them
chattering and whimpering together in the little woman's
chamber."

"We must take the tickets for her concert," Fritz said.
"Hast thou any money, Max?"

"Bah," said the other, "the concert is a concert in
nubibus.  Hans said that she advertised one at Leipzig, and
the Burschen took many tickets.  But she went off without
singing.  She said in the coach yesterday that her pianist
had fallen ill at Dresden.  She cannot sing, it is my belief:
her voice is as cracked as thine, O thou beer-soaking
Renowner!"

"It is cracked; I hear her trying out of her window a
schrecklich.  English ballad, called 'De Rose upon de
Balgony.' "

"Saufen and singen go not together," observed Fritz
with the red nose, who evidently preferred the former
amusement.  "No, thou shalt take none of her tickets.
She won money at the trente and quarante last night.  I
saw her:  she made a little English boy play for her.  We
will spend thy money there or at the theatre, or we will
treat her to French wine or Cognac in the Aurelius
Garden, but the tickets we will not buy.  What sayest
thou? Yet, another mug of beer?" and one and another
successively having buried their blond whiskers in the
mawkish draught, curled them and swaggered off into
the fair.

The Major, who had seen the key of No.  90 put up
on its hook and had heard the conversation of the two
young University bloods, was not at a loss to
understand that their talk related to Becky.  "The little devil
is at her old tricks," he thought, and he smiled as he
recalled old days, when he had witnessed the desperate
flirtation with Jos and the ludicrous end of that adventure.
He and George had often laughed over it subsequently,
and until a few weeks after George's marriage,
when he also was caught in the little Circe's toils, and
had an understanding with her which his comrade
certainly suspected, but preferred to ignore.  William was
too much hurt or ashamed to ask to fathom that
disgraceful mystery, although once, and evidently with
remorse on his mind, George had alluded to it.  It was on
the morning of Waterloo, as the young men stood
together in front of their line, surveying the black masses of
Frenchmen who crowned the opposite heights, and as the
rain was coming down, "I have been mixing in a foolish
intrigue with a woman," George said.  "I am glad we were
marched away.  If I drop, I hope Emmy will never know
of that business.  I wish to God it had never been
begun!" And William was pleased to think, and had more
than once soothed poor George's widow with the
narrative, that Osborne, after quitting his wife, and after
the action of Quatre Bras, on the first day, spoke gravely
and affectionately to his comrade of his father and his
wife.  On these facts, too, William had insisted very
strongly in his conversations with the elder Osborne,
and had thus been the means of reconciling the old
gentleman to his son's memory, just at the close of the
elder man's life.

"And so this devil is still going on with her intrigues,"
thought William.  "I wish she were a hundred miles from
here.  She brings mischief wherever she goes." And he
was pursuing these forebodings and this uncomfortable
train of thought, with his head between his hands, and
the Pumpernickel Gazette of last week unread under his
nose, when somebody tapped his shoulder with a parasol,
and he looked up and saw Mrs. Amelia.

This woman had a way of tyrannizing over Major
Dobbin (for the weakest of all people will domineer
over somebody), and she ordered him about, and patted
him, and made him fetch and carry just as if he was a
great Newfoundland dog.  He liked, so to speak, to jump
into the water if she said "High, Dobbin!" and to trot
behind her with her reticule in his mouth.  This history
has been written to very little purpose if the reader has
not perceived that the Major was a spooney.

"Why did you not wait for me, sir, to escort me
downstairs?" she said, giving a little toss of her head
and a most sarcastic curtsey.

"I couldn't stand up in the passage," he answered with
a comical deprecatory look; and, delighted to give her his
arm and to take her out of the horrid smoky place, he
would have walked off without even so much as
remembering the waiter, had not the young fellow run after
him and stopped him on the threshold of the Elephant
to make him pay for the beer which he had not
consumed.  Emmy laughed:  she called him a naughty man,
who wanted to run away in debt, and, in fact, made
some jokes suitable to the occasion and the small-beer.
She was in high spirits and good humour, and tripped
across the market-place very briskly.  She wanted to see
Jos that instant.  The Major laughed at the impetuous
affection Mrs. Amelia exhibited; for, in truth, it was not
very often that she wanted her brother "that instant."

They found the civilian in his saloon on the first-floor;
he had been pacing the room, and biting his nails, and
looking over the market-place towards the Elephant a
hundred times at least during the past hour whilst Emmy
was closeted with her friend in the garret and the Major
was beating the tattoo on the sloppy tables of the public
room below, and he was, on his side too, very anxious to
see Mrs. Osborne.

"Well?" said he.

"The poor dear creature, how she has suffered!"
Emmy said.

"God bless my soul, yes," Jos said, wagging his head,
so that his cheeks quivered like jellies.

"She may have Payne's room, who can go upstairs,"
Emmy continued.  Payne was a staid English maid and
personal attendant upon Mrs. Osborne, to whom the
courier, as in duty bound, paid court, and whom Georgy
used to "lark" dreadfully with accounts of German
robbers and ghosts.  She passed her time chiefly in grumbling,
in ordering about her mistress, and in stating her intention
to return the next morning to her native village of
Clapham.  "She may have Payne's room," Emmy said.

"Why, you don't mean to say you are going to have
that woman into the house?" bounced out the Major,
jumping up.

"Of course we are," said Amelia in the most innocent
way in the world.  "Don't be angry and break the
furniture, Major Dobbin.  Of course we are going to have her
here."

"Of course, my dear," Jos said.

"The poor creature, after all her sufferings," Emmy
continued; "her horrid banker broken and run away; her
husband--wicked wretch--having deserted her and taken
her child away from her" (here she doubled her two
little fists and held them in a most menacing attitude
before her, so that the Major was charmed to see
such a dauntless virago) "the poor dear thing!  quite alone
and absolutely forced to give lessons in singing to get her
bread--and not have her here!"

"Take lessons, my dear Mrs. George," cried the Major,
"but don't have her in the house.  I implore you don't."

"Pooh," said Jos.

"You who are always good and kind--always used to
be at any rate--I'm astonished at you, Major William,"
Amelia cried.  "Why, what is the moment to help her but
when she is so miserable? Now is the time to be of
service to her.  The oldest friend I ever had, and not--"

"She was not always your friend, Amelia," the Major
said, for he was quite angry.  This allusion was too much
for Emmy, who, looking the Major almost fiercely in the
face, said, "For shame, Major Dobbin!" and after having
fired this shot, she walked out of the room with a most
majestic air and shut her own door briskly on herself
and her outraged dignity.

"To allude to THAT!" she said, when the door was
closed.  "Oh, it was cruel of him to remind me of it," and
she looked up at George's picture, which hung there as
usual, with the portrait of the boy underneath.  "It was
cruel of him.  If I had forgiven it, ought he to have
spoken? No.  And it is from his own lips that I know how
wicked and groundless my jealousy was; and that you
were pure--oh, yes, you were pure, my saint in
heaven!"

She paced the room, trembling and indignant.  She went
and leaned on the chest of drawers over which the picture
hung, and gazed and gazed at it.  Its eyes seemed to look
down on her with a reproach that deepened as she looked.
The early dear, dear memories of that brief prime of love
rushed back upon her.  The wound which years had
scarcely cicatrized bled afresh, and oh, how bitterly!  She
could not bear the reproaches of the husband there
before her.  It couldn't be.  Never, never.

Poor Dobbin; poor old William!  That unlucky word
had undone the work of many a year--the long laborious
edifice of a life of love and constancy--raised too upon
what secret and hidden foundations, wherein lay buried
passions, uncounted struggles, unknown sacrifices--a
little word was spoken, and down fell the fair palace of
hope--one word, and away flew the bird which he had
been trying all his life to lure!

William, though he saw by Amelia's looks that a great
crisis had come, nevertheless continued to implore Sedley,
in the most energetic terms, to beware of Rebecca; and he
eagerly, almost frantically, adjured Jos not to receive
her.  He besought Mr. Sedley to inquire at least regarding
her; told him how he had heard that she was in the
company of gamblers and people of ill repute; pointed
out what evil she had done in former days, how she
and Crawley had misled poor George into ruin, how she
was now parted from her husband, by her own confession,
and, perhaps, for good reason.  What a dangerous
companion she would be for his sister, who knew nothing
of the affairs of the world!  William implored Jos, with
all the eloquence which he could bring to bear, and a
great deal more energy than this quiet gentleman was
ordinarily in the habit of showing, to keep Rebecca out
of his household.

Had he been less violent, or more dexterous, he might
have succeeded in his supplications to Jos; but the civilian
was not a little jealous of the airs of superiority
which the Major constantly exhibited towards him, as
he fancied (indeed, he had imparted his opinions to Mr.
Kirsch, the courier, whose bills Major Dobbin checked on
this journey, and who sided with his master), and he
began a blustering speech about his competency to
defend his own honour, his desire not to have his affairs
meddled with, his intention, in fine, to rebel against the
Major, when the colloquy--rather a long and stormy one
--was put an end to in the simplest way possible, namely,
by the arrival of Mrs. Becky, with a porter from
the Elephant Hotel in charge of her very meagre baggage.

She greeted her host with affectionate respect and
made a shrinking, but amicable salutation to Major
Dobbin, who, as her instinct assured her at once, was
her enemy, and had been speaking against her; and the
bustle and clatter consequent upon her arrival brought
Amelia out of her room.  Emmy went up and embraced
her guest with the greatest warmth, and took no notice
of the Major, except to fling him an angry look--the
most unjust and scornful glance that had perhaps ever
appeared in that poor little woman's face since she was
born.  But she had private reasons of her own, and was
bent upon being angry with him.  And Dobbin, indignant
at the injustice, not at the defeat, went off, making her a
bow quite as haughty as the killing curtsey with which
the little woman chose to bid him farewell.

He being gone, Emmy was particularly lively and
affectionate to Rebecca, and bustled about the apartments
and installed her guest in her room with an eagerness and
activity seldom exhibited by our placid little friend.  But
when an act of injustice is to be done, especially by
weak people, it is best that it should be done quickly,
and Emmy thought she was displaying a great deal of
firmness and proper feeling and veneration for the late
Captain Osborne in her present behaviour.

Georgy came in from the fetes for dinner-time and
found four covers laid as usual; but one of the places
was occupied by a lady, instead of by Major Dobbin.
"Hullo!  where's Dob?" the young gentleman asked with
his usual simplicity of language.  "Major Dobbin is dining
out, I suppose," his mother said, and, drawing the boy
to her, kissed him a great deal, and put his hair off his
forehead, and introduced him to Mrs. Crawley.  "This
is my boy, Rebecca," Mrs. Osborne said--as much as to
say--can the world produce anything like that? Becky
looked at him with rapture and pressed his hand fondly.
"Dear boy!" she said--"he is just like my--" Emotion
choked her further utterance, but Amelia understood, as
well as if she had spoken, that Becky was thinking of her
own blessed child.  However, the company of her friend
consoled Mrs. Crawley, and she ate a very good dinner.

During the repast, she had occasion to speak several
times, when Georgy eyed her and listened to her.  At the
desert Emmy was gone out to superintend further
domestic arrangements; Jos was in his great chair dozing
over Galignani; Georgy and the new arrival sat close to
each other--he had continued to look at her knowingly
more than once, and at last he laid down the
nutcrackers.

"I say," said Georgy.

"What do you say?" Becky said, laughing.

"You're the lady I saw in the mask at the Rouge et
Noir."

"Hush!  you little sly creature," Becky said, taking
up his hand and kissing it.  "Your uncle was there too,
and Mamma mustn't know."

"Oh, no--not by no means," answered the little fellow.

"You see we are quite good friends already," Becky
said to Emmy, who now re-entered; and it must be owned
that Mrs. Osborne had introduced a most judicious and
amiable companion into her house.

William, in a state of great indignation, though still
unaware of all the treason that was in store for him, walked
about the town wildly until he fell upon the Secretary of
Legation, Tapeworm, who invited him to dinner.  As they
were discussing that meal, he took occasion to ask the
Secretary whether he knew anything about a certain
Mrs. Rawdon Crawley, who had, he believed, made
some noise in London; and then Tapeworm, who of
course knew all the London gossip, and was besides a
relative of Lady Gaunt, poured out into the astonished
Major's ears such a history about Becky and her husband
as astonished the querist, and supplied all the points of
this narrative, for it was at that very table years ago
that the present writer had the pleasure of hearing the
tale.  Tufto, Steyne, the Crawleys, and their history--
everything connected with Becky and her previous life
passed under the record of the bitter diplomatist.  He knew
everything and a great deal besides, about all the world
--in a word, he made the most astounding revelations to
the simple-hearted Major.  When Dobbin said that Mrs.
Osborne and Mr. Sedley had taken her into their house,
Tapeworm burst into a peal of laughter which shocked
the Major, and asked if they had not better send into the
prison and take in one or two of the gentlemen in shaved
heads and yellow jackets who swept the streets of
Pumpernickel, chained in pairs, to board and lodge, and act
as tutor to that little scapegrace Georgy.

This information astonished and horrified the Major not
a little.  It had been agreed in the morning (before meeting
with Rebecca) that Amelia should go to the Court
ball that night.  There would be the place where he should
tell her.  The Major went home, and dressed himself in his
uniform, and repaired to Court, in hopes to see Mrs.
Osborne.  She never came.  When he returned to his
lodgings all the lights in the Sedley tenement were put
out.  He could not see her till the morning.  I don't know
what sort of a night's rest he had with this frightful
secret in bed with him.

At the earliest convenient hour in the morning he sent
his servant across the way with a note, saying that he
wished very particularly to speak with her.  A message
came back to say that Mrs. Osborne was exceedingly
unwell and was keeping her room.

She, too, had been awake all that night.  She had been
thinking of a thing which had agitated her mind a
hundred times before.  A hundred times on the point of yielding,
she had shrunk back from a sacrifice which she felt
was too much for her.  She couldn't, in spite of his love
and constancy and her own acknowledged regard,
respect, and gratitude.  What are benefits, what is
constancy, or merit? One curl of a girl's ringlet, one hair of a
whisker, will turn the scale against them all in a minute.
They did not weigh with Emmy more than with other
women.  She had tried them; wanted to make them pass;
could not; and the pitiless little woman had found a
pretext, and determined to be free.

When at length, in the afternoon, the Major gained
admission to Amelia, instead of the cordial and
affectionate greeting, to which he had been accustomed now
for many a long day, he received the salutation of a
curtsey, and of a little gloved hand, retracted the moment
after it was accorded to him.

Rebecca, too, was in the room, and advanced to meet
him with a smile and an extended hand.  Dobbin drew
back rather confusedly, "I--I beg your pardon, m'am,"
he said; "but I am bound to tell you that it is not as your
friend that I am come here now."

"Pooh!  damn; don't let us have this sort of thing!"
Jos cried out, alarmed, and anxious to get rid of a scene.

"I wonder what Major Dobbin has to say against
Rebecca?" Amelia said in a low, clear voice with a slight
quiver in it, and a very determined look about the eyes.

"I will not have this sort of thing in my house," Jos
again interposed.  "I say I will not have it; and Dobbin, I
beg, sir, you'll stop it." And he looked round, trembling
and turning very red, and gave a great puff, and
made for his door.

"Dear friend!" Rebecca said with angelic sweetness,
"do hear what Major Dobbin has to say against me."

"I will not hear it, I say," squeaked out Jos at the
top of his voice, and, gathering up his dressing-gown, he
was gone.

"We are only two women," Amelia said.  "You can
speak now, sir."

"This manner towards me is one which scarcely
becomes you, Amelia," the Major answered haughtily; "nor
I believe am I guilty of habitual harshness to women.  It
is not a pleasure to me to do the duty which I am come
to do."

"Pray proceed with it quickly, if you please, Major
Dobbin," said Amelia, who was more and more in a pet.  The
expression of Dobbin's face, as she spoke in this
imperious manner, was not pleasant.

"I came to say--and as you stay, Mrs. Crawley, I must
say it in your presence--that I think you--you ought
not to form a member of the family of my friends.  A
lady who is separated from her husband, who travels not
under her own name, who frequents public gaming-
tables--"

"It was to the ball I went," cried out Becky.

"--is not a fit companion for Mrs. Osborne and her
son," Dobbin went on:  "and I may add that there are
people here who know you, and who profess to know
that regarding your conduct about which I don't even
wish to speak before--before Mrs. Osborne."

"Yours is a very modest and convenient sort of calumny,
Major Dobbin," Rebecca said.  "You leave me under
the weight of an accusation which, after all, is unsaid.
What is it? Is it unfaithfulness to my husband? I scorn it
and defy anybody to prove it--I defy you, I say.  My
honour is as untouched as that of the bitterest enemy
who ever maligned me.  Is it of being poor, forsaken,
wretched, that you accuse me? Yes, I am guilty of those
faults, and punished for them every day.  Let me go,
Emmy.  It is only to suppose that I have not met you,
and I am no worse to-day than I was yesterday.  It is
only to suppose that the night is over and the poor
wanderer is on her way.  Don't you remember the song
we used to sing in old, dear old days? I have been
wandering ever since then--a poor castaway, scorned for
being miserable, and insulted because I am alone.  Let me
go:  my stay here interferes with the plans of this
gentleman."

"Indeed it does, madam," said the Major.  "If I have
any authority in this house--"

"Authority, none!" broke out Amelia "Rebecca,
you stay with me.  I won't desert you because you have
been persecuted, or insult you because--because Major
Dobbin chooses to do so.  Come away, dear." And the
two women made towards the door.

William opened it.  As they were going out, however, he
took Amelia's hand and said--"Will you stay a moment
and speak to me?"

"He wishes to speak to you away from me," said
Becky, looking like a martyr.  Amelia gripped her hand in
reply.

"Upon my honour it is not about you that I am going
to speak," Dobbin said.  "Come back, Amelia," and she
came.  Dobbin bowed to Mrs. Crawley, as he shut the
door upon her.  Amelia looked at him, leaning against the
glass:  her face and her lips were quite white.

"I was confused when I spoke just now," the Major
said after a pause, "and I misused the word authority."

"You did," said Amelia with her teeth chattering.

"At least I have claims to be heard," Dobbin
continued.

"It is generous to remind me of our obligations to you,"
the woman answered.

"The claims I mean are those left me by George's
father," William said.

"Yes, and you insulted his memory.  You did yesterday.
You know you did.  And I will never forgive you.  Never!"
said Amelia.  She shot out each little sentence in a tremor
of anger and emotion.

"You don't mean that, Amelia?" William said sadly.
"You don't mean that these words, uttered in a hurried
moment, are to weigh against a whole life's devotion? I
think that George's memory has not been injured by the
way in which I have dealt with it, and if we are come to
bandying reproaches, I at least merit none from his
widow and the mother of his son.  Reflect, afterwards when
--when you are at leisure, and your conscience will
withdraw this accusation.  It does even now." Amelia held
down her head.

"It is not that speech of yesterday," he continued,
"which moves you.  That is but the pretext, Amelia, or I
have loved you and watched you for fifteen years in vain.
Have I not learned in that time to read all your feelings
and look into your thoughts? I know what your heart
is capable of:  it can cling faithfully to a recollection and
cherish a fancy, but it can't feel such an attachment as
mine deserves to mate with, and such as I would have
won from a woman more generous than you.  No, you
are not worthy of the love which I have devoted to you.
I knew all along that the prize I had set my life on was
not worth the winning; that I was a fool, with fond
fancies, too, bartering away my all of truth and ardour
against your little feeble remnant of love.  I will bargain
no more:  I withdraw.  I find no fault with you.  You are
very good-natured, and have done your best, but you
couldn't--you couldn't reach up to the height of the
attachment which I bore you, and which a loftier soul than
yours might have been proud to share.  Good-bye, Amelia!
I have watched your struggle.  Let it end.  We are both
weary of it."

Amelia stood scared and silent as William thus
suddenly broke the chain by which she held him and
declared his independence and superiority.  He had placed
himself at her feet so long that the poor little woman
had been accustomed to trample upon him.  She didn't
wish to marry him, but she wished to keep him.  She
wished to give him nothing, but that he should give her
all.  It is a bargain not unfrequently levied in love.

William's sally had quite broken and cast her down.
HER assault was long since over and beaten back.

"Am I to understand then, that you are going--away,
William?" she said.

He gave a sad laugh.  "I went once before," he said,
"and came back after twelve years.  We were young then,
Amelia.  Good-bye.  I have spent enough of my life at this
play."

Whilst they had been talking, the door into Mrs. Osborne's
room had opened ever so little; indeed, Becky
had kept a hold of the handle and had turned it on the
instant when Dobbin quitted it, and she heard every word
of the conversation that had passed between these two.
"What a noble heart that man has," she thought, and
how shamefully that woman plays with it!" She admired
Dobbin; she bore him no rancour for the part he had
taken against her.  It was an open move in the game,
and played fairly.  "Ah!" she thought, "if I could have had
such a husband as that--a man with a heart and brains
too!  I would not have minded his large feet"; and running
into her room, she absolutely bethought herself of
something, and wrote him a note, beseeching him to stop for a
few days--not to think of going--and that she could
serve him with A.

The parting was over.  Once more poor William walked
to the door and was gone; and the little widow, the
author of all this work, had her will, and had won her
victory, and was left to enjoy it as she best might.  Let
the ladies envy her triumph.

At the romantic hour of dinner, Mr. Georgy made his
appearance and again remarked the absence of "Old
Dob." The meal was eaten in silence by the party.  Jos's
appetite not being diminished, but Emmy taking
nothing at all.

After the meal, Georgy was lolling in the cushions of
the old window, a large window, with three sides of glass
abutting from the gable, and commanding on one side
the market-place, where the Elephant is, his mother being
busy hard by, when he remarked symptoms of
movement at the Major's house on the other side of the street.

"Hullo!" said he, "there's Dob's trap--they are bringing
it out of the court-yard." The "trap" in question
was a carriage which the Major had bought for six pounds
sterling, and about which they used to rally him a good
deal.

Emmy gave a little start, but said nothing.

"Hullo!" Georgy continued, "there's Francis coming out
with the portmanteaus, and Kunz, the one-eyed
postilion, coming down the market with three schimmels.
Look at his boots and yellow jacket--ain't he a rum
one? Why--they're putting the horses to Dob's carriage.
Is he going anywhere?"

"Yes," said Emmy, "he is going on a journey."

"Going on a journey; and when is he coming back?"

"He is--not coming back," answered Emmy.

"Not coming back!" cried out Georgy, jumping up.
"Stay here, sir," roared out Jos.  "Stay, Georgy," said his
mother with a very sad face.  The boy stopped, kicked
about the room, jumped up and down from the window-
seat with his knees, and showed every symptom of
uneasiness and curiosity.

The horses were put to.  The baggage was strapped
on.  Francis came out with his master's sword, cane,
and umbrella tied up together, and laid them in the
well, and his desk and old tin cocked-hat case, which
he placed under the seat.  Francis brought out the
stained old blue cloak lined with red camlet, which had
wrapped the owner up any time these fifteen years, and
had manchen Sturm erlebt, as a favourite song of those
days said.  It had been new for the campaign of Waterloo
and had covered George and William after the night
of Quatre Bras.

Old Burcke, the landlord of the lodgings, came out,
then Francis, with more packages--final packages--then
Major William--Burcke wanted to kiss him.  The Major
was adored by all people with whom he had to do.  It
was with difficulty he could escape from this
demonstration of attachment.

"By Jove, I will go!" screamed out George.  "Give him
this," said Becky, quite interested, and put a paper into
the boy's hand.  He had rushed down the stairs and flung
across the street in a minute--the yellow postilion was
cracking his whip gently.

William had got into the carriage, released from the
embraces of his landlord.  George bounded in afterwards,
and flung his arms round the Major's neck (as they saw
from the window), and began asking him multiplied
questions.  Then he felt in his waistcoat pocket and gave him
a note.  William seized at it rather eagerly, he opened it
trembling, but instantly his countenance changed, and
he tore the paper in two and dropped it out of the
carriage.  He kissed Georgy on the head, and the boy got
out, doubling his fists into his eyes, and with the aid of
Francis.  He lingered with his hand on the panel.  Fort,
Schwager!  The yellow postilion cracked his whip
prodigiously, up sprang Francis to the box, away went the
schimmels, and Dobbin with his head on his breast.  He
never looked up as they passed under Amelia's window,
and Georgy, left alone in the street, burst out crying
in the face of all the crowd.

Emmy's maid heard him howling again during the
night and brought him some preserved apricots to
console him.  She mingled her lamentations with his.  All the
poor, all the humble, all honest folks, all good men who
knew him, loved that kind-hearted and simple gentleman.

As for Emmy, had she not done her duty? She had her
picture of George for a consolation.




CHAPTER LXVII


Which Contains Births, Marriages, and Deaths

Whatever Becky's private plan might be by which
Dobbin's true love was to be crowned with success, the
little woman thought that the secret might keep, and
indeed, being by no means so much interested about
anybody's welfare as about her own, she had a great
number of things pertaining to herself to consider, and
which concerned her a great deal more than Major
Dobbin's happiness in this life.

She found herself suddenly and unexpectedly in snug
comfortable quarters, surrounded by friends, kindness,
and good-natured simple people such as she had not met
with for many a long day; and, wanderer as she was by
force and inclination, there were moments when rest
was pleasant to her.  As the most hardened Arab that
ever careered across the desert over the hump of a
dromedary likes to repose sometimes under the date-
trees by the water, or to come into the cities, walk into
the bazaars, refresh himself in the baths, and say his
prayers in the mosques, before he goes out again
marauding, so Jos's tents and pilau were pleasant to this
little Ishmaelite.  She picketed her steed, hung up her
weapons, and warmed herself comfortably by his fire.  The
halt in that roving, restless life was inexpressibly soothing
and pleasant to her.

So, pleased herself, she tried with all her might to
please everybody; and we know that she was eminent
and successful as a practitioner in the art of giving
pleasure.  As for Jos, even in that little interview in the
garret at the Elephant Inn, she had found means to win
back a great deal of his good-will.  In the course of a
week, the civilian was her sworn slave and frantic
admirer.  He didn't go to sleep after dinner, as his
custom was in the much less lively society of Amelia.  He
drove out with Becky in his open carriage.  He asked little
parties and invented festivities to do her honour.

Tapeworm, the Charge d'Affaires, who had abused her
so cruelly, came to dine with Jos, and then came every
day to pay his respects to Becky.  Poor Emmy, who was
never very talkative, and more glum and silent than ever
after Dobbin's departure, was quite forgotten when this
superior genius made her appearance.  The French
Minister was as much charmed with her as his English rival.
The German ladies, never particularly squeamish as
regards morals, especially in English people, were delighted
with the cleverness and wit of Mrs. Osborne's charming
friend, and though she did not ask to go to Court,
yet the most august and Transparent Personages there
heard of her fascinations and were quite curious to know
her.  When it became known that she was noble, of an
ancient English family, that her husband was a Colonel
of the Guard, Excellenz and Governor of an island, only
separated from his lady by one of those trifling differences
which are of little account in a country where
Werther is still read and the Wahlverwandtschaften of
Goethe is considered an edifying moral book, nobody
thought of refusing to receive her in the very highest
society of the little Duchy; and the ladies were even more
ready to call her du and to swear eternal friendship for
her than they had been to bestow the same inestimable
benefits upon Amelia.  Love and Liberty are interpreted
by those simple Germans in a way which honest folks in
Yorkshire and Somersetshire little understand, and a lady
might, in some philosophic and civilized towns, be
divorced ever so many times from her respective husbands
and keep her character in society.  Jos's house never was
so pleasant since he had a house of his own as Rebecca
caused it to be.  She sang, she played, she laughed, she
talked in two or three languages, she brought everybody
to the house, and she made Jos believe that it was his
own great social talents and wit which gathered the
society of the place round about him.

As for Emmy, who found herself not in the least
mistress of her own house, except when the bills were
to be paid, Becky soon discovered the way to soothe and
please her.  She talked to her perpetually about Major
Dobbin sent about his business, and made no scruple
of declaring her admiration for that excellent, high-
minded gentleman, and of telling Emmy that she had
behaved most cruelly regarding him.  Emmy defended her
conduct and showed that it was dictated only by the
purest religious principles; that a woman once, &c., and to
such an angel as him whom she had had the good
fortune to marry, was married forever; but she had no
objection to hear the Major praised as much as ever
Becky chose to praise him, and indeed, brought the
conversation round to the Dobbin subject a score of times
every day.

Means were easily found to win the favour of Georgy
and the servants.  Amelia's maid, it has been said, was
heart and soul in favour of the generous Major.  Having at
first disliked Becky for being the means of dismissing
him from the presence of her mistress, she was reconciled
to Mrs. Crawley subsequently, because the latter
became William's most ardent admirer and champion.  And
in those nightly conclaves in which the two ladies
indulged after their parties, and while Miss Payne was
"brushing their 'airs," as she called the yellow locks of
the one and the soft brown tresses of the other, this
girl always put in her word for that dear good gentleman
Major Dobbin.  Her advocacy did not make Amelia
angry any more than Rebecca's admiration of him.  She
made George write to him constantly and persisted in
sending Mamma's kind love in a postscript.  And as she
looked at her husband's portrait of nights, it no longer
reproached her--perhaps she reproached it, now
William was gone.

Emmy was not very happy after her heroic sacrifice.
She was very distraite, nervous, silent, and ill to please.
The family had never known her so peevish.  She grew
pale and ill.  She used to try to sing certain songs
("Einsam bin ich nicht alleine," was one of them, that tender
love-song of Weber's which~ in old-fashioned days,
young ladies, and when you were scarcely born, showed
that those who lived before you knew too how to love
and to sing) certain songs, I say, to which the Major
was partial; and as she warbled them in the twilight in the
drawing-room, she would break off in the midst of the
song, and walk into her neighbouring apartment, and
there, no doubt, take refuge in the miniature of her
husband.

Some books still subsisted, after Dobbin's departure,
with his name written in them; a German dictionary, for
instance, with "William Dobbin, --th Reg.," in the fly-leaf;
a guide-book with his initials; and one or two other
volumes which belonged to the Major.  Emmy cleared these
away and put them on the drawers, where she placed her
work-box, her desk, her Bible, and prayer-book, under
the pictures of the two Georges.  And the Major, on going
away, having left his gloves behind him, it is a fact that
Georgy, rummaging his mother's desk some time
afterwards, found the gloves neatly folded up and put away in
what they call the secret-drawers of the desk.

Not caring for society, and moping there a great deal,
Emmy's chief pleasure in the summer evenings was to
take long walks with Georgy (during which Rebecca
was left to the society of Mr. Joseph), and then the
mother and son used to talk about the Major in a way
which even made the boy smile.  She told him that she
thought Major William was the best man in all the world
--the gentlest and the kindest, the bravest and the
humblest.  Over and over again she told him how they owed
everything which they possessed in the world to that
kind friend's benevolent care of them; how he had
befriended them all through their poverty and misfortunes;
watched over them when nobody cared for them; how all
his comrades admired him though he never spoke of his
own gallant actions; how Georgy's father trusted him
beyond all other men, and had been constantly befriended
by the good William.  "Why, when your papa was a little
boy," she said, "he often told me that it was William
who defended him against a tyrant at the school where
they were; and their friendship never ceased from that
day until the last, when your dear father fell."

"Did Dobbin kill the man who killed Papa?" Georgy
said.  "I'm sure he did, or he would if he could have
caught him, wouldn't he, Mother? When I'm in the Army,
won't I hate the French?--that's all."

In such colloquies the mother and the child passed a
great deal of their time together.  The artless woman had
made a confidant of the boy.  He was as much William's
friend as everybody else who knew him well.

By the way, Mrs. Becky, not to be behind hand in
sentiment, had got a miniature too hanging up in her
room, to the surprise and amusement of most people,
and the delight of the original, who was no other than
our friend Jos.  On her first coming to favour the Sedleys
with a visit, the little woman, who had arrived with a
remarkably small shabby kit, was perhaps ashamed of the
meanness of her trunks and bandboxes, and often spoke
with great respect about her baggage left behind at
Leipzig, which she must have from that city.  When a traveller
talks to you perpetually about the splendour of his
luggage, which he does not happen to have with him, my
son, beware of that traveller!  He is, ten to one, an
impostor.

Neither Jos nor Emmy knew this important maxim.  It
seemed to them of no consequence whether Becky had a
quantity of very fine clothes in invisible trunks; but
as her present supply was exceedingly shabby, Emmy
supplied her out of her own stores, or took her to the
best milliner in the town and there fitted her out.  It was
no more torn collars now, I promise you, and faded silks
trailing off at the shoulder.  Becky changed her habits
with her situation in life--the rouge-pot was suspended
--another excitement to which she had accustomed
herself was also put aside, or at least only indulged in in
privacy, as when she was prevailed on by Jos of a
summer evening, Emmy and the boy being absent on their
walks, to take a little spirit-and-water.  But if she did not
indulge--the courier did:  that rascal Kirsch could not
be kept from the bottle, nor could he tell how much
he took when he applied to it.  He was sometimes
surprised himself at the way in which Mr. Sedley's Cognac
diminished.  Well, well, this is a painful subject.  Becky
did not very likely indulge so much as she used before
she entered a decorous family.

At last the much-bragged-about boxes arrived from
Leipzig; three of them not by any means large or splendid;
nor did Becky appear to take out any sort of dresses
or ornaments from the boxes when they did arrive.  But
out of one, which contained a mass of her papers (it
was that very box which Rawdon Crawley had
ransacked in his furious hunt for Becky's concealed money),
she took a picture with great glee, which she pinned up
in her room, and to which she introduced Jos.  It was
the portrait of a gentleman in pencil, his face having the
advantage of being painted up in pink.  He was riding
on an elephant away from some cocoa-nut trees and a
pagoda:  it was an Eastern scene.

"God bless my soul, it is my portrait," Jos cried out.
It was he indeed, blooming in youth and beauty, in a
nankeen jacket of the cut of 1804.  It was the old picture
that used to hang up in Russell Square.

"I bought it," said Becky in a voice trembling with
emotion; "I went to see if I could be of any use to my kind
friends.  I have never parted with that picture--I never
will."

"Won't you?" Jos cried with a look of unutterable
rapture and satisfaction.  "Did you really now value it
for my sake?"

"You know I did, well enough," said Becky; "but
why speak--why think--why look back!  It is too late
now!"

That evening's conversation was delicious for Jos.
Emmy only came in to go to bed very tired and unwell.
Jos and his fair guest had a charming tete-a-tete, and
his sister could hear, as she lay awake in her adjoining
chamber, Rebecca singing over to Jos the old songs of
1815.  He did not sleep, for a wonder, that night, any
more than Amelia.

It was June, and, by consequence, high season in
London; Jos, who read the incomparable Galignani (the
exile's best friend) through every day, used to favour the
ladies with extracts from his paper during their
breakfast.  Every week in this paper there is a full account of
military movements, in which Jos, as a man who had
seen service, was especially interested.  On one occasion
he read out--"Arrival of the --th regiment.  Gravesend,
June 20.--The Ramchunder, East Indiaman, came into the
river this morning, having on board 14 officers, and 132
rank and file of this gallant corps.  They have been
absent from England fourteen years, having been embarked
the year after Waterloo, in which glorious conflict they
took an active part, and having subsequently distinguished
themselves in the Burmese war.  The veteran colonel, Sir
Michael O'Dowd, K.C.B., with his lady and sister, landed
here yesterday, with Captains Posky, Stubble, Macraw,
Malony; Lieutenants Smith, Jones, Thompson, F.  Thomson;
Ensigns Hicks and Grady; the band on the pier
playing the national anthem, and the crowd loudly cheering
the gallant veterans as they went into Wayte's hotel,
where a sumptuous banquet was provided for the defenders
of Old England.  During the repast, which we need not
say was served up in Wayte's best style, the cheering
continued so enthusiastically that Lady O'Dowd and the
Colonel came forward to the balcony and drank the
healths of their fellow-countrymen in a bumper of Wayte's
best claret."

On a second occasion Jos read a brief announcement
--Major Dobbin had joined the --th regiment at Chatham;
and subsequently he promulgated accounts of the
presentations at the Drawing-room of Colonel Sir
Michael O'Dowd, K.C.B., Lady O'Dowd (by Mrs. Malloy
Malony of Ballymalony), and Miss Glorvina O'Dowd (by
Lady O'Dowd).  Almost directly after this, Dobbin's name
appeared among the Lieutenant-Colonels:  for old Marshal
Tiptoff had died during the passage of the --th from
Madras, and the Sovereign was pleased to advance
Colonel Sir Michael O'Dowd to the rank of Major-General on
his return to England, with an intimation that he should
be Colonel of the distinguished regiment which he had so
long commanded.

Amelia had been made aware of some of these
movements.  The correspondence between George and his
guardian had not ceased by any means:  William had even
written once or twice to her since his departure, but in a
manner so unconstrainedly cold that the poor woman felt
now in her turn that she had lost her power over him
and that, as he had said, he was free.  He had left her,
and she was wretched.  The memory of his almost countless
services, and lofty and affectionate regard, now
presented itself to her and rebuked her day and night.  She
brooded over those recollections according to her wont,
saw the purity and beauty of the affection with which she
had trifled, and reproached herself for having flung away
such a treasure.

It was gone indeed.  William had spent it all out.  He
loved her no more, he thought, as he had loved her.
He never could again.  That sort of regard, which he had
proffered to her for so many faithful years, can't be flung
down and shattered and mended so as to show no scars.
The little heedless tyrant had so destroyed it.  No, William
thought again and again, "It was myself I deluded
and persisted in cajoling; had she been worthy of the
love I gave her, she would have returned it long ago.  It
was a fond mistake.  Isn't the whole course of life made
up of such? And suppose I had won her, should I not
have been disenchanted the day after my victory? Why
pine, or be ashamed of my defeat?" The more he thought
of this long passage of his life, the more clearly he saw
his deception.  "I'll go into harness again," he said, "and
do my duty in that state of life in which it has pleased
Heaven to place me.  I will see that the buttons of the
recruits are properly bright and that the sergeants make
no mistakes in their accounts.  I will dine at mess and
listen to the Scotch surgeon telling his stories.  When I
am old and broken, I will go on half-pay, and my old
sisters shall scold me.  I have geliebt und gelebet, as the
girl in 'Wallenstein' says.  I am done.  Pay the bills and get
me a cigar:  find out what there is at the play to-night,
Francis; to-morrow we cross by the Batavier." He made
the above speech, whereof Francis only heard the last
two lines, pacing up and down the Boompjes at Rotterdam.
The Batavier was lying in the basin.  He could see
the place on the quarter-deck where he and Emmy had
sat on the happy voyage out.  What had that little Mrs.
Crawley to say to him? Psha; to-morrow we will put to
sea, and return to England, home, and duty!

After June all the little Court Society of Pumpernickel
used to separate, according to the German plan,
and make for a hundred watering-places, where they
drank at the wells, rode upon donkeys, gambled at the
redoutes if they had money and a mind, rushed with
hundreds of their kind to gourmandise at the tables
d'hote, and idled away the summer.  The English
diplomatists went off to Teoplitz and Kissingen, their French
rivals shut up their chancellerie and whisked away to
their darling Boulevard de Gand.  The Transparent reigning
family took too to the waters, or retired to their hunting
lodges.  Everybody went away having any pretensions
to politeness, and of course, with them, Doctor von
Glauber, the Court Doctor, and his Baroness.  The seasons
for the baths were the most productive periods of
the Doctor's practice--he united business with pleasure,
and his chief place of resort was Ostend, which is much
frequented by Germans, and where the Doctor treated
himself and his spouse to what he called a "dib" in the
sea.

His interesting patient, Jos, was a regular milch-cow
to the Doctor, and he easily persuaded the civilian, both
for his own health's sake and that of his charming
sister, which was really very much shattered, to pass the
summer at that hideous seaport town.  Emmy did not
care where she went much.  Georgy jumped at the idea
of a move.  As for Becky, she came as a matter of course
in the fourth place inside of the fine barouche Mr. Jos
had bought, the two domestics being on the box in front.
She might have some misgivings about the friends whom
she should meet at Ostend, and who might be likely to tell
ugly stories--but bah!  she was strong enough to hold
her own.  She had cast such an anchor in Jos now as
would require a strong storm to shake.  That incident
of the picture had finished him.  Becky took down
her elephant and put it into the little box which she had
had from Amelia ever so many years ago.  Emmy also
came off with her Lares--her two pictures--and the
party, finally, were, lodged in an exceedingly dear and
uncomfortable house at Ostend.

There Amelia began to take baths and get what good
she could from them, and though scores of people of
Becky's acquaintance passed her and cut her, yet Mrs.
Osborne, who walked about with her, and who knew
nobody, was not aware of the treatment experienced by the
friend whom she had chosen so judiciously as a
companion; indeed, Becky never thought fit to tell her what
was passing under her innocent eyes.

Some of Mrs. Rawdon Crawley's acquaintances, however, acknowledged her readily enough,--perhaps more
readily than she would have desired.  Among those were
Major Loder (unattached), and Captain Rook (late of
the Rifles), who might be seen any day on the Dike,
smoking and staring at the women, and who speedily got
an introduction to the hospitable board and select circle
of Mr. Joseph Sedley.  In fact they would take no denial;
they burst into the house whether Becky was at home
or not, walked into Mrs. Osborne's drawing-room, which
they perfumed with their coats and mustachios, called
Jos "Old buck," and invaded his dinner-table, and
laughed and drank for long hours there.

"What can they mean?" asked Georgy, who did not
like these gentlemen.  "I heard the Major say to Mrs.
Crawley yesterday, 'No, no, Becky, you shan't keep the
old buck to yourself.  We must have the bones in, or,
dammy, I'll split.' What could the Major mean, Mamma?"

"Major!  don't call him Major!" Emmy said.  "I'm sure
I can't tell what he meant." His presence and that of his
friend inspired the little lady with intolerable terror and
aversion.  They paid her tipsy compliments; they leered
at her over the dinner-table.  And the Captain made her
advances that filled her with sickening dismay, nor would
she ever see him unless she had George by her side.

Rebecca, to do her justice, never would let either of
these men remain alone with Amelia; the Major was
disengaged too, and swore he would be the winner of her.
A couple of ruffians were fighting for this innocent creature, gambling for her at her own table, and though she
was not aware of the rascals' designs upon her, yet she
felt a horror and uneasiness in their presence and longed
to fly.

She besought, she entreated Jos to go.  Not he.  He was
slow of movement, tied to his Doctor, and perhaps to
some other leading-strings.  At least Becky was not
anxious to go to England.

At last she took a great resolution--made the great
plunge.  She wrote off a letter to a friend whom she had
on the other side of the water, a letter about which she
did not speak a word to anybody, which she carried
herself to the post under her shawl; nor was any remark
made about it, only that she looked very much flushed
and agitated when Georgy met her, and she kissed him,
and hung over him a great deal that night.  She did not
come out of her room after her return from her walk.
Becky thought it was Major Loder and the Captain who
frightened her.

"She mustn't stop here," Becky reasoned with herself.
"She must go away, the silly little fool.  She is still
whimpering after that gaby of a husband--dead (and
served right!) these fifteen years.  She shan't marry either
of these men.  It's too bad of Loder.  No; she shall marry
the bamboo cane, I'll settle it this very night."

So Becky took a cup of tea to Amelia in her private
apartment and found that lady in the company of her
miniatures, and in a most melancholy and nervous
condition.  She laid down the cup of tea.

"Thank you," said Amelia.

"Listen to me, Amelia," said Becky, marching up and
down the room before the other and surveying her with
a sort of contemptuous kindness.  "I want to talk to you.
You must go away from here and from the impertinences
of these men.  I won't have you harassed by them:  and
they will insult you if you stay.  I tell you they are rascals:
men fit to send to the hulks.  Never mind how I know
them.  I know everybody.  Jos can't protect you; he is too
weak and wants a protector himself.  You are no more fit
to live in the world than a baby in arms.  You must marry,
or you and your precious boy will go to ruin.  You must
have a husband, you fool; and one of the best gentlemen
I ever saw has offered you a hundred times, and you have
rejected him, you silly, heartless, ungrateful little
creature!"

"I tried--I tried my best, indeed I did, Rebecca," said
Amelia deprecatingly, "but I couldn't forget--"; and she
finished the sentence by looking up at the portrait.

"Couldn't forget HIM!" cried out Becky, "that selfish
humbug, that low-bred cockney dandy, that padded
booby, who had neither wit, nor manners, nor heart, and
was no more to be compared to your friend with the
bamboo cane than you are to Queen Elizabeth.  Why,
the man was weary of you, and would have jilted you, but
that Dobbin forced him to keep his word.  He owned it
to me.  He never cared for you.  He used to sneer about
you to me, time after time, and made love to me the
week after he married you."

"It's false!  It's false!  Rebecca," cried out Amelia,
starting up.

"Look there, you fool," Becky said, still with provoking
good humour, and taking a little paper out of her
belt, she opened it and flung it into Emmy's lap.  "You
know his handwriting.  He wrote that to me--wanted me
to run away with him--gave it me under your nose, the
day before he was shot--and served him right!" Becky
repeated.

Emmy did not hear her; she was looking at the letter.
It was that which George had put into the bouquet and
given to Becky on the night of the Duchess of Richmond's
ball.  It was as she said:  the foolish young man
had asked her to fly.

Emmy's head sank down, and for almost the last time
in which she shall be called upon to weep in this history,
she commenced that work.  Her head fell to her bosom, and
her hands went up to her eyes; and there for a while, she
gave way to her emotions, as Becky stood on and
regarded her.  Who shall analyse those tears and say
whether they were sweet or bitter? Was she most grieved
because the idol of her life was tumbled down and
shivered at her feet, or indignant that her love had been so
despised, or glad because the barrier was removed which
modesty had placed between her and a new, a real affection?
"There is nothing to forbid me now," she thought.
"I may love him with all my heart now.  Oh, I will, I will,
if he will but let me and forgive me." I believe it was this
feeling rushed over all the others which agitated that
gentle little bosom.

Indeed, she did not cry so much as Becky expected--
the other soothed and kissed her--a rare mark of
sympathy with Mrs. Becky.  She treated Emmy like a child
and patted her head.  "And now let us get pen and ink
and write to him to come this minute," she said.

"I--I wrote to him this morning," Emmy said, blushing
exceedingly.  Becky screamed with laughter--"Un
biglietto," she sang out with Rosina, "eccolo qua!"--the
whole house echoed with her shrill singing.

Two mornings after this little scene, although the day
was rainy and gusty, and Amelia had had an exceedingly
wakeful night, listening to the wind roaring, and pitying
all travellers by land and by water, yet she got up early
and insisted upon taking a walk on the Dike with Georgy;
and there she paced as the rain beat into her face, and
she looked out westward across the dark sea line and
over the swollen billows which came tumbling and frothing
to the shore.  Neither spoke much, except now and
then, when the boy said a few words to his timid
companion, indicative of sympathy and protection.

"I hope he won't cross in such weather," Emmy said.

"I bet ten to one he does," the boy answered.  "Look,
Mother, there's the smoke of the steamer." It was that
signal, sure enough.

But though the steamer was under way, he might not
be on board; he might not have got the letter; he might
not choose to come.  A hundred fears poured one over the
other into the little heart, as fast as the waves on to the
Dike.

The boat followed the smoke into sight.  Georgy had a
dandy telescope and got the vessel under view in the most
skilful manner.  And he made appropriate nautical
comments upon the manner of the approach of the steamer
as she came nearer and nearer, dipping and rising in the
water.  The signal of an English steamer in sight went
fluttering up to the mast on the pier.  I daresay Mrs.
Amelia's heart was in a similar flutter.

Emmy tried to look through the telescope over
George's shoulder, but she could make nothing of it.
She only saw a black eclipse bobbing up and down
before her eyes.

George took the glass again and raked the vessel.
"How she does pitch!" he said.  "There goes a wave slap
over her bows.  There's only two people on deck besides
the steersman.  There's a man lying down, and a--chap
in a--cloak with a--Hooray!--it's Dob, by Jingo!"
He clapped to the telescope and flung his arms round
his mother.  As for that lady, let us say what she did in
the words of a favourite poet--"Dakruoen gelasasa." She
was sure it was William.  It could be no other.  What she
had said about hoping that he would not come was all
hypocrisy.  Of course he would come; what could he do
else but come? She knew he would come.

The ship came swiftly nearer and nearer.  As they went
in to meet her at the landing-place at the quay, Emmy's
knees trembled so that she scarcely could run.  She would
have liked to kneel down and say her prayers of thanks
there.  Oh, she thought, she would be all her life saying
them!

It was such a bad day that as the vessel came alongside
of the quay there were no idlers abroad, scarcely
even a commissioner on the look out for the few
passengers in the steamer.  That young scapegrace George
had fled too, and as the gentleman in the old cloak lined
with red stuff stepped on to the shore, there was scarcely
any one present to see what took place, which was briefly
this:

A lady in a dripping white bonnet and shawl, with her
two little hands out before her, went up to him, and in
the next minute she had altogether disappeared under the
folds of the old cloak, and was kissing one of his hands
with all her might; whilst the other, I suppose, was
engaged in holding her to his heart (which her head just
about reached) and in preventing her from tumbling
down.  She was murmuring something about--forgive--
dear William--dear, dear, dearest friend--kiss, kiss, kiss,
and so forth--and in fact went on under the cloak in an
absurd manner.

When Emmy emerged from it, she still kept tight hold
of one of William's hands, and looked up in his face.  It
was full of sadness and tender love and pity.  She
understood its reproach and hung down her head.

"It was time you sent for me, dear Amelia," he said.

"You will never go again, William?"

"No, never," he answered, and pressed the dear little
soul once more to his heart.

As they issued out of the custom-house precincts,
Georgy broke out on them, with his telescope up to his
eye, and a loud laugh of welcome; he danced round the
couple and performed many facetious antics as he led
them up to the house.  Jos wasn't up yet; Becky not
visible (though she looked at them through the blinds).
Georgy ran off to see about breakfast.  Emmy, whose
shawl and bonnet were off in the passage in the hands of
Mrs. Payne, now went to undo the clasp of William's
cloak, and--we will, if you please, go with George, and
look after breakfast for the Colonel.  The vessel is in port.
He has got the prize he has been trying for all his life.
The bird has come in at last.  There it is with its head on
his shoulder, billing and cooing close up to his heart,
with soft outstretched fluttering wings.  This is what he
has asked for every day and hour for eighteen years.  This
is what he pined after.  Here it is--the summit, the end--
the last page of the third volume.  Good-bye, Colonel--
God bless you, honest William!--Farewell, dear Amelia
--Grow green again, tender little parasite, round the
rugged old oak to which you cling!

Perhaps it was compunction towards the kind and
simple creature, who had been the first in life to defend
her, perhaps it was a dislike to all such sentimental scenes
--but Rebecca, satisfied with her part in the transaction,
never presented herself before Colonel Dobbin and the
lady whom he married.  "Particular business," she said,
took her to Bruges, whither she went, and only Georgy
and his uncle were present at the marriage ceremony.
When it was over, and Georgy had rejoined his parents,
Mrs. Becky returned (just for a few days) to comfort the
solitary bachelor, Joseph Sedley.  He preferred a
continental life, he said, and declined to join in housekeeping
with his sister and her husband.

Emmy was very glad in her heart to think that she
had written to her husband before she read or knew of
that letter of George's.  "I knew it all along," William
said; "but could I use that weapon against the poor
fellow's memory? It was that which made me suffer so
when you--"

"Never speak of that day again," Emmy cried out, so
contrite and humble that William turned off the
conversation by his account of Glorvina and dear old Peggy
O'Dowd, with whom he was sitting when the letter of
recall reached him.  "If you hadn't sent for me," he added
with a laugh, "who knows what Glorvina's name might
be now?"

At present it is Glorvina Posky (now Mrs. Major
Posky); she took him on the death of his first wife,
having resolved never to marry out of the regiment.  Lady
O'Dowd is also so attached to it that, she says, if anything
were to happen to Mick, bedad she'd come back
and marry some of 'em.  But the Major-General is quite
well and lives in great splendour at O'Dowdstown, with
a pack of beagles, and (with the exception of perhaps
their neighbour, Hoggarty of Castle Hoggarty) he is the
first man of his county.  Her Ladyship still dances jigs, and
insisted on standing up with the Master of the Horse at
the Lord Lieutenant's last ball.  Both she and Glorvina
declared that Dobbin had used the latter SHEAMFULLY, but
Posky falling in, Glorvina was consoled, and a beautiful
turban from Paris appeased the wrath of Lady O'Dowd.

When Colonel Dobbin quitted the service, which he did
immediately after his marriage, he rented a pretty little
country place in Hampshire, not far from Queen's Crawley,
where, after the passing of the Reform Bill, Sir Pitt
and his family constantly resided now.  All idea of a
Peerage was out of the question, the Baronet's two seats
in Parliament being lost.  He was both out of pocket and
out of spirits by that catastrophe, failed in his health,
and prophesied the speedy ruin of the Empire.

Lady Jane and Mrs. Dobbin became great friends--
there was a perpetual crossing of pony-chaises between
the Hall and the Evergreens, the Colonel's place (rented
of his friend Major Ponto, who was abroad with his
family).  Her Ladyship was godmother to Mrs. Dobbin's child,
which bore her name, and was christened by the Rev.
James Crawley, who succeeded his father in the living:
and a pretty close friendship subsisted between the two
lads, George and Rawdon, who hunted and shot together
in the vacations, were both entered of the same college
at Cambridge, and quarrelled with each other about Lady
Jane's daughter, with whom they were both, of course,
in love.  A match between George and that young lady was
long a favourite scheme of both the matrons, though I
have heard that Miss Crawley herself inclined towards
her cousin.

Mrs. Rawdon Crawley's name was never mentioned by
either family.  There were reasons why all should be silent
regarding her.  For wherever Mr. Joseph Sedley went, she
travelled likewise, and that infatuated man seemed to be
entirely her slave.  The Colonel's lawyers informed him
that his brother-in-law had effected a heavy insurance
upon his life, whence it was probable that he had been
raising money to discharge debts.  He procured prolonged
leave of absence from the East India House, and indeed,
his infirmities were daily increasing.

On hearing the news about the insurance, Amelia, in
a good deal of alarm, entreated her husband to go to
Brussels, where Jos then was, and inquire into the state
of his affairs.  The Colonel quitted home with reluctance
(for he was deeply immersed in his History of the
Punjaub which still occupies him, and much alarmed
about his little daughter, whom he idolizes, and who was
just recovering from the chicken-pox) and went to Brussels
and found Jos living at one of the enormous hotels
in that city.  Mrs. Crawley, who had her carriage, gave
entertainments, and lived in a very genteel manner,
occupied another suite of apartments in the same hotel.

The Colonel, of course, did not desire to see that lady,
or even think proper to notify his arrival at Brussels,
except privately to Jos by a message through his valet.  Jos
begged the Colonel to come and see him that night, when
Mrs. Crawley would be at a soiree, and when they could
meet alone.  He found his brother-in-law in a condition of
pitiable infirmity--and dreadfully afraid of Rebecca,
though eager in his praises of her.  She tended him through
a series of unheard-of illnesses with a fidelity most
admirable.  She had been a daughter to him.  "But--but--
oh, for God's sake, do come and live near me, and--and
--see me sometimes," whimpered out the unfortunate
man.

The Colonel's brow darkened at this.  "We can't, Jos,"
he said.  "Considering the circumstances, Amelia can't
visit you."

"I swear to you--I swear to you on the Bible," gasped
out Joseph, wanting to kiss the book, "that she is as
innocent as a child, as spotless as your own wife."

"It may be so," said the Colonel gloomily, "but Emmy
can't come to you.  Be a man, Jos:  break off this
disreputable connection.  Come home to your family.  We hear
your affairs are involved."

"Involved!" cried Jos.  "Who has told such calumnies?
All my money is placed out most advantageously.  Mrs.
Crawley--that is--I mean--it is laid out to the best
interest."

"You are not in debt, then? Why did you insure your
life?"

"I thought--a little present to her--in case anything
happened; and you know my health is so delicate--common
gratitude you know--and I intend to leave all my
money to you--and I can spare it out of my income,
indeed I can," cried out William's weak brother-in-law.

The Colonel besought Jos to fly at once--to go back to
India, whither Mrs. Crawley could not follow him; to
do anything to break off a connection which might have
the most fatal consequences to him.

Jos clasped his hands and cried, "He would go back to
India.  He would do anything, only he must have time:
they mustn't say anything to Mrs. Crawley--she'd--she'd
kill me if she knew it.  You don't know what a terrible
woman she is," the poor wretch said.

"Then, why not come away with me?" said Dobbin in
reply; but Jos had not the courage.  "He would see
Dobbin again in the morning; he must on no account say that
he had been there.  He must go now.  Becky might come
in." And Dobbin quitted him, full of forebodings.

He never saw Jos more.  Three months afterwards
Joseph Sedley died at Aix-la-Chapelle.  It was found that
all his property had been muddled away in speculations,
and was represented by valueless shares in different
bubble companies.  All his available assets were the two
thousand pounds for which his life was insured, and which
were left equally between his beloved "sister Amelia,
wife of, &c., and his friend and invaluable attendant
during sickness, Rebecca, wife of Lieutenant-Colonel
Rawdon Crawley, C.B.," who was appointed administratrix.

The solicitor of the insurance company swore it was
the blackest case that ever had come before him, talked
of sending a commission to Aix to examine into the death,
and the Company refused payment of the policy.  But
Mrs., or Lady Crawley, as she styled herself, came to
town at once (attended with her solicitors, Messrs.  Burke,
Thurtell, and Hayes, of Thavies Inn) and dared the
Company to refuse the payment.  They invited examination,
they declared that she was the object of an infamous
conspiracy, which had been pursuing her all through life,
and triumphed finally.  The money was paid, and her
character established, but Colonel Dobbin sent back his share
of the legacy to the insurance office and rigidly declined to
hold any communication with Rebecca

She never was Lady Crawley, though she continued so
to call herself.  His Excellency Colonel Rawdon Crawley
died of yellow fever at Coventry Island, most deeply
beloved and deplored, and six weeks before the demise of
his brother, Sir Pitt.  The estate consequently devolved
upon the present Sir Rawdon Crawley, Bart.

He, too, has declined to see his mother, to whom he
makes a liberal allowance, and who, besides, appears to
be very wealthy.  The Baronet lives entirely at Queen's
Crawley, with Lady Jane and her daughter, whilst Rebecca,
Lady Crawley, chiefly hangs about Bath and Cheltenham,
where a very strong party of excellent people
consider her to be a most injured woman.  She has her
enemies.  Who has not? Her life is her answer to them.
She busies herself in works of piety.  She goes to church,
and never without a footman.  Her name is in all the
Charity Lists.  The destitute orange-girl, the neglected
washerwoman, the distressed muffin-man find in her a
fast and generous friend.  She is always having stalls at
Fancy Fairs for the benefit of these hapless beings.  Emmy,
her children, and the Colonel, coming to London some
time back, found themselves suddenly before her at one
of these fairs.  She cast down her eyes demurely and
smiled as they started away from her; Emmy scurrying
off on the arm of George (now grown a dashing young
gentleman) and the Colonel seizing up his little Janey,
of whom he is fonder than of anything in the world--
fonder even than of his History of the Punjaub.

"Fonder than he is of me," Emmy thinks with a sigh
But he never said a word to Amelia that was not kind and
gentle, or thought of a want of hers that he did not try to
gratify.

Ah!  Vanitas Vanitatum!  which of us is happy in this
world? Which of us has his desire? or, having it, is satisfied?
--come, children, let us shut up the box and the puppets,
for our play is played out.