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 lef