, where the Reverend gentleman
+was a missionary; but, for common reading, he had
+brought a stock of novels and plays which he lent to the
+rest of the ship, and rendered himself agreeable to all by
+his kindness and condescension.
+
+Many and many a night as the ship was cutting through
+the roaring dark sea, the moon and stars shining
+overhead and the bell singing out the watch, Mr. Sedley and
+the Major would sit on the quarter-deck of the vessel
+talking about home, as the Major smoked his cheroot and
+the civilian puffed at the hookah which his servant
+prepared for him.
+
+In these conversations it was wonderful with what
+perseverance and ingenuity Major Dobbin would manage
+to bring the talk round to the subject of Amelia and her
+little boy.  Jos, a little testy about his father's misfortunes
+and unceremonious applications to him, was soothed
+down by the Major, who pointed out the elder's ill
+fortunes and old age.  He would not perhaps like to live with
+the old couple, whose ways and hours might not agree
+with those of a younger man, accustomed to different
+society (Jos bowed at this compliment); but, the Major
+pointed out, how advantageous it would be for Jos Sedley
+to have a house of his own in London, and not a
+mere bachelor's establishment as before; how his sister
+Amelia would be the very person to preside over it; how
+elegant, how gentle she was, and of what refined good
+manners.  He recounted stories of the success which Mrs.
+George Osborne had had in former days at Brussels, and
+in London, where she was much admired by people of
+very great fashion; and he then hinted how becoming it
+would be for Jos to send Georgy to a good school and
+make a man of him, for his mother and her parents
+would be sure to spoil him.  In a word, this artful Major
+made the civilian promise to take charge of Amelia and
+her unprotected child.  He did not know as yet what
+events had happened in the little Sedley family, and how
+death had removed the mother, and riches had carried
+off George from Amelia.  But the fact is that every day
+and always, this love-smitten and middle-aged gentleman
+was thinking about Mrs. Osborne, and his whole heart
+was bent upon doing her good.  He coaxed, wheedled,
+cajoled, and complimented Jos Sedley with a perseverance
+and cordiality of which he was not aware himself,
+very likely; but some men who have unmarried sisters
+or daughters even, may remember how uncommonly
+agreeable gentlemen are to the male relations when they
+are courting the females; and perhaps this rogue of a
+Dobbin was urged by a similar hypocrisy.
+
+The truth is, when Major Dobbin came on board the
+Ramchumder, very sick, and for the three days she lay
+in the Madras Roads, he did not begin to rally, nor did
+even the appearance and recognition of his old acquaintance,
+Mr. Sedley, on board much cheer him, until after a
+conversation which they had one day, as the Major was
+laid languidly on the deck.  He said then he thought he
+was doomed; he had left a little something to his godson
+in his will, and he trusted Mrs. Osborne would remember
+him kindly and be happy in the marriage she was
+about to make.  "Married? not the least," Jos answered;
+"he had heard from her:  she made no mention of the
+marriage, and by the way, it was curious, she wrote to
+say that Major Dobbin was going to be married, and
+hoped that HE would be happy." What were the dates of
+Sedley's letters from Europe? The civilian fetched them.
+They were two months later than the Major's; and the
+ship's surgeon congratulated himself upon the treatment
+adopted by him towards his new patient, who had been
+consigned to shipboard by the Madras practitioner with
+very small hopes indeed; for, from that day, the very
+day that he changed the draught, Major Dobbin began
+to mend.  And thus it was that deserving officer, Captain
+Kirk, was disappointed of his majority.
+
+After they passed St.  Helena, Major Dobbin's gaiety
+and strength was such as to astonish all his fellow
+passengers.  He larked with the midshipmen, played single-
+stick with the mates, ran up the shrouds like a boy, sang
+a comic song one night to the amusement of the whole
+party assembled over their grog after supper, and
+rendered himself so gay, lively, and amiable that even
+Captain Bragg, who thought there was nothing in his
+passenger, and considered he was a poor-spirited feller at
+first, was constrained to own that the Major was a
+reserved but well-informed and meritorious officer.  "He
+ain't got distangy manners, dammy," Bragg observed to
+his first mate; "he wouldn't do at Government House,
+Roper, where his Lordship and Lady William was as kind
+to me, and shook hands with me before the whole
+company, and asking me at dinner to take beer with him,
+before the Commander-in-Chief himself; he ain't got
+manners, but there's something about him--" And thus
+Captain Bragg showed that he possessed discrimination
+as a man, as well as ability as a commander.
+
+But a calm taking place when the Ramchunder was
+within ten days' sail of England, Dobbin became so
+impatient and ill-humoured as to surprise those comrades
+who had before admired his vivacity and good temper.
+He did not recover until the breeze sprang up again, and
+was in a highly excited state when the pilot came on
+board.  Good God, how his heart beat as the two friendly
+spires of Southampton came in sight.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVIII
+
+
+Our Friend the Major
+
+Our Major had rendered himself so popular on board
+the Ramchunder that when he and Mr. Sedley descended
+into the welcome shore-boat which was to take them
+from the ship, the whole crew, men and officers, the
+great Captain Bragg himself leading off, gave three cheers
+for Major Dobbin, who blushed very much and ducked
+his head in token of thanks.  Jos, who very likely thought
+the cheers were for himself, took off his gold-laced cap
+and waved it majestically to his friends, and they were
+pulled to shore and landed with great dignity at the pier,
+whence they proceeded to the Royal George Hotel.
+
+Although the sight of that magnificent round of beef,
+and the silver tankard suggestive of real British home-
+brewed ale and porter, which perennially greet the eyes
+of the traveller returning from foreign parts who enters
+the coffee-room of the George, are so invigorating and
+delightful that a man entering such a comfortable snug
+homely English inn might well like to stop some days
+there, yet Dobbin began to talk about a post-chaise
+instantly, and was no sooner at Southampton than he
+wished to be on the road to London.  Jos, however, would
+not hear of moving that evening.  Why was he to pass a
+night in a post-chaise instead of a great large undulating
+downy feather-bed which was there ready to replace
+the horrid little narrow crib in which the portly Bengal
+gentleman had been confined during the voyage? He
+could not think of moving till his baggage was cleared,
+or of travelling until he could do so with his chillum.  So
+the Major was forced to wait over that night, and
+dispatched a letter to his family announcing his arrival,
+entreating from Jos a promise to write to his own
+friends.  Jos promised, but didn't keep his promise.  The
+Captain, the surgeon, and one or two passengers came
+and dined with our two gentlemen at the inn, Jos exerting
+himself in a sumptuous way in ordering the dinner
+and promising to go to town the next day with the Major.
+The landlord said it did his eyes good to see Mr. Sedley
+take off his first pint of porter.  If I had time and dared
+to enter into digressions, I would write a chapter about
+that first pint of porter drunk upon English ground.  Ah,
+how good it is!  It is worth-while to leave home for a
+year, just to enjoy that one draught.
+
+Major Dobbin made his appearance the next morning
+very neatly shaved and dressed, according to his wont.
+Indeed, it was so early in the morning that nobody was
+up in the house except that wonderful Boots of an inn
+who never seems to want sleep; and the Major could
+hear the snores of the various inmates of the house roaring
+through the corridors as he creaked about in those
+dim passages.  Then the sleepless Boots went shirking
+round from door to door, gathering up at each the
+Bluchers, Wellingtons, Oxonians, which stood outside.  Then
+Jos's native servant arose and began to get ready his
+master's ponderous dressing apparatus and prepare his
+hookah; then the maidservants got up, and meeting the
+dark man in the passages, shrieked, and mistook him for
+the devil.  He and Dobbin stumbled over their pails in
+the passages as they were scouring the decks of the
+Royal George.  When the first unshorn waiter appeared
+and unbarred the door of the inn, the Major thought that
+the time for departure was arrived, and ordered a post-
+chaise to be fetched instantly, that they might set off.
+
+He then directed his steps to Mr. Sedley's room and
+opened the curtains of the great large family bed wherein
+Mr. Jos was snoring.  "Come, up!  Sedley," the Major
+said, "it's time to be off; the chaise will be at the door in
+half an hour."
+
+Jos growled from under the counterpane to know
+what the time was; but when he at last extorted from the
+blushing Major (who never told fibs, however they might
+be to his advantage) what was the real hour of the
+morning, he broke out into a volley of bad language, which
+we will not repeat here, but by which he gave Dobbin to
+understand that he would jeopardy his soul if he got up
+at that moment, that the Major might go and be hanged,
+that he would not travel with Dobbin, and that it was
+most unkind and ungentlemanlike to disturb a man out
+of his sleep in that way; on which the discomfited Major
+was obliged to retreat, leaving Jos to resume his
+interrupted slumbers.
+
+The chaise came up presently, and the Major would
+wait no longer.
+
+If he had been an English nobleman travelling on a
+pleasure tour, or a newspaper courier bearing dispatches
+(government messages are generally carried much more
+quietly), he could not have travelled more quickly.  The
+post-boys wondered at the fees he flung amongst them.
+How happy and green the country looked as the chaise
+whirled rapidly from mile-stone to mile-stone, through
+neat country towns where landlords came out to
+welcome him with smiles and bows; by pretty roadside inns,
+where the signs hung on the elms, and horses and
+waggoners were drinking under the chequered shadow of the
+trees; by old halls and parks; rustic hamlets clustered
+round ancient grey churches--and through the charming
+friendly English landscape.  Is there any in the world
+like it? To a traveller returning home it looks so kind--
+it seems to shake hands with you as you pass through it.
+Well, Major Dobbin passed through all this from
+Southampton to London, and without noting much beyond the
+milestones along the road.  You see he was so eager to
+see his parents at Camberwell.
+
+He grudged the time lost between Piccadilly and his
+old haunt at the Slaughters', whither he drove faithfully.
+Long years had passed since he saw it last, since he and
+George, as young men, had enjoyed many a feast, and
+held many a revel there.  He had now passed into the
+stage of old-fellow-hood.  His hair was grizzled, and many
+a passion and feeling of his youth had grown grey in that
+interval.  There, however, stood the old waiter at the
+door, in the same greasy black suit, with the same
+double chin and flaccid face, with the same huge bunch of
+seals at his fob, rattling his money in his pockets as
+before, and receiving the Major as if he had gone away
+only a week ago.  "Put the Major's things in twenty-three,
+that's his room," John said, exhibiting not the least
+surprise.  "Roast fowl for your dinner, I suppose.  You ain't
+got married? They said you was married--the Scotch
+surgeon of yours was here.  No, it was Captain Humby of
+the thirty-third, as was quartered with the --th in Injee.
+Like any warm water? ~What do you come in a chay for--
+ain't the coach good enough?" And with this, the faithful
+waiter, who knew and remembered every officer who
+used the house, and with whom ten years were but as
+yesterday, led the way up to Dobbin's old room, where
+stood the great moreen bed, and the shabby carpet, a
+thought more dingy, and all the old black furniture
+covered with faded chintz, just as the Major recollected
+them in his youth.
+
+He remembered George pacing up and down the room,
+and biting his nails, and swearing that the Governor must
+come round, and that if he didn't, he didn't care a straw,
+on the day before he was married.  He could fancy him
+walking in, banging the door of Dobbin's room, and his
+own hard by--
+
+"You ain't got young," John said, calmly surveying his
+friend of former days.
+
+Dobbin laughed.  "Ten years and a fever don't make a
+man young, John," he said.  "It is you that are always
+young--no, you are always old."
+
+"What became of Captain Osborne's widow?" John
+said.  "Fine young fellow that.  Lord, how he used to
+spend his money.  He never came back after that day he
+was marched from here.  He owes me three pound at this
+minute.  Look here, I have it in my book.  'April 10,
+1815, Captain Osborne:  '3pounds.' I wonder whether his
+father would pay me," and so saying, John of the Slaughters'
+pulled out the very morocco pocket-book in which
+he had noted his loan to the Captain, upon a greasy
+faded page still extant, with many other scrawled
+memoranda regarding the bygone frequenters of the house.
+
+Having inducted his customer into the room, John
+retired with perfect calmness; and Major Dobbin, not
+without a blush and a grin at his own absurdity, chose out of
+his kit the very smartest and most becoming civil
+costume he possessed, and laughed at his own tanned face
+and grey hair, as he surveyed them in the dreary little
+toilet-glass on the dressing-table.
+
+"I'm glad old John didn't forget me," he thought.
+"She'll know me, too, I hope." And he sallied out of the
+inn, bending his steps once more in the direction of
+Brompton.
+
+Every minute incident of his last meeting with Amelia
+was present to the constant man's mind as he walked
+towards her house.  The arch and the Achilles statue were
+up since he had last been in Piccadilly; a hundred
+changes had occurred which his eye and mind vaguely
+noted.  He began to tremble as he walked up the lane
+from Brompton, that well-remembered lane leading to
+the street where she lived.  Was she going to be married
+or not? If he were to meet her with the little boy--Good
+God, what should he do? He saw a woman coming to him
+with a child of five years old--was that she? He began
+to shake at the mere possibility.  When he came up to
+the row of houses, at last, where she lived, and to the
+gate, he caught hold of it and paused.  He might have
+heard the thumping of his own heart.  "May God Almighty
+bless her, whatever has happened," he thought to
+himself.  "Psha!  she may be gone from here," he said
+and went in through the gate.
+
+The window of the parlour which she used to occupy
+was open, and there were no inmates in the room.  The
+Major thought he recognized the piano, though, with the
+picture over it, as it used to be in former days, and his
+perturbations were renewed.  Mr. Clapp's brass plate was
+still on the door, at the knocker of which Dobbin
+performed a summons.
+
+A buxom-looking lass of sixteen, with bright eyes and
+purple cheeks, came to answer the knock and looked
+hard at the Major as he leant back against the little
+porch.
+
+He was as pale as a ghost and could hardly falter out
+the words--"Does Mrs. Osborne live here?"
+
+She looked him hard in the face for a moment--and
+then turning white too--said, "Lord bless me--it's
+Major Dobbin." She held out both her hands shaking--
+"Don't you remember me?" she said.  "I used to call you
+Major Sugarplums." On which, and I believe it was for
+the first time that he ever so conducted himself in his
+life, the Major took the girl in his arms and kissed her.
+She began to laugh and cry hysterically, and calling out
+"Ma, Pa!" with all her voice, brought up those worthy
+people, who had already been surveying the Major from
+the casement of the ornamental kitchen, and were
+astonished to find their daughter in the little passage in
+the embrace of a great tall man in a blue frock-coat and
+white duck trousers.
+
+"I'm an old friend," he said--not without blushing
+though.  "Don't you remember me, Mrs. Clapp, and those
+good cakes you used to make for tea? Don't you recollect
+me, Clapp? I'm George's godfather, and just come
+back from India." A great shaking of hands ensued--
+Mrs. Clapp was greatly affected and delighted; she called
+upon heaven to interpose a vast many times in that
+passage.
+
+The landlord and landlady of the house led the worthy
+Major into the Sedleys' room (whereof he remembered
+every single article of furniture, from the old brass
+ornamented piano, once a natty little instrument, Stothard
+maker, to the screens and the alabaster miniature tombstone,
+in the midst of which ticked Mr. Sedley's gold
+watch), and there, as he sat down in the lodger's vacant
+arm-chair, the father, the mother, and the daughter,
+with a thousand ejaculatory breaks in the narrative,
+informed Major Dobbin of what we know already, but of
+particulars in Amelia's history of which he was not aware
+--namely of Mrs. Sedley's death, of George's reconcilement
+with his grandfather Osborne, of the way in which
+the widow took on at leaving him, and of other particulars
+of her life.  Twice or thrice he was going to ask
+about the marriage question, but his heart failed him.
+He did not care to lay it bare to these people.  Finally,
+he was informed that Mrs. O.  was gone to walk with her
+pa in Kensington Gardens, whither she always went with
+the old gentleman (who was very weak and peevish now,
+and led her a sad life, though she behaved to him like an
+angel, to be sure), of a fine afternoon, after dinner.
+
+"I'm very much pressed for time," the Major said,
+"and have business to-night of importance.  I should like
+to see Mrs. Osborne tho'.  Suppose Miss Polly would
+come with me and show me the way?"
+
+Miss Polly was charmed and astonished at this
+proposal.  She knew the way.  She would show Major
+Dobbin.  She had often been with Mr. Sedley when Mrs. O.
+was gone--was gone Russell Square way--and knew the
+bench where he liked to sit.  She bounced away to her
+apartment and appeared presently in her best bonnet
+and her mamma's yellow shawl and large pebble brooch,
+of which she assumed the loan in order to make herself
+a worthy companion for the Major.
+
+That officer, then, in his blue frock-coat and buckskin
+gloves, gave the young lady his arm, and they walked
+away very gaily.  He was glad to have a friend at hand
+for the scene which he dreaded somehow.  He asked a
+thousand more questions from his companion about
+Amelia:  his kind heart grieved to think that she should
+have had to part with her son.  How did she bear it? Did
+she see him often? Was Mr. Sedley pretty comfortable
+now in a worldly point of view? Polly answered all these
+questions of Major Sugarplums to the very best of her
+power.
+
+And in the midst of their walk an incident occurred
+which, though very simple in its nature, was productive
+of the greatest delight to Major Dobbin.  A pale young
+man with feeble whiskers and a stiff white neckcloth came
+walking down the lane, en sandwich--having a lady, that
+is, on each arm.  One was a tall and commanding middle-
+aged female, with features and a complexion similar to
+those of the clergyman of the Church of England by
+whose side she marched, and the other a stunted little
+woman with a dark face, ornamented by a fine new bonnet
+and white ribbons, and in a smart pelisse, with a rich
+gold watch in the midst of her person.  The gentleman,
+pinioned as he was by these two ladies, carried further a
+parasol, shawl, and basket, so that his arms were entirely
+engaged, and of course he was unable to touch his hat in
+acknowledgement of the curtsey with which Miss Mary
+Clapp greeted him.
+
+He merely bowed his head in reply to her salutation,
+which the two ladies returned with a patronizing air, and
+at the same time looking severely at the individual in the
+blue coat and bamboo cane who accompanied Miss Polly.
+
+"Who's that?" asked the Major, amused by the group,
+and after he had made way for the three to pass up the
+lane.  Mary looked at him rather roguishly.
+
+"That is our curate, the Reverend Mr. Binny (a twitch
+from Major Dobbin), and his sister Miss B.  Lord bless us,
+how she did use to worret us at Sunday-school; and the
+other lady, the little one with a cast in her eye and the
+handsome watch, is Mrs. Binny--Miss Grits that was;
+her pa was a grocer, and kept the Little Original Gold
+Tea Pot in Kensington Gravel Pits.  They were married last
+month, and are just come back from Margate.  She's five
+thousand pound to her fortune; but her and Miss B., who
+made the match, have quarrelled already."
+
+If the Major had twitched before, he started now, and
+slapped the bamboo on the ground with an emphasis
+which made Miss Clapp cry, "Law," and laugh too.  He
+stood for a moment, silent, with open mouth, looking
+after the retreating young couple, while Miss Mary told
+their history; but he did not hear beyond the announcement
+of the reverend gentleman's marriage; his head was
+swimming with felicity.  After this rencontre he began to
+walk double quick towards the place of his destination
+--and yet they were too soon (for he was in a great
+tremor at the idea of a meeting for which he had been
+longing any time these ten years)--through the Brompton
+lanes, and entering at the little old portal in Kensington
+Garden wall.
+
+"There they are," said Miss Polly, and she felt him
+again start back on her arm.  She was a confidante at once
+of the whole business.  She knew the story as well as if
+she had read it in one of her favourite novel-books--
+Fatherless Fanny, or the Scottish Chiefs.
+
+"Suppose you were to run on and tell her," the Major
+said.  Polly ran forward, her yellow shawl streaming in the
+breeze.
+
+Old Sedley was seated on a bench, his handkerchief
+placed over his knees, prattling away, according to his
+wont, with some old story about old times to which
+Amelia had listened and awarded a patient smile many
+a time before.  She could of late think of her own affairs,
+and smile or make other marks of recognition of her
+father's stories, scarcely hearing a word of the old man's
+tales.  As Mary came bouncing along, and Amelia caught
+sight of her, she started up from her bench.  Her first
+thought was that something had happened to Georgy,
+but the sight of the messenger's eager and happy face
+dissipated that fear in the timorous mother's bosom.
+
+"News!  News!" cried the emissary of Major Dobbin.
+"He's come!  He's come!"
+
+"Who is come?" said Emmy, still thinking of her son.
+
+"Look there," answered Miss Clapp, turning round and
+pointing; in which direction Amelia looking, saw
+Dobbin's lean figure and long shadow stalking across the
+grass.  Amelia started in her turn, blushed up, and, of
+course, began to cry.  At all this simple little creature's
+fetes, the grandes eaux were accustomed to play.
+He looked at her--oh, how fondly--as she came
+running towards him, her hands before her, ready to give
+them to him.  She wasn't changed.  She was a little pale,
+a little stouter in figure.  Her eyes were the same, the
+kind trustful eyes.  There were scarce three lines of silver
+in her soft brown hair.  She gave him both her hands as
+she looked up flushing and smiling through her tears into
+his honest homely face.  He took the two little hands
+between his two and held them there.  He was speechless
+for a moment.  Why did he not take her in his arms and
+swear that he would never leave her? She must have
+yielded:  she could not but have obeyed him.
+
+"I--I've another arrival to announce," he said after a
+pause.
+
+"Mrs. Dobbin?" Amelia said, making a movement
+back--why didn't he speak?
+
+"No," he said, letting her hands go:  "Who has told
+you those lies? I mean, your brother Jos came in the
+same ship with me, and is come home to make you all
+happy."
+
+"Papa, Papa!" Emmy cried out, "here are news!  My
+brother is in England.  He is come to take care of you.
+Here is Major Dobbin."
+
+Mr. Sedley started up, shaking a great deal and gathering
+up his thoughts.  Then he stepped forward and made an
+old-fashioned bow to the Major, whom he called Mr.
+Dobbin, and hoped his worthy father, Sir William, was
+quite well.  He proposed to call upon Sir William, who had
+done him the honour of a visit a short time ago.  Sir
+William had not called upon the old gentleman for eight
+years--it was that visit he was thinking of returning.
+
+"He is very much shaken," Emmy whispered as Dobbin
+went up and cordially shook hands with the old man.
+
+Although he had such particular business in London
+that evening, the Major consented to forego it upon Mr.
+Sedley's invitation to him to come home and partake of
+tea.  Amelia put her arm under that of her young friend
+with the yellow shawl and headed the party on their
+return homewards, so that Mr. Sedley fell to Dobbin's share.
+The old man walked very slowly and told a number of
+ancient histories about himself and his poor Bessy, his
+former prosperity, and his bankruptcy.  His thoughts, as is
+usual with failing old men, were quite in former times.
+The present, with the exception of the one catastrophe
+which he felt, he knew little about.  The Major was glad to
+let him talk on.  His eyes were fixed upon the figure in
+front of him--the dear little figure always present to his
+imagination and in his prayers, and visiting his dreams
+wakeful or slumbering.
+
+Amelia was very happy, smiling, and active all that
+evening, performing her duties as hostess of the little
+entertainment with the utmost grace and propriety, as
+Dobbin thought.  His eyes followed her about as they sat
+in the twilight.  How many a time had he longed for that
+moment and thought of her far away under hot winds
+and in weary marches, gentle and happy, kindly ministering
+to the wants of old age, and decorating poverty with
+sweet submission--as he saw her now.  I do not say that
+his taste was the highest, or that it is the duty of great
+intellects to be content with a bread-and-butter paradise,
+such as sufficed our simple old friend; but his desires
+were of this sort, whether for good or bad, and, with
+Amelia to help him, he was as ready to drink as many
+cups of tea as Doctor Johnson.
+
+Amelia seeing this propensity, laughingly encouraged
+it and looked exceedingly roguish as she administered to
+him cup after cup.  It is true she did not know that the
+Major had had no dinner and that the cloth was laid for
+him at the Slaughters', and a plate laid thereon to mark
+that the table was retained, in that very box in which
+the Major and George had sat many a time carousing,
+when she was a child just come home from Miss
+Pinkerton's school.
+
+The first thing Mrs. Osborne showed the Major was
+Georgy's miniature, for which she ran upstairs on her
+arrival at home.  It was not half handsome enough of
+course for the boy, but wasn't it noble of him to think of
+bringing it to his mother? Whilst her papa was awake she
+did not talk much about Georgy.  To hear about Mr.
+Osborne and Russell Square was not agreeable to the
+old man, who very likely was unconscious that he had
+been living for some months past mainly on the bounty
+of his richer rival, and lost his temper if allusion was
+made to the other.
+
+Dobbin told him all, and a little more perhaps than
+all, that had happened on board the Ramchunder, and
+exaggerated Jos's benevolent dispositions towards his
+father and resolution to make him comfortable in his
+old days.  The truth is that during the voyage the Major
+had impressed this duty most strongly upon his fellow-
+passenger and extorted promises from him that he would
+take charge of his sister and her child.  He soothed Jos's
+irritation with regard to the bills which the old gentleman
+had drawn upon him, gave a laughing account of his
+own sufferings on the same score and of the famous
+consignment of wine with which the old man had favoured
+him, and brought Mr. Jos, who was by no means an ill-
+natured person when well-pleased and moderately
+flattered, to a very good state of feeling regarding his
+relatives in Europe.
+
+And in fine I am ashamed to say that the Major
+stretched the truth so far as to tell old Mr. Sedley that it
+was mainly a desire to see his parent which brought Jos
+once more to Europe.
+
+At his accustomed hour Mr. Sedley began to doze in
+his chair, and then it was Amelia's opportunity to
+commence her conversation, which she did with great
+eagerness--it related exclusively to Georgy.  She did not talk
+at all about her own sufferings at breaking from him, for
+indeed, this worthy woman, though she was half-killed
+by the separation from the child, yet thought it was very
+wicked in her to repine at losing him; but everything
+concerning him, his virtues, talents, and prospects, she
+poured out.  She described his angelic beauty; narrated
+a hundred instances of his generosity and greatness of
+mind whilst living with her; how a Royal Duchess had
+stopped and admired him in Kensington Gardens; how
+splendidly he was cared for now, and how he had a
+groom and a pony; what quickness and cleverness he
+had, and what a prodigiously well-read and delightful
+person the Reverend Lawrence Veal was, George's
+master.  "He knows EVERYTHING," Amelia said.  "He has the
+most delightful parties.  You who are so learned yourself,
+and have read so much, and are so clever and
+accomplished--don't shake your head and say no--HE
+always used to say you were--you will be charmed with
+Mr. Veal's parties.  The last Tuesday in every month.  He
+says there is no place in the bar or the senate that
+Georgy may not aspire to.  Look here," and she went to
+the piano-drawer and drew out a theme of Georgy's
+composition.  This great effort of genius, which is still
+in the possession of George's mother, is as follows:
+
+On Selfishness--Of all the vices which degrade the
+human character, Selfishness is the most odious and
+contemptible.  An undue love of Self leads to the most
+monstrous crimes and occasions the greatest misfortunes both
+in States and Families.  As a selfish man will impoverish
+his family and often bring them to ruin, so a selfish
+king brings ruin on his people and often plunges them
+into war.
+
+Example:  The selfishness of Achilles, as remarked by
+the poet Homer, occasioned a thousand woes to the
+Greeks--muri Achaiois alge etheke--(Hom. Il. A. 2).
+The selfishness of the late Napoleon Bonaparte
+occasioned innumerable wars in Europe and caused him to
+perish, himself, in a miserable island--that of Saint Helena in
+the Atlantic Ocean.
+
+We see by these examples that we are not to consult
+our own interest and ambition, but that we are to
+consider the interests of others as well as our own.
+
+George S.  Osborne
+Athene House, 24 April, 1827
+
+"Think of him writing such a hand, and quoting Greek
+too, at his age," the delighted mother said.  "Oh, William,"
+she added, holding out her hand to the Major, "what a
+treasure Heaven has given me in that boy!  He is the
+comfort of my life--and he is the image of--of him that's
+gone!"
+
+"Ought I to be angry with her for being faithful to
+him?" William thought.  "Ought I to be jealous of my
+friend in the grave, or hurt that such a heart as Amelia's
+can love only once and for ever? Oh, George, George,
+how little you knew the prize you had, though." This
+sentiment passed rapidly through William's mind as he
+was holding Amelia's hand, whilst the handkerchief was
+veiling her eyes.
+
+"Dear friend," she said, pressing the hand which held
+hers, "how good, how kind you always have been to me!
+See!  Papa is stirring.  You will go and see Georgy
+tomorrow, won't you?"
+ 
+"Not to-morrow," said poor old Dobbin.  "I have
+business." He did not like to own that he had not as yet
+been to his parents' and his dear sister Anne--a
+remissness for which I am sure every well-regulated
+person will blame the Major.  And presently he took his
+leave, leaving his address behind him for Jos, against the
+latter's arrival.  And so the first day was over, and he
+had seen her.
+
+When he got back to the Slaughters', the roast fowl
+was of course cold, in which condition he ate it for
+supper.  And knowing what early hours his family kept, and
+that it would be needless to disturb their slumbers at so
+late an hour, it is on record, that Major Dobbin treated
+himself to half-price at the Haymarket Theatre that
+evening, where let us hope he enjoyed himself.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIX
+
+
+The Old Piano
+
+The Major's visit left old John Sedley in a great state of
+agitation and excitement.  His daughter could not induce
+him to settle down to his customary occupations or
+amusements that night.  He passed the evening fumbling
+amongst his boxes and desks, untying his papers with
+trembling hands, and sorting and arranging them against
+Jos's arrival.  He had them in the greatest order--his
+tapes and his files, his receipts, and his letters with
+lawyers and correspondents; the documents relative to
+the wine project (which failed from a most unaccountable
+accident, after commencing with the most splendid
+prospects), the coal project (which only a want of capital
+prevented from becoming the most successful scheme
+ever put before the public), the patent saw-mills and
+sawdust consolidation project, &c., &c.  All night, until a
+very late hour, he passed in the preparation of these
+documents, trembling about from one room to another,
+with a quivering candle and shaky hands.  Here's the wine
+papers, here's the sawdust, here's the coals; here's my
+letters to Calcutta and Madras, and replies from Major
+Dobbin, C.B., and Mr. Joseph Sedley to the same.  "He
+shall find no irregularity about ME, Emmy," the old
+gentleman said.
+
+Emmy smiled.  "I don't think Jos will care about seeing
+those papers, Papa," she said.
+
+"You don't know anything about business, my dear,"
+answered the sire, shaking his head with an important
+air.  And it must be confessed that on this point Emmy
+was very ignorant, and that is a pity some people are so
+knowing.  All these twopenny documents arranged on a
+side table, old Sedley covered them carefully over with
+a clean bandanna handkerchief (one out of Major
+Dobbin's lot) and enjoined the maid and landlady of the
+house, in the most solemn way, not to disturb those
+papers, which were arranged for the arrival of Mr. Joseph
+Sedley the next morning, "Mr. Joseph Sedley of the
+Honourable East India Company's Bengal Civil Service."
+
+Amelia found him up very early the next morning,
+more eager, more hectic, and more shaky than ever.  "I
+didn't sleep much, Emmy, my dear," he said.  "I was
+thinking of my poor Bessy.  I wish she was alive, to ride
+in Jos's carriage once again.  She kept her own and
+became it very well." And his eyes filled with tears, which
+trickled down his furrowed old face.  Amelia wiped them
+away, and smilingly kissed him, and tied the old man's
+neckcloth in a smart bow, and put his brooch into his
+best shirt frill, in which, in his Sunday suit of mourning,
+he sat from six o'clock in the morning awaiting the
+arrival of his son.
+
+However, when the postman made his appearance, the
+little party were put out of suspense by the receipt of a
+letter from Jos to his sister, who announced that he felt
+a little fatigued after his voyage, and should not be able
+to move on that day, but that he would leave Southampton
+early the next morning and be with his father and
+mother at evening.  Amelia, as she read out the letter to
+her father, paused over the latter word; her brother, it
+was clear, did not know what had happened in the family.
+Nor could he, for the fact is that, though the Major
+rightly suspected that his travelling companion never
+would be got into motion in so short a space as twenty-
+four hours, and would find some excuse for delaying, yet
+Dobbin had not written to Jos to inform him of the
+calamity which had befallen the Sedley family, being
+occupied in talking with Amelia until long after post-hour.
+
+There are some splendid tailors' shops in the High
+Street of Southampton, in the fine plate-glass windows
+of which hang gorgeous waistcoats of all sorts, of silk
+and velvet, and gold and crimson, and pictures of the
+last new fashions, in which those wonderful gentlemen
+with quizzing glasses, and holding on to little boys with
+the exceeding large eyes and curly hair, ogle ladies in
+riding habits prancing by the Statue of Achilles at Apsley
+House.  Jos, although provided with some of the most
+splendid vests that Calcutta could furnish, thought he
+could not go to town until he was supplied with one or
+two of these garments, and selected a crimson satin,
+embroidered with gold butterflies, and a black and red
+velvet tartan with white stripes and a rolling collar, with
+which, and a rich blue satin stock and a gold pin,
+consisting of a five-barred gate with a horseman in pink
+enamel jumping over it, he thought he might make his
+entry into London with some dignity.  For Jos's former
+shyness and blundering blushing timidity had given way
+to a more candid and courageous self-assertion of his
+worth.  "I don't care about owning it," Waterloo Sedley
+would say to his friends, "I am a dressy man"; and
+though rather uneasy if the ladies looked at him at the
+Government House balls, and though he blushed and
+turned away alarmed under their glances, it was chiefly
+from a dread lest they should make love to him that he
+avoided them, being averse to marriage altogether.  But
+there was no such swell in Calcutta as Waterloo Sedley,
+I have heard say, and he had the handsomest turn-out,
+gave the best bachelor dinners, and had the finest plate
+in the whole place.
+
+To make these waistcoats for a man of his size and
+dignity took at least a day, part of which he employed in
+hiring a servant to wait upon him and his native and in
+instructing the agent who cleared his baggage, his boxes,
+his books, which he never read, his chests of mangoes,
+chutney, and curry-powders, his shawls for presents to
+people whom he didn't know as yet, and the rest of his
+Persicos apparatus.
+
+At length, he drove leisurely to London on the third
+day and in the new waistcoat, the native, with chattering
+teeth, shuddering in a shawl on the box by the side of the
+new European servant; Jos puffing his pipe at intervals
+within and looking so majestic that the little boys cried
+Hooray, and many people thought he must be a
+Governor-General.  HE, I promise, did not decline the
+obsequious invitation of the landlords to alight and refresh
+himself in the neat country towns.  Having partaken of a
+copious breakfast, with fish, and rice, and hard eggs, at
+Southampton, he had so far rallied at Winchester as to
+think a glass of sherry necessary.  At Alton he stepped
+out of the carriage at his servant's request and imbibed
+some of the ale for which the place is famous.  At Farnham
+he stopped to view the Bishop's Castle and to partake
+of a light dinner of stewed eels, veal cutlets, and
+French beans, with a bottle of claret.  He was cold over
+Bagshot Heath, where the native chattered more and
+more, and Jos Sahib took some brandy-and-water; in
+fact, when he drove into town he was as full of wine,
+beer, meat, pickles, cherry-brandy, and tobacco as the
+steward's cabin of a steam-packet.  It was evening when
+his carriage thundered up to the little door in Brompton,
+whither the affectionate fellow drove first, and before
+hieing to the apartments secured for him by Mr. Dobbin
+at the Slaughters'.
+
+All the faces in the street were in the windows; the
+little maidservant flew to the wicket-gate; the Mesdames
+Clapp looked out from the casement of the ornamented
+kitchen; Emmy, in a great flutter, was in the passage
+among the hats and coats; and old Sedley in the parlour
+inside, shaking all over.  Jos descended from the post-
+chaise and down the creaking swaying steps in awful
+state, supported by the new valet from Southampton and
+the shuddering native, whose brown face was now livid
+with cold and of the colour of a turkey's gizzard.  He
+created an immense sensation in the passage presently,
+where Mrs. and Miss Clapp, coming perhaps to listen
+at the parlour door, found Loll Jewab shaking upon the
+hall-bench under the coats, moaning in a strange piteous
+way, and showing his yellow eyeballs and white teeth.
+
+For, you see, we have adroitly shut the door upon the
+meeting between Jos and the old father and the poor little
+gentle sister inside.  The old man was very much affected;
+so, of course, was his daughter; nor was Jos without
+feeling.  In that long absence of ten years, the most selfish
+will think about home and early ties.  Distance sanctifies
+both.  Long brooding over those lost pleasures exaggerates
+their charm and sweetness.  Jos was unaffectedly glad to
+see and shake the hand of his father, between whom
+and himself there had been a coolness--glad to see his
+little sister, whom he remembered so pretty and smiling,
+and pained at the alteration which time, grief, and
+misfortune had made in the shattered old man.  Emmy had
+come out to the door in her black clothes and whispered
+to him of her mother's death, and not to speak of it to
+their father.  There was no need of this caution, for the
+elder Sedley himself began immediately to speak of the
+event, and prattled about it, and wept over it plenteously.
+It shocked the Indian not a little and made him think of
+himself less than the poor fellow was accustomed to do.
+
+The result of the interview must have been very
+satisfactory, for when Jos had reascended his post-chaise
+and had driven away to his hotel, Emmy embraced her father
+tenderly, appealing to him with an air of triumph, and
+asking the old man whether she did not always say that
+her brother had a good heart?
+
+Indeed, Joseph Sedley, affected by the humble position
+in which he found his relations, and in the expansiveness
+and overflowing of heart occasioned by the first meeting,
+declared that they should never suffer want or
+discomfort any more, that he was at home for some time
+at any rate, during which his house and everything he
+had should be theirs:  and that Amelia would look very
+pretty at the head of his table--until she would accept
+one of her own.
+
+She shook her head sadly and had, as usual, recourse
+to the waterworks.  She knew what he meant.  She and
+her young confidante, Miss Mary, had talked over the
+matter most fully, the very night of the Major's visit,
+beyond which time the impetuous Polly could not refrain
+from talking of the discovery which she had made, and
+describing the start and tremor of joy by which Major
+Dobbin betrayed himself when Mr. Binny passed with his
+bride and the Major learned that he had no longer a
+rival to fear.  "Didn't you see how he shook all over
+when you asked if he was married and he said, 'Who told
+you those lies?' Oh, M'am," Polly said, "he never kept his
+eyes off you, and I'm sure he's grown grey athinking of
+you."
+
+But Amelia, looking up at her bed, over which hung
+the portraits of her husband and son, told her young
+protegee never, never, to speak on that subject again;
+that Major Dobbin had been her husband's dearest friend
+and her own and George's most kind and affectionate
+guardian; that she loved him as a brother--but that a
+woman who had been married to such an angel as that,
+and she pointed to the wall, could never think of any
+other union.  Poor Polly sighed:  she thought what she
+should do if young Mr. Tomkins, at the surgery, who
+always looked at her so at church, and who, by those
+mere aggressive glances had put her timorous little heart
+into such a flutter that she was ready to surrender at
+once,--what she should do if he were to die? She knew
+he was consumptive, his cheeks were so red and he was
+so uncommon thin in the waist.
+
+Not that Emmy, being made aware of the honest
+Major's passion, rebuffed him in any way, or felt
+displeased with him.  Such an attachment from so true and
+loyal a gentleman could make no woman angry.
+Desdemona was not angry with Cassio, though there is
+very little doubt she saw the Lieutenant's partiality for
+her (and I for my part believe that many more things
+took place in that sad affair than the worthy Moorish
+officer ever knew of); why, Miranda was even very kind
+to Caliban, and we may be pretty sure for the same
+reason.  Not that she would encourage him in the least--
+the poor uncouth monster--of course not.  No more
+would Emmy by any means encourage her admirer, the
+Major.  She would give him that friendly regard, which
+so much excellence and fidelity merited; she would treat
+him with perfect cordiality and frankness until he made
+his proposals, and THEN it would be time enough for her
+to speak and to put an end to hopes which never could be
+realized.
+
+She slept, therefore, very soundly that evening, after
+the conversation with Miss Polly, and was more than
+ordinarily happy, in spite of Jos's delaying.  "I am glad
+he is not going to marry that Miss O'Dowd," she thought.
+"Colonel O'Dowd never could have a sister fit for such
+an accomplished man as Major William." Who was there
+amongst her little circle who would make him a good
+wife? Not Miss Binny, she was too old and ill-tempered;
+Miss Osborne? too old too.  Little Polly was too young.
+Mrs. Osborne could not find anybody to suit the Major
+before she went to sleep.
+
+The same morning brought Major Dobbin a letter to the
+Slaughters' Coffee-house from his friend at Southampton,
+begging dear Dob to excuse Jos for being in a rage when
+awakened the day before (he had a confounded headache,
+and was just in his first sleep), and entreating Dob to
+engage comfortable rooms at the Slaughters' for Mr. Sedley
+and his servants.  The Major had become necessary to
+Jos during the voyage.  He was attached to him, and hung
+upon him.  The other passengers were away to London.
+Young Ricketts and little Chaffers went away on the
+coach that day--Ricketts on the box, and taking the
+reins from Botley; the Doctor was off to his family at
+Portsea; Bragg gone to town to his co-partners; and the
+first mate busy in the unloading of the Ramchunder.  Mr.
+Joe was very lonely at Southampton, and got the landlord
+of the George to take a glass of wine with him that
+day, at the very hour at which Major Dobbin was
+seated at the table of his father, Sir William, where his
+sister found out (for it was impossible for the Major to
+tell fibs) that he had been to see Mrs. George Osborne.
+
+Jos was so comfortably situated in St.  Martin's Lane, he
+could enjoy his hookah there with such perfect ease, and
+could swagger down to the theatres, when minded, so
+agreeably, that, perhaps, he would have remained
+altogether at the Slaughters' had not his friend, the Major,
+been at his elbow.  That gentleman would not let the
+Bengalee rest until he had executed his promise of having
+a home for Amelia and his father.  Jos was a soft fellow
+in anybody's hands, Dobbin most active in anybody's
+concerns but his own; the civilian was, therefore, an easy
+victim to the guileless arts of this good-natured diplomatist
+and was ready to do, to purchase, hire, or relinquish
+whatever his friend thought fit.  Loll Jewab, of whom the
+boys about St.  Martin's Lane used to make cruel fun
+whenever he showed his dusky countenance in the street, was
+sent back to Calcutta in the Lady Kicklebury East
+Indiaman, in which Sir William Dobbin had a share, having
+previously taught Jos's European the art of preparing
+curries, pilaus, and pipes.  It was a matter of great delight
+and occupation to Jos to superintend the building of a
+smart chariot which he and the Major ordered in the
+neighbouring Long Acre:  and a pair of handsome horses
+were jobbed, with which Jos drove about in state in the
+park, or to call upon his Indian friends.  Amelia was not
+seldom by his side on these excursions, when also Major
+Dobbin would be seen in the back seat of the carriage.
+At other times old Sedley and his daughter took
+advantage of it, and Miss Clapp, who frequently
+accompanied her friend, had great pleasure in being recognized
+as she sat in the carriage, dressed in the famous yellow
+shawl, by the young gentleman at the surgery, whose face
+might commonly be seen over the window-blinds as she
+passed.
+
+Shortly after Jos's first appearance at Brompton, a
+dismal scene, indeed, took place at that humble cottage at
+which the Sedleys had passed the last ten years of their
+life.  Jos's carriage (the temporary one, not the chariot
+under construction) arrived one day and carried off old
+Sedley and his daughter--to return no more.  The tears
+that were shed by the landlady and the landlady's
+daughter at that event were as genuine tears of sorrow as any
+that have been outpoured in the course of this history.
+In their long acquaintanceship and intimacy they could
+not recall a harsh word that had been uttered by Amelia
+She had been all sweetness and kindness, always
+thankful, always gentle, even when Mrs. Clapp lost her own
+temper and pressed for the rent.  When the kind creature
+was going away for good and all, the landlady reproached
+herself bitterly for ever having used a rough expression to
+her--how she wept, as they stuck up with wafers on the
+window, a paper notifying that the little rooms so long
+occupied were to let!  They never would have such lodgers
+again, that was quite clear.  After-life proved the truth of
+this melancholy prophecy, and Mrs. Clapp revenged
+herself for the deterioration of mankind by levying the most
+savage contributions upon the tea-caddies and legs of
+mutton of her locataires.  Most of them scolded and
+grumbled; some of them did not pay; none of them stayed.
+The landlady might well regret those old, old friends, who
+had left her.
+
+As for Miss Mary, her sorrow at Amelia's departure
+was such as I shall not attempt to depict.  From childhood
+upwards she had been with her daily and had attached
+herself so passionately to that dear good lady that when
+the grand barouche came to carry her off into splendour,
+she fainted in the arms of her friend, who was indeed
+scarcely less affected than the good-natured girl.  Amelia
+loved her like a daughter.  During eleven years the girl had
+been her constant friend and associate.  The separation was
+a very painful one indeed to her.  But it was of course
+arranged that Mary was to come and stay often at the
+grand new house whither Mrs. Osborne was going, and
+where Mary was sure she would never be so happy as
+she had been in their humble cot, as Miss Clapp called it,
+in the language of the novels which she loved.
+
+Let us hope she was wrong in her judgement.  Poor
+Emmy's days of happiness had been very few in that
+humble cot.  A gloomy Fate had oppressed her there.  She
+never liked to come back to the house after she had left
+it, or to face the landlady who had tyrannized over her
+when ill-humoured and unpaid, or when pleased had
+treated her with a coarse familiarity scarcely less odious.
+Her servility and fulsome compliments when Emmy was
+in prosperity were not more to that lady's liking.  She
+cast about notes of admiration all over the new house,
+extolling every article of furniture or ornament; she
+fingered Mrs. Osborne's dresses and calculated their price.
+Nothing could be too good for that sweet lady, she
+vowed and protested.  But in the vulgar sycophant who
+now paid court to her, Emmy always remembered the
+coarse tyrant who had made her miserable many a time,
+to whom she had been forced to put up petitions for
+time, when the rent was overdue; who cried out at her
+extravagance if she bought delicacies for her ailing mother
+or father; who had seen her humble and trampled upon
+her.
+
+Nobody ever heard of these griefs, which had been
+part of our poor little woman's lot in life.  She kept them
+secret from her father, whose improvidence was the cause
+of much of her misery.  She had to bear all the blame of
+his misdoings, and indeed was so utterly gentle and
+humble as to be made by nature for a victim.
+
+I hope she is not to suffer much more of that hard
+usage.  And, as in all griefs there is said to be some
+consolation, I may mention that poor Mary, when left at her
+friend's departure in a hysterical condition, was placed
+under the medical treatment of the young fellow from
+the surgery, under whose care she rallied after a short
+period.  Emmy, when she went away from Brompton,
+endowed Mary with every article of furniture that the house
+contained, only taking away her pictures (the two
+pictures over the bed) and her piano--that little old piano
+which had now passed into a plaintive jingling old age,
+but which she loved for reasons of her own.  She was a
+child when first she played on it, and her parents gave it
+her.  It had been given to her again since, as the reader
+may remember, when her father's house was gone to ruin
+and the instrument was recovered out of the wreck.
+
+Major Dobbin was exceedingly pleased when, as he
+was superintending the arrangements of Jos's new house
+--which the Major insisted should be very handsome and
+comfortable--the cart arrived from Brompton, bringing
+the trunks and bandboxes of the emigrants from that
+village, and with them the old piano.  Amelia would have it
+up in her sitting-room, a neat little apartment on the
+second floor, adjoining her father's chamber, and where
+the old gentleman sat commonly of evenings.
+
+When the men appeared then bearing this old music-
+box, and Amelia gave orders that it should be placed
+in the chamber aforesaid, Dobbin was quite elated.  "I'm
+glad you've kept it," he said in a very sentimental
+manner.  "I was afraid you didn't care about it."
+
+"I value it more than anything I have in the world,"
+said Amelia.
+
+"Do you, Amelia?" cried the Major.  The fact was,
+as he had bought it himself, though he never said
+anything about it, it never entered into his head to suppose
+that Emmy should think anybody else was the purchaser,
+and as a matter of course he fancied that she knew the
+gift came from him.  "Do you, Amelia?" he said; and
+the question, the great question of all, was trembling
+on his lips, when Emmy replied--
+
+"Can I do otherwise?--did not he give it me?"
+
+"I did not know," said poor old Dob, and his
+countenance fell.
+
+Emmy did not note the circumstance at the time, nor
+take immediate heed of the very dismal expression which
+honest Dobbin's countenance assumed, but she thought
+of it afterwards.  And then it struck her, with inexpressible
+pain and mortification too, that it was William who
+was the giver of the piano, and not George, as she had
+fancied.  It was not George's gift; the only one which she
+had received from her lover, as she thought--the thing
+she had cherished beyond all others--her dearest relic
+and prize.  She had spoken to it about George; played
+his favourite airs upon it; sat for long evening hours,
+touching, to the best of her simple art, melancholy
+harmonies on the keys, and weeping over them in silence.
+It was not George's relic.  It was valueless now.  The next
+time that old Sedley asked her to play, she said it was
+shockingly out of tune, that she had a headache, that
+she couldn't play.
+
+Then, according to her custom, she rebuked herself
+for her pettishness and ingratitude and determined to
+make a reparation to honest William for the slight she
+had not expressed to him, but had felt for his piano.
+A few days afterwards, as they were seated in the
+drawing-room, where Jos had fallen asleep with great comfort
+after dinner, Amelia said with rather a faltering voice
+to Major Dobbin--
+
+"I have to beg your pardon for something."
+
+"About what?" said he.
+
+"About--about that little square piano.  I never thanked
+you for it when you gave it me, many, many years ago,
+before I was married.  I thought somebody else had given
+it.  Thank you, William." She held out her hand, but the
+poor little woman's heart was bleeding; and as for her
+eyes, of course they were at their work.
+
+But William could hold no more.  "Amelia, Amelia,"
+he said, "I did buy it for you.  I loved you then as I
+do now.  I must tell you.  I think I loved you from the
+first minute that I saw you, when George brought me to
+your house, to show me the Amelia whom he was
+engaged to.  You were but a girl, in white, with large
+ringlets; you came down singing--do you remember?--
+and we went to Vauxhall.  Since then I have thought of
+but one woman in the world, and that was you.  I
+think there is no hour in the day has passed for twelve
+years that I haven't thought of you.  I came to tell you
+this before I went to India, but you did not care, and
+I hadn't the heart to speak.  You did not care whether
+I stayed or went."
+
+"I was very ungrateful," Amelia said.
+
+"No, only indifferent," Dobbin continued desperately.
+"I have nothing to make a woman to be otherwise.  I
+know what you are feeling now.  You are hurt in your
+heart at the discovery about the piano, and that it came
+from me and not from George.  I forgot, or I should
+never have spoken of it so.  It is for me to ask your
+pardon for being a fool for a moment, and thinking
+that years of constancy and devotion might have pleaded
+with you."
+
+"It is you who are cruel now," Amelia said with some
+spirit.  "George is my husband, here and in heaven.  How
+could I love any other but him? I am his now as when
+you first saw me, dear William.  It was he who told me
+how good and generous you were, and who taught me
+to love you as a brother.  Have you not been everything
+to me and my boy? Our dearest, truest, kindest friend
+and protector? Had you come a few months sooner
+perhaps you might have spared me that--that dreadful
+parting.  Oh, it nearly killed me, William--but you didn't
+come, though I wished and prayed for you to come,
+and they took him too away from me.  Isn't he a noble
+boy, William? Be his friend still and mine"--and here her
+voice broke, and she hid her face on his shoulder.
+
+The Major folded his arms round her, holding her to
+him as if she was a child, and kissed her head.  "I will
+not change, dear Amelia," he said.  "I ask for no more
+than your love.  I think I would not have it otherwise.
+Only let me stay near you and see you often."
+
+"Yes, often," Amelia said.  And so William was at
+liberty to look and long--as the poor boy at school
+who has no money may sigh after the contents of the
+tart-woman's tray.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LX
+
+
+Returns to the Genteel World
+
+Good fortune now begins to smile upon Amelia.  We are
+glad to get her out of that low sphere in which she has
+been creeping hitherto and introduce her into a polite
+circle--not so grand and refined as that in which our
+other female friend, Mrs. Becky, has appeared, but still
+having no small pretensions to gentility and fashion.  Jos's
+friends were all from the three presidencies, and his new
+house was in the comfortable Anglo-Indian district of
+which Moira Place is the centre.  Minto Square, Great
+Clive Street, Warren Street, Hastings Street, Ochterlony
+Place, Plassy Square, Assaye Terrace ("gardens" was
+a felicitous word not applied to stucco houses with
+asphalt terraces in front, so early as 1827)--who does not
+know these respectable abodes of the retired Indian
+aristocracy, and the quarter which Mr. Wenham calls the
+Black Hole, in a word? Jos's position in life was not grand
+enough to entitle him to a house in Moira Place, where
+none can live but retired Members of Council, and
+partners of Indian firms (who break, after having settled a
+hundred thousand pounds on their wives, and retire into
+comparative penury to a country place and four thousand
+a year); he engaged a comfortable house of a
+second- or third-rate order in Gillespie Street, purchasing the
+carpets, costly mirrors, and handsome and appropriate
+planned furniture by Seddons from the assignees of Mr.
+Scape, lately admitted partner into the great Calcutta
+House of Fogle, Fake, and Cracksman, in which poor
+Scape had embarked seventy thousand pounds, the
+earnings of a long and honourable life, taking Fake's place,
+who retired to a princely park in Sussex (the Fogles have
+been long out of the firm, and Sir Horace Fogle is about
+to be raised to the peerage as Baron Bandanna)--admitted,
+I say, partner into the great agency house of Fogle
+and Fake two years before it failed for a million and
+plunged half the Indian public into misery and ruin.
+
+Scape, ruined, honest, and broken-hearted at sixty-five
+years of age, went out to Calcutta to wind up the affairs
+of the house.  Walter Scape was withdrawn from Eton
+and put into a merchant's house.  Florence Scape, Fanny
+Scape, and their mother faded away to Boulogne, and
+will be heard of no more.  To be brief, Jos stepped in and
+bought their carpets and sideboards and admired
+himself in the mirrors which had reflected their kind
+handsome faces.  The Scape tradesmen, all honourably paid,
+left their cards, and were eager to supply the new
+household.  The large men in white waistcoats who waited at
+Scape's dinners, greengrocers, bank-porters, and
+milkmen in their private capacity, left their addresses and
+ingratiated themselves with the butler.  Mr. Chummy, the
+chimney-purifier, who had swept the last three families,
+tried to coax the butler and the boy under him, whose
+duty it was to go out covered with buttons and with
+stripes down his trousers, for the protection of Mrs.
+Amelia whenever she chose to walk abroad.
+
+It was a modest establishment.  The butler was Jos's
+valet also, and never was more drunk than a butler in a
+small family should be who has a proper regard for his
+master's wine.  Emmy was supplied with a maid, grown on
+Sir William Dobbin's suburban estate; a good girl, whose
+kindness and humility disarmed Mrs. Osborne, who was
+at first terrified at the idea of having a servant to wait
+upon herself, who did not in the least know how to use
+one, and who always spoke to domestics with the most
+reverential politeness.  But this maid was very useful in
+the family, in dexterously tending old Mr. Sedley, who
+kept almost entirely to his own quarter of the house
+and never mixed in any of the gay doings which took
+place there.
+
+Numbers of people came to see Mrs. Osborne.  Lady
+Dobbin and daughters were delighted at her change of
+fortune, and waited upon her.  Miss Osborne from Russell
+Square came in her grand chariot with the flaming
+hammer-cloth emblazoned with the Leeds arms.  Jos was
+reported to be immensely rich.  Old Osborne had no
+objection that Georgy should inherit his uncle's property as
+well as his own.  "Damn it, we will make a man of the
+feller," he said; "and I'll see him in Parliament before I
+die.  You may go and see his mother, Miss O., though I'll
+never set eyes on her":  and Miss Osborne came.  Emmy,
+you may be sure, was very glad to see her, and so be
+brought nearer to George.  That young fellow was
+allowed to come much more frequently than before to visit
+his mother.  He dined once or twice a week in Gillespie
+Street and bullied the servants and his relations there, just
+as he did in Russell Square.
+
+He was always respectful to Major Dobbin, however,
+and more modest in his demeanour when that gentleman
+was present.  He was a clever lad and afraid of the
+Major.  George could not help admiring his friend's
+simplicity, his good humour, his various learning quietly
+imparted, his general love of truth and justice.  He had met
+no such man as yet in the course of his experience, and
+he had an instinctive liking for a gentleman.  He hung
+fondly by his godfather's side, and it was his delight to
+walk in the parks and hear Dobbin talk.  William told
+George about his father, about India and Waterloo, about
+everything but himself.  When George was more than
+usually pert and conceited, the Major made jokes at him,
+which Mrs. Osborne thought very cruel.  One day, taking
+him to the play, and the boy declining to go into the pit
+because it was vulgar, the Major took him to the boxes,
+left him there, and went down himself to the pit.  He
+had not been seated there very long before he felt an arm
+thrust under his and a dandy little hand in a kid glove
+squeezing his arm.  George had seen the absurdity of his
+ways and come down from the upper region.  A tender
+laugh of benevolence lighted up old Dobbin's face and
+eyes as he looked at the repentant little prodigal.  He
+loved the boy, as he did everything that belonged to
+Amelia.  How charmed she was when she heard of this
+instance of George's goodness!  Her eyes looked more
+kindly on Dobbin than they ever had done.  She blushed,
+he thought, after looking at him so.
+
+Georgy never tired of his praises of the Major to his
+mother.  "I like him, Mamma, because he knows such lots
+of things; and he ain't like old Veal, who is always
+bragging and using such long words, don't you know? The
+chaps call him 'Longtail' at school.  I gave him the name;
+ain't it capital? But Dob reads Latin like English, and
+French and that; and when we go out together he tells me
+stories about my Papa, and never about himself; though I
+heard Colonel Buckler, at Grandpapa's, say that he was
+one of the bravest officers in the army, and had
+distinguished himself ever so much.  Grandpapa was quite
+surprised, and said, 'THAT feller!  Why, I didn't think he could
+say Bo to a goose'--but l know he could, couldn't he,
+Mamma?"
+
+Emmy laughed:  she thought it was very likely the
+Major could do thus much.
+
+If there was a sincere liking between George and the
+Major, it must be confessed that between the boy and his
+uncle no great love existed.  George had got a way of
+blowing out his cheeks, and putting his hands in his
+waistcoat pockets, and saying, "God bless my soul, you don't
+say so," so exactly after the fashion of old Jos that it was
+impossible to refrain from laughter.  The servants would
+explode at dinner if the lad, asking for something which
+wasn't at table, put on that countenance and used that
+favourite phrase.  Even Dobbin would shoot out a sudden
+peal at the boy's mimicry.  If George did not mimic his
+uncle to his face, it was only by Dobbin's rebukes and
+Amelia's terrified entreaties that the little scapegrace was
+induced to desist.  And the worthy civilian being haunted
+by a dim consciousness that the lad thought him an ass,
+and was inclined to turn him into ridicule, used to be
+extremely timorous and, of course, doubly pompous and
+dignified in the presence of Master Georgy.  When it was
+announced that the young gentleman was expected in
+Gillespie Street to dine with his mother, Mr. Jos
+commonly found that he had an engagement at the Club.
+Perhaps nobody was much grieved at his absence.  On
+those days Mr. Sedley would commonly be induced to
+come out from his place of refuge in the upper stories,
+and there would be a small family party, whereof Major
+Dobbin pretty generally formed one.  He was the ami de
+la maison--old Sedley's friend, Emmy's friend, Georgy's
+friend, Jos's counsel and adviser.  "He might almost as
+well be at Madras for anything WE see of him," Miss
+Ann Dobbin remarked at Camberwell.  Ah!  Miss Ann, did
+it not strike you that it was not YOU whom the Major
+wanted to marry?
+
+Joseph Sedley then led a life of dignified otiosity such
+as became a person of his eminence.  His very first point,
+of course, was to become a member of the Oriental Club,
+where he spent his mornings in the company of his
+brother Indians, where he dined, or whence he brought
+home men to dine.
+
+Amelia had to receive and entertain these gentlemen
+and their ladies.  From these she heard how soon Smith
+would be in Council; how many lacs Jones had brought
+home with him, how Thomson's House in London had
+refused the bills drawn by Thomson, Kibobjee, and Co.,
+the Bombay House, and how it was thought the Calcutta
+House must go too; how very imprudent, to say the
+least of it, Mrs. Brown's conduct (wife of Brown of the
+Ahmednuggur Irregulars) had been with young Swankey
+of the Body Guard, sitting up with him on deck until all
+hours, and losing themselves as they were riding out at
+the Cape; how Mrs. Hardyman had had out her thirteen
+sisters, daughters of a country curate, the Rev:  Felix
+Rabbits, and married eleven of them, seven high up in
+the service; how Hornby was wild because his wife
+would stay in Europe, and Trotter was appointed
+Collector at Ummerapoora.  This and similar talk took place
+at the grand dinners all round.  They had the same
+conversation; the same silver dishes; the same saddles of
+mutton, boiled turkeys, and entrees.  Politics set in a
+short time after dessert, when the ladies retired upstairs
+and talked about their complaints and their children.
+
+Mutato nomine, it is all the same.  Don't the barristers'
+wives talk about Circuit? Don't the soldiers' ladies
+gossip about the Regiment? Don't the clergymen's ladies
+discourse about Sunday-schools and who takes whose duty?
+Don't the very greatest ladies of all talk about that small
+clique of persons to whom they belong? And why should
+our Indian friends not have their own conversation?--
+only I admit it is slow for the laymen whose fate it
+sometimes is to sit by and listen.
+
+Before long Emmy had a visiting-book, and was driving
+about regularly in a carriage, calling upon Lady Bludyer
+(wife of Major-General Sir Roger Bludyer, K.C.B., Bengal
+Army); Lady Huff, wife of Sir G.  Huff, Bombay ditto;
+Mrs. Pice, the Lady of Pice the Director, &c.  We are not
+long in using ourselves to changes in life.  That carriage
+came round to Gillespie Street every day; that buttony
+boy sprang up and down from the box with Emmy's and
+Jos's visiting-cards; at stated hours Emmy and the
+carriage went for Jos to the Club and took him an airing;
+or, putting old Sedley into the vehicle, she drove the old
+man round the Regent's Park.  The lady's maid and the
+chariot, the visiting-book and the buttony page, became
+soon as familiar to Amelia as the humble routine of
+Brompton.  She accommodated herself to one as to the
+other.  If Fate had ordained that she should be a Duchess,
+she would even have done that duty too.  She was voted, in
+Jos's female society, rather a pleasing young person--
+not much in her, but pleasing, and that sort of thing.
+
+The men, as usual, liked her artless kindness and
+simple refined demeanour.  The gallant young Indian dandies
+at home on furlough--immense dandies these--chained
+and moustached--driving in tearing cabs, the pillars of
+the theatres, living at West End hotels--nevertheless
+admired Mrs. Osborne, liked to bow to her carriage in the
+park, and to be admitted to have the honour of paying
+her a morning visit.  Swankey of the Body Guard
+himself, that dangerous youth, and the greatest buck of all
+the Indian army now on leave, was one day discovered
+by Major Dobbin tete-a-tete with Amelia, and
+describing the sport of pig-sticking to her with great humour and
+eloquence; and he spoke afterwards of a d--d king's
+officer that's always hanging about the house--a long,
+thin, queer-looking, oldish fellow--a dry fellow though,
+that took the shine out of a man in the talking line.
+
+Had the Major possessed a little more personal vanity
+he would have been jealous of so dangerous a young
+buck as that fascinating Bengal Captain.  But Dobbin was
+of too simple and generous a nature to have any doubts
+about Amelia.  He was glad that the young men should
+pay her respect, and that others should admire her.  Ever
+since her womanhood almost, had she not been
+persecuted and undervalued? It pleased him to see how
+kindness bought out her good qualities and how her spirits
+gently rose with her prosperity.  Any person who
+appreciated her paid a compliment to the Major's good
+judgement--that is, if a man may be said to have good
+judgement who is under the influence of Love's delusion.
+
+After Jos went to Court, which we may be sure he
+did as a loyal subject of his Sovereign (showing himself
+in his full court suit at the Club, whither Dobbin came
+to fetch him in a very shabby old uniform) he who had
+always been a staunch Loyalist and admirer of George
+IV, became such a tremendous Tory and pillar of the
+State that he was for having Amelia to go to a
+Drawing-room, too.  He somehow had worked himself up
+to believe that he was implicated in the maintenance of the
+public welfare and that the Sovereign would not be happy
+unless Jos Sedley and his family appeared to rally round
+him at St.  James's.
+
+Emmy laughed.  "Shall I wear the family diamonds,
+Jos?" she said.
+
+"I wish you would let me buy you some," thought the
+Major.  "I should like to see any that were too good for
+you."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXI
+
+
+In Which Two Lights are Put Out
+
+There came a day when the round of decorous pleasures
+and solemn gaieties in which Mr. Jos Sedley's family
+indulged was interrupted by an event which happens in
+most houses.  As you ascend the staircase of your house
+from the drawing towards the bedroom floors, you may
+have remarked a little arch in the wall right before you,
+which at once gives light to the stair which leads from
+the second story to the third (where the nursery and
+servants' chambers commonly are) and serves for
+another purpose of utility, of which the undertaker's men
+can give you a notion.  They rest the coffins upon that
+arch, or pass them through it so as not to disturb in any
+unseemly manner the cold tenant slumbering within the
+black ark.
+
+That second-floor arch in a London house, looking up
+and down the well of the staircase and commanding the
+main thoroughfare by which the inhabitants are passing;
+by which cook lurks down before daylight to scour her
+pots and pans in the kitchen; by which young master
+stealthily ascends, having left his boots in the hall, and
+let himself in after dawn from a jolly night at the Club;
+down which miss comes rustling in fresh ribbons and
+spreading muslins, brilliant and beautiful, and prepared
+for conquest and the ball; or Master Tommy slides,
+preferring the banisters for a mode of conveyance, and
+disdaining danger and the stair; down which the mother is
+fondly carried smiling in her strong husband's arms, as
+he steps steadily step by step, and followed by the monthly
+nurse, on the day when the medical man has pronounced
+that the charming patient may go downstairs;
+up which John lurks to bed, yawning, with a sputtering
+tallow candle, and to gather up before sunrise the boots
+which are awaiting him in the passages--that stair, up or
+down which babies are carried, old people are helped,
+guests are marshalled to the ball, the parson walks to the
+christening, the doctor to the sick-room, and the
+undertaker's men to the upper floor--what a memento of Life,
+Death, and Vanity it is--that arch and stair--if you
+choose to consider it, and sit on the landing, looking up
+and down the well!  The doctor will come up to us too
+for the last time there, my friend in motley.  The nurse
+will look in at the curtains, and you take no notice--and
+then she will fling open the windows for a little and let in
+the air.  Then they will pull down all the front blinds of the
+house and live in the back rooms--then they will send
+for the lawyer and other men in black, &c.  Your comedy
+and mine will have been played then, and we shall be
+removed, oh, how far, from the trumpets, and the shouting,
+and the posture-making.  If we are gentlefolks they
+will put hatchments over our late domicile, with gilt
+cherubim, and mottoes stating that there is "Quiet in
+Heaven." Your son will new furnish the house, or
+perhaps let it, and go into a more modern quarter; your
+name will be among the "Members Deceased" in the
+lists of your clubs next year.  However much you may be
+mourned, your widow will like to have her weeds neatly
+made--the cook will send or come up to ask about
+dinner--the survivor will soon bear to look at your picture
+over the mantelpiece, which will presently be deposed
+from the place of honour, to make way for the portrait of
+the son who reigns.
+
+Which of the dead are most tenderly and passionately
+deplored? Those who love the survivors the least, I
+believe.  The death of a child occasions a passion of grief
+and frantic tears, such as your end, brother reader, will
+never inspire.  The death of an infant which scarce knew
+you, which a week's absence from you would have caused
+to forget you, will strike you down more than the loss of
+your closest friend, or your first-born son--a man grown
+like yourself, with children of his own.  We may be harsh
+and stern with Judah and Simeon--our love and pity gush
+out for Benjamin, the little one.  And if you are old, as
+some reader of this may be or shall be old and rich, or
+old and poor--you may one day be thinking for yourself
+--"These people are very good round about me, but
+they won't grieve too much when I am gone.  I am very
+rich, and they want my inheritance--or very poor, and
+they are tired of supporting me."
+
+The period of mourning for Mrs. Sedley's death was
+only just concluded, and Jos scarcely had had time to
+cast off his black and appear in the splendid waistcoats
+which he loved, when it became evident to those about
+Mr. Sedley that another event was at hand, and that the
+old man was about to go seek for his wife in the dark land
+whither she had preceded him.  "The state of my father's
+health," Jos Sedley solemnly remarked at the Club,
+"prevents me from giving any LARGE parties this season:  but if
+you will come in quietly at half-past six, Chutney, my
+boy, and fake a homely dinner with one or two of the
+old set--I shall be always glad to see you." So Jos and
+his acquaintances dined and drank their claret among
+themselves in silence, whilst the sands of life were
+running out in the old man's glass upstairs.  The velvet-footed
+butler brought them their wine, and they composed
+themselves to a rubber after dinner, at which Major Dobbin
+would sometimes come and take a hand; and Mrs.
+Osborne would occasionally descend, when her patient
+above was settled for the night, and had commenced one
+of those lightly troubled slumbers which visit the pillow
+of old age.
+
+The old man clung to his daughter during this
+sickness.  He would take his broths and medicines from
+scarcely any other hand.  To tend him became almost the
+sole business of her life.  Her bed was placed close by the
+door which opened into his chamber, and she was alive
+at the slightest noise or disturbance from the couch of
+the querulous invalid.  Though, to do him justice, he lay
+awake many an hour, silent and without stirring,
+unwilling to awaken his kind and vigilant nurse.
+
+He loved his daughter with more fondness now,
+perhaps, than ever he had done since the days of her
+childhood.  In the discharge of gentle offices and kind filial
+duties, this simple creature shone most especially.  "She
+walks into the room as silently as a sunbeam," Mr.
+Dobbin thought as he saw her passing in and out from her
+father's room, a cheerful sweetness lighting up her face
+as she moved to and fro, graceful and noiseless.  When
+women are brooding over their children, or busied in a
+sick-room, who has not seen in their faces those sweet
+angelic beams of love and pity?
+
+A secret feud of some years' standing was thus
+healed, and with a tacit reconciliation.  In these last
+hours, and touched by her love and goodness, the old
+man forgot all his grief against her, and wrongs which
+he and his wife had many a long night debated:  how she
+had given up everything for her boy; how she was
+careless of her parents in their old age and misfortune, and
+only thought of the child; how absurdly and foolishly,
+impiously indeed, she took on when George was
+removed from her.  Old Sedley forgot these charges as he
+was making up his last account, and did justice to the
+gentle and uncomplaining little martyr.  One night when
+she stole into his room, she found him awake, when the
+broken old man made his confession.  "Oh, Emmy, I've
+been thinking we were very unkind and unjust to you,"
+he said and put out his cold and feeble hand to her.  She
+knelt down and prayed by his bedside, as he did too,
+having still hold of her hand.  When our turn comes, friend,
+may we have such company in our prayers!
+
+Perhaps as he was lying awake then, his life may have
+passed before him--his early hopeful struggles, his manly
+successes and prosperity, his downfall in his declining
+years, and his present helpless condition--no chance of
+revenge against Fortune, which had had the better of
+him--neither name nor money to bequeath--a spent-out,
+bootless life of defeat and disappointment, and the
+end here!  Which, I wonder, brother reader, is the better
+lot, to die prosperous and famous, or poor and
+disappointed? To have, and to be forced to yield; or to
+sink out of life, having played and lost the game? That
+must be a strange feeling, when a day of our life comes
+and we say, "To-morrow, success or failure won't
+matter much, and the sun will rise, and all the myriads of
+mankind go to their work or their pleasure as usual, but
+I shall be out of the turmoil."
+
+So there came one morning and sunrise when all the
+world got up and set about its various works and
+pleasures, with the exception of old John Sedley, who was not
+to fight with fortune, or to hope or scheme any more,
+but to go and take up a quiet and utterly unknown
+residence in a churchyard at Brompton by the side of
+his old wife.
+
+Major Dobbin, Jos, and Georgy followed his remains
+to the grave, in a black cloth coach.  Jos came on
+purpose from the Star and Garter at Richmond, whither he
+retreated after the deplorable event.  He did not care
+to remain in the house, with the--under the circumstances,
+you understand.  But Emmy stayed and did her
+duty as usual.  She was bowed down by no especial grief,
+and rather solemn than sorrowful.  She prayed that her
+own end might be as calm and painless, and thought
+with trust and reverence of the words which she had
+heard from her father during his illness, indicative of his
+faith, his resignation, and his future hope.
+
+Yes, I think that will be the better ending of the two,
+after all.  Suppose you are particularly rich and well-to-
+do and say on that last day, "I am very rich; I am
+tolerably well known; I have lived all my life in the best
+society, and thank Heaven, come of a most respectable
+family.  I have served my King and country with honour.
+I was in Parliament for several years, where, I may say,
+my speeches were listened to and pretty well received.
+I don't owe any man a shilling:  on the contrary, I lent
+my old college friend, Jack Lazarus, fifty pounds, for which
+my executors will not press him.  I leave my daughters
+with ten thousand pounds apiece--very good portions
+for girls; I bequeath my plate and furniture, my house in
+Baker Street, with a handsome jointure, to my widow for
+her life; and my landed property, besides money in the
+funds, and my cellar of well-selected wine in Baker Street,
+to my son.  I leave twenty pound a year to my valet; and
+I defy any man after I have gone to find anything against
+my character." Or suppose, on the other hand, your
+swan sings quite a different sort of dirge and you say,
+"I am a poor blighted, disappointed old fellow, and have
+made an utter failure through life.  I was not endowed
+either with brains or with good fortune, and confess
+that I have committed a hundred mistakes and blunders.
+I own to having forgotten my duty many a time.  I can't
+pay what I owe.  On my last bed I lie utterly helpless
+and humble, and I pray forgiveness for my weakness and
+throw myself, with a contrite heart, at the feet of the
+Divine Mercy." Which of these two speeches, think
+you, would be the best oration for your own funeral?
+Old Sedley made the last; and in that humble frame of
+mind, and holding by the hand of his daughter, life and
+disappointment and vanity sank away from under him.
+
+"You see," said old Osborne to George, "what comes
+of merit, and industry, and judicious speculations, and
+that.  Look at me and my banker's account.  Look at your
+poor Grandfather Sedley and his failure.  And yet he was
+a better man than I was, this day twenty years--a better
+man, I should say, by ten thousand pound."
+
+Beyond these people and Mr. Clapp's family, who
+came over from Brompton to pay a visit of condolence,
+not a single soul alive ever cared a penny piece about
+old John Sedley, or remembered the existence of such a
+person.
+
+When old Osborne first heard from his friend Colonel
+Buckler (as little Georgy had already informed us) how
+distinguished an officer Major Dobbin was, he exhibited
+a great deal of scornful incredulity and expressed his
+surprise how ever such a feller as that should possess
+either brains or reputation.  But he heard of the Major's
+fame from various members of his society.  Sir William
+Dobbin had a great opinion of his son and narrated
+many stories illustrative of the Major's learning, valour,
+and estimation in the world's opinion.  Finally, his name
+appeared in the lists of one or two great parties of the
+nobility, and this circumstance had a prodigious effect
+upon the old aristocrat of Russell Square.
+
+The Major's position, as guardian to Georgy, whose
+possession had been ceded to his grandfather, rendered
+some meetings between the two gentlemen inevitable;
+and it was in one of these that old Osborne, a keen man
+of business, looking into the Major's accounts with his
+ward and the boy's mother, got a hint, which staggered
+him very much, and at once pained and pleased him,
+that it was out of William Dobbin's own pocket that a
+part of the fund had been supplied upon which the
+poor widow and the child had subsisted.
+
+When pressed upon the point, Dobbin, who could not
+tell lies, blushed and stammered a good deal and finally
+confessed.  "The marriage," he said (at which his
+interlocutor's face grew dark) "was very much my doing.  I
+thought my poor friend had gone so far that retreat from
+his engagement would have been dishonour to him and
+death to Mrs. Osborne, and I could do no less, when she
+was left without resources, than give what money I could
+spare to maintain her."
+
+"Major D.," Mr. Osborne said, looking hard at him and
+turning very red too--"you did me a great injury; but
+give me leave to tell you, sir, you are an honest feller.
+There's my hand, sir, though I little thought that my
+flesh and blood was living on you--" and the pair shook
+hands, with great confusion on Major Dobbin's part, thus
+found out in his act of charitable hypocrisy.
+
+He strove to soften the old man and reconcile him
+towards his son's memory.  "He was such a noble fellow,"
+he said, "that all of us loved him, and would have done
+anything for him.  I, as a young man in those days, was
+flattered beyond measure by his preference for me, and
+was more pleased to be seen in his company than in
+that of the Commander-in-Chief.  I never saw his equal
+for pluck and daring and all the qualities of a soldier";
+and Dobbin told the old father as many stories as he
+could remember regarding the gallantry and achievements
+of his son.  "And Georgy is so like him," the
+Major added.
+
+"He's so like him that he makes me tremble sometimes,"
+the grandfather said.
+
+On one or two evenings the Major came to dine with
+Mr. Osborne (it was during the time of the sickness of
+Mr. Sedley), and as the two sat together in the evening
+after dinner, all their talk was about the departed hero.
+The father boasted about him according to his wont,
+glorifying himself in recounting his son's feats and
+gallantry, but his mood was at any rate better and more
+charitable than that in which he had been disposed until
+now to regard the poor fellow; and the Christian heart of
+the kind Major was pleased at these symptoms of
+returning peace and good-will.  On the second evening old
+Osborne called Dobbin William, just as he used to do at
+the time when Dobbin and George were boys together,
+and the honest gentleman was pleased by that mark of
+reconciliation .
+
+On the next day at breakfast, when Miss Osborne,
+with the asperity of her age and character, ventured to
+make some remark reflecting slightingly upon the Major's
+appearance or behaviour--the master of the house
+interrupted her.  "You'd have been glad enough to git him
+for yourself, Miss O.  But them grapes are sour.  Ha!  ha!
+Major William is a fine feller."
+
+"That he is, Grandpapa," said Georgy approvingly;
+and going up close to the old gentleman, he took a hold
+of his large grey whiskers, and laughed in his face
+good-humouredly, and kissed him.  And he told the story at
+night to his mother, who fully agreed with the boy.
+"Indeed he is," she said.  "Your dear father always said so.
+He is one of the best and most upright of men." Dobbin
+happened to drop in very soon after this conversation,
+which made Amelia blush perhaps, and the young
+scapegrace increased the confusion by telling Dobbin
+the other part of the story.  "I say, Dob," he said, "there's
+such an uncommon nice girl wants to marry you.  She's
+plenty of tin; she wears a front; and she scolds the
+servants from morning till night." "Who is it?" asked
+Dobbin.
+  "It's Aunt O.," the boy answered.  "Grandpapa said
+so.  And I say, Dob, how prime it would be to have you
+for my uncle." Old Sedley's quavering voice from the
+next room at this moment weakly called for Amelia, and
+the laughing ended.
+
+That old Osborne's mind was changing was pretty clear.
+He asked George about his uncle sometimes, and laughed
+at the boy's imitation of the way in which Jos said
+"God-bless-my-soul" and gobbled his soup.  Then he said,
+"It's not respectful, sir, of you younkers to be imitating of
+your relations.  Miss O., when you go out adriving
+to-day, leave my card upon Mr. Sedley, do you hear?
+There's no quarrel betwigst me and him anyhow."
+
+The card was returned, and Jos and the Major were
+asked to dinner--to a dinner the most splendid and
+stupid that perhaps ever Mr. Osborne gave; every inch
+of the family plate was exhibited, and the best company
+was asked.  Mr. Sedley took down Miss O.  to dinner,
+and she was very gracious to him; whereas she
+hardly spoke to the Major, who sat apart from her, and
+by the side of Mr. Osborne, very timid.  Jos said, with
+great solemnity, it was the best turtle soup he had ever
+tasted in his life, and asked Mr. Osborne where he got his
+Madeira.
+
+"It is some of Sedley's wine," whispered the butler to
+his master.  "I've had it a long time, and paid a good
+figure for it, too," Mr. Osborne said aloud to his guest,
+and then whispered to his right-hand neighbour how
+he had got it "at the old chap's sale."
+
+More than once he asked the Major about--about Mrs.
+George Osborne--a theme on which the Major could be
+very eloquent when he chose.  He told Mr. Osborne of
+her sufferings--of her passionate attachment to her
+husband, whose memory she worshipped still--of the tender
+and dutiful manner in which she had supported her
+parents, and given up her boy, when it seemed to her her
+duty to do so.  "You don't know what she endured, sir,"
+said honest Dobbin with a tremor in his voice, "and I
+hope and trust you will be reconciled to her.  If she
+took your son away from you, she gave hers to you;
+and however much you loved your George, depend on it,
+she loved hers ten times more."
+
+"By God, you are a good feller, sir," was all Mr. Os-
+borne said.  It had never struck him that the widow would
+feel any pain at parting from the boy, or that his having
+a fine fortune could grieve her.  A reconciliation was
+announced as speedy and inevitable, and Amelia's heart
+already began to beat at the notion of the awful meeting
+with George's father.
+
+It was never, however, destined to take place.  Old
+Sedley's lingering illness and death supervened, after
+which a meeting was for some time impossible.  That
+catastrophe and other events may have worked upon Mr.
+Osborne.  He was much shaken of late, and aged, and his
+mind was working inwardly.  He had sent for his lawyers,
+and probably changed something in his will.  The medical
+man who looked in pronounced him shaky, agitated, and
+talked of a little blood and the seaside; but he took
+neither of these remedies.
+
+One day when he should have come down to breakfast,
+his servant missing him, went into his dressing-room
+and found him lying at the foot of the dressing-table in a
+fit.  Miss Osborne was apprised; the doctors were sent
+for; Georgy stopped away from school; the bleeders
+and cuppers came.  Osborne partially regained cognizance,
+but never could speak again, though he tried
+dreadfully once or twice, and in four days he died.  The
+doctors went down, and the undertaker's men went up
+the stairs, and all the shutters were shut towards the
+garden in Russell Square.  Bullock rushed from the City
+in a hurry.  "How much money had he left to that boy?
+Not half, surely? Surely share and share alike between
+the three?" It was an agitating moment.
+
+What was it that poor old man tried once or twice
+in vain to say? I hope it was that he wanted to see
+Amelia and be reconciled before he left the world to one
+dear and faithful wife of his son:  it was most likely
+that, for his will showed that the hatred which he had
+so long cherished had gone out of his heart.
+
+They found in the pocket of his dressing-gown the
+letter with the great red seal which George had written
+him from Waterloo.  He had looked at the other papers
+too, relative to his son, for the key of the box in which
+he kept them was also in his pocket, and it was found
+the seals and envelopes had been broken--very likely on
+the night before the seizure--when the butler had taken
+him tea into his study, and found him reading in the
+great red family Bible.
+
+When the will was opened, it was found that half the
+property was left to George, and the remainder between
+the two sisters.  Mr. Bullock to continue, for their joint
+benefit, the affairs of the commercial house, or to go out,
+as he thought fit.  An annuity of five hundred pounds,
+chargeable on George's property, was left to his mother,
+"the widow of my beloved son, George Osborne," who
+was to resume the guardianship of the boy.
+
+"Major William Dobbin, my beloved son's friend," was
+appointed executor; "and as out of his kindness and
+bounty, and with his own private funds, he maintained
+my grandson and my son's widow, when they were
+otherwise without means of support" (the testator went on
+to say) "I hereby thank him heartily for his love and
+regard for them, and beseech him to accept such a sum
+as may be sufficient to purchase his commission as a
+Lieutenant-Colonel, or to be disposed of in any way he
+may think fit."
+
+When Amelia heard that her father-in-law was
+reconciled to her, her heart melted, and she was grateful
+for the fortune left to her.  But when she heard how
+Georgy was restored to her, and knew how and by
+whom, and how it was William's bounty that supported
+her in poverty, how it was William who gave her her
+husband and her son--oh, then she sank on her knees,
+and prayed for blessings on that constant and kind heart;
+she bowed down and humbled herself, and kissed the
+feet, as it were, of that beautiful and generous affection.
+
+And gratitude was all that she had to pay back for
+such admirable devotion and benefits--only gratitude!  If
+she thought of any other return, the image of George
+stood up out of the grave and said, "You are mine,
+and mine only, now and forever."
+
+William knew her feelings:  had he not passed his
+whole life in divining them?
+
+When the nature of Mr. Osborne's will became known
+to the world, it was edifying to remark how Mrs. George
+Osborne rose in the estimation of the people forming her
+circle of acquaintance.  The servants of Jos's establishment,
+who used to question her humble orders and say
+they would "ask Master" whether or not they could obey,
+never thought now of that sort of appeal.  The cook
+forgot to sneer at her shabby old gowns (which, indeed,
+were quite eclipsed by that lady's finery when she was
+dressed to go to church of a Sunday evening), the others
+no longer grumbled at the sound of her bell, or delayed
+to answer that summons.  The coachman, who grumbled
+that his 'osses should be brought out and his
+carriage made into an hospital for that old feller and
+Mrs. O., drove her with the utmost alacrity now, and
+trembling lest he should be superseded by Mr. Osborne's
+coachman, asked "what them there Russell Square
+coachmen knew about town, and whether they was fit to sit
+on a box before a lady?" Jos's friends, male and female,
+suddenly became interested about Emmy, and cards
+of condolence multiplied on her hall table.  Jos himself,
+who had looked on her as a good-natured harmless
+pauper, to whom it was his duty to give victuals and
+shelter, paid her and the rich little boy, his nephew, the
+greatest respect--was anxious that she should have
+change and amusement after her troubles and trials,
+"poor dear girl"--and began to appear at the breakfast-
+table, and most particularly to ask how she would like
+to dispose of the day.
+
+In her capacity of guardian to Georgy, she, with the
+consent of the Major, her fellow-trustee, begged Miss
+Osborne to live in the Russell Square house as long as
+ever she chose to dwell there; but that lady, with thanks,
+declared that she never could think of remaining alone
+in that melancholy mansion, and departed in deep mourning
+to Cheltenham, with a couple of her old domestics.
+The rest were liberally paid and dismissed, the faithful
+old butler, whom Mrs. Osborne proposed to retain,
+resigning and preferring to invest his savings in a public-
+house, where, let us hope, he was not unprosperous.
+Miss Osborne not choosing to live in Russell Square, Mrs.
+Osborne also, after consultation, declined to occupy the
+gloomy old mansion there.  The house was dismantled;
+the rich furniture and effects, the awful chandeliers and
+dreary blank mirrors packed away and hidden, the rich
+rosewood drawing-room suite was muffled in straw, the
+carpets were rolled up and corded, the small select
+library of well-bound books was stowed into two wine-
+chests, and the whole paraphernalia rolled away in
+several enormous vans to the Pantechnicon, where they
+were to lie until Georgy's majority.  And the great heavy
+dark plate-chests went off to Messrs.  Stumpy and Rowdy,
+to lie in the cellars of those eminent bankers until the
+same period should arrive.
+
+One day Emmy, with George in her hand and clad in
+deep sables, went to visit the deserted mansion which she
+had not entered since she was a girl.  The place in front
+was littered with straw where the vans had been laden
+and rolled off.  They went into the great blank rooms, the
+walls of which bore the marks where the pictures and
+mirrors had hung.  Then they went up the great blank
+stone staircases into the upper rooms, into that where
+grandpapa died, as George said in a whisper, and then
+higher still into George's own room.  The boy was still
+clinging by her side, but she thought of another besides
+him.  She knew that it had been his father's room as well
+as his own.
+
+She went up to one of the open windows (one of
+those at which she used to gaze with a sick heart when
+the child was first taken from her), and thence as she
+looked out she could see, over the trees of Russell Square,
+the old house in which she herself was born, and where
+she had passed so many happy days of sacred youth.
+They all came back to her, the pleasant holidays,
+the kind faces, the careless, joyful past times, and the
+long pains and trials that had since cast her down.
+She thought of these and of the man who had been her
+constant protector, her good genius, her sole benefactor,
+her tender and generous friend.
+
+"Look here, Mother," said Georgy, "here's a G.O.
+scratched on the glass with a diamond, I never saw it
+before, I never did it."
+
+"It was your father's room long before you were born,
+George," she said, and she blushed as she kissed the
+boy.
+
+She was very silent as they drove back to Richmond,
+where they had taken a temporary house:  where the
+smiling lawyers used to come bustling over to see her (and
+we may be sure noted the visit in the bill):  and where of
+course there was a room for Major Dobbin too, who
+rode over frequently, having much business to transact
+on behalf of his little ward.
+
+Georgy at this time was removed from Mr. Veal's on
+an unlimited holiday, and that gentleman was engaged
+to prepare an inscription for a fine marble slab, to be
+placed up in the Foundling under the monument of
+Captain George Osborne.
+
+The female Bullock, aunt of Georgy, although
+despoiled by that little monster of one-half of the sum
+which she expected from her father, nevertheless showed
+her charitableness of spirit by being reconciled to the
+mother and the boy.  Roehampton is not far from
+Richmond, and one day the chariot, with the golden bullocks
+emblazoned on the panels, and the flaccid children within,
+drove to Amelia's house at Richmond; and the Bullock
+family made an irruption into the garden, where Amelia
+was reading a book, Jos was in an arbour placidly
+dipping strawberries into wine, and the Major in one of
+his Indian jackets was giving a back to Georgy, who
+chose to jump over him.  He went over his head and
+bounded into the little advance of Bullocks, with
+immense black bows in their hats, and huge black sashes,
+accompanying their mourning mamma.
+
+"He is just of the age for Rosa," the fond parent
+thought, and glanced towards that dear child, an
+unwholesome little miss of seven years of age.
+
+"Rosa, go and kiss your dear cousin," Mrs. Frederick
+said.  "Don't you know me, George? I am your aunt."
+
+"I know you well enough," George said; "but I don't
+like kissing, please"; and he retreated from the obedient
+caresses of his cousin.
+
+"Take me to your dear mamma, you droll child," Mrs.
+Frederick said, and those ladies accordingly met, after
+an absence of more than fifteen years.  During Emmy's
+cares and poverty the other had never once thought
+about coming to see her, but now that she was decently
+prosperous in the world, her sister-in-law came to her as
+a matter of course.
+
+So did numbers more.  Our old friend, Miss Swartz, and
+her husband came thundering over from Hampton Court,
+with flaming yellow liveries, and was as impetuously fond
+of Amelia as ever.  Miss Swartz would have liked her
+always if she could have seen her.  One must do her that
+justice.  But, que voulez vous?--in this vast town one
+has not the time to go and seek one's friends; if they
+drop out of the rank they disappear, and we march on
+without them.  Who is ever missed in Vanity Fair?
+
+But so, in a word, and before the period of grief for
+Mr. Osborne's death had subsided, Emmy found herself
+in the centre of a very genteel circle indeed, the
+members of which could not conceive that anybody
+belonging to it was not very lucky.  There was scarce one
+of the ladies that hadn't a relation a Peer, though the
+husband might be a drysalter in the City.  Some of the
+ladies were very blue and well informed, reading Mrs.
+Somerville and frequenting the Royal Institution; others
+were severe and Evangelical, and held by Exeter Hall.
+Emmy, it must be owned, found herself entirely at a loss in
+the midst of their clavers, and suffered woefully on the
+one or two occasions on which she was compelled to
+accept Mrs. Frederick Bullock's hospitalities.  That lady
+persisted in patronizing her and determined most graciously
+to form her.  She found Amelia's milliners for her and
+regulated her household and her manners.  She drove
+over constantly from Roehampton and entertained her
+friend with faint fashionable fiddle-faddle and feeble
+Court slip-slop.  Jos liked to hear it, but the Major used
+to go off growling at the appearance of this woman, with
+her twopenny gentility.  He went to sleep under Frederick
+Bullock's bald head, after dinner, at one of the banker's
+best parties (Fred was still anxious that the balance of
+the Osborne property should be transferred from Stumpy
+and Rowdy's to them), and whilst Amelia, who did not
+know Latin, or who wrote the last crack article in the
+Edinburgh, and did not in the least deplore, or
+otherwise, Mr. Peel's late extraordinary tergiversation on the
+fatal Catholic Relief Bill, sat dumb amongst the ladies in
+the grand drawing-room, looking out upon velvet lawns,
+trim gravel walks, and glistening hot-houses.
+
+"She seems good-natured but insipid," said Mrs.
+Rowdy; "that Major seems to be particularly epris."
+
+"She wants ton sadly," said Mrs. Hollyock.  "My dear
+creature, you never will be able to form her."
+
+"She is dreadfully ignorant or indifferent," said Mrs.
+Glowry with a voice as if from the grave, and a sad
+shake of the head and turban.  "I asked her if she thought
+that it was in 1836, according to Mr. Jowls, or in 1839,
+according to Mr. Wapshot, that the Pope was to fall:
+and she said--'Poor Pope!  I hope not--What has he
+done?' "
+
+"She is my brother's widow, my dear friends," Mrs.
+Frederick replied, "and as such I think we're all bound to
+give her every attention and instruction on entering into
+the world.  You may fancy there can be no MERCENARY
+motives in those whose DISAPPOINTMENTS are well known."
+
+"That poor dear Mrs. Bullock," said Rowdy to Hollyock,
+as they drove away together--"she is always scheming
+and managing.  She wants Mrs. Osborne's account
+to be taken from our house to hers--and the way in
+which she coaxes that boy and makes him sit by that
+blear-eyed little Rosa is perfectly ridiculous."
+
+"I wish Glowry was choked with her Man of Sin and
+her Battle of Armageddon," cried the other, and the
+carriage rolled away over Putney Bridge.
+
+But this sort of society was too cruelly genteel for
+Emmy, and all jumped for joy when a foreign tour was
+proposed.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXII
+
+
+Am Rhein
+
+The above everyday events had occurred, and a few
+weeks had passed, when on one fine morning, Parliament
+being over, the summer advanced, and all the good
+company in London about to quit that city for their annual
+tour in search of pleasure or health, the Batavier steamboat
+left the Tower-stairs laden with a goodly company of English
+fugitives.  The quarter-deck awnings were up, and the
+benches and gangways crowded with scores of rosy children,
+bustling nursemaids; ladies in the prettiest pink
+bonnets and summer dresses; gentlemen in travelling caps
+and linen-jackets, whose mustachios had just begun to
+sprout for the ensuing tour; and stout trim old veterans
+with starched neckcloths and neat-brushed hats, such as
+have invaded Europe any time since the conclusion of the
+war, and carry the national Goddem into every city of
+the Continent.  The congregation of hat-boxes, and
+Bramah desks, and dressing-cases was prodigious.  There
+were jaunty young Cambridge-men travelling with their
+tutor, and going for a reading excursion to Nonnenwerth
+or Konigswinter; there were Irish gentlemen, with the
+most dashing whiskers and jewellery, talking about
+horses incessantly, and prodigiously polite to the young
+ladies on board, whom, on the contrary, the Cambridge
+lads and their pale-faced tutor avoided with maiden
+coyness; there were old Pall Mall loungers bound for Ems
+and Wiesbaden and a course of waters to clear off the
+dinners of the season, and a little roulette and trente-
+et-quarante to keep the excitement going; there was old
+Methuselah, who had married his young wife, with Captain
+Papillon of the Guards holding her parasol and
+guide-books; there was young May who was carrying off
+his bride on a pleasure tour (Mrs. Winter that was, and
+who had been at school with May's grandmother); there
+was Sir John and my Lady with a dozen children, and
+corresponding nursemaids; and the great grandee
+Bareacres family that sat by themselves near the wheel,
+stared at everybody, and spoke to no one.  Their
+carriages, emblazoned with coronets and heaped with
+shining imperials, were on the foredeck, locked in with a
+dozen more such vehicles:  it was difficult to pass in and
+out amongst them; and the poor inmates of the
+fore-cabin had scarcely any space for locomotion.  These
+consisted of a few magnificently attired gentlemen from
+Houndsditch, who brought their own provisions, and
+could have bought half the gay people in the grand
+saloon; a few honest fellows with mustachios and portfolios,
+who set to sketching before they had been half an hour
+on board; one or two French femmes de chambre who
+began to be dreadfully ill by the time the boat had
+passed Greenwich; a groom or two who lounged in the
+neighbourhood of the horse-boxes under their charge, or
+leaned over the side by the paddle-wheels, and talked
+about who was good for the Leger, and what they stood
+to win or lose for the Goodwood cup.
+
+All the couriers, when they had done plunging about
+the ship and had settled their various masters in the
+cabins or on the deck, congregated together and began to
+chatter and smoke; the Hebrew gentlemen joining them
+and looking at the carriages.  There was Sir John's great
+carriage that would hold thirteen people; my Lord
+Methuselah's carriage, my Lord Bareacres' chariot,
+britzska, and fourgon, that anybody might pay for who liked.
+It was a wonder how my Lord got the ready money to
+pay for the expenses of the journey.  The Hebrew gentlemen
+knew how he got it.  They knew what money his
+Lordship had in his pocket at that instant, and what
+interest he paid for it, and who gave it him.  Finally there
+was a very neat, handsome travelling carriage, about
+which the gentlemen speculated.
+
+"A qui cette voiture la?" said one gentleman-courier
+with a large morocco money-bag and ear-rings to another
+with ear-rings and a large morocco money-bag.
+
+"C'est a Kirsch je bense--je l'ai vu toute a l'heure--
+qui brenoit des sangviches dans la voiture," said the
+courier in a fine German French.
+
+Kirsch emerging presently from the neighbourhood of
+the hold, where he had been bellowing instructions
+intermingled with polyglot oaths to the ship's men engaged
+in secreting the passengers' luggage, came to give an
+account of himself to his brother interpreters.  He
+informed them that the carriage belonged to a Nabob from
+Calcutta and Jamaica enormously rich, and with whom
+he was engaged to travel; and at this moment a young
+gentleman who had been warned off the bridge between
+the paddle-boxes, and who had dropped thence on to the
+roof of Lord Methuselah's carriage, from which he made
+his way over other carriages and imperials until he had
+clambered on to his own, descended thence and through
+the window into the body of the carriage, to the applause
+of the couriers looking on.
+
+"Nous allons avoir une belle traversee, Monsieur
+George," said the courier with a grin, as he lifted his
+gold-laced cap.
+
+"D-- your French," said the young gentleman, "where's
+the biscuits, ay?" Whereupon Kirsch answered him in the
+English language or in such an imitation of it as he could
+command--for though he was familiar with all languages,
+Mr. Kirsch was not acquainted with a single one, and
+spoke all with indifferent volubility and incorrectness.
+
+The imperious young gentleman who gobbled the
+biscuits (and indeed it was time to refresh himself, for he
+had breakfasted at Richmond full three hours before)
+was our young friend George Osborne.  Uncle Jos and his
+mamma were on the quarter-deck with a gentleman of
+whom they used to see a good deal, and the four were
+about to make a summer tour.
+
+Jos was seated at that moment on deck under the
+awning, and pretty nearly opposite to the Earl of
+Bareacres and his family, whose proceedings absorbed
+the Bengalee almost entirely.  Both the noble couple
+looked rather younger than in the eventful year '15, when
+Jos remembered to have seen them at Brussels (indeed,
+he always gave out in India that he was intimately
+acquainted with them).  Lady Bareacres' hair, which was
+then dark, was now a beautiful golden auburn, whereas
+Lord Bareacres' whiskers, formerly red, were at present
+of a rich black with purple and green reflections in the
+light.  But changed as they were, the movements of the
+noble pair occupied Jos's mind entirely.  The presence of
+a Lord fascinated him, and he could look at nothing else.
+
+"Those people seem to interest you a good deal," said
+Dobbin, laughing and watching him.  Amelia too laughed.
+She was in a straw bonnet with black ribbons, and
+otherwise dressed in mourning, but the little bustle and
+holiday of the journey pleased and excited her, and she
+looked particularly happy.
+
+"What a heavenly day!" Emmy said and added, with
+great originality, "I hope we shall have a calm passage."
+
+Jos waved his hand, scornfully glancing at the same
+time under his eyelids at the great folks opposite.  "If you
+had made the voyages we have," he said, "you wouldn't
+much care about the weather." But nevertheless, traveller
+as he was, he passed the night direfully sick in his
+carriage, where his courier tended him with brandy-and-
+water and every luxury.
+
+In due time this happy party landed at the quays of
+Rotterdam, whence they were transported by another
+steamer to the city of Cologne.  Here the carriage and
+the family took to the shore, and Jos was not a little
+gratified to see his arrival announced in the Cologne
+newspapers as "Herr Graf Lord von Sedley nebst
+Begleitung aus London." He had his court dress with him;
+he had insisted that Dobbin should bring his regimental
+paraphernalia; he announced that it was his intention to
+be presented at some foreign courts, and pay his respects
+to the Sovereigns of the countries which he honoured
+with a visit.
+
+Wherever the party stopped, and an opportunity was
+offered, Mr. Jos left his own card and the Major's upon
+"Our Minister." It was with great difficulty that he could
+be restrained from putting on his cocked hat and tights
+to wait upon the English consul at the Free City of
+Judenstadt, when that hospitable functionary asked our
+travellers to dinner.  He kept a journal of his voyage and
+noted elaborately the defects or excellences of the various
+inns at which he put up, and of the wines and dishes of
+which he partook.
+
+As for Emmy, she was very happy and pleased.  Dobbin
+used to carry about for her her stool and sketch-book,
+and admired the drawings of the good-natured little artist
+as they never had been admired before.  She sat upon
+steamers' decks and drew crags and castles, or she
+mounted upon donkeys and ascended to ancient robber-
+towers, attended by her two aides-de-camp, Georgy and
+Dobbin.  She laughed, and the Major did too, at his droll
+figure on donkey-back, with his long legs touching the
+ground.  He was the interpreter for the party; having a
+good military knowledge of the German language, and
+he and the delighted George fought the campaigns of the
+Rhine and the Palatinate.  In the course of a few weeks,
+and by assiduously conversing with Herr Kirsch on the
+box of the carriage, Georgy made prodigious advance in
+the knowledge of High Dutch, and could talk to hotel
+waiters and postilions in a way that charmed his mother
+and amused his guardian.
+
+Mr. Jos did not much engage in the afternoon
+excursions of his fellow-travellers.  He slept a good deal
+after dinner, or basked in the arbours of the pleasant
+inn-gardens.  Pleasant Rhine gardens!  Fair scenes of peace
+and sunshine--noble purple mountains, whose crests are
+reflected in the magnificent stream--who has ever seen
+you that has not a grateful memory of those scenes of
+friendly repose and beauty? To lay down the pen and
+even to think of that beautiful Rhineland makes one
+happy.  At this time of summer evening, the cows are
+trooping down from the hills, lowing and with their bells
+tinkling, to the old town, with its old moats, and gates,
+and spires, and chestnut-trees, with long blue shadows
+stretching over the grass; the sky and the river below
+flame in-crimson and gold; and the moon is already out,
+looking pale towards the sunset.  The sun sinks behind
+the great castle-crested mountains, the night falls suddenly,
+the river grows darker and darker, lights quiver in it
+from the windows in the old ramparts, and twinkle
+peacefully in the villages under the hills on the opposite shore.
+
+So Jos used to go to sleep a good deal with his bandanna
+over his face and be very comfortable, and read all
+the English news, and every word of Galignani's admirable newspaper (may the blessings of all Englishmen who
+have ever been abroad rest on the founders and proprietors
+of that piratical print!  ) and whether he woke or
+slept, his friends did not very much miss him.  Yes, they
+were very happy.  They went to the opera often of
+evenings--to those snug, unassuming, dear old operas in the
+German towns, where the noblesse sits and cries, and
+knits stockings on the one side, over against the bourgeoisie
+on the other; and His Transparency the Duke and his
+Transparent family, all very fat and good-natured, come
+and occupy the great box in the middle; and the pit is
+full of the most elegant slim-waisted officers with straw-
+coloured mustachios, and twopence a day on full pay.
+Here it was that Emmy found her delight, and was
+introduced for the first time to the wonders of Mozart and
+Cimarosa.  The Major's musical taste has been before
+alluded to, and his performances on the flute commended.
+But perhaps the chief pleasure he had in these operas
+was in watching Emmy's rapture while listening to them.
+A new world of love and beauty broke upon her when
+she was introduced to those divine compositions; this
+lady had the keenest and finest sensibility, and how could
+she be indifferent when she heard Mozart? The tender
+parts of "Don Juan" awakened in her raptures so
+exquisite that she would ask herself when she went to say
+her prayers of a night whether it was not wicked to feel
+so much delight as that with which "Vedrai Carino" and
+"Batti Batti" filled her gentle little bosom? But the Major,
+whom she consulted upon this head, as her theological
+adviser (and who himself had a pious and reverent soul),
+said that for his part, every beauty of art or nature made
+him thankful as well as happy, and that the pleasure to
+be had in listening to fine music, as in looking at the stars
+in the sky, or at a beautiful landscape or picture, was a
+benefit for which we might thank Heaven as sincerely as
+for any other worldly blessing.  And in reply to some faint
+objections of Mrs. Amelia's (taken from certain theological
+works like the Washerwoman of Finchley Common
+and others of that school, with which Mrs. Osborne had
+been furnished during her life at Brompton) he told her
+an Eastern fable of the Owl who thought that the
+sunshine was unbearable for the eyes and that the
+Nightingale was a most overrated bird.  "It is one's nature to
+sing and the other's to hoot," he said, laughing, "and
+with such a sweet voice as you have yourself, you must
+belong to the Bulbul faction."
+
+I like to dwell upon this period of her life and to think
+that she was cheerful and happy.  You see, she has not
+had too much of that sort of existence as yet, and has not
+fallen in the way of means to educate her tastes or her
+intelligence.  She has been domineered over hitherto by
+vulgar intellects.  It is the lot of many a woman.  And as
+every one of the dear sex is the rival of the rest of her
+kind, timidity passes for folly in their charitable
+judgments; and gentleness for dulness; and silence--which is
+but timid denial of the unwelcome assertion of ruling
+folks, and tacit protestantism--above all, finds no mercy
+at the hands of the female Inquisition.  Thus, my dear and
+civilized reader, if you and I were to find ourselves this
+evening in a society of greengrocers, let us say, it is
+probable that our conversation would not be brilliant; if, on
+the other hand, a greengrocer should find himself at your
+refined and polite tea-table, where everybody was saying
+witty things, and everybody of fashion and repute tearing
+her friends to pieces in the most delightful manner, it is
+possible that the stranger would not be very talkative and
+by no means interesting or interested.
+
+And it must be remembered that this poor lady had
+never met a gentleman in her life until this present
+moment.  Perhaps these are rarer personages than some of
+us think for.  Which of us can point out many such in his
+circle--men whose aims are generous, whose truth is
+constant, and not only constant in its kind but elevated
+in its degree; whose want of meanness makes them
+simple; who can look the world honestly in the face with
+an equal manly sympathy for the great and the small?
+We all know a hundred whose coats are very well made,
+and a score who have excellent manners, and one or two
+happy beings who are what they call in the inner circles,
+and have shot into the very centre and bull's-eye of the
+fashion; but of gentlemen how many? Let us take a little
+scrap of paper and each make out his list.
+
+My friend the Major I write, without any doubt, in
+mine.  He had very long legs, a yellow face, and a slight
+lisp, which at first was rather ridiculous.  But his thoughts
+were just, his brains were fairly good, his life was honest
+and pure, and his heart warm and humble.  He certainly
+had very large hands and feet, which the two George
+Osbornes used to caricature and laugh at; and their jeers
+and laughter perhaps led poor little Emmy astray as to
+his worth.  But have we not all been misled about our
+heroes and changed our opinions a hundred times? Emmy,
+in this happy time, found that hers underwent a very great
+change in respect of the merits of the Major.
+
+Perhaps it was the happiest time of both their lives,
+indeed, if they did but know it--and who does? Which
+of us can point out and say that was the culmination--
+that was the summit of human joy? But at all events,
+this couple were very decently contented, and enjoyed
+as pleasant a summer tour as any pair that left England
+that year.  Georgy was always present at the play, but
+it was the Major who put Emmy's shawl on after the
+entertainment; and in the walks and excursions the young
+lad would be on ahead, and up a tower-stair or a tree,
+whilst the soberer couple were below, the Major smoking
+his cigar with great placidity and constancy, whilst Emmy
+sketched the site or the ruin.  It was on this very tour that
+I, the present writer of a history of which every word is
+true, had the pleasure to see them first and to make their
+acquaintance.
+
+It was at the little comfortable Ducal town of
+Pumpernickel (that very place where Sir Pitt Crawley
+had been so distinguished as an attache; but that was in
+early early days, and before the news of the Battle of
+Austerlitz sent all the English diplomatists in Germany to
+the right about) that I first saw Colonel Dobbin and
+his party.  They had arrived with the carriage and courier
+at the Erbprinz Hotel, the best of the town, and the whole
+party dined at the table d'hote.  Everybody remarked
+the majesty of Jos and the knowing way in which he
+sipped, or rather sucked, the Johannisberger, which he
+ordered for dinner.  The little boy, too, we observed, had
+a famous appetite, and consumed schinken, and braten,
+and kartoffeln, and cranberry jam, and salad, and
+pudding, and roast fowls, and sweetmeats, with a gallantry
+that did honour to his nation.  After about fifteen dishes,
+he concluded the repast with dessert, some of which he
+even carried out of doors, for some young gentlemen at
+table, amused with his coolness and gallant free-and-easy
+manner, induced him to pocket a handful of macaroons,
+which he discussed on his way to the theatre, whither
+everybody went in the cheery social little German place.
+The lady in black, the boy's mamma, laughed and blushed,
+and looked exceedingly pleased and shy as the dinner
+went on, and at the various feats and instances of
+espieglerie on the part of her son.  The Colonel--
+for so he became very soon afterwards--I remember
+joked the boy with a great deal of grave fun, pointing
+out dishes which he hadn't tried, and entreating him not
+to baulk his appetite, but to have a second supply of
+this or that.
+
+It was what they call a gast-rolle night at the Royal
+Grand Ducal Pumpernickelisch Hof--or Court theatre--
+and Madame Schroeder Devrient, then in the bloom of
+her beauty and genius, performed the part of the heroine
+in the wonderful opera of Fidelio.  From our places in the
+stalls we could see our four friends of the table d'hote
+in the loge which Schwendler of the Erbprinz kept for his
+best guests, and I could not help remarking the effect
+which the magnificent actress and music produced upon
+Mrs. Osborne, for so we heard the stout gentleman in
+the mustachios call her.  During the astonishing Chorus
+of the Prisoners, over which the delightful voice of the
+actress rose and soared in the most ravishing harmony,
+the English lady's face wore such an expression of wonder
+and delight that it struck even little Fipps, the blase
+attache, who drawled out, as he fixed his glass upon her,
+"Gayd, it really does one good to see a woman caypable
+of that stayt of excaytement." And in the Prison Scene,
+where Fidelio, rushing to her husband, cries, "Nichts,
+nichts, mein Florestan," she fairly lost herself and
+covered her face with her handkerchief.  Every woman in the
+house was snivelling at the time, but I suppose it was
+because it was predestined that I was to write this
+particular lady's memoirs that I remarked her.
+
+The next day they gave another piece of Beethoven,
+Die Schlacht bei Vittoria.  Malbrook is introduced at the
+beginning of the performance, as indicative of the brisk
+advance of the French army.  Then come drums, trumpets,
+thunders of artillery, and groans of the dying, and at last,
+in a grand triumphal swell, "God Save the King" is
+performed.
+
+There may have been a score of Englishmen in the
+house, but at the burst of that beloved and well-known
+music, every one of them, we young fellows in the stalls,
+Sir John and Lady Bullminster (who had taken a house
+at Pumpernickel for the education of their nine
+children), the fat gentleman with the mustachios, the long
+Major in white duck trousers, and the lady with the little
+boy upon whom he was so sweet, even Kirsch, the courier
+in the gallery, stood bolt upright in their places and
+proclaimed themselves to be members of the dear old British
+nation.  As for Tapeworm, the Charge d'Affaires, he rose
+up in his box and bowed and simpered, as if he would
+represent the whole empire.  Tapeworm was nephew and
+heir of old Marshal Tiptoff, who has been introduced in
+this story as General Tiptoff, just before Waterloo, who
+was Colonel of the --th regiment in which Major Dobbin
+served, and who died in this year full of honours, and of
+an aspic of plovers' eggs; when the regiment was graciously
+given by his Majesty to Colonel Sir Michael O'Dowd,
+K.C.B.  who had commanded it in many glorious fields.
+
+Tapeworm must have met with Colonel Dobbin at the
+house of the Colonel's Colonel, the Marshal, for he
+recognized him on this night at the theatre, and with the
+utmost condescension, his Majesty's minister came over
+from his own box and publicly shook hands with his
+new-found friend.
+
+"Look at that infernal sly-boots of a Tapeworm,"
+Fipps whispered, examining his chief from the stalls.
+"Wherever there's a pretty woman he always twists
+himself in." And I wonder what were diplomatists made for
+but for that?
+
+"Have I the honour of addressing myself to Mrs.
+Dobbin?" asked the Secretary with a most insinuating grin.
+
+Georgy burst out laughing and said, "By Jove, that was
+a good 'un." Emmy and the Major blushed:  we saw them
+from the stalls.
+
+"This lady is Mrs. George Osborne," said the Major,
+"and this is her brother, Mr. Sedley, a distinguished
+officer of the Bengal Civil Service:  permit me to introduce
+him to your lordship."
+
+My lord nearly sent Jos off his legs with the most
+fascinating smile.  "Are you going to stop in Pumpernickel?"
+he said.  "It is a dull place, but we want some nice people,
+and we would try and make it SO agreeable to you.  Mr.--
+Ahum--Mrs.--Oho.  I shall do myself the honour of calling
+upon you to-morrow at your inn." And he went away
+with a Parthian grin and glance which he thought must
+finish Mrs. Osborne completely.
+
+The performance over, the young fellows lounged about
+the lobbies, and we saw the society take its departure.
+The Duchess Dowager went off in her jingling old coach,
+attended by two faithful and withered old maids of
+honour, and a little snuffy spindle-shanked gentleman in
+waiting, in a brown jasey and a green coat covered with
+orders--of which the star and the grand yellow cordon of
+the order of St.  Michael of Pumpernickel were most
+conspicuous.  The drums rolled, the guards saluted, and the
+old carriage drove away.
+
+Then came his Transparency the Duke and Transparent
+family, with his great officers of state and household.  He
+bowed serenely to everybody.  And amid the saluting of
+the guards and the flaring of the torches of the running
+footmen, clad in scarlet, the Transparent carriages drove
+away to the old Ducal schloss, with its towers and
+pinacles standing on the schlossberg.  Everybody in
+Pumpernickel knew everybody.  No sooner was a foreigner seen
+there than the Minister of Foreign Affairs, or some other
+great or small officer of state, went round to the Erbprinz
+and found out the name of the new arrival.
+
+We watched them, too, out of the theatre.  Tapeworm
+had just walked off, enveloped in his cloak, with which
+his gigantic chasseur was always in attendance, and
+looking as much as possible like Don Juan.  The Prime
+Minister's lady had just squeezed herself into her sedan,
+and her daughter, the charming Ida, had put on her
+calash and clogs; when the English party came out, the
+boy yawning drearily, the Major taking great pains in
+keeping the shawl over Mrs. Osborne's head, and Mr.
+Sedley looking grand, with a crush opera-hat on one side
+of his head and his hand in the stomach of a voluminous
+white waistcoat.  We took off our hats to our acquaintances
+of the table d'hote, and the lady, in return, presented us
+with a little smile and a curtsey, for which
+everybody might be thankful.
+
+The carriage from the inn, under the superintendence
+of the bustling Mr. Kirsch, was in waiting to convey the
+party; but the fat man said he would walk and smoke his
+cigar on his way homewards, so the other three, with
+nods and smiles to us, went without Mr. Sedley, Kirsch,
+with the cigar case, following in his master's wake.
+
+We all walked together and talked to the stout gentleman
+about the agremens of the place.  It was very agreeable
+for the English.  There were shooting-parties and
+battues; there was a plenty of balls and entertainments at
+the hospitable Court; the society was generally good; the
+theatre excellent; and the living cheap.
+
+"And our Minister seems a most delightful and affable
+person," our new friend said.  '~With such a representative,
+and--and a good medical man, I can fancy the place to
+be most eligible.  Good-night, gentlemen." And Jos
+creaked up the stairs to bedward, followed by Kirsch with
+a flambeau.  We rather hoped that nice-looking woman
+would be induced to stay some time in the town.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXIII
+
+
+In Which We Meet an Old Acquaintance
+
+Such polite behaviour as that of Lord Tapeworm did
+not fail to have the most favourable effect upon Mr.
+Sedley's mind, and the very next morning, at breakfast, he
+pronounced his opinion that Pumpernickel was the
+pleasantest little place of any which he had visited on their
+tour.  Jos's motives and artifices were not very difficult
+of comprehension, and Dobbin laughed in his sleeve, like
+a hypocrite as he was, when he found, by the knowing air
+of the civilian and the offhand manner in which the
+latter talked about Tapeworm Castle and the other members
+of the family, that Jos had been up already in the morning,
+consulting his travelling Peerage.  Yes, he had seen
+the Right Honourable the Earl of Bagwig, his lordship's
+father; he was sure he had, he had met him at--at the
+Levee--didn't Dob remember? and when the Diplomatist
+called on the party, faithful to his promise, Jos received
+him with such a salute and honours as were seldom
+accorded to the little Envoy.  He winked at Kirsch on his
+Excellency's arrival, and that emissary, instructed before-
+hand, went out and superintended an entertainment of
+cold meats, jellies, and other delicacies, brought in upon
+trays, and of which Mr. Jos absolutely insisted that his
+noble guest should partake.
+
+Tapeworm, so long as he could have an opportunity of
+admiring the bright eyes of Mrs. Osborne (whose freshness
+of complexion bore daylight remarkably well) was
+not ill pleased to accept any invitation to stay in Mr.
+Sedley's lodgings; he put one or two dexterous questions
+to him about India and the dancing-girls there; asked
+Amelia about that beautiful boy who had been with her;
+and complimented the astonished little woman upon the
+prodigious sensation which she had made in the house;
+and tried to fascinate Dobbin by talking of the late war
+and the exploits of the Pumpernickel contingent under the
+command of the Hereditary Prince, now Duke of
+Pumpernickel.
+
+Lord Tapeworm inherited no little portion of the family
+gallantry, and it was his happy belief that almost every
+woman upon whom he himself cast friendly eyes was in
+love with him.  He left Emmy under the persuasion that
+she was slain by his wit and attractions and went home to
+his lodgings to write a pretty little note to her.  She was
+not fascinated, only puzzled, by his grinning, his simpering,
+his scented cambric handkerchief, and his high-heeled
+lacquered boots.  She did not understand one-half the
+compliments which he paid; she had never, in her small
+experience of mankind, met a professional ladies' man as
+yet, and looked upon my lord as something curious rather
+than pleasant; and if she did not admire, certainly
+wondered at him.  Jos, on the contrary, was delighted.  "How
+very affable his Lordship is," he said; "How very kind of
+his Lordship to say he would send his medical man!
+Kirsch, you will carry our cards to the Count de
+Schlusselback directly; the Major and I will have the
+greatest pleasure in paying our respects at Court as soon
+as possible.  Put out my uniform, Kirsch--both our
+uniforms.  It is a mark of politeness which every English
+gentleman ought to show to the countries which he visits
+to pay his respects to the sovereigns of those countries
+as to the representatives of his own."
+
+When Tapeworm's doctor came, Doctor von Glauber,
+Body Physician to H.S.H.  the Duke, he speedily
+convinced Jos that the Pumpernickel mineral springs and
+the Doctor's particular treatment would infallibly restore
+the Bengalee to youth and slimness.  "Dere came here last
+year," he said, "Sheneral Bulkeley, an English Sheneral,
+tvice so pic as you, sir.  I sent him back qvite tin after
+tree months, and he danced vid Baroness Glauber at
+the end of two."
+
+Jos's mind was made up; the springs, the Doctor, the
+Court, and the Charge d'Affaires convinced him, and he
+proposed to spend the autumn in these delightful
+quarters.  And punctual to his word, on the next day the
+Charge d'Affaires presented Jos and the Major to Victor
+Aurelius XVII, being conducted to their audience with
+that sovereign by the Count de Schlusselback, Marshal
+of the Court.
+
+They were straightway invited to dinner at Court, and
+their intention of staying in the town being announced,
+the politest ladies of the whole town instantly called upon
+Mrs. Osborne; and as not one of these, however poor
+they might be, was under the rank of a Baroness, Jos's
+delight was beyond expression.  He wrote off to Chutney
+at the Club to say that the Service was highly appreciated
+in Germany, that he was going to show his friend, the
+Count de Schlusselback, how to stick a pig in the Indian
+fashion, and that his august friends, the Duke and
+Duchess, were everything that was kind and civil.
+
+Emmy, too, was presented to the august family, and as
+mourning is not admitted in Court on certain days, she
+appeared in a pink crape dress with a diamond ornament
+in the corsage, presented to her by her brother, and
+she looked so pretty in this costume that the Duke and
+Court (putting out of the question the Major, who had
+scarcely ever seen her before in an evening dress, and
+vowed that she did not look five-and-twenty) all admired
+her excessively.
+
+In this dress she walked a Polonaise with Major Dobbin
+at a Court ball, in which easy dance Mr. Jos had the
+honour of leading out the Countess of Schlusselback,
+an old lady with a hump back, but with sixteen good
+quarters of nobility and related to half the royal houses
+of Germany.
+
+Pumpernickel stands in the midst of a happy valley
+through which sparkles--to mingle with the Rhine
+somewhere, but I have not the map at hand to say exactly at
+what point--the fertilizing stream of the Pump.  In some
+places the river is big enough to support a ferry-boat, in
+others to turn a mill; in Pumpernickel itself, the last
+Transparency but three, the great and renowned Victor
+Aurelius XIV built a magnificent bridge, on which his
+own statue rises, surrounded by water-nymphs and
+emblems of victory, peace, and plenty; he has his foot on the
+neck of a prostrate Turk--history says he engaged and
+ran a Janissary through the body at the relief of Vienna
+by Sobieski--but, quite undisturbed by the agonies
+of that prostrate Mahometan, who writhes at his feet in
+the most ghastly manner, the Prince smiles blandly and
+points with his truncheon in the direction of the Aurelius
+Platz, where he began to erect a new palace that would
+have been the wonder of his age had the great-souled
+Prince but had funds to complete it.  But the completion
+of Monplaisir (Monblaisir the honest German folks call
+it) was stopped for lack of ready money, and it and its
+park and garden are now in rather a faded condition,
+and not more than ten times big enough to accommodate
+the Court of the reigning Sovereign.
+
+The gardens were arranged to emulate those of
+Versailles, and amidst the terraces and groves there are
+some huge allegorical waterworks still, which spout and
+froth stupendously upon fete-days, and frighten one
+with their enormous aquatic insurrections.  There is the
+Trophonius' cave in which, by some artifice, the leaden
+Tritons are made not only to spout water, but to play
+the most dreadful groans out of their lead conchs--there
+is the nymphbath and the Niagara cataract, which the
+people of the neighbourhood admire beyond expression,
+when they come to the yearly fair at the opening of the
+Chamber, or to the fetes with which the happy little nation
+still celebrates the birthdays and marriage-days of its
+princely governors.
+
+Then from all the towns of the Duchy, which stretches
+for nearly ten mile--from Bolkum, which lies on
+its western frontier bidding defiance to Prussia, from
+Grogwitz, where the Prince has a hunting-lodge, and
+where his dominions are separated by the Pump River
+from those of the neighbouring Prince of Potzenthal; from
+all the little villages, which besides these three great
+cities, dot over the happy principality--from the farms
+and the mills along the Pump come troops of people in
+red petticoats and velvet head-dresses, or with three-
+cornered hats and pipes in their mouths, who flock to the
+Residenz and share in the pleasures of the fair and the
+festivities there.  Then the theatre is open for nothing,
+then the waters of Monblaisir begin to play (it is lucky
+that there is company to behold them, for one would be
+afraid to see them alone)--then there come mountebanks
+and riding troops (the way in which his Transparency
+was fascinated by one of the horse-riders is well known,
+and it is believed that La Petite Vivandiere, as she was
+called, was a spy in the French interest), and the delighted
+people are permitted to march through room after room
+of the Grand Ducal palace and admire the slippery
+floor, the rich hangings, and the spittoons at the
+doors of all the innumerable chambers.  There is one
+Pavilion at Monblaisir which Aurelius Victor XV had
+arranged--a great Prince but too fond of pleasure--and
+which I am told is a perfect wonder of licentious elegance.
+It is painted with the story of Bacchus and Ariadne, and
+the table works in and out of the room by means of a
+windlass, so that the company was served without any
+intervention of domestics.  But the place was shut up by
+Barbara, Aurelius XV's widow, a severe and devout
+Princess of the House of Bolkum and Regent of the Duchy
+during her son's glorious minority, and after the death
+of her husband, cut off in the pride of his pleasures.
+
+The theatre of Pumpernickel is known and famous in
+that quarter of Germany.  It languished a little when the
+present Duke in his youth insisted upon having his own
+operas played there, and it is said one day, in a fury,
+from his place in the orchestra, when he attended a
+rehearsal, broke a bassoon on the head of the Chapel
+Master, who was conducting, and led too slow; and during
+which time the Duchess Sophia wrote domestic comedies,
+which must have been very dreary to witness.  But the
+Prince executes his music in private now, and the Duchess
+only gives away her plays to the foreigners of distinction
+who visit her kind little Court.
+
+It is conducted with no small comfort and splendour.
+When there are balls, though there may be four
+hundred people at supper, there is a servant in scarlet and
+lace to attend upon every four, and every one is served
+on silver.  There are festivals and entertainments going
+continually on, and the Duke has his chamberlains and
+equerries, and the Duchess her mistress of the wardrobe
+and ladies of honour, just like any other and more
+potent potentates.
+
+The Constitution is or was a moderate despotism,
+tempered by a Chamber that might or might not be
+elected.  I never certainly could hear of its sitting in my time
+at Pumpernickel.  The Prime Minister had lodgings in a
+second floor, and the Foreign Secretary occupied the
+comfortable lodgings over Zwieback's Conditorey.  The
+army consisted of a magnificent band that also did duty
+on the stage, where it was quite pleasant to see the
+worthy fellows marching in Turkish dresses with rouge on
+and wooden scimitars, or as Roman warriors with
+ophicleides and trombones--to see them again, I say, at
+night, after one had listened to them all the morning in
+the Aurelius Platz, where they performed opposite the
+cafe where we breakfasted.  Besides the band, there was
+a rich and numerous staff of officers, and, I believe, a
+few men.  Besides the regular sentries, three or four men,
+habited as hussars, used to do duty at the Palace, but I
+never saw them on horseback, and au fait, what was the
+use of cavalry in a time of profound peace?--and whither
+the deuce should the hussars ride?
+
+Everybody--everybody that was noble of course, for
+as for the bourgeois we could not quite be expected to
+take notice of THEM--visited his neighbour.  H.  E.  Madame
+de Burst received once a week, H.  E.  Madame de
+Schnurrbart had her night--the theatre was open twice
+a week, the Court graciously received once, so that a
+man's life might in fact be a perfect round of pleasure in
+the unpretending Pumpernickel way.
+
+That there were feuds in the place, no one can deny.
+Politics ran very high at Pumpernickel, and parties were
+very bitter.  There was the Strumpff faction and the
+Lederlung party, the one supported by our envoy and the
+other by the French Charge d'Affaires, M.  de Macabau.
+Indeed it sufficed for our Minister to stand up for
+Madame Strumpff, who was clearly the greater singer of the
+two, and had three more notes in her voice than Madame
+Lederlung her rival--it sufficed, I say, for our Minister to
+advance any opinion to have it instantly contradicted
+by the French diplomatist.
+
+Everybody in the town was ranged in one or other of
+these factions.  The Lederlung was a prettyish little
+creature certainly, and her voice (what there was of it) was
+very sweet, and there is no doubt that the Strumpff was
+not in her first youth and beauty, and certainly too stout;
+when she came on in the last scene of the Sonnambula,
+for instance, in her night-chemise with a lamp in her
+hand, and had to go out of the window, and pass over
+the plank of the mill, it was all she could do to
+squeeze out of the window, and the plank used to bend
+and creak again under her weight--but how she poured
+out the finale of the opera!  and with what a burst of
+feeling she rushed into Elvino's arms--almost fit to
+smother him!  Whereas the little Lederlung--but a truce
+to this gossip--the fact is that these two women were
+the two flags of the French and the English party at
+Pumpernickel, and the society was divided in its
+allegiance to those two great nations.
+
+We had on our side the Home Minister, the Master of
+the Horse, the Duke's Private Secretary, and the Prince's
+Tutor; whereas of the French party were the Foreign
+Minister, the Commander-in-Chief's Lady, who had
+served under Napoleon, and the Hof-Marschall and his
+wife, who was glad enough to get the fashions from
+Pans, and always had them and her caps by M.  de
+Macabau's courier.  The Secretary of his Chancery was little
+Grignac, a young fellow, as malicious as Satan, and who
+made caricatures of Tapeworm in all the-albums of the
+place.
+
+Their headquarters and table d'hote were established
+at the Pariser Hof, the other inn of the town; and though,
+of course, these gentlemen were obliged to be civil in
+public, yet they cut at each other with epigrams that
+were as sharp as razors, as I have seen a couple of
+wrestlers in Devonshire, lashing at each other's shins
+and never showing their agony upon a muscle of their
+faces.  Neither Tapeworm nor Macabau ever sent home
+a dispatch to his government without a most savage
+series of attacks upon his rival.  For instance, on our side
+we would write, "The interests of Great Britain in this
+place, and throughout the whole of Germany, are perilled
+by the continuance in office of the present French envoy;
+this man is of a character so infamous that he will stick
+at no falsehood, or hesitate at no crime, to attain his
+ends.  He poisons the mind of the Court against the
+English minister, represents the conduct of Great Britain in
+the most odious and atrocious light, and is unhappily
+backed by a minister whose ignorance and necessities
+are as notorious as his influence is fatal." On their side
+they would.say, "M.  de Tapeworm continues his
+system of stupid insular arrogance and vulgar falsehood
+against the greatest nation in the world.  Yesterday he
+was heard to speak lightly of Her Royal Highness Madame
+the Duchess of Berri; on a former occasion he insulted
+the heroic Duke of Angouleme and dared to insinuate
+that H.R.H.  the Duke of Orleans was conspiring against
+the august throne of the lilies.  His gold is prodigated in
+every direction which his stupid menaces fail to frighten.
+By one and the other, he has won over creatures of the
+Court here--and, in fine, Pumpernickel will not be
+quiet, Germany tranquil, France respected, or Europe
+content until this poisonous viper be crushed under
+heel":  and so on.  When one side or the other had written
+any particularly spicy dispatch, news of it was sure to
+slip out.
+
+Before the winter was far advanced, it is actually on
+record that Emmy took a night and received company
+with great propriety and modesty.  She had a French
+master, who complimented her upon the purity of her
+accent and her facility of learning; the fact is she had
+learned long ago and grounded herself subsequently in the
+grammar so as to be able to teach it to George; and Madam
+Strumpff came to give her lessons in singing, which she
+performed so well and with such a true voice that the
+Major's windows, who had lodgings opposite under the
+Prime Minister, were always open to hear the lesson.
+Some of the German ladies, who are very sentimental and
+simple in their tastes, fell in love with her and began to
+call her du at once.  These are trivial details, but they
+relate to happy times.  The Major made himself George's
+tutor and read Caesar and mathematics with him, and
+they had a German master and rode out of evenings by
+the side of Emmy's carriage--she was always too timid,
+and made a dreadful outcry at the slightest disturbance
+on horse-back.  So she drove about with one of her dear
+German friends, and Jos asleep on the back-seat of the
+barouche.
+
+He was becoming very sweet upon the Grafinn Fanny
+de Butterbrod, a very gentle tender-hearted and
+unassuming young creature, a Canoness and Countess in her
+own right, but with scarcely ten pounds per year to her
+fortune, and Fanny for her part declared that to be
+Amelia's sister was the greatest delight that Heaven could
+bestow on her, and Jos might have put a Countess's shield
+and coronet by the side of his own arms on his carriage
+and forks; when--when events occurred, and those
+grand fetes given upon the marriage of the Hereditary
+Prince of Pumpernickel with the lovely Princess Amelia
+of Humbourg-Schlippenschloppen took place.
+
+At this festival the magnificence displayed was such as
+had not been known in the little German place since
+the days of the prodigal Victor XIV.  All the neighbouring
+Princes, Princesses, and Grandees were invited to the
+feast.  Beds rose to half a crown per night in Pumpernickel,
+and the Army was exhausted in providing guards
+of honour for the Highnesses, Serenities, and Excellencies
+who arrived from all quarters.  The Princess was married
+by proxy, at her father's residence, by the Count de
+Schlusselback.  Snuff-boxes were given away in profusion
+(as we learned from the Court jeweller, who sold
+and afterwards bought them again), and bushels of the
+Order of Saint Michael of Pumpernickel were sent to
+the nobles of the Court, while hampers of the cordons
+and decorations of the Wheel of St.  Catherine of
+Schlippenschloppen were brought to ours.  The French envoy
+got both.  "He is covered with ribbons like a prize
+cart-horse," Tapeworm said, who was not allowed by the rules
+of his service to take any decorations:  "Let him have
+the cordons; but with whom is the victory?" The fact is,
+it was a triumph of British diplomacy, the French party
+having proposed and tried their utmost to carry a
+marriage with a Princess of the House of
+Potztausend-Donnerwetter, whom, as a matter of
+course, we opposed.
+
+Everybody was asked to the fetes of the marriage.
+Garlands and triumphal arches were hung across the road
+to welcome the young bride.  The great Saint Michael's
+Fountain ran with uncommonly sour wine, while that
+in the Artillery Place frothed with beer.  The great waters
+played; and poles were put up in the park and gardens
+for the happy peasantry, which they might climb at
+their leisure, carrying off watches, silver forks, prize
+sausages hung with pink ribbon, &c., at the top.  Georgy
+got one, wrenching it off, having swarmed up the pole to
+the delight of the spectators, and sliding down with the
+rapidity of a fall of water.  But it was for the glory's
+sake merely.  The boy gave the sausage to a peasant,
+who had very nearly seized it, and stood at the foot of
+the mast, blubbering, because he was unsuccessful.
+
+At the French Chancellerie they had six more lampions
+in their illumination than ours had; but our transparency,
+which represented the young Couple advancing and
+Discord flying away, with the most ludicrous likeness to the
+French Ambassador, beat the French picture hollow; and
+I have no doubt got Tapeworm the advancement and the
+Cross of the Bath which he subsequently attained.
+
+Crowds of foreigners arrived for the fetes, and of
+English, of course.  Besides the Court balls, public balls
+were given at the Town Hall and the Redoute, and in the
+former place there was a room for trente-et-quarante
+and roulette established, for the week of the festivities
+only, and by one of the great German companies from
+Ems or Aix-la-Chapelle.  The officers or inhabitants of the
+town were not allowed to play at these games, but
+strangers, peasants, ladies were admitted, and any one
+who chose to lose or win money.
+
+That little scapegrace Georgy Osborne amongst others,
+whose pockets were always full of dollars and whose
+relations were away at the grand festival of the Court,
+came to the Stadthaus Ball in company of his uncle's
+courier, Mr. Kirsch, and having only peeped into a
+play-room at Baden-Baden when he hung on Dobbin's arm,
+and where, of course, he was not permitted to gamble, came
+eagerly to this part of the entertainment and hankered
+round the tables where the croupiers and the punters
+were at work.  Women were playing; they were masked,
+some of them; this license was allowed in these wild times
+of carnival.
+
+A woman with light hair, in a low dress by no means
+so fresh as it had been, and with a black mask on,
+through the eyelets of which her eyes twinkled strangely,
+was seated at one of the roulette-tables with a card and
+a pin and a couple of florins before her.  As the croupier
+called out the colour and number, she pricked on the
+card with great care and regularity, and only ventured her
+money on the colours after the red or black had come
+up a certain number of times.  It was strange to look at
+her.
+
+But in spite of her care and assiduity she guessed
+wrong and the last two florins followed each other under
+the croupier's rake, as he cried out with his inexorable
+voice the winning colour and number.  She gave a sigh, a
+shrug with her shoulders, which were already too much
+out of her gown, and dashing the pin through the card
+on to the table, sat thrumming it for a while.  Then she
+looked round her and saw Georgy's honest face staring
+at the scene.  The little scamp!  What business had he
+to be there?
+
+When she saw the boy, at whose face she looked hard
+through her shining eyes and mask, she said, "Monsieur
+n'est pas joueur?"
+
+"Non, Madame," said the boy; but she must have
+known, from his accent, of what country he was, for she
+answered him with a slight foreign tone.  "You have
+nevare played--will you do me a littl' favor?"
+
+"What is it?" said Georgy, blushing again.  Mr. Kirsch
+was at work for his part at the rouge et noir and did not
+see his young master.
+
+"Play this for me, if you please; put it on any number,
+any number." And she took from her bosom a purse, and
+out of it a gold piece, the only coin there, and she put it
+into George's hand.  The boy laughed and did as he was
+bid.
+
+The number came up sure enough.  There is a power
+that arranges that, they say, for beginners.
+
+"Thank you," said she, pulling the money towards her,
+"thank you.  What is your name?"
+
+"My name's Osborne," said Georgy, and was fingering
+in his own pockets for dollars, and just about to make a
+trial, when the Major, in his uniform, and Jos, en Marquis,
+from the Court ball, made their appearance.  Other
+people, finding the entertainment stupid and preferring the
+fun at the Stadthaus, had quitted the Palace ball earlier;
+but it is probable the Major and Jos had gone home and
+found the boy's absence, for the former instantly went
+up to him and, taking him by the shoulder, pulled him
+briskly back from the place of temptation.  Then, looking
+round the room, he saw Kirsch employed as we have
+said, and going up to him, asked how he dared to bring
+Mr. George to such a place.
+
+"Laissez-moi tranquille," said Mr. Kirsch, very much
+excited by play and wine.  "ll faut s'amuser, parbleu.
+Je ne suis pas au service de Monsieur."
+
+Seeing his condition the Major did not choose to argue
+with the man, but contented himself with drawing away
+George and asking Jos if he would come away.  He was
+standing close by the lady in the mask, who was playing
+with pretty good luck now, and looking on much
+interested at the game.
+
+"Hadn't you better come, Jos," the Major said, "with
+George and me?"
+
+"I'll stop and go home with that rascal, Kirsch," Jos
+said; and for the same reason of modesty, which he
+thought ought to be preserved before the boy, Dobbin
+did not care to remonstrate with Jos, but left him and
+walked home with Georgy.
+
+"Did you play?" asked the Major when they were out
+and on their way home.
+
+The boy said "No."
+
+"Give me your word of honour as a gentleman that you
+never will."
+
+"Why?" said the boy; "it seems very good fun." And, in
+a very eloquent and impressive manner, the Major showed
+him why he shouldn't, and would have enforced his
+precepts by the example of Georgy's own father, had he
+liked to say anything that should reflect on the other's
+memory.  When he had housed him, he went to bed and
+saw his light, in the little room outside of Amelia's,
+presently disappear.  Amelia's followed half an hour
+afterwards.  I don't know what made the Major note it
+so accurately.
+
+Jos, however, remained behind over the play-table; he
+was no gambler, but not averse to the little excitement
+of the sport now and then, and he had some Napoleons
+chinking in the embroidered pockets of his court
+waistcoat.  He put down one over the fair shoulder of the
+little gambler before him, and they won.  She made a little
+movement to make room for him by her side, and
+just took the skirt of her gown from a vacant chair there.
+
+"Come and give me good luck," she said, still in a
+foreign accent, quite different from that frank and
+perfectly English "Thank you," with which she had saluted
+Georgy's coup in her favour.  The portly gentleman,
+looking round to see that nobody of rank observed him,
+sat down; he muttered--"Ah, really, well now, God bless
+my soul.  I'm very fortunate; I'm sure to give you good
+fortune," and other words of compliment and confusion.
+"Do you play much?" the foreign mask said.
+ 
+"I put a Nap or two down," said Jos with a superb air,
+flinging down a gold piece.
+ 
+"Yes; ay nap after dinner," said the mask archly.  But
+Jos looking frightened, she continued, in her pretty
+French accent, "You do not play to win.  No more do I.
+I play to forget, but I cannot.  I cannot forget old times,
+monsieur.  Your little nephew is the image of his father;
+and you--you are not changed--but yes, you are.
+Everybody changes, everybody forgets; nobody has
+any heart."
+ 
+"Good God, who is it?" asked Jos in a flutter.
+
+"Can't you guess, Joseph Sedley?" said the little
+woman in a sad voice, and undoing her mask, she
+looked at him.  "You have forgotten me."
+
+"Good heavens!  Mrs. Crawley!" gasped out Jos.
+
+"Rebecca," said the other, putting her hand on his;
+but she followed the game still, all the time she was
+looking at him.
+
+"I am stopping at the Elephant," she continued.  "Ask
+for Madame de Raudon.  I saw my dear Amelia to-day;
+how pretty she looked, and how happy!  So do you!
+Everybody but me, who am wretched, Joseph Sedley."
+And she put her money over from the red to the black,
+as if by a chance movement of her hand, and while she
+was wiping her eyes with a pocket-handkerchief fringed
+with torn lace.
+
+The red came up again, and she lost the whole of that
+stake.~ "Come away," she said.  "Come with me a little
+--we are old friends, are we not, dear Mr. Sedley?"
+
+And Mr. Kirsch having lost all his money by this
+time, followed his master out into the moonlight, where
+the illuminations were winking out and the transparency
+over our mission was scarcely visible.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXIV
+
+
+A Vagabond Chapter
+
+We must pass over a part of Mrs. Rebecca Crawley's
+biography with that lightness and delicacy which the
+world demands--the moral world, that has, perhaps, no
+particular objection to vice, but an insuperable repugnance
+to hearing vice called by its proper name.  There
+are things we do and know perfectly well in Vanity Fair,
+though we never speak of them:  as the Ahrimanians
+worship the devil, but don't mention him:  and a polite
+public will no more bear to read an authentic description
+of vice than a truly refined English or American female
+will permit the word breeches to be pronounced in her
+chaste hearing.  And yet, madam, both are walking the
+world before our faces every day, without much shocking
+us.  If you were to blush every time they went by, what
+complexions you would have!  It is only when their
+naughty names are called out that your modesty has any
+occasion to show alarm or sense of outrage, and it has
+been the wish of the present writer, all through this story,
+deferentially to submit to the fashion at present prevailing,
+and only to hint at the existence of wickedness in a
+light, easy, and agreeable manner, so that nobody's fine
+feelings may be offended.  I defy any one to say that
+our Becky, who has certainly some vices, has not been
+presented to the public in a perfectly genteel and
+inoffensive manner.  In describing this Siren, singing and
+smiling, coaxing and cajoling, the author, with modest pride,
+asks his readers all round, has he once forgotten the
+laws of politeness, and showed the monster's hideous tail
+above water? No!  Those who like may peep down under
+waves that are pretty transparent and see it writhing and
+twirling, diabolically hideous and slimy, flapping amongst
+bones, or curling round corpses; but above the waterline,
+I ask, has not everything been proper, agreeable,
+and decorous, and has any the most squeamish immoralist
+in Vanity Fair a right to cry fie? When, however, the Siren
+disappears and dives below, down among the dead men,
+the water of course grows turbid over her, and it is labour
+lost to look into it ever so curiously.  They look pretty
+enough when they sit upon a rock, twanging their harps
+and combing their hair, and sing, and beckon to you to
+come and hold the looking-glass; but when they sink
+into their native element, depend on it, those mermaids
+are about no good, and we had best not examine the
+fiendish marine cannibals, revelling and feasting on their
+wretched pickled victims.  And so, when Becky is out of
+the way, be sure that she is not particularly well
+employed, and that the less that is said about her doings
+is in fact the better.
+
+If we were to give a full account of her proceedings
+during a couple of years that followed after the Curzon
+Street catastrophe, there might be some reason for
+people to say this book was improper.  The actions of very
+vain, heartless, pleasure-seeking people are very often
+improper (as are many of yours, my friend with the
+grave face and spotless reputation--but that is merely
+by the way); and what are those of a woman without
+faith--or love--or character? And I am inclined to think
+that there was a period in Mrs Becky's life when
+she was seized, not by remorse, but by a kind of despair,
+and absolutely neglected her person and did not even
+care for her reputation.
+
+This abattement and degradation did not take place
+all at once; it was brought about by degrees, after her
+calamity, and after many struggles to keep up--as a
+man who goes overboard hangs on to a spar whilst any
+hope is left, and then flings it away and goes down, when
+he finds that struggling is in vain.
+
+She lingered about London whilst her husband was
+making preparations for his departure to his seat of
+government, and it is believed made more than one
+attempt to see her brother-in-law, Sir Pitt Crawley, and to
+work upon his feelings, which she had almost
+enlisted in her favour.  As Sir Pitt and Mr. Wenham were
+walking down to the House of Commons, the latter spied
+Mrs. Rawdon in a black veil, and lurking near the palace
+of the legislature.  She sneaked away when her eyes met
+those of Wenham, and indeed never succeeded in her
+designs upon the Baronet.
+
+Probably Lady Jane interposed.  I have heard that she
+quite astonished her husband by the spirit which she
+exhibited in this quarrel, and her determination to disown
+Mrs. Becky.  Of her own movement, she invited Rawdon
+to come and stop in Gaunt Street until his departure for
+Coventry Island, knowing that with him for a guard Mrs.
+Becky would not try to force her door; and she looked
+curiously at the superscriptions of all the letters which
+arrived for Sir Pitt, lest he and his sister-in-law should
+be corresponding.  Not but that Rebecca could have
+written had she a mind, but she did not try to see or to write
+to Pitt at his own house, and after one or two attempts
+consented to his demand that the correspondence
+regarding her conjugal differences should be carried on by
+lawyers only.
+
+The fact was that Pitt's mind had been poisoned against
+her.  A short time after Lord Steyne's accident Wenham
+had been with the Baronet and given him such a biography
+of Mrs. Becky as had astonished the member for
+Queen's Crawley.  He knew everything regarding her:
+who her father was; in what year her mother danced at
+the opera; what had been her previous history; and what
+her conduct during her married life--as I have no doubt
+that the greater part of the story was false and
+dictated by interested malevolence, it shall not be repeated
+here.  But Becky was left with a sad sad reputation in the
+esteem of a country gentleman and relative who had
+been once rather partial to her.
+
+The revenues of the Governor of Coventry Island are
+not large.  A part of them were set aside by his Excellency
+for the payment of certain outstanding debts and
+liabilities, the charges incident on his high situation
+required considerable expense; finally, it was found that
+he could not spare to his wife more than three hundred
+pounds a year, which he proposed to pay to her on
+an undertaking that she would never trouble him.
+Otherwise, scandal, separation, Doctors' Commons would
+ensue.  But it was Mr. Wenham's business, Lord Steyne's
+business, Rawdon's, everybody's--to get her out of the
+country, and hush up a most disagreeable affair.
+
+She was probably so much occupied in arranging these
+affairs of business with her husband's lawyers that she
+forgot to take any step whatever about her son, the little
+Rawdon, and did not even once propose to go and see
+him.  That young gentleman was consigned to the entire
+guardianship of his aunt and uncle, the former of whom
+had always possessed a great share of the child's
+affection.  His mamma wrote him a neat letter from Boulogne,
+when she quitted England, in which she requested him to
+mind his book, and said she was going to take a
+Continental tour, during which she would have the pleasure
+of writing to him again.  But she never did for a year
+afterwards, and not, indeed, until Sir Pitt's only boy,
+always sickly, died of hooping-cough and measles--then
+Rawdon's mamma wrote the most affectionate composition
+to her darling son, who was made heir of Queen's
+Crawley by this accident, and drawn more closely than
+ever to the kind lady, whose tender heart had already
+adopted him.  Rawdon Crawley, then grown a tall, fine
+lad, blushed when he got the letter.  "Oh, Aunt Jane, you
+are my mother!" he said; "and not--and not that one."
+But he wrote back a kind and respectful letter to Mrs.
+Rebecca, then living at a boarding-house at Florence.
+But we are advancing matters.
+
+Our darling Becky's first flight was not very far.  She
+perched upon the French coast at Boulogne, that refuge
+of so much exiled English innocence, and there lived in
+rather a genteel, widowed manner, with a femme de
+chambre and a couple of rooms, at an hotel.  She dined
+at the table d'hote, where people thought her very pleasant,
+and where she entertained her neighbours by stories
+of her brother, Sir Pitt, and her great London acquaintance,
+talking that easy, fashionable slip-slop which has
+so much effect upon certain folks of small breeding.  She
+passed with many of them for a person of importance;
+she gave little tea-parties in her private room and shared
+in the innocent amusements of the place in sea-bathing,
+and in jaunts in open carriages, in strolls on the sands,
+and in visits to the play.  Mrs. Burjoice, the printer's
+lady, who was boarding with her family at the hotel for
+the summer, and to whom her Burjoice came of a
+Saturday and Sunday, voted her charming, until that little
+rogue of a Burjoice began to pay her too much
+attention.  But there was nothing in the story, only that
+Becky was always affable, easy, and good-natured--and
+with men especially.
+
+Numbers of people were going abroad as usual at the
+end of the season, and Becky had plenty of opportunities
+of finding out by the behaviour of her acquaintances of
+the great London world the opinion of "society" as
+regarded her conduct.  One day it was Lady Partlet and her
+daughters whom Becky confronted as she was walking
+modestly on Boulogne pier, the cliffs of Albion shining
+in the distance across the deep blue sea.  Lady Partlet
+marshalled all her daughters round her with a sweep of
+her parasol and retreated from the pier, darting savage
+glances at poor little Becky who stood alone there.
+
+On another day the packet came in.  It had been
+blowing fresh, and it always suited Becky's humour to
+see the droll woe-begone faces of the people as they
+emerged from the boat.  Lady Slingstone happened to be
+on board this day.  Her ladyship had been exceedingly ill
+in her carriage, and was greatly exhausted and scarcely
+fit to walk up the plank from the ship to the pier.  But
+all her energies rallied the instant she saw Becky smiling
+roguishly under a pink bonnet, and giving her a
+glance of scorn such as would have shrivelled up most
+women, she walked into the Custom House quite
+unsupported.  Becky only laughed:  but I don't think she liked
+it.  She felt she was alone, quite alone, and the far-off
+shining cliffs of England were impassable to her.
+
+The behaviour of the men had undergone too I don't
+know what change.  Grinstone showed his teeth and
+laughed in her face with a familiarity that was not pleasant.
+Little Bob Suckling, who was cap in hand to her
+three months before, and would walk a mile in the rain
+to see for her carriage in the line at Gaunt House, was
+talking to Fitzoof of the Guards (Lord Heehaw's son)
+one day upon the jetty, as Becky took her walk there.
+Little Bobby nodded to her over his shoulder, without
+moving his hat, and continued his conversation with the
+heir of Heehaw.  Tom Raikes tried to walk into her
+sitting-room at the inn with a cigar in his mouth, but she
+closed the door upon him, and would have locked it,
+only that his fingers were inside.  She began to feel that
+she was very lonely indeed.  "If HE'D been here," she said,
+"those cowards would never have dared to insult me."
+She thought about "him" with great sadness and
+perhaps longing--about his honest, stupid, constant kindness
+and fidelity; his never-ceasing obedience; his good
+humour; his bravery and courage.  Very likely she cried,
+for she was particularly lively, and had put on a little
+extra rouge, when she came down to dinner.
+
+She rouged regularly now; and--and her maid got
+Cognac for her besides that which was charged in the
+hotel bill.
+
+Perhaps the insults of the men were not, however, so
+intolerable to her as the sympathy of certain women.
+Mrs. Crackenbury and Mrs. Washington White passed
+through Boulogne on their way to Switzerland.  ~The party
+were protected by Colonel Horner, young Beaumoris, and
+of course old Crackenbury, and Mrs. White's little girl.)
+THEY did not avoid her.  They giggled, cackled, tattled,
+condoled, consoled, and patronized her until they drove
+her almost wild with rage.  To be patronized by THEM!
+she thought, as they went away simpering after kissing
+her.  And she heard Beaumoris's laugh ringing on the
+stair and knew quite well how to interpret his hilarity.
+
+It was after this visit that Becky, who had paid her
+weekly bills, Becky who had made herself agreeable to
+everybody in the house, who smiled at the landlady,
+called the waiters "monsieur," and paid the chambermaids
+in politeness and apologies, what far more than
+compensated for a little niggardliness in point of money
+(of which Becky never was free), that Becky, we say,
+received a notice to quit from the landlord, who had
+been told by some one that she was quite an unfit
+person to have at his hotel, where English ladies would not
+sit down with her.  And she was forced to fly into lodgings
+of which the dulness and solitude were most wearisome
+to her.
+
+Still she held up, in spite of these rebuffs, and tried to
+make a character for herself and conquer scandal.  She
+went to church very regularly and sang louder than
+anybody there.  She took up the cause of the widows of the
+shipwrecked fishermen, and gave work and drawings for
+the Quashyboo Mission; she subscribed to the Assembly
+and WOULDN'T waltz.  In a word, she did everything that
+was respectable, and that is why we dwell upon this
+part of her career with more fondness than upon
+subsequent parts of her history, which are not so pleasant.
+She saw people avoiding her, and still laboriously smiled
+upon them; you never could suppose from her
+countenance what pangs of humiliation she might be
+enduring inwardly.
+
+Her history was after all a mystery.  Parties were
+divided about her.  Some people who took the trouble to
+busy themselves in the matter said that she was the
+criminal, whilst others vowed that she was as innocent
+as a lamb and that her odious husband was in fault.
+She won over a good many by bursting into tears
+about her boy and exhibiting the most frantic grief
+when his name was mentioned, or she saw anybody like
+him.  She gained good Mrs. Alderney's heart in that way,
+who was rather the Queen of British Boulogne and gave
+the most dinners and balls of all the residents there, by
+weeping when Master Alderney came from Dr. Swishtail's
+academy to pass his holidays with his mother.  "He and
+her Rawdon were of the same age, and so like," Becky
+said in a voice choking with agony; whereas there was
+five years' difference between the boys' ages, and no
+more likeness between them than between my respected
+reader and his humble servant.  Wenham, when he was
+going abroad, on his way to Kissingen to join Lord
+Steyne, enlightened Mrs. Alderney on this point and told
+her how he was much more able to describe little
+Rawdon than his mamma, who notoriously hated him and
+never saw him; how he was thirteen years old, while
+little Alderney was but nine, fair, while the other darling
+was dark--in a word, caused the lady in question to
+repent of her good humour.
+
+Whenever Becky made a little circle for herself with
+incredible toils and labour, somebody came and swept it
+down rudely, and she had all her work to begin over
+again.  It was very hard; very hard; lonely and
+disheartening.
+
+There was Mrs. Newbright, who took her up for some
+time, attracted by the sweetness of her singing at church
+and by her proper views upon serious subjects, concerning
+which in former days, at Queen's Crawley, Mrs.
+Becky had had a good deal of instruction.  Well, she not
+only took tracts, but she read them.  She worked flannel
+petticoats for the Quashyboos--cotton night-caps for the
+Cocoanut Indians--painted handscreens for the
+conversion of the Pope and the Jews--sat under Mr. Rowls
+on Wednesdays, Mr. Huggleton on Thursdays, attended
+two Sunday services at church, besides Mr. Bawler, the
+Darbyite, in the evening, and all in vain.  Mrs. Newbright
+had occasion to correspond with the Countess of Southdown
+about the Warmingpan Fund for the Fiji
+Islanders (for the management of which admirable
+charity both these ladies formed part of a female committee),
+and having mentioned her "sweet friend," Mrs. Rawdon
+Crawley, the Dowager Countess wrote back such a
+letter regarding Becky, with such particulars, hints, facts,
+falsehoods, and general comminations, that intimacy
+between Mrs. Newbright and Mrs. Crawley ceased forthwith,
+and all the serious world of Tours, where this misfortune
+took place, immediately parted company with the
+reprobate.  Those who know the English Colonies abroad
+know that we carry with us us our pride, pills, prejudices,
+Harvey-sauces, cayenne-peppers, and other Lares,
+making a little Britain wherever we settle down.
+
+From one colony to another Becky fled uneasily.  From
+Boulogne to Dieppe, from Dieppe to Caen, from Caen
+to Tours--trying with all her might to be respectable,
+and alas!  always found out some day or other and
+pecked out of the cage by the real daws.
+
+Mrs. Hook Eagles took her up at one of these places--
+a woman without a blemish in her character and a house
+in Portman Square.  She was staying at the hotel at Dieppe,
+whither Becky fled, and they made each other's acquaintance
+first at sea, where they were swimming together,
+and subsequently at the table d'hote of the hotel.  Mrs
+Eagles had heard--who indeed had not?--some of the
+scandal of the Steyne affair; but after a conversation
+with Becky, she pronounced that Mrs. Crawley was an
+angel, her husband a ruffian, Lord Steyne an
+unprincipled wretch, as everybody knew, and the whole case
+against Mrs. Crawley an infamous and wicked conspiracy
+of that rascal Wenham.  "If you were a man of
+any spirit, Mr. Eagles, you would box the wretch's ears
+the next time you see him at the Club," she said to her
+husband.  But Eagles was only a quiet old gentleman,
+husband to Mrs. Eagles, with a taste for geology, and not tall
+enough to reach anybody's ears.
+
+The Eagles then patronized Mrs. Rawdon, took her to
+live with her at her own house at Paris, quarrelled with
+the ambassador's wife because she would not receive her
+protegee, and did all that lay in woman's power to keep
+Becky straight in the paths of virtue and good repute.
+
+Becky was very respectable and orderly at first, but
+the life of humdrum virtue grew utterly tedious to her
+before long.  It was the same routine every day, the same
+dulness and comfort, the same drive over the same
+stupid Bois de Boulogne, the same company of an
+evening, the same Blair's Sermon of a Sunday night--the
+same opera always being acted over and over again;
+Becky was dying of weariness, when, luckily for her,
+young Mr. Eagles came from Cambridge, and his mother,
+seeing the impression which her little friend made upon
+him, straightway gave Becky warning.
+
+Then she tried keeping house with a female friend;
+then the double menage began to quarrel and get into
+debt.  Then she determined upon a boarding-house existence
+and lived for some time at that famous mansion
+kept by Madame de Saint Amour, in the Rue Royale, at
+Paris, where she began exercising her graces and
+fascinations upon the shabby dandies and fly-blown beauties
+who frequented her landlady's salons.  Becky loved
+society and, indeed, could no more exist without it than an
+opium-eater without his dram, and she was happy
+enough at the period of her boarding-house life.  "The
+women here are as amusing as those in May Fair," she
+told an old London friend who met her, "only, their
+dresses are not quite so fresh.  The men wear cleaned
+gloves, and are sad rogues, certainly, but they are not
+worse than Jack This and Tom That.  The mistress of the
+house is a little vulgar, but I don't think she is so vulgar
+as Lady --" and here she named the name of a
+great leader of fashion that I would die rather than
+reveal.  In fact, when you saw Madame de Saint Amour's
+rooms lighted up of a night, men with plaques and
+cordons at the ecarte tables, and the women at a little
+distance, you might fancy yourself for a while in good
+society, and that Madame was a real Countess.  Many
+people did so fancy, and Becky was for a while one of the
+most dashing ladies of the Countess's salons.
+
+But it is probable that her old creditors of 1815 found
+her out and caused her to leave Paris, for the poor little
+woman was forced to fly from the city rather suddenly,
+and went thence to Brussels.
+
+How well she remembered the place!  She grinned as
+she looked up at the little entresol which she had
+occupied, and thought of the Bareacres family, bawling
+for horses and flight, as their carriage stood in the
+porte-cochere of the hotel.  She went to Waterloo and to
+Laeken, where George Osborne's monument much
+struck her.  She made a little sketch of it.  "That poor
+Cupid!" she said; "how dreadfully he was in love with
+me, and what a fool he was!  I wonder whether little
+Emmy is alive.  It was a good little creature; and that
+fat brother of hers.  I have his funny fat picture still
+among my papers.  They were kind simple people."
+
+At Brussels Becky arrived, recommended by Madame
+de Saint Amour to her friend, Madame la Comtesse de
+Borodino, widow of Napoleon's General, the famous
+Count de Borodino, who was left with no resource by the
+deceased hero but that of a table d'hote and an ecarte
+table.  Second-rate dandies and roues, widow-ladies who
+always have a lawsuit, and very simple English folks, who
+fancy they see "Continental society" at these houses, put
+down their money, or ate their meals, at Madame de
+Borodino's tables.  The gallant young fellows treated the
+company round to champagne at the table d'hote, rode
+out with the women, or hired horses on country excursions,
+clubbed money to take boxes at the play or the
+opera, betted over the fair shoulders of the ladies at the
+ecarte tables, and wrote home to their parents in
+Devonshire about their felicitous introduction to foreign
+society.
+
+Here, as at Paris, Becky was a boarding-house queen,
+and ruled in select pensions.  She never refused the
+champagne, or the bouquets, or the drives into the country,
+or the private boxes; but what she preferred was the
+ecarte at night,--and she played audaciously.  First she
+played only for a little, then for five-franc pieces, then for
+Napoleons, then for notes:  then she would not be able
+to pay her month's pension:  then she borrowed from
+the young gentlemen:  then she got into cash again and
+bullied Madame de Borodino, whom she had coaxed and
+wheedled before:  then she was playing for ten sous at a
+time, and in a dire state of poverty:  then her quarter's
+allowance would come in, and she would pay off Madame
+de Borodino's score and would once more take the
+cards against Monsieur de Rossignol, or the Chevalier de
+Raff.
+
+When Becky left Brussels, the sad truth is that she
+owed three months' pension to Madame de Borodino, of
+which fact, and of the gambling, and of the drinking, and
+of the going down on her knees to the Reverend Mr.
+Muff, Ministre Anglican, and borrowing money of him,
+and of her coaxing and flirting with Milor Noodle, son of
+Sir Noodle, pupil of the Rev.  Mr. Muff, whom she used
+to take into her private room, and of whom she won
+large sums at ecarte--of which fact, I say, and of a
+hundred of her other knaveries, the Countess de
+Borodino informs every English person who stops at her
+establishment, and announces that Madame Rawdon was
+no better than a vipere.
+
+So our little wanderer went about setting up her tent
+in various cities of Europe, as restless as Ulysses or
+Bampfylde Moore Carew.  Her taste for disrespectability
+grew more and more remarkable.  She became a perfect
+Bohemian ere long, herding with people whom it would
+make your hair stand on end to meet.
+
+There is no town of any mark in Europe but it has its
+little colony of English raffs--men whose names Mr.
+Hemp the officer reads out periodically at the Sheriffs'
+Court--young gentlemen of very good family often, only
+that the latter disowns them; frequenters of billiard-
+rooms and estaminets, patrons of foreign races and
+gaming-tables.  They people the debtors' prisons--they
+drink and swagger--they fight and brawl--they run away
+without paying--they have duels with French and German
+officers--they cheat Mr. Spooney at ecarte--they get
+the money and drive off to Baden in magnificent britzkas
+--they try their infallible martingale and lurk about the
+tables with empty pockets, shabby bullies, penniless
+bucks, until they can swindle a Jew banker with a sham
+bill of exchange, or find another Mr. Spooney to rob.
+The alternations of splendour and misery which these
+people undergo are very queer to view.  Their life must
+be one of great excitement.  Becky--must it be owned?--
+took to this life, and took to it not unkindly.  She went
+about from town to town among these Bohemians.  The
+lucky Mrs. Rawdon was known at every play-table in
+Germany.  She and Madame de Cruchecassee kept house at
+Florence together.  It is said she was ordered out of
+Munich, and my friend Mr. Frederick Pigeon avers that it
+was at her house at Lausanne that he was hocussed at
+supper and lost eight hundred pounds to Major Loder
+and the Honourable Mr. Deuceace.  We are bound, you
+see, to give some account of Becky's biography, but of
+this part, the less, perhaps, that is said the better.
+
+They say that, when Mrs. Crawley was particularly
+down on her luck, she gave concerts and lessons in music
+here and there.  There was a Madame de Raudon, who
+certainly had a matinee musicale at Wildbad,
+accompanied by Herr Spoff, premier pianist to the Hospodar of
+Wallachia, and my little friend Mr. Eaves, who knew
+everybody and had travelled everywhere, always used to
+declare that he was at Strasburg in the year 1830, when a
+certain Madame Rebecque made her appearance in the
+opera of the Dame Blanche, giving occasion to a furious
+row in the theatre there.  She was hissed off the stage by
+the audience, partly from her own incompetency, but
+chiefly from the ill-advised sympathy of some persons in
+the parquet, (where the officers of the garrison had their
+admissions); and Eaves was certain that the unfortunate
+debutante in question was no other than Mrs.
+Rawdon Crawley.
+
+She was, in fact, no better than a vagabond upon this
+earth.  When she got her money she gambled; when she
+had gambled it she was put to shifts to live; who knows
+how or by what means she succeeded? It is said that she
+was once seen at St.  Petersburg, but was summarily
+dismissed from that capital by the police, so that there
+cannot be any possibility of truth in the report that she was
+a Russian spy at Toplitz and Vienna afterwards.  I have
+even been informed that at Paris she discovered a
+relation of her own, no less a person than her maternal
+grandmother, who was not by any means a
+Montmorenci, but a hideous old box-opener at a theatre on
+the Boulevards.  The meeting between them, of which
+other persons, as it is hinted elsewhere, seem to have
+been acquainted, must have been a very affecting
+interview.  The present historian can give no certain details
+regarding the event.
+
+It happened at Rome once that Mrs. de Rawdon's half-
+year's salary had just been paid into the principal
+banker's there, and, as everybody who had a balance of
+above five hundred scudi was invited to the balls which
+this prince of merchants gave during the winter, Becky
+had the honour of a card, and appeared at one of the
+Prince and Princess Polonia's splendid evening entertainments.
+The Princess was of the family of Pompili, lineally
+descended from the second king of Rome, and Egeria
+of the house of Olympus, while the Prince's grandfather,
+Alessandro Polonia, sold wash-balls, essences,
+tobacco, and pocket-handkerchiefs, ran errands for
+gentlemen, and lent money in a small way.  All the great
+company in Rome thronged to his saloons--Princes,
+Dukes, Ambassadors, artists, fiddlers, monsignori, young
+bears with their leaders--every rank and condition of
+man.  His halls blazed with light and magnificence; were
+resplendent with gilt frames (containing pictures), and
+dubious antiques; and the enormous gilt crown and arms
+of the princely owner, a gold mushroom on a crimson
+field (the colour of the pocket-handkerchiefs which he
+sold), and the silver fountain of the Pompili family shone
+all over the roof, doors, and panels of the house, and
+over the grand velvet baldaquins prepared to receive
+Popes and Emperors.
+
+So Becky, who had arrived in the diligence from
+Florence, and was lodged at an inn in a very modest way,
+got a card for Prince Polonia's entertainment, and her
+maid dressed her with unusual care, and she went to this
+fine ball leaning on the arm of Major Loder, with whom
+she happened to be travelling at the time--(the same
+man who shot Prince Ravoli at Naples the next year, and
+was caned by Sir John Buckskin for carrying four kings
+in his hat besides those which he used in playing at
+ecarte )--and this pair went into the rooms together,
+and Becky saw a number of old faces which she
+remembered in happier days, when she was not innocent,
+but not found out.  Major Loder knew a great number
+of foreigners, keen-looking whiskered men with dirty
+striped ribbons in their buttonholes, and a very small
+display of linen; but his own countrymen, it might be
+remarked, eschewed the Major.  Becky, too, knew some
+ladies here and there--French widows, dubious Italian
+countesses, whose husbands had treated them ill--faugh
+--what shall we say, we who have moved among
+some of the finest company of Vanity Fair, of this refuse
+and sediment of rascals? If we play, let it be with clean
+cards, and not with this dirty pack.  But every man who
+has formed one of the innumerable army of travellers
+has seen these marauding irregulars hanging on, like
+Nym and Pistol, to the main force, wearing the king's
+colours and boasting of his commission, but pillaging
+for themselves, and occasionally gibbeted by the roadside.
+
+Well, she was hanging on the arm of Major Loder,
+and they went through the rooms together, and drank a
+great quantity of champagne at the buffet, where the
+people, and especially the Major's irregular corps,
+struggled furiously for refreshments, of which when the
+pair had had enough, they pushed on until they reached
+the Duchess's own pink velvet saloon, at the end of the
+suite of apartments (where the statue of the Venus is,
+and the great Venice looking-glasses, framed in silver),
+and where the princely family were entertaining their
+most distinguished guests at a round table at supper.  It
+was just such a little select banquet as that of which
+Becky recollected that she had partaken at Lord Steyne's
+--and there he sat at Polonia's table, and she saw him.
+The scar cut by the diamond on his white, bald,
+shining forehead made a burning red mark; his red whiskers
+were dyed of a purple hue, which made his pale face
+look still paler.  He wore his collar and orders, his blue
+ribbon and garter.  He was a greater Prince than any
+there, though there was a reigning Duke and a Royal
+Highness, with their princesses, and near his Lordship
+was seated the beautiful Countess of Belladonna, nee
+de Glandier, whose husband (the Count Paolo della
+Belladonna), so well known for his brilliant entomological
+collections, had been long absent on a mission to the
+Emperor of Morocco.
+
+When Becky beheld that familiar and illustrious face,
+how vulgar all of a sudden did Major Loder appear to
+her, and how that odious Captain Rook did smell of
+tobacco!  In one instant she reassumed her fine-ladyship
+and tried to look and feel as if she were in May Fair
+once more.  "That woman looks stupid and ill-humoured,"
+she thought; "I am sure she can't amuse him.  No, he must
+be bored by her--he never was by me." A hundred such
+touching hopes, fears, and memories palpitated in her
+little heart, as she looked with her brightest eyes (the
+rouge which she wore up to her eyelids made them
+twinkle) towards the great nobleman.  Of a Star and Garter
+night Lord Steyne used also to put on his grandest
+manner and to look and speak like a great prince, as he was.
+Becky admired him smiling sumptuously, easy, lofty, and
+stately.  Ah, bon Dieu, what a pleasant companion he
+was, what a brilliant wit, what a rich fund of talk, what
+a grand manner!--and she had exchanged this for Major
+Loder, reeking of cigars and brandy-and-water, and
+Captain Rook with his horsejockey jokes and prize-ring
+slang, and their like.  "I wonder whether he will know
+me," she thought.  Lord Steyne was talking and laughing
+with a great and illustrious lady at his side, when he
+looked up and saw Becky.
+
+She was all over in a flutter as their eyes met, and she
+put on the very best smile she could muster, and dropped
+him a little, timid, imploring curtsey.  He stared aghast
+at her for a minute, as Macbeth might on beholding
+Banquo's sudden appearance at his ball-supper, and remained
+looking at her with open mouth, when that horrid Major
+Loder pulled her away.
+
+"Come away into the supper-room, Mrs. R.," was that
+gentleman's remark:  "seeing these nobs grubbing away
+has made me peckish too.  Let's go and try the old
+governor's champagne." Becky thought the Major had had
+a great deal too much already.
+
+The day after she went to walk on the Pincian Hill--
+the Hyde Park of the Roman idlers--possibly in hopes to
+have another sight of Lord Steyne.  But she met another
+acquaintance there:  it was Mr. Fiche, his lordship's
+confidential man, who came up nodding to her rather
+familiarly and putting a finger to his hat.  "I knew that Madame
+was here," he said; "I followed her from her hotel.  I have
+some advice to give Madame."
+
+"From the Marquis of Steyne?" Becky asked, resuming
+as much of her dignity as she could muster, and not
+a little agitated by hope and expectation.
+
+"No," said the valet; "it is from me.  Rome is very
+unwholesome."
+
+"Not at this season, Monsieur Fiche--not till after
+Easter."
+
+"I tell Madame it is unwholesome now.  There is always
+malaria for some people.  That cursed marsh wind kills
+many at all seasons.  Look, Madame Crawley, you were
+always bon enfant, and I have an interest in you, parole
+d'honneur.  Be warned.  Go away from Rome, I tell you--
+or you will be ill and die."
+
+Becky laughed, though in rage and fury.  "What!
+assassinate poor little me?" she said.  "How romantic!  Does
+my lord carry bravos for couriers, and stilettos in the
+fourgons? Bah!  I will stay, if but to plague him.  I have
+those who will defend me whilst I am here."
+
+It was Monsieur Fiche's turn to laugh now.  "Defend
+you," he said, "and who? The Major, the Captain, any
+one of those gambling men whom Madame sees would
+take her life for a hundred louis.  We know things about
+Major Loder (he is no more a Major than I am my Lord
+the Marquis) which would send him to the galleys or
+worse.  We know everything and have friends everywhere.
+We know whom you saw at Paris, and what relations you
+found there.  Yes, Madame may stare, but we do.  How
+was it that no minister on the Continent would receive
+Madame? She has offended somebody:  who never
+forgives--whose rage redoubled when he saw you.  He was
+like a madman last night when he came home.  Madame
+de Belladonna made him a scene about you and fired off
+in one of her furies."
+
+"Oh, it was Madame de Belladonna, was it?" Becky
+said, relieved a little, for the information she had just got
+had scared her.
+
+"No--she does not matter--she is always jealous.  I
+tell you it was Monseigneur.  You did wrong to show
+yourself to him.  And if you stay here you will repent it.  Mark
+my words.  Go.  Here is my lord's carriage"--and seizing
+Becky's arm, he rushed down an alley of the garden as
+Lord Steyne's barouche, blazing with heraldic devices,
+came whirling along the avenue, borne by the almost
+priceless horses, and bearing Madame de Belladonna
+lolling on the cushions, dark, sulky, and blooming, a King
+Charles in her lap, a white parasol swaying over her
+head, and old Steyne stretched at her side with a livid
+face and ghastly eyes.  Hate, or anger, or desire caused
+them to brighten now and then still, but ordinarily, they
+gave no light, and seemed tired of looking out on a world
+of which almost all the pleasure and all the best beauty
+had palled upon the worn-out wicked old man.
+
+"Monseigneur has never recovered the shock of that
+night, never," Monsieur Fiche whispered to Mrs. Crawley
+as the carriage flashed by, and she peeped out at it
+from behind the shrubs that hid her.  "That was a
+consolation at any rate," Becky thought.
+
+Whether my lord really had murderous intentions
+towards Mrs. Becky as Monsieur Fiche said (since
+Monseigneur's death he has returned to his native country,
+where he lives much respected, and has purchased from
+his Prince the title of Baron Ficci), and the factotum
+objected to have to do with assassination; or whether he
+simply had a commission to frighten Mrs. Crawley out of
+a city where his Lordship proposed to pass the winter,
+and the sight of her would be eminently disagreeable to
+the great nobleman, is a point which has never been
+ascertained:  but the threat had its effect upon the little
+woman, and she sought no more to intrude herself upon
+the presence of her old patron.
+
+Everybody knows the melancholy end of that
+nobleman, which befell at Naples two months after the French
+Revolution of 1830; when the Most Honourable George
+Gustavus, Marquis of Steyne, Earl of Gaunt and of Gaunt
+Castle, in the Peerage of Ireland, Viscount Hellborough,
+Baron Pitchley and Grillsby, a Knight of the Most Noble
+Order of the Garter, of the Golden Fleece of Spain, of
+the Russian Order of Saint Nicholas of the First Class, of
+the Turkish Order of the Crescent, First Lord of the
+Powder Closet and Groom of the Back Stairs, Colonel of
+the Gaunt or Regent's Own Regiment of Militia, a Trustee
+of the British Museum, an Elder Brother of the Trinity
+House, a Governor of the White Friars, and D.C.L.--
+died after a series of fits brought on, as the papers said,
+by the shock occasioned to his lordship's sensibilities by
+the downfall of the ancient French monarchy.
+
+An eloquent catalogue appeared in a weekly print,
+describing his virtues, his magnificence, his talents, and
+his good actions.  His sensibility, his attachment to the
+illustrious House of Bourbon, with which he claimed an
+alliance, were such that he could not survive the
+misfortunes of his august kinsmen.  His body was buried at
+Naples, and his heart--that heart which always beat with
+every generous and noble emotion was brought back to
+Castle Gaunt in a silver urn.  "In him," Mr. Wagg said,
+"the poor and the Fine Arts have lost a beneficent patron,
+society one of its most brilliant ornaments, and England
+one of her loftiest patriots and statesmen," &c., &c.
+
+His will was a good deal disputed, and an attempt was
+made to force from Madame de Belladonna the
+celebrated jewel called the "Jew's-eye" diamond, which his
+lordship always wore on his forefinger, and which it was
+said that she removed from it after his lamented demise.
+But his confidential friend and attendant, Monsieur Fiche
+proved that the ring had been presented to the said
+Madame de Belladonna two days before the Marquis's
+death, as were the bank-notes, jewels, Neapolitan and
+French bonds, &c., found in his lordship's secretaire and
+claimed by his heirs from that injured woman.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXV
+
+
+Full of Business and Pleasure
+
+The day after the meeting at the play-table, Jos had
+himself arrayed with unusual care and splendour, and
+without thinking it necessary to say a word to any
+member of his family regarding the occurrences of the previous
+night, or asking for their company in his walk, he sallied
+forth at an early hour, and was presently seen making
+inquiries at the door of the Elephant Hotel.  In consequence
+of the fetes the house was full of company, the
+tables in the street were already surrounded by persons
+smoking and drinking the national small-beer, the public
+rooms were in a cloud of smoke, and Mr. Jos having, in
+his pompous way, and with his clumsy German, made
+inquiries for the person of whom he was in search, was
+directed to the very top of the house, above the first-floor
+rooms where some travelling pedlars had lived, and were
+exhibiting their jewellery and brocades; above the second-
+floor apartments occupied by the etat major of the
+gambling firm; above the third-floor rooms, tenanted by the
+band of renowned Bohemian vaulters and tumblers; and
+so on to the little cabins of the roof, where, among
+students, bagmen, small tradesmen, and country-folks come
+in for the festival, Becky had found a little nest--as dirty
+a little refuge as ever beauty lay hid in.
+
+Becky liked the life.  She was at home with everybody
+in the place, pedlars, punters, tumblers, students and all.
+She was of a wild, roving nature, inherited from father
+and mother, who were both Bohemians, by taste and
+circumstance; if a lord was not by, she would talk to his
+courier with the greatest pleasure; the din, the stir, the
+drink, the smoke, the tattle of the Hebrew pedlars, the
+solemn, braggart ways of the poor tumblers, the sournois
+talk of the gambling-table officials, the songs and swagger
+of the students, and the general buzz and hum of
+the place had pleased and tickled the little woman, even
+when her luck was down and she had not wherewithal to
+pay her bill.  How pleasant was all the bustle to her now
+that her purse was full of the money which little Georgy
+had won for her the night before!
+
+As Jos came creaking and puffing up the final stairs,
+and was speechless when he got to the landing, and began
+to wipe his face and then to look for No.  92, the room
+where he was directed to seek for the person he wanted,
+the door of the opposite chamber, No.  90, was open,
+and a student, in jack-boots and a dirty schlafrock, was
+lying on the bed smoking a long pipe; whilst another
+student in long yellow hair and a braided coat, exceeding
+smart and dirty too, was actually on his knees at No.  92,
+bawling through the keyhole supplications to the person
+within.
+
+"Go away," said a well-known voice, which made Jos
+thrill, "I expect somebody; I expect my grandpapa.  He
+mustn't see you there."
+
+"Angel Englanderinn!" bellowed the kneeling student
+with the whity-brown ringlets and the large finger-ring,
+"do take compassion upon us.  Make an appointment.
+Dine with me and Fritz at the inn in the park.  We will
+have roast pheasants and porter, plum-pudding and
+French wine.  We shall die if you don't."
+
+"That we will," said the young nobleman on the bed;
+and this colloquy Jos overheard, though he did not
+comprehend it, for the reason that he had never studied
+the language in which it was carried on.
+
+"Newmero kattervang dooze, si vous plait," Jos said
+in his grandest manner, when he was able to speak.
+
+"Quater fang tooce!" said the student, starting up, and
+he bounced into his own room, where he locked the door,
+and where Jos heard him laughing with his comrade on
+the bed.
+
+The gentleman from Bengal was standing, disconcerted
+by this incident, when the door of the 92 opened of
+itself and Becky's little head peeped out full of archness
+and mischief.  She lighted on Jos.  "It's you," she said,
+coming out.  "How I have been waiting for you!  Stop!
+not yet--in one minute you shall come in." In that instant
+she put a rouge-pot, a brandy bottle, and a plate of broken
+meat into the bed, gave one smooth to her hair, and
+finally let in her visitor.
+
+She had, by way of morning robe, a pink domino, a
+trifle faded and soiled, and marked here and there with
+pomaturn; but her arms shone out from the loose sleeves
+of the dress very white and fair, and it was tied round
+her little waist so as not ill to set off the trim little figure
+of the wearer.  She led Jos by the hand into her garret.
+"Come in," she said.  "Come and talk to me.  Sit yonder
+on the chair"; and she gave the civilian's hand a little
+squeeze and laughingly placed him upon it.  As for
+herself, she placed herself on the bed--not on the bottle
+and plate, you may be sure--on which Jos might have
+reposed, had he chosen that seat; and so there she sat
+and talked with her old admirer.
+  "How little years have changed you," she said with a
+look of tender interest.  "I should have known you
+anywhere.  What a comfort it is amongst strangers to see
+once more the frank honest face of an old friend!"
+
+The frank honest face, to tell the truth, at this
+moment bore any expression but one of openness and
+honesty:  it was, on the contrary, much perturbed and
+puzzled in look.  Jos was surveying the queer little apartment
+in which he found his old flame.  One of her gowns hung
+over the bed, another depending from a hook of the door;
+her bonnet obscured half the looking-glass, on which,
+too, lay the prettiest little pair of bronze boots; a French
+novel was on the table by the bedside, with a candle, not
+of wax.  Becky thought of popping that into the bed too,
+but she only put in the little paper night-cap with which
+she had put the candle out on going to sleep.
+
+"I should have known you anywhere," she continued;
+"a woman never forgets some things.  And you were the
+first man I ever--I ever saw."
+
+"Was I really?" said Jos.  "God bless my soul, you--
+you don't say so."
+
+"When I came with your sister from Chiswick, I was
+scarcely more than a child," Becky said.  "How is that,
+dear love? Oh, her husband was a sad wicked man, and
+of course it was of me that the poor dear was jealous.
+As if I cared about him, heigho!  when there was
+somebody--but no--don't let us talk of old times"; and she
+passed her handkerchief with the tattered lace across
+her eyelids.
+
+"Is not this a strange place," she continued, "for a
+woman, who has lived in a very different world too, to be
+found in? I have had so many griefs and wrongs, Joseph
+Sedley; I have been made to suffer so cruelly that I am
+almost made mad sometimes.  I can't stay still in any
+place, but wander about always restless and unhappy.
+All my friends have been false to me--all.  There is no
+such thing as an honest man in the world.  I was the truest
+wife that ever lived, though I married my husband out of
+pique, because somebody else--but never mind that.  I
+was true, and he trampled upon me and deserted me.  I
+was the fondest mother.  I had but one child, one darling,
+one hope, one joy, which I held to my heart with a mother's
+affection, which was my life, my prayer, my--my
+blessing; and they--they tore it from me--tore it from
+me"; and she put her hand to her heart with a passionate
+gesture of despair, burying her face for a moment on the
+bed.
+
+The brandy-bottle inside clinked up against the plate
+which held the cold sausage.  Both were moved, no doubt,
+by the exhibition of so much grief.  Max and Fritz were at
+the door, listening with wonder to Mrs. Becky's sobs and
+cries.  Jos, too, was a good deal frightened and affected at
+seeing his old flame in this condition.  And she began,
+forthwith, to tell her story--a tale so neat, simple, and
+artless that it was quite evident from hearing her that if
+ever there was a white-robed angel escaped from heaven
+to be subject to the infernal machinations and villainy of
+fiends here below, that spotless being--that miserable
+unsullied martyr, was present on the bed before Jos--on
+the bed, sitting on the brandy-bottle.
+
+They had a very long, amicable, and confidential talk
+there, in the course of which Jos Sedley was somehow
+made aware (but in a manner that did not in the least
+scare or offend him) that Becky's heart had first learned
+to beat at his enchanting presence; that George Osborne
+had certainly paid an unjustifiable court to HER, which
+might account for Amelia's jealousy and their little
+rupture; but that Becky never gave the least encouragement
+to the unfortunate officer, and that she had never ceased
+to think about Jos from the very first day she had seen
+him, though, of course, her duties as a married woman
+were paramount--duties which she had always preserved,
+and would, to her dying day, or until the proverbially bad
+climate in which Colonel Crawley was living should
+release her from a yoke which his cruelty had rendered
+odious to her.
+
+Jos went away, convinced that she was the most virtuous,
+as she was one of the most fascinating of women,
+and revolving in his mind all sorts of benevolent schemes
+for her welfare.  Her persecutions ought to be ended:
+she ought to return to the society of which she was an
+ornament.  He would see what ought to be done.  She
+must quit that place and take a quiet lodging.  Amelia
+must come and see her and befriend her.  He would go
+and settle about it, and consult with the Major.  She wept
+tears of heart-felt gratitude as she parted from him, and
+pressed his hand as the gallant stout gentleman stooped
+down to kiss hers.
+
+So Becky bowed Jos out of her little garret with as
+much grace as if it was a palace of which she did the
+honours; and that heavy gentleman having disappeared
+down the stairs, Max and Fritz came out of their hole,
+pipe in mouth, and she amused herself by mimicking Jos
+to them as she munched her cold bread and sausage and
+took draughts of her favourite brandy-and-water.
+
+Jos walked over to Dobbin's lodgings with great
+solemnity and there imparted to him the affecting history
+with which he had just been made acquainted, without,
+however, mentioning the play business of the night before.
+And the two gentlemen were laying their heads together
+and consulting as to the best means of being useful to
+Mrs. Becky, while she was finishing her interrupted
+dejeuner a la fourchette.
+
+How was it that she had come to that little town?
+How was it that she had no friends and was wandering
+about alone? Little boys at school are taught in their
+earliest Latin book that the path of Avernus is very easy
+of descent.  Let us skip over the interval in the history of
+her downward progress.  She was not worse now than she
+had been in the days of her prosperity--only a little
+down on her luck.
+
+As for Mrs. Amelia, she was a woman of such a soft
+and foolish disposition that when she heard of anybody
+unhappy, her heart straightway melted towards the
+sufferer; and as she had never thought or done anything
+mortally guilty herself, she had not that abhorrence for
+wickedness which distinguishes moralists much more
+knowing.  If she spoiled everybody who came near her
+with kindness and compliments--if she begged pardon
+of all her servants for troubling them to answer the bell
+--if she apologized to a shopboy who showed her a piece
+of silk, or made a curtsey to a street-sweeper with a
+complimentary remark upon the elegant state of his crossing
+--and she was almost capable of every one of these
+follies--the notion that an old acquaintance was miserable
+was sure to soften her heart; nor would she hear of
+anybody's being deservedly unhappy.  A world under such
+legislation as hers would not be a very orderly place of
+abode; but there are not many women, at least not of the
+rulers, who are of her sort.  This lady, I believe, would
+have abolished all gaols, punishments, handcuffs,
+whippings, poverty, sickness, hunger, in the world, and was
+such a mean-spirited creature that--we are obliged to
+confess it--she could even forget a mortal injury.
+
+When the Major heard from Jos of the sentimental
+adventure which had just befallen the latter, he was not,
+it must be owned, nearly as much interested as the
+gentleman from Bengal.  On the contrary, his excitement was
+quite the reverse from a pleasurable one; he made use of
+a brief but improper expression regarding a poor woman
+in distress, saying, in fact, "The little minx, has she
+come to light again?" He never had had the slightest liking
+for her, but had heartily mistrusted her from the very
+first moment when her green eyes had looked at, and
+turned away from, his own.
+
+"That little devil brings mischief wherever she goes,"
+the Major said disrespectfully.  "Who knows what sort of
+life she has been leading? And what business has she
+here abroad and alone? Don't tell me about persecutors
+and enemies; an honest woman always has friends and
+never is separated from her family.  Why has she left her
+husband? He may have been disreputable and wicked, as
+you say.  He always was.  I remember the confounded
+blackleg and the way in which he used to cheat and
+hoodwink poor George.  Wasn't there a scandal about their
+separation? I think I heard something," cried out Major
+Dobbin, who did not care much about gossip, and whom
+Jos tried in vain to convince that Mrs. Becky was in all
+respects a most injured and virtuous female.
+
+"Well, well; let's ask Mrs. George," said that arch-
+diplomatist of a Major.  "Only let us go and consult her.
+I suppose you will allow that she is a good judge at any
+rate, and knows what is right in such matters."
+
+"Hm!  Emmy is very well," said Jos, who did not
+happen to be in love with his sister.
+
+"Very well? By Gad, sir, she's the finest lady I ever
+met in my life," bounced out the Major.  "I say at once,
+let us go and ask her if this woman ought to be visited
+or not--I will be content with her verdict." Now this
+odious, artful rogue of a Major was thinking in his own
+mind that he was sure of his case.  Emmy, he remembered,
+was at one time cruelly and deservedly jealous of
+Rebecca, never mentioned her name but with a shrinking
+and terror--a jealous woman never forgives, thought
+Dobbin:  and so the pair went across the street to Mrs.
+George's house, where she was contentedly warbling at
+a music lesson with Madame Strumpff.
+
+When that lady took her leave, Jos opened the business
+with his usual pomp of words.  "Amelia, my dear,"
+said he, "I have just had the most extraordinary--yes--
+God bless my soul!  the most extraordinary adventure--
+an old friend--yes, a most interesting old friend of
+yours, and I may say in old times, has just arrived here,
+and I should like you to see her."
+
+"Her!" said Amelia, "who is it? Major Dobbin, if you
+please not to break my scissors." The Major was twirling
+them round by the little chain from which they sometimes
+hung to their lady's waist, and was thereby endangering
+his own eye.
+ 
+It is a woman whom I dislike very much," said the
+Major, doggedly, "and whom you have no cause to love."
+
+"It is Rebecca, I'm sure it is Rebecca," Amelia said,
+blushing and being very much agitated.
+
+"You are right; you always are," Dobbin answered.
+Brussels, Waterloo, old, old times, griefs, pangs,
+remembrances, rushed back into Amelia's gentle
+heart and caused a cruel agitation there.
+
+"Don't let me see her," Emmy continued.  "I couldn't
+see her."
+
+"I told you so," Dobbin said to Jos.
+
+"She is very unhappy, and--and that sort of thing,"
+Jos urged.  "She is very poor and unprotected, and has
+been ill--exceedingly ill--and that scoundrel of a
+husband has deserted her."
+
+"Ah!" said Amelia
+
+"She hasn't a friend in the world," Jos went on, not
+undexterously, "and she said she thought she might trust in
+you.  She's so miserable, Emmy.  She has been almost mad
+with grief.  Her story quite affected me--'pon my word
+and honour, it did--never was such a cruel persecution
+borne so angelically, I may say.  Her family has been
+most cruel to her."
+
+"Poor creature!" Amelia said.
+
+"And if she can get no friend, she says she thinks she'll
+die," Jos proceeded in a low tremulous voice.  "God bless
+my soul!  do you know that she tried to kill herself? She
+carries laudanum with her--I saw the bottle in her room
+--such a miserable little room--at a third-rate house,
+the Elephant, up in the roof at the top of all.  I went
+there."
+
+This did not seem to affect Emmy.  She even smiled a
+little.  Perhaps she figured Jos to herself panting up the
+stair.
+
+"She's beside herself with grief," he resumed.  "The
+agonies that woman has endured are quite frightful to
+hear of.  She had a little boy, of the same age as Georgy."
+
+"Yes, yes, I think I remember," Emmy remarked.
+"Well?"
+
+"The most beautiful child ever seen," Jos said, who
+was very fat, and easily moved, and had been touched by
+the story Becky told; "a perfect angel, who adored his
+mother.  The ruffians tore him shrieking out of her arms,
+and have never allowed him to see her."
+
+"Dear Joseph," Emmy cried out, starting up at once,
+"let us go and see her this minute." And she ran into her
+adjoining bedchamber, tied on her bonnet in a flutter,
+came out with her shawl on her arm, and ordered
+Dobbin to follow.
+
+He went and put her shawl--it was a white cashmere,
+consigned to her by the Major himself from India--over
+her shoulders.  He saw there was nothing for it but to
+obey, and she put her hand into his arm, and they went
+away.
+
+"It is number 92, up four pair of stairs," Jos said,
+perhaps not very willing to ascend the steps again; but he
+placed himself in the window of his drawing-room, which
+commands the place on which the Elephant stands, and
+saw the pair marching through the market.
+
+It was as well that Becky saw them too from her garret,
+for she and the two students were chattering and laughing
+there; they had been joking about the appearance of
+Becky's grandpapa--whose arrival and departure they
+had witnessed--but she had time to dismiss them, and
+have her little room clear before the landlord of the
+Elephant, who knew that Mrs. Osborne was a great favourite
+at the Serene Court, and respected her accordingly, led
+the way up the stairs to the roof story, encouraging
+Miladi and the Herr Major as they achieved the ascent.
+
+"Gracious lady, gracious lady!" said the landlord,
+knocking at Becky's door; he had called her Madame the
+day before, and was by no means courteous to her.
+
+"Who is it?" Becky said, putting out her head, and she
+gave a little scream.  There stood Emmy in a tremble,
+and Dobbin, the tall Major, with his cane.
+
+He stood still watching, and very much interested at
+the scene; but Emmy sprang forward with open arms
+towards Rebecca, and forgave her at that moment, and
+embraced her and kissed her with all her heart.  Ah, poor
+wretch, when was your lip pressed before by such pure
+kisses?
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXVI
+
+
+Amantium Irae
+
+Frankness and kindness like Amelia's were likely to
+touch even such a hardened little reprobate as Becky.  She
+returned Emmy's caresses and kind speeches with
+something very like gratitude, and an emotion which, if it was
+not lasting, for a moment was almost genuine.  That was
+a lucky stroke of hers about the child "torn from her
+arms shrieking." It was by that harrowing misfortune
+that Becky had won her friend back, and it was one of the
+very first points, we may be certain, upon which our poor
+simple little Emmy began to talk to her new-found
+acquaintance.
+
+"And so they took your darling child from you?" our
+simpleton cried out.  "Oh, Rebecca, my poor dear suffering
+friend, I know what it is to lose a boy, and to feel
+for those who have lost one.  But please Heaven yours
+will be restored to you, as a merciful merciful Providence
+has brought me back mine."
+
+"The child, my child? Oh, yes, my agonies were frightful,"
+Becky owned, not perhaps without a twinge of conscience.
+It jarred upon her to be obliged to commence
+instantly to tell lies in reply to so much confidence and
+simplicity.  But that is the misfortune of beginning with
+this kind of forgery.  When one fib becomes due as it
+were, you must forge another to take up the old
+acceptance; and so the stock of your lies in circulation
+inevitably multiplies, and the danger of detection increases
+every day.
+
+"My agonies," Becky continued, "were terrible (I hope
+she won't sit down on the bottle) when they took him
+away from me; I thought I should die; but I fortunately
+had a brain fever, during which my doctor gave me up,
+and--and I recovered, and--and here I am, poor and
+friendless."
+
+"How old is he?" Emmy asked.
+
+"Eleven," said Becky.
+
+"Eleven!" cried the other.  "Why, he was born the same
+year with Georgy, who is--"
+
+"I know, I know," Becky cried out, who had in fact
+quite forgotten all about little Rawdon's age.  "Grief has
+made me forget so many things, dearest Amelia.  I am
+very much changed:  half-wild sometimes.  He was eleven
+when they took him away from me.  Bless his sweet
+face; I have never seen it again."
+
+"Was he fair or dark?" went on that absurd little
+Emmy.  "Show me his hair."
+
+Becky almost laughed at her simplicity.  "Not to-day,
+love--some other time, when my trunks arrive from
+Leipzig, whence I came to this place--and a little drawing
+of him, which I made in happy days."
+
+"Poor Becky, poor Becky!" said Emmy.  "How thankful,
+how thankful I ought to be"; (though I doubt whether
+that practice of piety inculcated upon us by our
+womankind in early youth, namely, to be thankful because
+we are better off than somebody else, be a very rational
+religious exercise) and then she began to think, as usual,
+how her son was the handsomest, the best, and the
+cleverest boy in the whole world.
+
+"You will see my Georgy," was the best thing Emmy
+could think of to console Becky.  If anything could make
+her comfortable that would.
+
+And so the two women continued talking for an hour
+or more, during which Becky had the opportunity of
+giving her new friend a full and complete version of her
+private history.  She showed how her marriage with
+Rawdon Crawley had always been viewed by the family with
+feelings of the utmost hostility; how her sister-in-law
+(an artful woman) had poisoned her husband's mind
+against her; how he had formed odious connections,
+which had estranged his affections from her:  how she had
+borne everything--poverty, neglect, coldness from the
+being whom she most loved--and all for the sake of her
+child; how, finally, and by the most flagrant outrage, she
+had been driven into demanding a separation from her
+husband, when the wretch did not scruple to ask that she
+should sacrifice her own fair fame so that he might
+procure advancement through the means of a very great and
+powerful but unprincipled man--the Marquis of Steyne,
+indeed.  The atrocious monster!
+
+This part of her eventful history Becky gave with the
+utmost feminine delicacy and the most indignant virtue.
+Forced to fly her husband's roof by this insult, the coward
+had pursued his revenge by taking her child from her.
+And thus Becky said she was a wanderer, poor,
+unprotected, friendless, and wretched.
+
+Emmy received this story, which was told at some
+length, as those persons who are acquainted with her
+character may imagine that she would.  She quivered
+with indignation at the account of the conduct of the
+miserable Rawdon and the unprincipled Steyne.  Her eyes
+made notes of admiration for every one of the sentences
+in which Becky described the persecutions of her
+aristocratic relatives and the falling away of her husband.
+(Becky did not abuse him.  She spoke rather in sorrow
+than in anger.  She had loved him only too fondly:  and
+was he not the father of her boy?) And as for the separation
+scene from the child, while Becky was reciting it,
+Emmy retired altogether behind her pocket-handkerchief,
+so that the consummate little tragedian must have been
+charmed to see the effect which her performance
+produced on her audience.
+
+Whilst the ladies were carrying on their conversation,
+Amelia's constant escort, the Major (who, of course,
+did not wish to interrupt their conference, and found
+himself rather tired of creaking about the narrow stair
+passage of which the roof brushed the nap from his hat)
+descended to the ground-floor of the house and into the
+great room common to all the frequenters of the Elephant,
+out of which the stair led.  This apartment is always
+in a fume of smoke and liberally sprinkled with beer.  On
+a dirty table stand scores of corresponding brass
+candlesticks with tallow candles for the lodgers, whose keys
+hang up in rows.over the candles.  Emmy had passed
+blushing through the room anon, where all sorts of
+people were collected; Tyrolese glove-sellers and Danubian
+linen-merchants, with their packs; students recruiting
+themselves with butterbrods and meat; idlers, playing
+cards or dominoes on the sloppy, beery tables; tumblers
+refreshing during the cessation of their performances--
+in a word, all the fumum and strepitus of a German inn
+in fair time.  The waiter brought the Major a mug of beer,
+as a matter of course, and he took out a cigar and
+amused himself with that pernicious vegetable and a
+newspaper until his charge should come down to claim him.
+
+Max and Fritz came presently downstairs, their caps on
+one side, their spurs jingling, their pipes splendid with
+coats of arms and full-blown tassels, and they hung up the
+key of No.  90 on the board and called for the ration of
+butterbrod and beer.  The pair sat down by the Major and
+fell into a conversation of which he could not help hearing
+somewhat.  It was mainly about "Fuchs" and "Philister,"
+and duels and drinking-bouts at the neighbouring
+University of Schoppenhausen, from which renowned
+seat of learning they had just come in the Eilwagen,
+with Becky, as it appeared, by their side, and in order
+to be present at the bridal fetes at Pumpernickel.
+
+"The title Englanderinn seems to be en bays de
+gonnoisance," said Max, who knew the French language,
+to Fritz, his comrade.  "After the fat grandfather went
+away, there came a pretty little compatriot.  I heard them
+chattering and whimpering together in the little woman's
+chamber."
+
+"We must take the tickets for her concert," Fritz said.
+"Hast thou any money, Max?"
+
+"Bah," said the other, "the concert is a concert in
+nubibus.  Hans said that she advertised one at Leipzig, and
+the Burschen took many tickets.  But she went off without
+singing.  She said in the coach yesterday that her pianist
+had fallen ill at Dresden.  She cannot sing, it is my belief:
+her voice is as cracked as thine, O thou beer-soaking
+Renowner!"
+
+"It is cracked; I hear her trying out of her window a
+schrecklich.  English ballad, called 'De Rose upon de
+Balgony.' "
+
+"Saufen and singen go not together," observed Fritz
+with the red nose, who evidently preferred the former
+amusement.  "No, thou shalt take none of her tickets.
+She won money at the trente and quarante last night.  I
+saw her:  she made a little English boy play for her.  We
+will spend thy money there or at the theatre, or we will
+treat her to French wine or Cognac in the Aurelius
+Garden, but the tickets we will not buy.  What sayest
+thou? Yet, another mug of beer?" and one and another
+successively having buried their blond whiskers in the
+mawkish draught, curled them and swaggered off into
+the fair.
+
+The Major, who had seen the key of No.  90 put up
+on its hook and had heard the conversation of the two
+young University bloods, was not at a loss to
+understand that their talk related to Becky.  "The little devil
+is at her old tricks," he thought, and he smiled as he
+recalled old days, when he had witnessed the desperate
+flirtation with Jos and the ludicrous end of that adventure.
+He and George had often laughed over it subsequently,
+and until a few weeks after George's marriage,
+when he also was caught in the little Circe's toils, and
+had an understanding with her which his comrade
+certainly suspected, but preferred to ignore.  William was
+too much hurt or ashamed to ask to fathom that
+disgraceful mystery, although once, and evidently with
+remorse on his mind, George had alluded to it.  It was on
+the morning of Waterloo, as the young men stood
+together in front of their line, surveying the black masses of
+Frenchmen who crowned the opposite heights, and as the
+rain was coming down, "I have been mixing in a foolish
+intrigue with a woman," George said.  "I am glad we were
+marched away.  If I drop, I hope Emmy will never know
+of that business.  I wish to God it had never been
+begun!" And William was pleased to think, and had more
+than once soothed poor George's widow with the
+narrative, that Osborne, after quitting his wife, and after
+the action of Quatre Bras, on the first day, spoke gravely
+and affectionately to his comrade of his father and his
+wife.  On these facts, too, William had insisted very
+strongly in his conversations with the elder Osborne,
+and had thus been the means of reconciling the old
+gentleman to his son's memory, just at the close of the
+elder man's life.
+
+"And so this devil is still going on with her intrigues,"
+thought William.  "I wish she were a hundred miles from
+here.  She brings mischief wherever she goes." And he
+was pursuing these forebodings and this uncomfortable
+train of thought, with his head between his hands, and
+the Pumpernickel Gazette of last week unread under his
+nose, when somebody tapped his shoulder with a parasol,
+and he looked up and saw Mrs. Amelia.
+
+This woman had a way of tyrannizing over Major
+Dobbin (for the weakest of all people will domineer
+over somebody), and she ordered him about, and patted
+him, and made him fetch and carry just as if he was a
+great Newfoundland dog.  He liked, so to speak, to jump
+into the water if she said "High, Dobbin!" and to trot
+behind her with her reticule in his mouth.  This history
+has been written to very little purpose if the reader has
+not perceived that the Major was a spooney.
+
+"Why did you not wait for me, sir, to escort me
+downstairs?" she said, giving a little toss of her head
+and a most sarcastic curtsey.
+
+"I couldn't stand up in the passage," he answered with
+a comical deprecatory look; and, delighted to give her his
+arm and to take her out of the horrid smoky place, he
+would have walked off without even so much as
+remembering the waiter, had not the young fellow run after
+him and stopped him on the threshold of the Elephant
+to make him pay for the beer which he had not
+consumed.  Emmy laughed:  she called him a naughty man,
+who wanted to run away in debt, and, in fact, made
+some jokes suitable to the occasion and the small-beer.
+She was in high spirits and good humour, and tripped
+across the market-place very briskly.  She wanted to see
+Jos that instant.  The Major laughed at the impetuous
+affection Mrs. Amelia exhibited; for, in truth, it was not
+very often that she wanted her brother "that instant."
+
+They found the civilian in his saloon on the first-floor;
+he had been pacing the room, and biting his nails, and
+looking over the market-place towards the Elephant a
+hundred times at least during the past hour whilst Emmy
+was closeted with her friend in the garret and the Major
+was beating the tattoo on the sloppy tables of the public
+room below, and he was, on his side too, very anxious to
+see Mrs. Osborne.
+
+"Well?" said he.
+
+"The poor dear creature, how she has suffered!"
+Emmy said.
+
+"God bless my soul, yes," Jos said, wagging his head,
+so that his cheeks quivered like jellies.
+
+"She may have Payne's room, who can go upstairs,"
+Emmy continued.  Payne was a staid English maid and
+personal attendant upon Mrs. Osborne, to whom the
+courier, as in duty bound, paid court, and whom Georgy
+used to "lark" dreadfully with accounts of German
+robbers and ghosts.  She passed her time chiefly in grumbling,
+in ordering about her mistress, and in stating her intention
+to return the next morning to her native village of
+Clapham.  "She may have Payne's room," Emmy said.
+
+"Why, you don't mean to say you are going to have
+that woman into the house?" bounced out the Major,
+jumping up.
+ 
+"Of course we are," said Amelia in the most innocent
+way in the world.  "Don't be angry and break the
+furniture, Major Dobbin.  Of course we are going to have her
+here."
+ 
+"Of course, my dear," Jos said.
+
+"The poor creature, after all her sufferings," Emmy
+continued; "her horrid banker broken and run away; her
+husband--wicked wretch--having deserted her and taken
+her child away from her" (here she doubled her two
+little fists and held them in a most menacing attitude
+before her, so that the Major was charmed to see
+such a dauntless virago) "the poor dear thing!  quite alone
+and absolutely forced to give lessons in singing to get her
+bread--and not have her here!"
+
+"Take lessons, my dear Mrs. George," cried the Major,
+"but don't have her in the house.  I implore you don't."
+
+"Pooh," said Jos.
+
+"You who are always good and kind--always used to
+be at any rate--I'm astonished at you, Major William,"
+Amelia cried.  "Why, what is the moment to help her but
+when she is so miserable? Now is the time to be of
+service to her.  The oldest friend I ever had, and not--"
+
+"She was not always your friend, Amelia," the Major
+said, for he was quite angry.  This allusion was too much
+for Emmy, who, looking the Major almost fiercely in the
+face, said, "For shame, Major Dobbin!" and after having
+fired this shot, she walked out of the room with a most
+majestic air and shut her own door briskly on herself
+and her outraged dignity.
+
+"To allude to THAT!" she said, when the door was
+closed.  "Oh, it was cruel of him to remind me of it," and
+she looked up at George's picture, which hung there as
+usual, with the portrait of the boy underneath.  "It was
+cruel of him.  If I had forgiven it, ought he to have
+spoken? No.  And it is from his own lips that I know how
+wicked and groundless my jealousy was; and that you
+were pure--oh, yes, you were pure, my saint in
+heaven!"
+
+She paced the room, trembling and indignant.  She went
+and leaned on the chest of drawers over which the picture
+hung, and gazed and gazed at it.  Its eyes seemed to look
+down on her with a reproach that deepened as she looked.
+The early dear, dear memories of that brief prime of love
+rushed back upon her.  The wound which years had
+scarcely cicatrized bled afresh, and oh, how bitterly!  She
+could not bear the reproaches of the husband there
+before her.  It couldn't be.  Never, never.
+
+Poor Dobbin; poor old William!  That unlucky word
+had undone the work of many a year--the long laborious
+edifice of a life of love and constancy--raised too upon
+what secret and hidden foundations, wherein lay buried
+passions, uncounted struggles, unknown sacrifices--a
+little word was spoken, and down fell the fair palace of
+hope--one word, and away flew the bird which he had
+been trying all his life to lure!
+
+William, though he saw by Amelia's looks that a great
+crisis had come, nevertheless continued to implore Sedley,
+in the most energetic terms, to beware of Rebecca; and he
+eagerly, almost frantically, adjured Jos not to receive
+her.  He besought Mr. Sedley to inquire at least regarding
+her; told him how he had heard that she was in the
+company of gamblers and people of ill repute; pointed
+out what evil she had done in former days, how she
+and Crawley had misled poor George into ruin, how she
+was now parted from her husband, by her own confession,
+and, perhaps, for good reason.  What a dangerous
+companion she would be for his sister, who knew nothing
+of the affairs of the world!  William implored Jos, with
+all the eloquence which he could bring to bear, and a
+great deal more energy than this quiet gentleman was
+ordinarily in the habit of showing, to keep Rebecca out
+of his household.
+
+Had he been less violent, or more dexterous, he might
+have succeeded in his supplications to Jos; but the civilian
+was not a little jealous of the airs of superiority
+which the Major constantly exhibited towards him, as
+he fancied (indeed, he had imparted his opinions to Mr.
+Kirsch, the courier, whose bills Major Dobbin checked on
+this journey, and who sided with his master), and he
+began a blustering speech about his competency to
+defend his own honour, his desire not to have his affairs
+meddled with, his intention, in fine, to rebel against the
+Major, when the colloquy--rather a long and stormy one
+--was put an end to in the simplest way possible, namely,
+by the arrival of Mrs. Becky, with a porter from
+the Elephant Hotel in charge of her very meagre baggage.
+
+She greeted her host with affectionate respect and
+made a shrinking, but amicable salutation to Major
+Dobbin, who, as her instinct assured her at once, was
+her enemy, and had been speaking against her; and the
+bustle and clatter consequent upon her arrival brought
+Amelia out of her room.  Emmy went up and embraced
+her guest with the greatest warmth, and took no notice
+of the Major, except to fling him an angry look--the
+most unjust and scornful glance that had perhaps ever
+appeared in that poor little woman's face since she was
+born.  But she had private reasons of her own, and was
+bent upon being angry with him.  And Dobbin, indignant
+at the injustice, not at the defeat, went off, making her a
+bow quite as haughty as the killing curtsey with which
+the little woman chose to bid him farewell.
+
+He being gone, Emmy was particularly lively and
+affectionate to Rebecca, and bustled about the apartments
+and installed her guest in her room with an eagerness and
+activity seldom exhibited by our placid little friend.  But
+when an act of injustice is to be done, especially by
+weak people, it is best that it should be done quickly,
+and Emmy thought she was displaying a great deal of
+firmness and proper feeling and veneration for the late
+Captain Osborne in her present behaviour.
+
+Georgy came in from the fetes for dinner-time and
+found four covers laid as usual; but one of the places
+was occupied by a lady, instead of by Major Dobbin.
+"Hullo!  where's Dob?" the young gentleman asked with
+his usual simplicity of language.  "Major Dobbin is dining
+out, I suppose," his mother said, and, drawing the boy
+to her, kissed him a great deal, and put his hair off his
+forehead, and introduced him to Mrs. Crawley.  "This
+is my boy, Rebecca," Mrs. Osborne said--as much as to
+say--can the world produce anything like that? Becky
+looked at him with rapture and pressed his hand fondly.
+"Dear boy!" she said--"he is just like my--" Emotion
+choked her further utterance, but Amelia understood, as
+well as if she had spoken, that Becky was thinking of her
+own blessed child.  However, the company of her friend
+consoled Mrs. Crawley, and she ate a very good dinner.
+
+During the repast, she had occasion to speak several
+times, when Georgy eyed her and listened to her.  At the
+desert Emmy was gone out to superintend further
+domestic arrangements; Jos was in his great chair dozing
+over Galignani; Georgy and the new arrival sat close to
+each other--he had continued to look at her knowingly
+more than once, and at last he laid down the
+nutcrackers.
+
+"I say," said Georgy.
+
+"What do you say?" Becky said, laughing.
+
+"You're the lady I saw in the mask at the Rouge et
+Noir."
+
+"Hush!  you little sly creature," Becky said, taking
+up his hand and kissing it.  "Your uncle was there too,
+and Mamma mustn't know."
+
+"Oh, no--not by no means," answered the little fellow.
+
+"You see we are quite good friends already," Becky
+said to Emmy, who now re-entered; and it must be owned
+that Mrs. Osborne had introduced a most judicious and
+amiable companion into her house.
+
+William, in a state of great indignation, though still
+unaware of all the treason that was in store for him, walked
+about the town wildly until he fell upon the Secretary of
+Legation, Tapeworm, who invited him to dinner.  As they
+were discussing that meal, he took occasion to ask the
+Secretary whether he knew anything about a certain
+Mrs. Rawdon Crawley, who had, he believed, made
+some noise in London; and then Tapeworm, who of
+course knew all the London gossip, and was besides a
+relative of Lady Gaunt, poured out into the astonished
+Major's ears such a history about Becky and her husband
+as astonished the querist, and supplied all the points of
+this narrative, for it was at that very table years ago
+that the present writer had the pleasure of hearing the
+tale.  Tufto, Steyne, the Crawleys, and their history--
+everything connected with Becky and her previous life
+passed under the record of the bitter diplomatist.  He knew
+everything and a great deal besides, about all the world
+--in a word, he made the most astounding revelations to
+the simple-hearted Major.  When Dobbin said that Mrs.
+Osborne and Mr. Sedley had taken her into their house,
+Tapeworm burst into a peal of laughter which shocked
+the Major, and asked if they had not better send into the
+prison and take in one or two of the gentlemen in shaved
+heads and yellow jackets who swept the streets of
+Pumpernickel, chained in pairs, to board and lodge, and act
+as tutor to that little scapegrace Georgy.
+
+This information astonished and horrified the Major not
+a little.  It had been agreed in the morning (before meeting
+with Rebecca) that Amelia should go to the Court
+ball that night.  There would be the place where he should
+tell her.  The Major went home, and dressed himself in his
+uniform, and repaired to Court, in hopes to see Mrs.
+Osborne.  She never came.  When he returned to his
+lodgings all the lights in the Sedley tenement were put
+out.  He could not see her till the morning.  I don't know
+what sort of a night's rest he had with this frightful
+secret in bed with him.
+
+At the earliest convenient hour in the morning he sent
+his servant across the way with a note, saying that he
+wished very particularly to speak with her.  A message
+came back to say that Mrs. Osborne was exceedingly
+unwell and was keeping her room.
+
+She, too, had been awake all that night.  She had been
+thinking of a thing which had agitated her mind a
+hundred times before.  A hundred times on the point of yielding,
+she had shrunk back from a sacrifice which she felt
+was too much for her.  She couldn't, in spite of his love
+and constancy and her own acknowledged regard,
+respect, and gratitude.  What are benefits, what is
+constancy, or merit? One curl of a girl's ringlet, one hair of a
+whisker, will turn the scale against them all in a minute.
+They did not weigh with Emmy more than with other
+women.  She had tried them; wanted to make them pass;
+could not; and the pitiless little woman had found a
+pretext, and determined to be free.
+
+When at length, in the afternoon, the Major gained
+admission to Amelia, instead of the cordial and
+affectionate greeting, to which he had been accustomed now
+for many a long day, he received the salutation of a
+curtsey, and of a little gloved hand, retracted the moment
+after it was accorded to him.
+
+Rebecca, too, was in the room, and advanced to meet
+him with a smile and an extended hand.  Dobbin drew
+back rather confusedly, "I--I beg your pardon, m'am,"
+he said; "but I am bound to tell you that it is not as your
+friend that I am come here now."
+
+"Pooh!  damn; don't let us have this sort of thing!"
+Jos cried out, alarmed, and anxious to get rid of a scene.
+
+"I wonder what Major Dobbin has to say against
+Rebecca?" Amelia said in a low, clear voice with a slight
+quiver in it, and a very determined look about the eyes.
+
+"I will not have this sort of thing in my house," Jos
+again interposed.  "I say I will not have it; and Dobbin, I
+beg, sir, you'll stop it." And he looked round, trembling
+and turning very red, and gave a great puff, and
+made for his door.
+
+"Dear friend!" Rebecca said with angelic sweetness,
+"do hear what Major Dobbin has to say against me."
+
+"I will not hear it, I say," squeaked out Jos at the
+top of his voice, and, gathering up his dressing-gown, he
+was gone.
+
+"We are only two women," Amelia said.  "You can
+speak now, sir."
+
+"This manner towards me is one which scarcely
+becomes you, Amelia," the Major answered haughtily; "nor
+I believe am I guilty of habitual harshness to women.  It
+is not a pleasure to me to do the duty which I am come
+to do."
+
+"Pray proceed with it quickly, if you please, Major
+Dobbin," said Amelia, who was more and more in a pet.  The
+expression of Dobbin's face, as she spoke in this
+imperious manner, was not pleasant.
+
+"I came to say--and as you stay, Mrs. Crawley, I must
+say it in your presence--that I think you--you ought
+not to form a member of the family of my friends.  A
+lady who is separated from her husband, who travels not
+under her own name, who frequents public gaming-
+tables--"
+
+"It was to the ball I went," cried out Becky.
+
+"--is not a fit companion for Mrs. Osborne and her
+son," Dobbin went on:  "and I may add that there are
+people here who know you, and who profess to know
+that regarding your conduct about which I don't even
+wish to speak before--before Mrs. Osborne."
+
+"Yours is a very modest and convenient sort of calumny,
+Major Dobbin," Rebecca said.  "You leave me under
+the weight of an accusation which, after all, is unsaid.
+What is it? Is it unfaithfulness to my husband? I scorn it
+and defy anybody to prove it--I defy you, I say.  My
+honour is as untouched as that of the bitterest enemy
+who ever maligned me.  Is it of being poor, forsaken,
+wretched, that you accuse me? Yes, I am guilty of those
+faults, and punished for them every day.  Let me go,
+Emmy.  It is only to suppose that I have not met you,
+and I am no worse to-day than I was yesterday.  It is
+only to suppose that the night is over and the poor
+wanderer is on her way.  Don't you remember the song
+we used to sing in old, dear old days? I have been
+wandering ever since then--a poor castaway, scorned for
+being miserable, and insulted because I am alone.  Let me
+go:  my stay here interferes with the plans of this
+gentleman."
+
+"Indeed it does, madam," said the Major.  "If I have
+any authority in this house--"
+
+"Authority, none!" broke out Amelia "Rebecca,
+you stay with me.  I won't desert you because you have
+been persecuted, or insult you because--because Major
+Dobbin chooses to do so.  Come away, dear." And the
+two women made towards the door.
+
+William opened it.  As they were going out, however, he
+took Amelia's hand and said--"Will you stay a moment
+and speak to me?"
+
+"He wishes to speak to you away from me," said
+Becky, looking like a martyr.  Amelia gripped her hand in
+reply.
+
+"Upon my honour it is not about you that I am going
+to speak," Dobbin said.  "Come back, Amelia," and she
+came.  Dobbin bowed to Mrs. Crawley, as he shut the
+door upon her.  Amelia looked at him, leaning against the
+glass:  her face and her lips were quite white.
+
+"I was confused when I spoke just now," the Major
+said after a pause, "and I misused the word authority."
+
+"You did," said Amelia with her teeth chattering.
+
+"At least I have claims to be heard," Dobbin
+continued.
+
+"It is generous to remind me of our obligations to you,"
+the woman answered.
+
+"The claims I mean are those left me by George's
+father," William said.
+
+"Yes, and you insulted his memory.  You did yesterday.
+You know you did.  And I will never forgive you.  Never!"
+said Amelia.  She shot out each little sentence in a tremor
+of anger and emotion.
+
+"You don't mean that, Amelia?" William said sadly.
+"You don't mean that these words, uttered in a hurried
+moment, are to weigh against a whole life's devotion? I
+think that George's memory has not been injured by the
+way in which I have dealt with it, and if we are come to
+bandying reproaches, I at least merit none from his
+widow and the mother of his son.  Reflect, afterwards when
+--when you are at leisure, and your conscience will
+withdraw this accusation.  It does even now." Amelia held
+down her head.
+
+"It is not that speech of yesterday," he continued,
+"which moves you.  That is but the pretext, Amelia, or I
+have loved you and watched you for fifteen years in vain.
+Have I not learned in that time to read all your feelings
+and look into your thoughts? I know what your heart
+is capable of:  it can cling faithfully to a recollection and
+cherish a fancy, but it can't feel such an attachment as
+mine deserves to mate with, and such as I would have
+won from a woman more generous than you.  No, you
+are not worthy of the love which I have devoted to you.
+I knew all along that the prize I had set my life on was
+not worth the winning; that I was a fool, with fond
+fancies, too, bartering away my all of truth and ardour
+against your little feeble remnant of love.  I will bargain
+no more:  I withdraw.  I find no fault with you.  You are
+very good-natured, and have done your best, but you
+couldn't--you couldn't reach up to the height of the
+attachment which I bore you, and which a loftier soul than
+yours might have been proud to share.  Good-bye, Amelia!
+I have watched your struggle.  Let it end.  We are both
+weary of it."
+
+Amelia stood scared and silent as William thus
+suddenly broke the chain by which she held him and
+declared his independence and superiority.  He had placed
+himself at her feet so long that the poor little woman
+had been accustomed to trample upon him.  She didn't
+wish to marry him, but she wished to keep him.  She
+wished to give him nothing, but that he should give her
+all.  It is a bargain not unfrequently levied in love.
+
+William's sally had quite broken and cast her down.
+HER assault was long since over and beaten back.
+
+"Am I to understand then, that you are going--away,
+William?" she said.
+
+He gave a sad laugh.  "I went once before," he said,
+"and came back after twelve years.  We were young then,
+Amelia.  Good-bye.  I have spent enough of my life at this
+play."
+
+Whilst they had been talking, the door into Mrs. Osborne's
+room had opened ever so little; indeed, Becky
+had kept a hold of the handle and had turned it on the
+instant when Dobbin quitted it, and she heard every word
+of the conversation that had passed between these two.
+"What a noble heart that man has," she thought, and
+how shamefully that woman plays with it!" She admired
+Dobbin; she bore him no rancour for the part he had
+taken against her.  It was an open move in the game,
+and played fairly.  "Ah!" she thought, "if I could have had
+such a husband as that--a man with a heart and brains
+too!  I would not have minded his large feet"; and running
+into her room, she absolutely bethought herself of
+something, and wrote him a note, beseeching him to stop for a
+few days--not to think of going--and that she could
+serve him with A.
+
+The parting was over.  Once more poor William walked
+to the door and was gone; and the little widow, the
+author of all this work, had her will, and had won her
+victory, and was left to enjoy it as she best might.  Let
+the ladies envy her triumph.
+
+At the romantic hour of dinner, Mr. Georgy made his
+appearance and again remarked the absence of "Old
+Dob." The meal was eaten in silence by the party.  Jos's
+appetite not being diminished, but Emmy taking
+nothing at all.
+
+After the meal, Georgy was lolling in the cushions of
+the old window, a large window, with three sides of glass
+abutting from the gable, and commanding on one side
+the market-place, where the Elephant is, his mother being
+busy hard by, when he remarked symptoms of
+movement at the Major's house on the other side of the street.
+
+"Hullo!" said he, "there's Dob's trap--they are bringing
+it out of the court-yard." The "trap" in question
+was a carriage which the Major had bought for six pounds
+sterling, and about which they used to rally him a good
+deal.
+
+Emmy gave a little start, but said nothing.
+
+"Hullo!" Georgy continued, "there's Francis coming out
+with the portmanteaus, and Kunz, the one-eyed
+postilion, coming down the market with three schimmels.
+Look at his boots and yellow jacket--ain't he a rum
+one? Why--they're putting the horses to Dob's carriage.
+Is he going anywhere?"
+
+"Yes," said Emmy, "he is going on a journey."
+
+"Going on a journey; and when is he coming back?"
+
+"He is--not coming back," answered Emmy.
+
+"Not coming back!" cried out Georgy, jumping up.
+"Stay here, sir," roared out Jos.  "Stay, Georgy," said his
+mother with a very sad face.  The boy stopped, kicked
+about the room, jumped up and down from the window-
+seat with his knees, and showed every symptom of
+uneasiness and curiosity.
+
+The horses were put to.  The baggage was strapped
+on.  Francis came out with his master's sword, cane,
+and umbrella tied up together, and laid them in the
+well, and his desk and old tin cocked-hat case, which
+he placed under the seat.  Francis brought out the
+stained old blue cloak lined with red camlet, which had
+wrapped the owner up any time these fifteen years, and
+had manchen Sturm erlebt, as a favourite song of those
+days said.  It had been new for the campaign of Waterloo
+and had covered George and William after the night
+of Quatre Bras.
+
+Old Burcke, the landlord of the lodgings, came out,
+then Francis, with more packages--final packages--then
+Major William--Burcke wanted to kiss him.  The Major
+was adored by all people with whom he had to do.  It
+was with difficulty he could escape from this
+demonstration of attachment.
+
+"By Jove, I will go!" screamed out George.  "Give him
+this," said Becky, quite interested, and put a paper into
+the boy's hand.  He had rushed down the stairs and flung
+across the street in a minute--the yellow postilion was
+cracking his whip gently.
+
+William had got into the carriage, released from the
+embraces of his landlord.  George bounded in afterwards,
+and flung his arms round the Major's neck (as they saw
+from the window), and began asking him multiplied
+questions.  Then he felt in his waistcoat pocket and gave him
+a note.  William seized at it rather eagerly, he opened it
+trembling, but instantly his countenance changed, and
+he tore the paper in two and dropped it out of the
+carriage.  He kissed Georgy on the head, and the boy got
+out, doubling his fists into his eyes, and with the aid of
+Francis.  He lingered with his hand on the panel.  Fort,
+Schwager!  The yellow postilion cracked his whip
+prodigiously, up sprang Francis to the box, away went the
+schimmels, and Dobbin with his head on his breast.  He
+never looked up as they passed under Amelia's window,
+and Georgy, left alone in the street, burst out crying
+in the face of all the crowd.
+
+Emmy's maid heard him howling again during the
+night and brought him some preserved apricots to
+console him.  She mingled her lamentations with his.  All the
+poor, all the humble, all honest folks, all good men who
+knew him, loved that kind-hearted and simple gentleman.
+
+As for Emmy, had she not done her duty? She had her
+picture of George for a consolation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXVII
+
+
+Which Contains Births, Marriages, and Deaths
+
+Whatever Becky's private plan might be by which
+Dobbin's true love was to be crowned with success, the
+little woman thought that the secret might keep, and
+indeed, being by no means so much interested about
+anybody's welfare as about her own, she had a great
+number of things pertaining to herself to consider, and
+which concerned her a great deal more than Major
+Dobbin's happiness in this life.
+
+She found herself suddenly and unexpectedly in snug
+comfortable quarters, surrounded by friends, kindness,
+and good-natured simple people such as she had not met
+with for many a long day; and, wanderer as she was by
+force and inclination, there were moments when rest
+was pleasant to her.  As the most hardened Arab that
+ever careered across the desert over the hump of a
+dromedary likes to repose sometimes under the date-
+trees by the water, or to come into the cities, walk into
+the bazaars, refresh himself in the baths, and say his
+prayers in the mosques, before he goes out again
+marauding, so Jos's tents and pilau were pleasant to this
+little Ishmaelite.  She picketed her steed, hung up her
+weapons, and warmed herself comfortably by his fire.  The
+halt in that roving, restless life was inexpressibly soothing
+and pleasant to her.
+
+So, pleased herself, she tried with all her might to
+please everybody; and we know that she was eminent
+and successful as a practitioner in the art of giving
+pleasure.  As for Jos, even in that little interview in the
+garret at the Elephant Inn, she had found means to win
+back a great deal of his good-will.  In the course of a
+week, the civilian was her sworn slave and frantic
+admirer.  He didn't go to sleep after dinner, as his
+custom was in the much less lively society of Amelia.  He
+drove out with Becky in his open carriage.  He asked little
+parties and invented festivities to do her honour.
+
+Tapeworm, the Charge d'Affaires, who had abused her
+so cruelly, came to dine with Jos, and then came every
+day to pay his respects to Becky.  Poor Emmy, who was
+never very talkative, and more glum and silent than ever
+after Dobbin's departure, was quite forgotten when this
+superior genius made her appearance.  The French
+Minister was as much charmed with her as his English rival.
+The German ladies, never particularly squeamish as
+regards morals, especially in English people, were delighted
+with the cleverness and wit of Mrs. Osborne's charming
+friend, and though she did not ask to go to Court,
+yet the most august and Transparent Personages there
+heard of her fascinations and were quite curious to know
+her.  When it became known that she was noble, of an
+ancient English family, that her husband was a Colonel
+of the Guard, Excellenz and Governor of an island, only
+separated from his lady by one of those trifling differences
+which are of little account in a country where
+Werther is still read and the Wahlverwandtschaften of
+Goethe is considered an edifying moral book, nobody
+thought of refusing to receive her in the very highest
+society of the little Duchy; and the ladies were even more
+ready to call her du and to swear eternal friendship for
+her than they had been to bestow the same inestimable
+benefits upon Amelia.  Love and Liberty are interpreted
+by those simple Germans in a way which honest folks in
+Yorkshire and Somersetshire little understand, and a lady
+might, in some philosophic and civilized towns, be
+divorced ever so many times from her respective husbands
+and keep her character in society.  Jos's house never was
+so pleasant since he had a house of his own as Rebecca
+caused it to be.  She sang, she played, she laughed, she
+talked in two or three languages, she brought everybody
+to the house, and she made Jos believe that it was his
+own great social talents and wit which gathered the
+society of the place round about him.
+
+As for Emmy, who found herself not in the least
+mistress of her own house, except when the bills were
+to be paid, Becky soon discovered the way to soothe and
+please her.  She talked to her perpetually about Major
+Dobbin sent about his business, and made no scruple
+of declaring her admiration for that excellent, high-
+minded gentleman, and of telling Emmy that she had
+behaved most cruelly regarding him.  Emmy defended her
+conduct and showed that it was dictated only by the
+purest religious principles; that a woman once, &c., and to
+such an angel as him whom she had had the good
+fortune to marry, was married forever; but she had no
+objection to hear the Major praised as much as ever
+Becky chose to praise him, and indeed, brought the
+conversation round to the Dobbin subject a score of times
+every day.
+
+Means were easily found to win the favour of Georgy
+and the servants.  Amelia's maid, it has been said, was
+heart and soul in favour of the generous Major.  Having at
+first disliked Becky for being the means of dismissing
+him from the presence of her mistress, she was reconciled
+to Mrs. Crawley subsequently, because the latter
+became William's most ardent admirer and champion.  And
+in those nightly conclaves in which the two ladies
+indulged after their parties, and while Miss Payne was
+"brushing their 'airs," as she called the yellow locks of
+the one and the soft brown tresses of the other, this
+girl always put in her word for that dear good gentleman
+Major Dobbin.  Her advocacy did not make Amelia
+angry any more than Rebecca's admiration of him.  She
+made George write to him constantly and persisted in
+sending Mamma's kind love in a postscript.  And as she
+looked at her husband's portrait of nights, it no longer
+reproached her--perhaps she reproached it, now
+William was gone.
+
+Emmy was not very happy after her heroic sacrifice.
+She was very distraite, nervous, silent, and ill to please.
+The family had never known her so peevish.  She grew
+pale and ill.  She used to try to sing certain songs
+("Einsam bin ich nicht alleine," was one of them, that tender
+love-song of Weber's which~ in old-fashioned days,
+young ladies, and when you were scarcely born, showed
+that those who lived before you knew too how to love
+and to sing) certain songs, I say, to which the Major
+was partial; and as she warbled them in the twilight in the
+drawing-room, she would break off in the midst of the
+song, and walk into her neighbouring apartment, and
+there, no doubt, take refuge in the miniature of her
+husband.
+
+Some books still subsisted, after Dobbin's departure,
+with his name written in them; a German dictionary, for
+instance, with "William Dobbin, --th Reg.," in the fly-leaf;
+a guide-book with his initials; and one or two other
+volumes which belonged to the Major.  Emmy cleared these
+away and put them on the drawers, where she placed her
+work-box, her desk, her Bible, and prayer-book, under
+the pictures of the two Georges.  And the Major, on going
+away, having left his gloves behind him, it is a fact that
+Georgy, rummaging his mother's desk some time
+afterwards, found the gloves neatly folded up and put away in
+what they call the secret-drawers of the desk.
+
+Not caring for society, and moping there a great deal,
+Emmy's chief pleasure in the summer evenings was to
+take long walks with Georgy (during which Rebecca
+was left to the society of Mr. Joseph), and then the
+mother and son used to talk about the Major in a way
+which even made the boy smile.  She told him that she
+thought Major William was the best man in all the world
+--the gentlest and the kindest, the bravest and the
+humblest.  Over and over again she told him how they owed
+everything which they possessed in the world to that
+kind friend's benevolent care of them; how he had
+befriended them all through their poverty and misfortunes;
+watched over them when nobody cared for them; how all
+his comrades admired him though he never spoke of his
+own gallant actions; how Georgy's father trusted him
+beyond all other men, and had been constantly befriended
+by the good William.  "Why, when your papa was a little
+boy," she said, "he often told me that it was William
+who defended him against a tyrant at the school where
+they were; and their friendship never ceased from that
+day until the last, when your dear father fell."
+
+"Did Dobbin kill the man who killed Papa?" Georgy
+said.  "I'm sure he did, or he would if he could have
+caught him, wouldn't he, Mother? When I'm in the Army,
+won't I hate the French?--that's all."
+
+In such colloquies the mother and the child passed a
+great deal of their time together.  The artless woman had
+made a confidant of the boy.  He was as much William's
+friend as everybody else who knew him well.
+
+By the way, Mrs. Becky, not to be behind hand in
+sentiment, had got a miniature too hanging up in her
+room, to the surprise and amusement of most people,
+and the delight of the original, who was no other than
+our friend Jos.  On her first coming to favour the Sedleys
+with a visit, the little woman, who had arrived with a
+remarkably small shabby kit, was perhaps ashamed of the
+meanness of her trunks and bandboxes, and often spoke
+with great respect about her baggage left behind at
+Leipzig, which she must have from that city.  When a traveller
+talks to you perpetually about the splendour of his
+luggage, which he does not happen to have with him, my
+son, beware of that traveller!  He is, ten to one, an
+impostor.
+
+Neither Jos nor Emmy knew this important maxim.  It
+seemed to them of no consequence whether Becky had a
+quantity of very fine clothes in invisible trunks; but
+as her present supply was exceedingly shabby, Emmy
+supplied her out of her own stores, or took her to the
+best milliner in the town and there fitted her out.  It was
+no more torn collars now, I promise you, and faded silks
+trailing off at the shoulder.  Becky changed her habits
+with her situation in life--the rouge-pot was suspended
+--another excitement to which she had accustomed
+herself was also put aside, or at least only indulged in in
+privacy, as when she was prevailed on by Jos of a
+summer evening, Emmy and the boy being absent on their
+walks, to take a little spirit-and-water.  But if she did not
+indulge--the courier did:  that rascal Kirsch could not
+be kept from the bottle, nor could he tell how much
+he took when he applied to it.  He was sometimes
+surprised himself at the way in which Mr. Sedley's Cognac
+diminished.  Well, well, this is a painful subject.  Becky
+did not very likely indulge so much as she used before
+she entered a decorous family.
+
+At last the much-bragged-about boxes arrived from
+Leipzig; three of them not by any means large or splendid;
+nor did Becky appear to take out any sort of dresses
+or ornaments from the boxes when they did arrive.  But
+out of one, which contained a mass of her papers (it
+was that very box which Rawdon Crawley had
+ransacked in his furious hunt for Becky's concealed money),
+she took a picture with great glee, which she pinned up
+in her room, and to which she introduced Jos.  It was
+the portrait of a gentleman in pencil, his face having the
+advantage of being painted up in pink.  He was riding
+on an elephant away from some cocoa-nut trees and a
+pagoda:  it was an Eastern scene.
+
+"God bless my soul, it is my portrait," Jos cried out.
+It was he indeed, blooming in youth and beauty, in a
+nankeen jacket of the cut of 1804.  It was the old picture
+that used to hang up in Russell Square.
+
+"I bought it," said Becky in a voice trembling with
+emotion; "I went to see if I could be of any use to my kind
+friends.  I have never parted with that picture--I never
+will."
+
+"Won't you?" Jos cried with a look of unutterable
+rapture and satisfaction.  "Did you really now value it
+for my sake?"
+
+"You know I did, well enough," said Becky; "but
+why speak--why think--why look back!  It is too late
+now!"
+
+That evening's conversation was delicious for Jos.
+Emmy only came in to go to bed very tired and unwell.
+Jos and his fair guest had a charming tete-a-tete, and
+his sister could hear, as she lay awake in her adjoining
+chamber, Rebecca singing over to Jos the old songs of
+1815.  He did not sleep, for a wonder, that night, any
+more than Amelia.
+
+It was June, and, by consequence, high season in
+London; Jos, who read the incomparable Galignani (the
+exile's best friend) through every day, used to favour the
+ladies with extracts from his paper during their
+breakfast.  Every week in this paper there is a full account of
+military movements, in which Jos, as a man who had
+seen service, was especially interested.  On one occasion
+he read out--"Arrival of the --th regiment.  Gravesend,
+June 20.--The Ramchunder, East Indiaman, came into the
+river this morning, having on board 14 officers, and 132
+rank and file of this gallant corps.  They have been
+absent from England fourteen years, having been embarked
+the year after Waterloo, in which glorious conflict they
+took an active part, and having subsequently distinguished
+themselves in the Burmese war.  The veteran colonel, Sir
+Michael O'Dowd, K.C.B., with his lady and sister, landed
+here yesterday, with Captains Posky, Stubble, Macraw,
+Malony; Lieutenants Smith, Jones, Thompson, F.  Thomson;
+Ensigns Hicks and Grady; the band on the pier
+playing the national anthem, and the crowd loudly cheering
+the gallant veterans as they went into Wayte's hotel,
+where a sumptuous banquet was provided for the defenders
+of Old England.  During the repast, which we need not
+say was served up in Wayte's best style, the cheering
+continued so enthusiastically that Lady O'Dowd and the
+Colonel came forward to the balcony and drank the
+healths of their fellow-countrymen in a bumper of Wayte's
+best claret."
+
+On a second occasion Jos read a brief announcement
+--Major Dobbin had joined the --th regiment at Chatham;
+and subsequently he promulgated accounts of the
+presentations at the Drawing-room of Colonel Sir
+Michael O'Dowd, K.C.B., Lady O'Dowd (by Mrs. Malloy
+Malony of Ballymalony), and Miss Glorvina O'Dowd (by
+Lady O'Dowd).  Almost directly after this, Dobbin's name
+appeared among the Lieutenant-Colonels:  for old Marshal
+Tiptoff had died during the passage of the --th from
+Madras, and the Sovereign was pleased to advance
+Colonel Sir Michael O'Dowd to the rank of Major-General on
+his return to England, with an intimation that he should
+be Colonel of the distinguished regiment which he had so
+long commanded.
+
+Amelia had been made aware of some of these
+movements.  The correspondence between George and his
+guardian had not ceased by any means:  William had even
+written once or twice to her since his departure, but in a
+manner so unconstrainedly cold that the poor woman felt
+now in her turn that she had lost her power over him
+and that, as he had said, he was free.  He had left her,
+and she was wretched.  The memory of his almost countless
+services, and lofty and affectionate regard, now
+presented itself to her and rebuked her day and night.  She
+brooded over those recollections according to her wont,
+saw the purity and beauty of the affection with which she
+had trifled, and reproached herself for having flung away
+such a treasure.
+
+It was gone indeed.  William had spent it all out.  He
+loved her no more, he thought, as he had loved her.
+He never could again.  That sort of regard, which he had
+proffered to her for so many faithful years, can't be flung
+down and shattered and mended so as to show no scars.
+The little heedless tyrant had so destroyed it.  No, William
+thought again and again, "It was myself I deluded
+and persisted in cajoling; had she been worthy of the
+love I gave her, she would have returned it long ago.  It
+was a fond mistake.  Isn't the whole course of life made
+up of such? And suppose I had won her, should I not
+have been disenchanted the day after my victory? Why
+pine, or be ashamed of my defeat?" The more he thought
+of this long passage of his life, the more clearly he saw
+his deception.  "I'll go into harness again," he said, "and
+do my duty in that state of life in which it has pleased
+Heaven to place me.  I will see that the buttons of the
+recruits are properly bright and that the sergeants make
+no mistakes in their accounts.  I will dine at mess and
+listen to the Scotch surgeon telling his stories.  When I
+am old and broken, I will go on half-pay, and my old
+sisters shall scold me.  I have geliebt und gelebet, as the
+girl in 'Wallenstein' says.  I am done.  Pay the bills and get
+me a cigar:  find out what there is at the play to-night,
+Francis; to-morrow we cross by the Batavier." He made
+the above speech, whereof Francis only heard the last
+two lines, pacing up and down the Boompjes at Rotterdam.
+The Batavier was lying in the basin.  He could see
+the place on the quarter-deck where he and Emmy had
+sat on the happy voyage out.  What had that little Mrs.
+Crawley to say to him? Psha; to-morrow we will put to
+sea, and return to England, home, and duty!
+
+After June all the little Court Society of Pumpernickel
+used to separate, according to the German plan,
+and make for a hundred watering-places, where they
+drank at the wells, rode upon donkeys, gambled at the
+redoutes if they had money and a mind, rushed with
+hundreds of their kind to gourmandise at the tables
+d'hote, and idled away the summer.  The English
+diplomatists went off to Teoplitz and Kissingen, their French
+rivals shut up their chancellerie and whisked away to
+their darling Boulevard de Gand.  The Transparent reigning
+family took too to the waters, or retired to their hunting
+lodges.  Everybody went away having any pretensions
+to politeness, and of course, with them, Doctor von
+Glauber, the Court Doctor, and his Baroness.  The seasons
+for the baths were the most productive periods of
+the Doctor's practice--he united business with pleasure,
+and his chief place of resort was Ostend, which is much
+frequented by Germans, and where the Doctor treated
+himself and his spouse to what he called a "dib" in the
+sea.
+
+His interesting patient, Jos, was a regular milch-cow
+to the Doctor, and he easily persuaded the civilian, both
+for his own health's sake and that of his charming
+sister, which was really very much shattered, to pass the
+summer at that hideous seaport town.  Emmy did not
+care where she went much.  Georgy jumped at the idea
+of a move.  As for Becky, she came as a matter of course
+in the fourth place inside of the fine barouche Mr. Jos
+had bought, the two domestics being on the box in front.
+She might have some misgivings about the friends whom
+she should meet at Ostend, and who might be likely to tell
+ugly stories--but bah!  she was strong enough to hold
+her own.  She had cast such an anchor in Jos now as
+would require a strong storm to shake.  That incident
+of the picture had finished him.  Becky took down
+her elephant and put it into the little box which she had
+had from Amelia ever so many years ago.  Emmy also
+came off with her Lares--her two pictures--and the
+party, finally, were, lodged in an exceedingly dear and
+uncomfortable house at Ostend.
+
+There Amelia began to take baths and get what good
+she could from them, and though scores of people of
+Becky's acquaintance passed her and cut her, yet Mrs.
+Osborne, who walked about with her, and who knew
+nobody, was not aware of the treatment experienced by the
+friend whom she had chosen so judiciously as a
+companion; indeed, Becky never thought fit to tell her what
+was passing under her innocent eyes.
+
+Some of Mrs. Rawdon Crawley's acquaintances, however, acknowledged her readily enough,--perhaps more
+readily than she would have desired.  Among those were
+Major Loder (unattached), and Captain Rook (late of
+the Rifles), who might be seen any day on the Dike,
+smoking and staring at the women, and who speedily got
+an introduction to the hospitable board and select circle
+of Mr. Joseph Sedley.  In fact they would take no denial;
+they burst into the house whether Becky was at home
+or not, walked into Mrs. Osborne's drawing-room, which
+they perfumed with their coats and mustachios, called
+Jos "Old buck," and invaded his dinner-table, and
+laughed and drank for long hours there.
+
+"What can they mean?" asked Georgy, who did not
+like these gentlemen.  "I heard the Major say to Mrs.
+Crawley yesterday, 'No, no, Becky, you shan't keep the
+old buck to yourself.  We must have the bones in, or,
+dammy, I'll split.' What could the Major mean, Mamma?"
+
+"Major!  don't call him Major!" Emmy said.  "I'm sure
+I can't tell what he meant." His presence and that of his
+friend inspired the little lady with intolerable terror and
+aversion.  They paid her tipsy compliments; they leered
+at her over the dinner-table.  And the Captain made her
+advances that filled her with sickening dismay, nor would
+she ever see him unless she had George by her side.
+
+Rebecca, to do her justice, never would let either of
+these men remain alone with Amelia; the Major was
+disengaged too, and swore he would be the winner of her.
+A couple of ruffians were fighting for this innocent creature, gambling for her at her own table, and though she
+was not aware of the rascals' designs upon her, yet she
+felt a horror and uneasiness in their presence and longed
+to fly.
+
+She besought, she entreated Jos to go.  Not he.  He was
+slow of movement, tied to his Doctor, and perhaps to
+some other leading-strings.  At least Becky was not
+anxious to go to England.
+
+At last she took a great resolution--made the great
+plunge.  She wrote off a letter to a friend whom she had
+on the other side of the water, a letter about which she
+did not speak a word to anybody, which she carried
+herself to the post under her shawl; nor was any remark
+made about it, only that she looked very much flushed
+and agitated when Georgy met her, and she kissed him,
+and hung over him a great deal that night.  She did not
+come out of her room after her return from her walk.
+Becky thought it was Major Loder and the Captain who
+frightened her.
+
+"She mustn't stop here," Becky reasoned with herself.
+"She must go away, the silly little fool.  She is still
+whimpering after that gaby of a husband--dead (and
+served right!) these fifteen years.  She shan't marry either
+of these men.  It's too bad of Loder.  No; she shall marry
+the bamboo cane, I'll settle it this very night."
+
+So Becky took a cup of tea to Amelia in her private
+apartment and found that lady in the company of her
+miniatures, and in a most melancholy and nervous
+condition.  She laid down the cup of tea.
+
+"Thank you," said Amelia.
+
+"Listen to me, Amelia," said Becky, marching up and
+down the room before the other and surveying her with
+a sort of contemptuous kindness.  "I want to talk to you.
+You must go away from here and from the impertinences
+of these men.  I won't have you harassed by them:  and
+they will insult you if you stay.  I tell you they are rascals:
+men fit to send to the hulks.  Never mind how I know
+them.  I know everybody.  Jos can't protect you; he is too
+weak and wants a protector himself.  You are no more fit
+to live in the world than a baby in arms.  You must marry,
+or you and your precious boy will go to ruin.  You must
+have a husband, you fool; and one of the best gentlemen
+I ever saw has offered you a hundred times, and you have
+rejected him, you silly, heartless, ungrateful little
+creature!"
+
+"I tried--I tried my best, indeed I did, Rebecca," said
+Amelia deprecatingly, "but I couldn't forget--"; and she
+finished the sentence by looking up at the portrait.
+
+"Couldn't forget HIM!" cried out Becky, "that selfish
+humbug, that low-bred cockney dandy, that padded
+booby, who had neither wit, nor manners, nor heart, and
+was no more to be compared to your friend with the
+bamboo cane than you are to Queen Elizabeth.  Why,
+the man was weary of you, and would have jilted you, but
+that Dobbin forced him to keep his word.  He owned it
+to me.  He never cared for you.  He used to sneer about
+you to me, time after time, and made love to me the
+week after he married you."
+
+"It's false!  It's false!  Rebecca," cried out Amelia,
+starting up.
+
+"Look there, you fool," Becky said, still with provoking
+good humour, and taking a little paper out of her
+belt, she opened it and flung it into Emmy's lap.  "You
+know his handwriting.  He wrote that to me--wanted me
+to run away with him--gave it me under your nose, the
+day before he was shot--and served him right!" Becky
+repeated.
+
+Emmy did not hear her; she was looking at the letter.
+It was that which George had put into the bouquet and
+given to Becky on the night of the Duchess of Richmond's
+ball.  It was as she said:  the foolish young man
+had asked her to fly.
+
+Emmy's head sank down, and for almost the last time
+in which she shall be called upon to weep in this history,
+she commenced that work.  Her head fell to her bosom, and
+her hands went up to her eyes; and there for a while, she
+gave way to her emotions, as Becky stood on and
+regarded her.  Who shall analyse those tears and say
+whether they were sweet or bitter? Was she most grieved
+because the idol of her life was tumbled down and
+shivered at her feet, or indignant that her love had been so
+despised, or glad because the barrier was removed which
+modesty had placed between her and a new, a real affection?
+"There is nothing to forbid me now," she thought.
+"I may love him with all my heart now.  Oh, I will, I will,
+if he will but let me and forgive me." I believe it was this
+feeling rushed over all the others which agitated that
+gentle little bosom.
+
+Indeed, she did not cry so much as Becky expected--
+the other soothed and kissed her--a rare mark of
+sympathy with Mrs. Becky.  She treated Emmy like a child
+and patted her head.  "And now let us get pen and ink
+and write to him to come this minute," she said.
+
+"I--I wrote to him this morning," Emmy said, blushing
+exceedingly.  Becky screamed with laughter--"Un
+biglietto," she sang out with Rosina, "eccolo qua!"--the
+whole house echoed with her shrill singing.
+
+Two mornings after this little scene, although the day
+was rainy and gusty, and Amelia had had an exceedingly
+wakeful night, listening to the wind roaring, and pitying
+all travellers by land and by water, yet she got up early
+and insisted upon taking a walk on the Dike with Georgy;
+and there she paced as the rain beat into her face, and
+she looked out westward across the dark sea line and
+over the swollen billows which came tumbling and frothing
+to the shore.  Neither spoke much, except now and
+then, when the boy said a few words to his timid
+companion, indicative of sympathy and protection.
+
+"I hope he won't cross in such weather," Emmy said.
+
+"I bet ten to one he does," the boy answered.  "Look,
+Mother, there's the smoke of the steamer." It was that
+signal, sure enough.
+
+But though the steamer was under way, he might not
+be on board; he might not have got the letter; he might
+not choose to come.  A hundred fears poured one over the
+other into the little heart, as fast as the waves on to the
+Dike.
+
+The boat followed the smoke into sight.  Georgy had a
+dandy telescope and got the vessel under view in the most
+skilful manner.  And he made appropriate nautical
+comments upon the manner of the approach of the steamer
+as she came nearer and nearer, dipping and rising in the
+water.  The signal of an English steamer in sight went
+fluttering up to the mast on the pier.  I daresay Mrs.
+Amelia's heart was in a similar flutter.
+
+Emmy tried to look through the telescope over
+George's shoulder, but she could make nothing of it.
+She only saw a black eclipse bobbing up and down
+before her eyes.
+
+George took the glass again and raked the vessel.
+"How she does pitch!" he said.  "There goes a wave slap
+over her bows.  There's only two people on deck besides
+the steersman.  There's a man lying down, and a--chap
+in a--cloak with a--Hooray!--it's Dob, by Jingo!"
+He clapped to the telescope and flung his arms round
+his mother.  As for that lady, let us say what she did in
+the words of a favourite poet--"Dakruoen gelasasa." She
+was sure it was William.  It could be no other.  What she
+had said about hoping that he would not come was all
+hypocrisy.  Of course he would come; what could he do
+else but come? She knew he would come.
+
+The ship came swiftly nearer and nearer.  As they went
+in to meet her at the landing-place at the quay, Emmy's
+knees trembled so that she scarcely could run.  She would
+have liked to kneel down and say her prayers of thanks
+there.  Oh, she thought, she would be all her life saying
+them!
+
+It was such a bad day that as the vessel came alongside
+of the quay there were no idlers abroad, scarcely
+even a commissioner on the look out for the few
+passengers in the steamer.  That young scapegrace George
+had fled too, and as the gentleman in the old cloak lined
+with red stuff stepped on to the shore, there was scarcely
+any one present to see what took place, which was briefly
+this:
+
+A lady in a dripping white bonnet and shawl, with her
+two little hands out before her, went up to him, and in
+the next minute she had altogether disappeared under the
+folds of the old cloak, and was kissing one of his hands
+with all her might; whilst the other, I suppose, was
+engaged in holding her to his heart (which her head just
+about reached) and in preventing her from tumbling
+down.  She was murmuring something about--forgive--
+dear William--dear, dear, dearest friend--kiss, kiss, kiss,
+and so forth--and in fact went on under the cloak in an
+absurd manner.
+
+When Emmy emerged from it, she still kept tight hold
+of one of William's hands, and looked up in his face.  It
+was full of sadness and tender love and pity.  She
+understood its reproach and hung down her head.
+
+"It was time you sent for me, dear Amelia," he said.
+
+"You will never go again, William?"
+
+"No, never," he answered, and pressed the dear little
+soul once more to his heart.
+
+As they issued out of the custom-house precincts,
+Georgy broke out on them, with his telescope up to his
+eye, and a loud laugh of welcome; he danced round the
+couple and performed many facetious antics as he led
+them up to the house.  Jos wasn't up yet; Becky not
+visible (though she looked at them through the blinds).
+Georgy ran off to see about breakfast.  Emmy, whose
+shawl and bonnet were off in the passage in the hands of
+Mrs. Payne, now went to undo the clasp of William's
+cloak, and--we will, if you please, go with George, and
+look after breakfast for the Colonel.  The vessel is in port.
+He has got the prize he has been trying for all his life.
+The bird has come in at last.  There it is with its head on
+his shoulder, billing and cooing close up to his heart,
+with soft outstretched fluttering wings.  This is what he
+has asked for every day and hour for eighteen years.  This
+is what he pined after.  Here it is--the summit, the end--
+the last page of the third volume.  Good-bye, Colonel--
+God bless you, honest William!--Farewell, dear Amelia
+--Grow green again, tender little parasite, round the
+rugged old oak to which you cling!
+
+Perhaps it was compunction towards the kind and
+simple creature, who had been the first in life to defend
+her, perhaps it was a dislike to all such sentimental scenes
+--but Rebecca, satisfied with her part in the transaction,
+never presented herself before Colonel Dobbin and the
+lady whom he married.  "Particular business," she said,
+took her to Bruges, whither she went, and only Georgy
+and his uncle were present at the marriage ceremony.
+When it was over, and Georgy had rejoined his parents,
+Mrs. Becky returned (just for a few days) to comfort the
+solitary bachelor, Joseph Sedley.  He preferred a
+continental life, he said, and declined to join in housekeeping
+with his sister and her husband.
+
+Emmy was very glad in her heart to think that she
+had written to her husband before she read or knew of
+that letter of George's.  "I knew it all along," William
+said; "but could I use that weapon against the poor
+fellow's memory? It was that which made me suffer so
+when you--"
+
+"Never speak of that day again," Emmy cried out, so
+contrite and humble that William turned off the
+conversation by his account of Glorvina and dear old Peggy
+O'Dowd, with whom he was sitting when the letter of
+recall reached him.  "If you hadn't sent for me," he added
+with a laugh, "who knows what Glorvina's name might
+be now?"
+
+At present it is Glorvina Posky (now Mrs. Major
+Posky); she took him on the death of his first wife,
+having resolved never to marry out of the regiment.  Lady
+O'Dowd is also so attached to it that, she says, if anything
+were to happen to Mick, bedad she'd come back
+and marry some of 'em.  But the Major-General is quite
+well and lives in great splendour at O'Dowdstown, with
+a pack of beagles, and (with the exception of perhaps
+their neighbour, Hoggarty of Castle Hoggarty) he is the
+first man of his county.  Her Ladyship still dances jigs, and
+insisted on standing up with the Master of the Horse at
+the Lord Lieutenant's last ball.  Both she and Glorvina
+declared that Dobbin had used the latter SHEAMFULLY, but
+Posky falling in, Glorvina was consoled, and a beautiful
+turban from Paris appeased the wrath of Lady O'Dowd.
+
+When Colonel Dobbin quitted the service, which he did
+immediately after his marriage, he rented a pretty little
+country place in Hampshire, not far from Queen's Crawley,
+where, after the passing of the Reform Bill, Sir Pitt
+and his family constantly resided now.  All idea of a
+Peerage was out of the question, the Baronet's two seats
+in Parliament being lost.  He was both out of pocket and
+out of spirits by that catastrophe, failed in his health,
+and prophesied the speedy ruin of the Empire.
+
+Lady Jane and Mrs. Dobbin became great friends--
+there was a perpetual crossing of pony-chaises between
+the Hall and the Evergreens, the Colonel's place (rented
+of his friend Major Ponto, who was abroad with his
+family).  Her Ladyship was godmother to Mrs. Dobbin's child,
+which bore her name, and was christened by the Rev.
+James Crawley, who succeeded his father in the living:
+and a pretty close friendship subsisted between the two
+lads, George and Rawdon, who hunted and shot together
+in the vacations, were both entered of the same college
+at Cambridge, and quarrelled with each other about Lady
+Jane's daughter, with whom they were both, of course,
+in love.  A match between George and that young lady was
+long a favourite scheme of both the matrons, though I
+have heard that Miss Crawley herself inclined towards
+her cousin.
+
+Mrs. Rawdon Crawley's name was never mentioned by
+either family.  There were reasons why all should be silent
+regarding her.  For wherever Mr. Joseph Sedley went, she
+travelled likewise, and that infatuated man seemed to be
+entirely her slave.  The Colonel's lawyers informed him
+that his brother-in-law had effected a heavy insurance
+upon his life, whence it was probable that he had been
+raising money to discharge debts.  He procured prolonged
+leave of absence from the East India House, and indeed,
+his infirmities were daily increasing.
+
+On hearing the news about the insurance, Amelia, in
+a good deal of alarm, entreated her husband to go to
+Brussels, where Jos then was, and inquire into the state
+of his affairs.  The Colonel quitted home with reluctance
+(for he was deeply immersed in his History of the
+Punjaub which still occupies him, and much alarmed
+about his little daughter, whom he idolizes, and who was
+just recovering from the chicken-pox) and went to Brussels
+and found Jos living at one of the enormous hotels
+in that city.  Mrs. Crawley, who had her carriage, gave
+entertainments, and lived in a very genteel manner,
+occupied another suite of apartments in the same hotel.
+
+The Colonel, of course, did not desire to see that lady,
+or even think proper to notify his arrival at Brussels,
+except privately to Jos by a message through his valet.  Jos
+begged the Colonel to come and see him that night, when
+Mrs. Crawley would be at a soiree, and when they could
+meet alone.  He found his brother-in-law in a condition of
+pitiable infirmity--and dreadfully afraid of Rebecca,
+though eager in his praises of her.  She tended him through
+a series of unheard-of illnesses with a fidelity most
+admirable.  She had been a daughter to him.  "But--but--
+oh, for God's sake, do come and live near me, and--and
+--see me sometimes," whimpered out the unfortunate
+man.
+
+The Colonel's brow darkened at this.  "We can't, Jos,"
+he said.  "Considering the circumstances, Amelia can't
+visit you."
+
+"I swear to you--I swear to you on the Bible," gasped
+out Joseph, wanting to kiss the book, "that she is as
+innocent as a child, as spotless as your own wife."
+
+"It may be so," said the Colonel gloomily, "but Emmy
+can't come to you.  Be a man, Jos:  break off this
+disreputable connection.  Come home to your family.  We hear
+your affairs are involved."
+
+"Involved!" cried Jos.  "Who has told such calumnies?
+All my money is placed out most advantageously.  Mrs.
+Crawley--that is--I mean--it is laid out to the best
+interest."
+
+"You are not in debt, then? Why did you insure your
+life?"
+
+"I thought--a little present to her--in case anything
+happened; and you know my health is so delicate--common
+gratitude you know--and I intend to leave all my
+money to you--and I can spare it out of my income,
+indeed I can," cried out William's weak brother-in-law.
+
+The Colonel besought Jos to fly at once--to go back to
+India, whither Mrs. Crawley could not follow him; to
+do anything to break off a connection which might have
+the most fatal consequences to him.
+
+Jos clasped his hands and cried, "He would go back to
+India.  He would do anything, only he must have time:
+they mustn't say anything to Mrs. Crawley--she'd--she'd
+kill me if she knew it.  You don't know what a terrible
+woman she is," the poor wretch said.
+
+"Then, why not come away with me?" said Dobbin in
+reply; but Jos had not the courage.  "He would see
+Dobbin again in the morning; he must on no account say that
+he had been there.  He must go now.  Becky might come
+in." And Dobbin quitted him, full of forebodings.
+
+He never saw Jos more.  Three months afterwards
+Joseph Sedley died at Aix-la-Chapelle.  It was found that
+all his property had been muddled away in speculations,
+and was represented by valueless shares in different
+bubble companies.  All his available assets were the two
+thousand pounds for which his life was insured, and which
+were left equally between his beloved "sister Amelia,
+wife of, &c., and his friend and invaluable attendant
+during sickness, Rebecca, wife of Lieutenant-Colonel
+Rawdon Crawley, C.B.," who was appointed administratrix.
+
+The solicitor of the insurance company swore it was
+the blackest case that ever had come before him, talked
+of sending a commission to Aix to examine into the death,
+and the Company refused payment of the policy.  But
+Mrs., or Lady Crawley, as she styled herself, came to
+town at once (attended with her solicitors, Messrs.  Burke,
+Thurtell, and Hayes, of Thavies Inn) and dared the
+Company to refuse the payment.  They invited examination,
+they declared that she was the object of an infamous
+conspiracy, which had been pursuing her all through life,
+and triumphed finally.  The money was paid, and her
+character established, but Colonel Dobbin sent back his share
+of the legacy to the insurance office and rigidly declined to
+hold any communication with Rebecca
+
+She never was Lady Crawley, though she continued so
+to call herself.  His Excellency Colonel Rawdon Crawley
+died of yellow fever at Coventry Island, most deeply
+beloved and deplored, and six weeks before the demise of
+his brother, Sir Pitt.  The estate consequently devolved
+upon the present Sir Rawdon Crawley, Bart.
+
+He, too, has declined to see his mother, to whom he
+makes a liberal allowance, and who, besides, appears to
+be very wealthy.  The Baronet lives entirely at Queen's
+Crawley, with Lady Jane and her daughter, whilst Rebecca,
+Lady Crawley, chiefly hangs about Bath and Cheltenham,
+where a very strong party of excellent people
+consider her to be a most injured woman.  She has her
+enemies.  Who has not? Her life is her answer to them.
+She busies herself in works of piety.  She goes to church,
+and never without a footman.  Her name is in all the
+Charity Lists.  The destitute orange-girl, the neglected
+washerwoman, the distressed muffin-man find in her a
+fast and generous friend.  She is always having stalls at
+Fancy Fairs for the benefit of these hapless beings.  Emmy,
+her children, and the Colonel, coming to London some
+time back, found themselves suddenly before her at one
+of these fairs.  She cast down her eyes demurely and
+smiled as they started away from her; Emmy scurrying
+off on the arm of George (now grown a dashing young
+gentleman) and the Colonel seizing up his little Janey,
+of whom he is fonder than of anything in the world--
+fonder even than of his History of the Punjaub.
+
+"Fonder than he is of me," Emmy thinks with a sigh
+But he never said a word to Amelia that was not kind and
+gentle, or thought of a want of hers that he did not try to
+gratify.
+
+Ah!  Vanitas Vanitatum!  which of us is happy in this
+world? Which of us has his desire? or, having it, is satisfied?
+--come, children, let us shut up the box and the puppets,
+for our play is played out.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Vanity Fair, by Thackary
+