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Vanity Fair

Уильям Мейкпис Теккерей (William Makepeace Thackeray)

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Vanity Fair, by William Makepeace Thackeray

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Author: William Makepeace Thackeray

Posting Date: August 30, 2008 [EBook #599]
Release Date: July, 1996
[Last updated: December 4, 2013]

Produced by Juli Rew.

Vanity Fair

William Makepeace Thackeray

BEFORE THE CURTAIN

As the manager of the Performance sits before the curtain on the boards and looks into the Fair, a feeling of profound melancholy comes over him in his survey of the bustling place. There is a great quantity of eating and drinking, making love and jilting, laughing and the contrary, smoking, cheating, fighting, dancing and fiddling; there are bullies pushing about, bucks ogling the women, knaves picking pockets, policemen on the look-out, quacks (OTHER quacks, plague take them!) bawling in front of their booths, and yokels looking up at the tinselled dancers and poor old rouged tumblers, while the light-fingered folk are operating upon their pockets behind. Yes, this is VANITY FAIR; not a moral place certainly; nor a merry one, though very noisy. Look at the faces of the actors and buffoons when they come off from their business; and Tom Fool washing the paint off his cheeks before he sits down to dinner with his wife and the little Jack Puddings behind the canvas. The curtain will be up presently, and he will be turning over head and heels, and crying, » How are you «

A man with a reflective turn of mind, walking through an exhibition of this sort, will not be oppressed, I take it, by his own or other people’s hilarity. An episode of humour or kindness touches and amuses him here and there—a pretty child looking at a gingerbread stall; a pretty girl blushing whilst her lover talks to her and chooses her fairing; poor Tom Fool, yonder behind the waggon, mumbling his bone with the honest family which lives by his tumbling; but the general impression is one more melancholy than mirthful. When you come home you sit down in a sober, contemplative, not uncharitable frame of mind, and apply yourself to your books or your business.

I have no other moral than this to tag to the present story of » Vanity Fair. » Some people consider Fairs immoral altogether, and eschew such, with their servants and families: very likely they are right. But persons who think otherwise, and are of a lazy, or a benevolent, or a sarcastic mood, may perhaps like to step in for half an hour, and look at the performances. There are scenes of all sorts; some dreadful combats, some grand and lofty horse-riding, some scenes of high life, and some of very middling indeed; some love-making for the sentimental, and some light comic business; the whole accompanied by appropriate scenery and brilliantly illuminated with the Author’s own candles.

Источник

BEFORE THE CURTAIN

As the manager of the Performance sits before the curtain on the boards and looks into the Fair, a feeling of profound melancholy comes over him in his survey of the bustling place.

There is a great quantity of eating and drinking, making love and jilting, laughing and the contrary, smoking, cheating, fighting, dancing and fiddling; there are bullies pushing about, bucks ogling the women, knaves picking pockets, policemen on the look-out, quacks (OTHER quacks, plague take them!)

bawling in front of their booths, and yokels looking up at the tinselled dancers and poor old rouged tumblers, while the light-fingered folk are operating upon their pockets behind.

Yes, this is VANITY FAIR; not a moral place certainly; nor a merry one, though very noisy. Look at the faces of the actors and buffoons when they come off from their business; and

Tom Fool washing the paint off his cheeks before he sits down to dinner with his wife and the little Jack Puddings behind the canvas. The curtain will be up presently, and he will be turning over head and heels, and crying, «How are you?»

A man with a reflective turn of mind, walking through an exhibition of this sort, will not be oppressed, I take it, by his own or other people’s hilarity. An episode of humour or kindness touches and amuses him here and there-a pretty child looking at a gingerbread stall; a pretty girl blushing whilst her lover talks to her and chooses her fairing; poor Tom Fool, yonder behind the waggon, mumbling his bone with the honest family which lives by his tumbling; but the general impression is one more melancholy than mirthful. When you come home you sit down in a sober, contemplative, not uncharitable frame of mind, and apply yourself to your books or your business.

I have no other moral than this to tag to the present story of «Vanity Fair.» Some people consider Fairs immoral altogether, and eschew such, with their servants and families: very likely they are right. But persons who think otherwise, and are of a lazy, or a benevolent, or a sarcastic mood, may perhaps like to step in for half an hour, and look at the performances.

There are scenes of all sorts; some dreadful combats, some grand and lofty horse-riding, some scenes of high life, and some of very middling indeed; some love-making for the sentimental, and some light comic business; the whole accompanied by appropriate scenery and brilliantly illuminated with the Author’s own candles.

What more has the Manager of the Performance to say?- To acknowledge the kindness with which it has been received in all the principal towns of England through which the Show has passed, and where it has been most favourably noticed by the respected conductors of the public Press, and by the Nobility and Gentry. He is proud to think that his Puppets have given satisfaction to the very best company in this empire. The famous little Becky Puppet has been pronounced to be uncommonly flexible in the joints, and lively on the wire; the Amelia

Doll, though it has had a smaller circle of admirers, has yet been carved and dressed with the greatest care by the artist; the

Dobbin Figure, though apparently clumsy, yet dances in a very amusing and natural manner; the Little Boys’ Dance has been liked by some; and please to remark the richly dressed figure of the Wicked Nobleman, on which no expense has been spared, and which Old Nick will fetch away at the end of this singular performance.

And with this, and a profound bow to his patrons, the

Manager retires, and the curtain rises.

LONDON, June 28, 1848

While the present century was in its teens, and on one sunshiny morning in June, there drove up to the great iron gate of Miss Pinkerton’s academy for young ladies, on Chiswick Mall, a large family coach, with two fat horses in blazing harness, driven by a fat coachman in a three-cornered hat and wig, at the rate of four miles an hour. A black servant, who reposed on the box beside the fat coachman, uncurled his bandy legs as soon as the equipage drew up opposite Miss Pinkerton’s shining brass plate, and as he pulled the bell at least a score of young heads were seen peering out of the narrow windows of the stately old brick house. Nay, the acute observer might have recognized the little red nose of good-natured Miss

Jemima Pinkerton herself, rising over some geranium pots in the window of that lady’s own drawing-room.

«It is Mrs. Sedley’s coach, sister,» said Miss Jemima.

«Sambo, the black servant, has just rung the bell; and the coachman has a new red waistcoat.»

«Have you completed all the necessary preparations incident to Miss Sedley’s departure, Miss Jemima?» asked

Miss Pinkerton herself, that majestic lady; the Semiramis of Hammersmith, the friend of Doctor Johnson, the correspondent of Mrs. Chapone herself.

«The girls were up at four this morning, packing her trunks, sister,» replied Miss Jemima; «we have made her a bow-pot.»

«Say a bouquet, sister Jemima, ’tis more genteel.»

«Well, a booky as big almost as a haystack; I have put up two bottles of the gillyflower water for Mrs. Sedley, and the receipt for making it, in Amelia’s box.»

«And I trust, Miss Jemima, you have made a copy of

Miss Sedley’s account. This is it, is it? Very good-ninety-

three pounds, four shillings. Be kind enough to address it to John Sedley, Esquire, and to seal this billet which I

have written to his lady.»

In Miss Jemima’s eyes an autograph letter of her sister,

Miss Pinkerton, was an object of as deep veneration as would have been a letter from a sovereign. Only when her pupils quitted the establishment, or when they were about to be married, and once, when poor Miss Birch died of the scarlet fever, was Miss Pinkerton known to write personally to the parents of her pupils; and it was

Jemima’s opinion that if anything could console Mrs.

Birch for her daughter’s loss, it would be that pious and eloquent composition in which Miss Pinkerton announced the event.

In the present instance Miss Pinkerton’s «billet» was to the following effect:-

The Mall, Chiswick, June 15, 18

MADAM,-After her six years’ residence at the Mall, I

have the honour and happiness of presenting Miss Amelia

Sedley to her parents, as a young lady not unworthy to occupy a fitting position in their polished and refined circle. Those virtues which characterize the young English gentlewoman, those accomplishments which become her birth and station, will not be found wanting in the amiable Miss Sedley, whose INDUSTRY and OBEDIENCE

have endeared her to her instructors, and whose delightful sweetness of temper has charmed her AGED and her

In music, in dancing, in orthography, in every variety of embroidery and needlework, she will be found to have realized her friends’ fondest wishes. In geography there is still much to be desired; and a careful and undeviating use of the backboard, for four hours daily during the next three years, is recommended as necessary to the acquirement of that dignified DEPORTMENT AND

CARRIAGE, so requisite for every young lady of fashion.

In the principles of religion and morality, Miss Sedley will be found worthy of an establishment which has been honoured by the presence of THE GREAT LEXICOGRAPHER, and the patronage of the admirable Mrs. Chapone. In leaving the Mall, Miss Amelia carries with her the hearts of her companions, and the affectionate regards of her mistress, who has the honour to subscribe herself,

Your most obliged humble servant,

P.S.-Miss Sharp accompanies Miss Sedley. It is particularly requested that Miss Sharp’s stay in Russell Square may not exceed ten days. The family of distinction with whom she is engaged, desire to avail themselves of her services as soon as possible.

This letter completed, Miss Pinkerton proceeded to write her own name, and Miss Sedley’s, in the fly-leaf of a Johnson’s Dictionary-the interesting work which she invariably presented to her scholars, on their departure from the Mall. On the cover was inserted a copy of «Lines addressed to a young lady on quitting Miss Pinkerton’s school, at the Mall; by the late revered Doctor Samuel

Johnson.» In fact, the Lexicographer’s name was always on the lips of this majestic woman, and a visit he had paid to her was the cause of her reputation and her fortune.

Being commanded by her elder sister to get «the Dictionary»

from the cupboard, Miss Jemima had extracted two copies of the book from the receptacle in question. When Miss

Pinkerton had finished the inscription in the first, Jemima, with rather a dubious and timid air, handed her the second.

«For whom is this, Miss Jemima?» said Miss Pinkerton, with awful coldness.

«For Becky Sharp,» answered Jemima, trembling very much, and blushing over her withered face and neck, as she turned her back on her sister. «For Becky Sharp: she’s going too.»

«MISS JEMIMA!» exclaimed Miss Pinkerton, in the largest capitals. «Are you in your senses? Replace the

Dixonary in the closet, and never venture to take such a liberty in future.»

«Well, sister, it’s only two-and-ninepence, and poor

Becky will be miserable if she don’t get one.»

«Send Miss Sedley instantly to me,» said Miss Pinkerton.

And so venturing not to say another word, poor

Jemima trotted off, exceedingly flurried and nervous.

Miss Sedley’s papa was a merchant in London, and a man of some wealth; whereas Miss Sharp was an articled pupil, for whom Miss Pinkerton had done, as she thought, quite enough, without conferring upon her at parting the high honour of the Dixonary.

For she could not only sing like a lark, or a Mrs.

Billington, and dance like Hillisberg or Parisot; and embroider beautifully; and spell as well as a Dixonary itself; but she had such a kindly, smiling, tender, gentle, generous heart of her own, as won the love of everybody who came near her, from Minerva herself down to the poor girl in the scullery, and the one-eyed tart-woman’s daughter, who was permitted to vend her wares once a week to the young ladies in the Mall. She had twelve intimate and bosom friends out of the twenty-four young ladies.

Even envious Miss Briggs never spoke ill of her; high and mighty Miss Saltire (Lord Dexter’s granddaughter)

allowed that her figure was genteel; and as for Miss

Swartz, the rich woolly-haired mulatto from St. Kitt’s, on the day Amelia went away, she was in such a passion of tears that they were obliged to send for Dr. Floss, and half tipsify her with salvolatile. Miss Pinkerton’s attachment was, as may be supposed from the high position and eminent virtues of that lady, calm and dignified; but Miss

Jemima had already whimpered several times at the idea of Amelia’s departure; and, but for fear of her sister, would have gone off in downright hysterics, like the heiress (who paid double) of St. Kitt’s. Such luxury of grief, however, is only allowed to parlour-boarders.

Honest Jemima had all the bills, and the washing, and the mending, and the puddings, and the plate and crockery, and the servants to superintend. But why speak about her? It is probable that we shall not hear of her again from this moment to the end of time, and that when the great filigree iron gates are once closed on her, she and her awful sister will never issue therefrom into this little world of history.

But as we are to see a great deal of Amelia, there is no harm in saying, at the outset of our acquaintance, that she was a dear little creature; and a great mercy it is, both in life and in novels, which (and the latter especially)

abound in villains of the most sombre sort, that we are to have for a constant companion so guileless and good-natured a person. As she is not a heroine, there is no need to describe her person; indeed I am afraid that her nose was rather short than otherwise, and her cheeks a great deal too round and red for a heroine; but her face blushed with rosy health, and her lips with the freshest of smiles, and she had a pair of eyes which sparkled with the brightest and honestest good-humour, except indeed when they filled with tears, and that was a great deal too often; for the silly thing would cry over a dead canary-bird; or over a mouse, that the cat haply had seized upon; or over the end of a novel, were it ever so stupid; and as for saying an unkind word to her, were any persons hard-hearted enough to do so-why, so much the worse for them. Even Miss Pinkerton, that austere and godlike woman, ceased scolding her after the first time, and though she no more comprehended sensibility than she did Algebra, gave all masters and teachers particular orders to treat Miss Sedley with the utmost gentleness, as harsh treatment was injurious to her.

So that when the day of departure came, between her two customs of laughing and crying, Miss Sedley was greatly puzzled how to act. She was glad to go home, and yet most woefully sad at leaving school. For three days before, little Laura Martin, the orphan, followed her about like a little dog. She had to make and receive at least fourteen presents-to make fourteen solemn promises of writing every week: «Send my letters under cover to my grandpapa, the Earl of Dexter,» said Miss Saltire

(who, by the way, was rather shabby). «Never mind the postage, but write every day, you dear darling,» said the impetuous and woolly-headed, but generous and affectionate Miss Swartz; and the orphan little Laura Martin

(who was just in round-hand), took her friend’s hand and said, looking up in her face wistfully, «Amelia, when

I write to you I shall call you Mamma.» All which details,

I have no doubt, JONES, who reads this book at his

Club, will pronounce to be excessively foolish, trivial, twaddling, and ultra-sentimental. Yes; I can see Jones at this minute (rather flushed with his joint of mutton and half pint of wine), taking out his pencil and scoring under the words «foolish, twaddling,» &c., and adding to them his own remark of «QUITE TRUE.» Well, he is a lofty man of genius, and admires the great and heroic in life and novels; and so had better take warning and go elsewhere.

Well, then. The flowers, and the presents, and the trunks, and bonnet-boxes of Miss Sedley having been arranged by Mr. Sambo in the carriage, together with a very small and weather-beaten old cow’s-skin trunk with

Miss Sharp’s card neatly nailed upon it, which was delivered by Sambo with a grin, and packed by the coachman with a corresponding sneer-the hour for parting came; and the grief of that moment was considerably lessened by the admirable discourse which Miss Pinkerton addressed to her pupil. Not that the parting speech caused

Amelia to philosophise, or that it armed her in any way with a calmness, the result of argument; but it was intolerably dull, pompous, and tedious; and having the fear of her schoolmistress greatly before her eyes, Miss

Sedley did not venture, in her presence, to give way to any ebullitions of private grief. A seed-cake and a bottle of wine were produced in the drawing-room, as on the solemn occasions of the visits of parents, and these refreshments being partaken of, Miss Sedley was at liberty to depart.

«You’ll go in and say good-by to Miss Pinkerton,

Becky!» said Miss Jemima to a young lady of whom nobody took any notice, and who was coming downstairs with her own bandbox.

«I suppose I must,» said Miss Sharp calmly, and much to the wonder of Miss Jemima; and the latter having knocked at the door, and receiving permission to come in, Miss Sharp advanced in a very unconcerned manner, and said in French, and with a perfect accent, «Mademoiselle, je viens vous faire mes adieux.»

Miss Pinkerton did not understand French; she only directed those who did: but biting her lips and throwing up her venerable and Roman-nosed head (on the top of which figured a large and solemn turban), she said, «Miss

Sharp, I wish you a good morning.» As the Hammersmith

Semiramis spoke, she waved one hand, both by way of adieu, and to give Miss Sharp an opportunity of shaking one of the fingers of the hand which was left out for that purpose.

Miss Sharp only folded her own hands with a very frigid smile and bow, and quite declined to accept the proffered honour; on which Semiramis tossed up her turban more indignantly than ever. In fact, it was a little battle between the young lady and the old one, and the latter was worsted. «Heaven bless you, my child,» said she, embracing Amelia, and scowling the while over the girl’s shoulder at Miss Sharp. «Come away, Becky,» said

Miss Jemima, pulling the young woman away in great alarm, and the drawing-room door closed upon them for ever.

Then came the struggle and parting below. Words refuse to tell it. All the servants were there in the hall-

all the dear friend-all the young ladies-the dancing-

master who had just arrived; and there was such a scuffling, and hugging, and kissing, and crying, with the hysterical YOOPS of Miss Swartz, the parlour-boarder, from her room, as no pen can depict, and as the tender heart would fain pass over. The embracing was over; they parted-that is, Miss Sedley parted from her friends. Miss

Sharp had demurely entered the carriage some minutes before. Nobody cried for leaving HER.

Sambo of the bandy legs slammed the carriage door on his young weeping mistress. He sprang up behind the carriage. «Stop!» cried Miss Jemima, rushing to the gate with a parcel.

«It’s some sandwiches, my dear,» said she to Amelia.

«You may be hungry, you know; and Becky, Becky

Sharp, here’s a book for you that my sister-that is, I

-Johnson’s Dixonary, you know; you mustn’t leave us without that. Good-by. Drive on, coachman. God bless you!»

And the kind creature retreated into the garden, overcome with emotion.

But, lo! and just as the coach drove off, Miss Sharp put her pale face out of the window and actually flung the book back into the garden.

This almost caused Jemima to faint with terror. «Well,

I never»-said she-«what an audacious»-Emotion prevented her from completing either sentence. The carriage rolled away; the great gates were closed; the bell rang for the dancing lesson. The world is before the two young ladies; and so, farewell to Chiswick Mall.

In Which Miss Sharp and Miss Sedley

Prepare to Open the Campaign

When Miss Sharp had performed the heroical act mentioned in the last chapter, and had seen the Dixonary, flying over the pavement of the little garden, fall at length at the feet of the astonished Miss Jemima, the young lady’s countenance, which had before worn an almost livid look of hatred, assumed a smile that perhaps was scarcely more agreeable, and she sank back in the carriage in an easy frame of mind, saying-«So much for the Dixonary; and, thank God, I’m out of Chiswick.»

Miss Sedley was almost as flurried at the act of defiance as Miss Jemima had been; for, consider, it was but one minute that she had left school, and the impressions of six years are not got over in that space of time. Nay, with some persons those awes and terrors of youth last for ever and ever. I know, for instance, an old gentleman of sixty-eight, who said to me one morning at breakfast, with a very agitated countenance, «I dreamed last night that I was flogged by Dr. Raine.» Fancy had carried him back five-and-fifty years in the course of that evening. Dr. Raine and his rod were just as awful to him in his heart, then, at sixty-eight, as they had been at thirteen. If the Doctor, with a large birch, had appeared bodily to him, even at the age of threescore and eight, and had said in awful voice, «Boy, take down your pant-«? Well, well, Miss Sedley was exceedingly alarmed at this act of insubordination.

«How could you do so, Rebecca?» at last she said, after a pause.

«Why, do you think Miss Pinkerton will come out and order me back to the black-hole?» said Rebecca, laughing.

«I hate the whole house,» continued Miss Sharp in a fury. «I hope I may never set eyes on it again. I wish it were in the bottom of the Thames, I do; and if Miss

Pinkerton were there, I wouldn’t pick her out, that I

wouldn’t. O how I should like to see her floating in the water yonder, turban and all, with her train streaming after her, and her nose like the beak of a wherry.»

«Hush!» cried Miss Sedley.

«Why, will the black footman tell tales?» cried Miss

Rebecca, laughing. «He may go back and tell Miss

Pinkerton that I hate her with all my soul; and I wish he would; and I wish I had a means of proving it, too. For two years I have only had insults and outrage from her.

I have been treated worse than any servant in the kitchen.

I have never had a friend or a kind word, except from you. I have been made to tend the little girls in the lower schoolroom, and to talk French to the Misses, until I

grew sick of my mother tongue. But that talking French to Miss Pinkerton was capital fun, wasn’t it? She doesn’t know a word of French, and was too proud to confess it. I believe it was that which made her part with me;

and so thank Heaven for French. Vive la France! Vive l’Empereur! Vive Bonaparte!»

«O Rebecca, Rebecca, for shame!» cried Miss Sedley;

for this was the greatest blasphemy Rebecca had as yet uttered; and in those days, in England, to say, «Long live

Bonaparte!» was as much as to say, «Long live Lucifer!»

«How can you-how dare you have such wicked, revengeful thoughts?»

«Revenge may be wicked, but it’s natural,» answered

Miss Rebecca. «I’m no angel.» And, to say the truth, she certainly was not.

For it may be remarked in the course of this little conversation (which took place as the coach rolled along lazily by the river side) that though Miss Rebecca Sharp has twice had occasion to thank Heaven, it has been, in the first place, for ridding her of some person whom she hated, and secondly, for enabling her to bring her enemies to some sort of perplexity or confusion; neither of which are very amiable motives for religious gratitude, or such as would be put forward by persons of a kind and placable disposition. Miss Rebecca was not, then, in the least kind or placable. All the world used her ill, said this young misanthropist, and we may be pretty certain that persons whom all the world treats ill, deserve entirely the treatment they get. The world is a looking-

glass, and gives back to every man the reflection of his own face. Frown at it, and it will in turn look sourly upon you; laugh at it and with it, and it is a jolly kind companion; and so let all young persons take their choice.

This is certain, that if the world neglected Miss Sharp, she never was known to have done a good action in behalf of anybody; nor can it be expected that twenty-

four young ladies should all be as amiable as the heroine of this work, Miss Sedley (whom we have selected for the very reason that she was the best-natured of all, otherwise what on earth was to have prevented us from putting up Miss Swartz, or Miss Crump, or Miss Hopkins, as heroine in her place!) it could not be expected that every one should be of the humble and gentle temper of Miss Amelia Sedley; should take every opportunity to vanquish Rebecca’s hard-heartedness and ill-humour; and, by a thousand kind words and offices, overcome, for once at least, her hostility to her kind.

Miss Sharp’s father was an artist, and in that quality had given lessons of drawing at Miss Pinkerton’s school.

He was a clever man; a pleasant companion; a careless student; with a great propensity for running into debt, and a partiality for the tavern. When he was drunk, he used to beat his wife and daughter; and the next morning, with a headache, he would rail at the world for its neglect of his genius, and abuse, with a good deal of cleverness, and sometimes with perfect reason, the fools, his brother painters. As it was with the utmost difficulty that he could keep himself, and as he owed money for a mile round Soho, where he lived, he thought to better his circumstances by marrying a young woman of the French nation, who was by profession an opera-girl. The humble calling of her female parent Miss Sharp never alluded to, but used to state subsequently that the Entrechats were a noble family of Gascony, and took great pride in her descent from them. And curious it is that as she advanced in life this young lady’s ancestors increased in rank and splendour.

Rebecca’s mother had had some education somewhere, and her daughter spoke French with purity and a Parisian accent. It was in those days rather a rare accomplishment, and led to her engagement with the orthodox Miss

Pinkerton. For her mother being dead, her father, finding himself not likely to recover, after his third attack of delirium tremens, wrote a manly and pathetic letter to

Miss Pinkerton, recommending the orphan child to her protection, and so descended to the grave, after two bailiffs had quarrelled over his corpse. Rebecca was seventeen when she came to Chiswick, and was bound over as an articled pupil; her duties being to talk French, as we have seen; and her privileges to live cost free, and, with a few guineas a year, to gather scraps of knowledge from the professors who attended the school.

She was small and slight in person; pale, sandy-haired, and with eyes habitually cast down: when they looked up they were very large, odd, and attractive; so attractive that the Reverend Mr. Crisp, fresh from Oxford, and curate to the Vicar of Chiswick, the Reverend Mr.

Flowerdew, fell in love with Miss Sharp; being shot dead by a glance of her eyes which was fired all the way across

Chiswick Church from the school-pew to the reading-

desk. This infatuated young man used sometimes to take tea with Miss Pinkerton, to whom he had been presented by his mamma, and actually proposed something like marriage in an intercepted note, which the one-eyed apple-woman was charged to deliver. Mrs. Crisp was summoned from Buxton, and abruptly carried off her darling boy; but the idea, even, of such an eagle in the Chiswick dovecot caused a great flutter in the breast of Miss

Pinkerton, who would have sent away Miss Sharp but that she was bound to her under a forfeit, and who never could thoroughly believe the young lady’s protestations that she had never exchanged a single word with Mr.

Crisp, except under her own eyes on the two occasions when she had met him at tea.

By the side of many tall and bouncing young ladies in the establishment, Rebecca Sharp looked like a child. But she had the dismal precocity of poverty. Many a dun had she talked to, and turned away from her father’s door;

many a tradesman had she coaxed and wheedled into good-humour, and into the granting of one meal more.

She sate commonly with her father, who was very proud of her wit, and heard the talk of many of his wild companions-often but ill-suited for a girl to hear. But she never had been a girl, she said; she had been a woman since she was eight years old. Oh, why did Miss Pinkerton let such a dangerous bird into her cage?

The fact is, the old lady believed Rebecca to be the meekest creature in the world, so admirably, on the occasions when her father brought her to Chiswick, used

Rebecca to perform the part of the ingenue; and only a year before the arrangement by which Rebecca had been admitted into her house, and when Rebecca was sixteen years old, Miss Pinkerton majestically, and with a little speech, made her a present of a doll-which was, by the way, the confiscated property of Miss Swindle, discovered surreptitiously nursing it in school-hours. How the father and daughter laughed as they trudged home together after the evening party (it was on the occasion of the speeches, when all the professors were invited) and how Miss Pinkerton would have raged had she seen the caricature of herself which the little mimic, Rebecca, managed to make out of her doll. Becky used to go through dialogues with it; it formed the delight of

Newman Street, Gerrard Street, and the Artists’ quarter: and the young painters, when they came to take their gin-

and-water with their lazy, dissolute, clever, jovial senior, used regularly to ask Rebecca if Miss Pinkerton was at home: she was as well known to them, poor soul! as

Mr. Lawrence or President West. Once Rebecca had the honour to pass a few days at Chiswick; after which she brought back Jemima, and erected another doll as Miss

Jemmy: for though that honest creature had made and given her jelly and cake enough for three children, and a seven-shilling piece at parting, the girl’s sense of ridicule was far stronger than her gratitude, and she sacrificed Miss Jemmy quite as pitilessly as her sister.

The catastrophe came, and she was brought to the

The pompous vanity of the old schoolmistress, the foolish good-humour of her sister, the silly chat and scandal of the elder girls, and the frigid correctness of the governesses equally annoyed her; and she had no soft maternal heart, this unlucky girl, otherwise the prattle and talk of the younger children, with whose care she was chiefly intrusted, might have soothed and interested her; but she lived among them two years, and not one was sorry that she went away. The gentle tender-

hearted Amelia Sedley was the only person to whom she could attach herself in the least; and who could help attaching herself to Amelia?

The happiness the superior advantages of the young women round about her, gave Rebecca inexpressible pangs of envy. «What airs that girl gives herself, because she is an Earl’s grand-daughter,» she said of one. «How they cringe and bow to that Creole, because of her hundred thousand pounds! I am a thousand times cleverer and more charming than that creature, for all her wealth.

I am as well bred as the Earl’s grand-daughter, for all her fine pedigree; and yet every one passes me by here. And yet, when I was at my father’s, did not the men give up their gayest balls and parties in order to pass the evening with me?» She determined at any rate to get free from the prison in which she found herself, and now began to act for herself, and for the first time to make connected plans for the future.

She took advantage, therefore, of the means of study the place offered her; and as she was already a musician and a good linguist, she speedily went through the little course of study which was considered necessary for ladies in those days. Her music she practised incessantly, and one day, when the girls were out, and she had remained at home, she was overheard to play a piece so well that

Minerva thought, wisely, she could spare herself the expense of a master for the juniors, and intimated to Miss

Sharp that she was to instruct them in music for the future.

The girl refused; and for the first time, and to the astonishment of the majestic mistress of the school. «I

am here to speak French with the children,» Rebecca said abruptly, «not to teach them music, and save money for you. Give me money, and I will teach them.»

Minerva was obliged to yield, and, of course, disliked her from that day. «For five-and-thirty years,» she said, and with great justice, «I never have seen the individual who has dared in my own house to question my authority. I have nourished a viper in my bosom.»

«A viper-a fiddlestick,» said Miss Sharp to the old lady, almost fainting with astonishment. «You took me because I was useful. There is no question of gratitude between us. I hate this place, and want to leave it. I

will do nothing here but what I am obliged to do.»

It was in vain that the old lady asked her if she was aware she was speaking to Miss Pinkerton? Rebecca laughed in her face, with a horrid sarcastic demoniacal laughter, that almost sent the schoolmistress into fits.

«Give me a sum of money,» said the girl, «and get rid of me-or, if you like better, get me a good place as governess in a nobleman’s family-you can do so if you please.» And in their further disputes she always returned to this point, «Get me a situation-we hate each other, and I am ready to go.»

Worthy Miss Pinkerton, although she had a Roman nose and a turban, and was as tall as a grenadier, and had been up to this time an irresistible princess, had no will or strength like that of her little apprentice, and in vain did battle against her, and tried to overawe her.

Attempting once to scold her in public, Rebecca hit upon the before-mentioned plan of answering her in French, which quite routed the old woman. In order to maintain authority in her school, it became necessary to remove this rebel, this monster, this serpent, this firebrand; and hearing about this time that Sir Pitt Crawley’s family was in want of a governess, she actually recommended

Miss Sharp for the situation, firebrand and serpent as she was. «I cannot, certainly,» she said, «find fault with

Miss Sharp’s conduct, except to myself; and must allow that her talents and accomplishments are of a high order.

As far as the head goes, at least, she does credit to the educational system pursued at my establishment.»

And so the schoolmistress reconciled the recommendation to her conscience, and the indentures were cancelled, and the apprentice was free. The battle here described in a few lines, of course, lasted for some months. And as Miss Sedley, being now in her seventeenth year, was about to leave school, and had a friendship for Miss

Sharp («’tis the only point in Amelia’s behaviour,» said

Minerva, «which has not been satisfactory to her mistress»), Miss Sharp was invited by her friend to pass a week with her at home, before she entered upon her duties as governess in a private family.

Thus the world began for these two young ladies. For

Amelia it was quite a new, fresh, brilliant world, with all the bloom upon it. It was not quite a new one for

Rebecca-(indeed, if the truth must be told with respect to the Crisp affair, the tart-woman hinted to somebody, who took an affidavit of the fact to somebody else, that there was a great deal more than was made public regarding Mr. Crisp and Miss Sharp, and that his letter was in answer to another letter). But who can tell you the real truth of the matter? At all events, if Rebecca was not beginning the world, she was beginning it over again.

By the time the young ladies reached Kensington turnpike,

Amelia had not forgotten her companions, but had dried her tears, and had blushed very much and been delighted at a young officer of the Life Guards, who spied her as he was riding by, and said, «A dem fine gal, egad!» and before the carriage arrived in Russell Square, a great deal of conversation had taken place about the

Drawing-room, and whether or not young ladies wore powder as well as hoops when presented, and whether she was to have that honour: to the Lord Mayor’s ball she knew she was to go. And when at length home was reached, Miss Amelia Sedley skipped out on Sambo’s arm, as happy and as handsome a girl as any in the whole big city of London. Both he and coachman agreed on this point, and so did her father and mother, and so did every one of the servants in the house, as they stood bobbing, and curtseying, and smiling, in the hall to welcome their young mistress.

You may be sure that she showed Rebecca over every room of the house, and everything in every one of her drawers; and her books, and her piano, and her dresses, and all her necklaces, brooches, laces, and gimcracks.

She insisted upon Rebecca accepting the white cornelian and the turquoise rings, and a sweet sprigged muslin, which was too small for her now, though it would fit her friend to a nicety; and she determined in her heart to ask her mother’s permission to present her white

Cashmere shawl to her friend. Could she not spare it? and had not her brother Joseph just brought her two from

When Rebecca saw the two magnificent Cashmere shawls which Joseph Sedley had brought home to his sister, she said, with perfect truth, «that it must be delightful to have a brother,» and easily got the pity of the tender-hearted Amelia for being alone in the world, an orphan without friends or kindred.

«Not alone,» said Amelia; «you know, Rebecca, I shall always be your friend, and love you as a sister-indeed

«Ah, but to have parents, as you have-kind, rich, affectionate parents, who give you everything you-ask for; and their love, which is more precious than all!

My poor papa could give me nothing, and I had but two frocks in all the world! And then, to have a brother, a dear brother! Oh, how you must love him!»

«What! don’t you love him? you, who say you love everybody?»

«Yes, of course, I do-only-«

«Only Joseph doesn’t seem to care much whether I

love him or not. He gave me two fingers to shake when he arrived after ten years’ absence! He is very kind and good, but he scarcely ever speaks to me; I think he loves his pipe a great deal better than his»-but here

Amelia checked herself, for why should she speak ill of her brother? «He was very kind to me as a child,» she added; «I was but five years old when he went away.»

«Isn’t he very rich?» said Rebecca. «They say all Indian nabobs are enormously rich.»

«I believe he has a very large income.»

«And is your sister-in-law a nice pretty woman?»

«La! Joseph is not married,» said Amelia, laughing again.

Perhaps she had mentioned the fact already to Rebecca, but that young lady did not appear to have remembered it; indeed, vowed and protested that she expected to see a number of Amelia’s nephews and nieces. She was quite disappointed that Mr. Sedley was not married; she was sure Amelia had said he was, and she doted so on little children.

«I think you must have had enough of them at

Chiswick,» said Amelia, rather wondering at the sudden tenderness on her friend’s part; and indeed in later days

Miss Sharp would never have committed herself so far as to advance opinions, the untruth of which would have been so easily detected. But we must remember that she is but nineteen as yet, unused to the art of deceiving, poor innocent creature! and making her own experience in her own person. The meaning of the above series of queries, as translated in the heart of this ingenious young woman, was simply this: «If Mr. Joseph Sedley is rich and unmarried, why should I not marry him? I have only a fortnight, to be sure, but there is no harm in trying.» And she determined within herself to make this laudable attempt. She redoubled her caresses to Amelia;

she kissed the white cornelian necklace as she put it on; and vowed she would never, never part with it. When the dinner-bell rang she went downstairs with her arm round her friend’s waist, as is the habit of young ladies.

She was so agitated at the drawing-room door, that she could hardly find courage to enter. «Feel my heart, how it beats, dear!» said she to her friend.

«No, it doesn’t,» said Amelia. «Come in, don’t be frightened. Papa won’t do you any harm.»

Rebecca Is in Presence of the Enemy

A VERY stout, puffy man, in buckskins and Hessian boots, with several immense neckcloths that rose almost to his nose, with a red striped waistcoat and an apple green coat with steel buttons almost as large as crown pieces (it was the morning costume of a dandy or blood of those days) was reading the paper by the fire when the two girls entered, and bounced off his arm-chair, and blushed excessively, and hid his entire face almost in his neckcloths at this apparition.

«It’s only your sister, Joseph,» said Amelia, laughing and shaking the two fingers which he held out. «I’ve come home FOR GOOD, you know; and this is my friend,

Miss Sharp, whom you have heard me mention.»

«No, never, upon my word,» said the head under the neckcloth, shaking very much-«that is, yes-what abominably cold weather, Miss»-and herewith he fell to poking the fire with all his might, although it was in the middle of June.

«He’s very handsome,» whispered Rebecca to Amelia, rather loud.

«Do you think so?» said the latter. «I’ll tell him.»

«Darling! not for worlds,» said Miss Sharp, starting back as timid as a fawn. She had previously made a respectful virgin-like curtsey to the gentleman, and her modest eyes gazed so perseveringly on the carpet that it was a wonder how she should have found an opportunity to see him.

«Thank you for the beautiful shawls, brother,» said

Amelia to the fire poker. «Are they not beautiful, Rebecca?»

«O heavenly!» said Miss Sharp, and her eyes went from the carpet straight to the chandelier.

Joseph still continued a huge clattering at the poker and tongs, puffing and blowing the while, and turning as red as his yellow face would allow him. «I can’t make you such handsome presents, Joseph,» continued his sister, «but while I was at school, I have embroidered for you a very beautiful pair of braces.»

«Good Gad! Amelia,» cried the brother, in serious alarm, «what do you mean?» and plunging with all his might at the bell-rope, that article of furniture came away in his hand, and increased the honest fellow’s confusion. «For heaven’s sake see if my buggy’s at the door. I CAN’T wait. I must go. D- that groom of mine.

At this minute the father of the family walked in, rattling his seals like a true British merchant. «What’s the matter, Emmy?» says he.

«Joseph wants me to see if his-his buggy is at the door. What is a buggy, Papa?»

«It is a one-horse palanquin,» said the old gentleman, who was a wag in his way.

Joseph at this burst out into a wild fit of laughter;

in which, encountering the eye of Miss Sharp, he stopped all of a sudden, as if he had been shot.

«This young lady is your friend? Miss Sharp, I am very happy to see you. Have you and Emmy been quarrelling already with Joseph, that he wants to be off?»

«I promised Bonamy of our service, sir,» said Joseph,

«O fie! didn’t you tell your mother you would dine here?»

«But in this dress it’s impossible.»

«Look at him, isn’t he handsome enough to dine anywhere, Miss Sharp?»

On which, of course, Miss Sharp looked at her friend, and they both set off in a fit of laughter, highly agreeable to the old gentleman.

«Did you ever see a pair of buckskins like those at

Miss Pinkerton’s?» continued he, following up his advantage.

«Gracious heavens! Father,» cried Joseph.

«There now, I have hurt his feelings. Mrs. Sedley, my dear, I have hurt your son’s feelings. I have alluded to his buckskins. Ask Miss Sharp if I haven’t? Come,

Joseph, be friends with Miss Sharp, and let us all go to dinner.»

«There’s a pillau, Joseph, just as you like it, and Papa has brought home the best turbot in Billingsgate.»

«Come, come, sir, walk downstairs with Miss Sharp, and I will follow with these two young women,» said the father, and he took an arm of wife and daughter and walked merrily off.

If Miss Rebecca Sharp had determined in her heart upon making the conquest of this big beau, I don’t think, ladies, we have any right to blame her; for though the task of husband-hunting is generally, and with becoming modesty, entrusted by young persons to their mammas, recollect that Miss Sharp had no kind parent to arrange these delicate matters for her, and that if she did not get a husband for herself, there was no one else in the wide world who would take the trouble off her hands. What causes young people to «come out,»

but the noble ambition of matrimony? What sends them trooping to watering-places? What keeps them dancing till five o’clock in the morning through a whole mortal season? What causes them to labour at pianoforte sonatas, and to learn four songs from a fashionable master at a guinea a lesson, and to play the harp if they have handsome arms and neat elbows, and to wear Lincoln

Green toxophilite hats and feathers, but that they may bring down some «desirable» young man with those killing bows and arrows of theirs? What causes respectable parents to take up their carpets, set their houses topsy-turvy, and spend a fifth of their year’s income in ball suppers and iced champagne? Is it sheer love of their species, and an unadulterated wish to see young people happy and dancing? Psha! they want to marry their daughters; and, as honest Mrs. Sedley has, in the depths of her kind heart, already arranged a score of little schemes for the settlement of her Amelia, so also had our beloved but unprotected Rebecca determined to do her very best to secure the husband, who was even more necessary for her than for her friend. She had a vivid imagination; she had, besides, read the Arabian Nights and Guthrie’s

Geography; and it is a fact that while she was dressing for dinner, and after she had asked Amelia whether her brother was very rich, she had built for herself a most magnificent castle in the air, of which she was mistress, with a husband somewhere in the background (she had not seen him as yet, and his figure would not therefore be very distinct); she had arrayed herself in an infinity of shawls, turbans, and diamond necklaces, and had mounted upon an elephant to the sound of the march in

Bluebeard, in order to pay a visit of ceremony to the

Grand Mogul. Charming Alnaschar visions! it is the happy privilege of youth to construct you, and many a fanciful young creature besides Rebecca Sharp has indulged in these delightful day-dreams ere now!

Joseph Sedley was twelve years older than his sister

Amelia. He was in the East India Company’s Civil

Service, and his name appeared, at the period of which we write, in the Bengal division of the East India Register, as collector of Boggley Wollah, an honourable and lucrative post, as everybody knows: in order to know to what higher posts Joseph rose in the service, the reader is referred to the same periodical.

Boggley Wollah is situated in a fine, lonely, marshy, jungly district, famous for snipe-shooting, and where not unfrequently you may flush a tiger. Ramgunge, where there is a magistrate, is only forty miles off, and there is a cavalry station about thirty miles farther; so Joseph wrote home to his parents, when he took possession of his collectorship. He had lived for about eight years of his life, quite alone, at this charming place, scarcely seeing a Christian face except twice a year, when the detachment arrived to carry off the revenues which he had collected, to Calcutta.

Luckily, at this time he caught a liver complaint, for the cure of which he returned to Europe, and which was the source of great comfort and amusement to him in his native country. He did not live with his family while in London, but had lodgings of his own, like a gay young bachelor. Before he went to India he was too young to partake of the delightful pleasures of a man about town, and plunged into them on his return with considerable assiduity. He drove his horses in the

Park; he dined at the fashionable taverns (for the

Oriental Club was not as yet invented); he frequented the theatres, as the mode was in those days, or made his appearance at the opera, laboriously attired in tights and a cocked hat.

On returning to India, and ever after, he used to talk of the pleasure of this period of his existence with great enthusiasm, and give you to understand that he and

Brummel were the leading bucks of the day. But he was as lonely here as in his jungle at Boggley Wollah. He scarcely knew a single soul in the metropolis: and were it not for his doctor, and the society of his blue-pill, and his liver complaint, he must have died of loneliness.

He was lazy, peevish, and a bon-vivan; the appearance of a lady frightened him beyond measure; hence it was but seldom that he joined the paternal circle in Russell

Square, where there was plenty of gaiety, and where the jokes of his good-natured old father frightened his amour-propre. His bulk caused Joseph much anxious thought and alarm; now and then he would make a desperate attempt to get rid of his superabundant fat;

but his indolence and love of good living speedily got the better of these endeavours at reform, and he found himself again at his three meals a day. He never was well dressed; but he took the hugest pains to adorn his big person, and passed many hours daily in that occupation.

His valet made a fortune out of his wardrobe: his toilet-table was covered with as many pomatums and essences as ever were employed by an old beauty: he had tried, in order to give himself a waist, every girth, stay, and waistband then invented. Like most fat men, he would have his clothes made too tight, and took care they should be of the most brilliant colours and youthful cut. When dressed at length, in the afternoon, he would issue forth to take a drive with nobody in the Park;

and then would come back in order to dress again and go and dine with nobody at the Piazza Coffee-House.

He was as vain as a girl; and perhaps his extreme shyness was one of the results of his extreme vanity. If

Miss Rebecca can get the better of him, and at her first entrance into life, she is a young person of no ordinary cleverness.

The first move showed considerable skill. When she called Sedley a very handsome man, she knew that

Amelia would tell her mother, who would probably tell

Joseph, or who, at any rate, would be pleased by the compliment paid to her son. All mothers are. If you had told Sycorax that her son Caliban was as handsome as Apollo, she would have been pleased, witch as she was. Perhaps, too, Joseph Sedley would overhear the compliment-Rebecca spoke loud enough-and he did hear, and (thinking in his heart that he was a very fine man) the praise thrilled through every fibre of his big body, and made it tingle with pleasure. Then, however, came a recoil. «Is the girl making fun of me?» he thought, and straightway he bounced towards the bell, and was for retreating, as we have seen, when his father’s jokes and his mother’s entreaties caused him to pause and stay where he was. He conducted the young lady down to dinner in a dubious and agitated frame of mind.

«Does she really think I am handsome?» thought he,

and they will have perfect reason. The bearded creatures are quite as eager for praise, quite as finikin over their toilettes, quite as proud of their personal advantages, quite as conscious of their powers of fascination, as any coquette in the world.

Downstairs, then, they went, Joseph very red and blushing, Rebecca very modest, and holding her green eyes downwards. She was dressed in white, with bare shoulders as white as snow-the picture of youth, unprotected innocence, and humble virgin simplicity.

«I must be very quiet,» thought Rebecca, «and very much interested about India.»

Now we have heard how Mrs. Sedley had prepared a fine curry for her son, just as he liked it, and in the course of dinner a portion of this dish was offered to

Rebecca. «What is it?» said she, turning an appealing look to Mr. Joseph.

«Capital,» said he. His mouth was full of it: his face quite red with the delightful exercise of gobbling.

«Mother, it’s as good as my own curries in India.»

«Oh, I must try some, if it is an Indian dish,» said

Miss Rebecca. «I am sure everything must be good that comes from there.»

«Give Miss Sharp some curry, my dear,» said Mr.

Rebecca had never tasted the dish before.

«Do you find it as good as everything else from India?»

«Oh, excellent!» said Rebecca, who was suffering tortures with the cayenne pepper.

«Try a chili with it, Miss Sharp,» said Joseph, really interested.

«A chili,» said Rebecca, gasping. «Oh yes!» She thought a chili was something cool, as its name imported, and was served with some. «How fresh and green they look,» she said, and put one into her mouth. It was hotter than the curry; flesh and blood could bear it no longer. She laid down her fork. «Water, for Heaven’s sake, water!» she cried. Mr. Sedley burst out laughing

(he was a coarse man, from the Stock Exchange, where they love all sorts of practical jokes). «They are real

Indian, I assure you,» said he. «Sambo, give Miss Sharp some water.»

The paternal laugh was echoed by Joseph, who thought the joke capital. The ladies only smiled a little. They thought poor Rebecca suffered too much. She would have liked to choke old Sedley, but she swallowed her mortification as well as she had the abominable curry before it, and as soon as she could speak, said, with a comical, good-humoured air, «I ought to have remembered the pepper which the Princess of Persia puts in the cream-

tarts in the Arabian Nights. Do you put cayenne into your cream-tarts in India, sir?»

Old Sedley began to laugh, and thought Rebecca was a good-humoured girl. Joseph simply said, «Cream-

tarts, Miss? Our cream is very bad in Bengal. We generally use goats’ milk; and, ‘gad, do you know, I’ve got to prefer it!»

«You won’t like EVERYTHING from India now, Miss

Sharp,» said the old gentleman; but when the ladies had retired after dinner, the wily old fellow said to his son,

«Have a care, Joe; that girl is setting her cap at you.»

«Pooh! nonsense!» said Joe, highly flattered. «I recollect, sir, there was a girl at Dumdum, a daughter of

Cutler of the Artillery, and afterwards married to Lance, the surgeon, who made a dead set at me in the year

‘4-at me and Mulligatawney, whom I mentioned to you before dinner-a devilish good fellow Mulligatawney-

he’s a magistrate at Budgebudge, and sure to be in council in five years. Well, sir, the Artillery gave a ball, and Quintin, of the King’s 14th, said to me, ‘Sedley,’ said he, ‘I bet you thirteen to ten that Sophy Cutler hooks either you or Mulligatawney before the rains.’ ‘Done,’

says I; and egad, sir-this claret’s very good. Adamson’s or Carbonell’s?»

A slight snore was the only reply: the honest stockbroker was asleep, and so the rest of Joseph’s story was lost for that day. But he was always exceedingly communicative in a man’s party, and has told this delightful tale many scores of times to his apothecary,

Dr. Gollop, when he came to inquire about the liver and the blue-pill.

Being an invalid, Joseph Sedley contented himself with a bottle of claret besides his Madeira at dinner, and he managed a couple of plates full of strawberries and cream, and twenty-four little rout cakes that were lying neglected in a plate near him, and certainly (for novelists have the privilege of knowing everything)

he thought a great deal about the girl upstairs. «A nice, gay, merry young creature,» thought he to himself. «How she looked at me when I picked up her handkerchief at dinner! She dropped it twice. Who’s that singing in the drawing-room? ‘Gad! shall I go up and see?»

But his modesty came rushing upon him with uncontrollable force. His father was asleep: his hat was in the hall: there was a hackney-coach standing hard by in Southampton Row. «I’ll go and see the Forty

Thieves,» said he, «and Miss Decamp’s dance»; and he slipped away gently on the pointed toes of his boots, and disappeared, without waking his worthy parent.

«There goes Joseph,» said Amelia, who was looking from the open windows of the drawing-room, while

Rebecca was singing at the piano.

«Miss Sharp has frightened him away,» said Mrs.

Sedley. «Poor Joe, why WILL he be so shy?»

The Green Silk Purse

Poor Joe’s panic lasted for two or three days; during which he did not visit the house, nor during that period did Miss Rebecca ever mention his name. She was all respectful gratitude to Mrs. Sedley; delighted beyond measure at the Bazaars; and in a whirl of wonder at the theatre, whither the good-natured lady took her. One day, Amelia had a headache, and could not go upon some party of pleasure to which the two young people were invited: nothing could induce her friend to go without her.

«What! you who have shown the poor orphan what happiness and love are for the first time in her life-quit

YOU? Never!» and the green eyes looked up to Heaven and filled with tears; and Mrs. Sedley could not but own that her daughter’s friend had a charming kind heart of her own.

As for Mr. Sedley’s jokes, Rebecca laughed at them with a cordiality and perseverance which not a little pleased and softened that good-natured gentleman. Nor was it with the chiefs of the family alone that Miss

Sharp found favour. She interested Mrs. Blenkinsop by evincing the deepest sympathy in the raspberry-jam preserving, which operation was then going on in the

Housekeeper’s room; she persisted in calling Sambo «Sir,»

and «Mr. Sambo,» to the delight of that attendant; and she apologised to the lady’s maid for giving her trouble in venturing to ring the bell, with such sweetness and humility, that the Servants’ Hall was almost as charmed with her as the Drawing Room.

Once, in looking over some drawings which Amelia had sent from school, Rebecca suddenly came upon one which caused her to burst into tears and leave the room.

It was on the day when Joe Sedley made his second appearance.

Amelia hastened after her friend to know the cause of this display of feeling, and the good-natured girl came back without her companion, rather affected too. «You know, her father was our drawing-master, Mamma, at

Chiswick, and used to do all the best parts of our drawings.»

«My love! I’m sure I always heard Miss Pinkerton say that he did not touch them-he only mounted them.»

«It was called mounting, Mamma. Rebecca remembers the drawing, and her father working at it, and the thought of it came upon her rather suddenly-and so, you know, she-«

«The poor child is all heart,» said Mrs. Sedley.

«I wish she could stay with us another week,» said

«She’s devilish like Miss Cutler that I used to meet at Dumdum, only fairer. She’s married now to Lance, the Artillery Surgeon. Do you know, Ma’am, that once

Quintin, of the 14th, bet me-«

«0 Joseph, we know that story,» said Amelia, laughing.

Never mind about telling that; but persuade Mamma to write to Sir Something Crawley for leave of absence for poor dear Rebecca: here she comes, her eyes red with weeping.»

«I’m better, now,» said the girl, with the sweetest smile possible, taking good-natured Mrs. Sedley’s extended hand and kissing it respectfully. «How kind you all are to me!

All,» she added, with a laugh, «except you, Mr. Joseph.»

«Me!» said Joseph, meditating an instant departure

«Gracious Heavens! Good Gad! Miss Sharp!’

«Yes; how could you be so cruel as to make me eat that horrid pepper-dish at dinner, the first day I ever saw you? You are not so good to me as dear Amelia.»

«He doesn’t know you so well,» cried Amelia.

«I defy anybody not to be good to you, my dear,»

«The curry was capital; indeed it was,» said Joe, quite gravely. «Perhaps there was NOT enough citron juice in it-no, there was NOT.»

«By Jove, how they made you cry out!» said Joe, caught by the ridicule of the circumstance, and exploding in a fit of laughter which ended quite suddenly, as usual.

«I shall take care how I let YOU choose for me another time,» said Rebecca, as they went down again to dinner. «I didn’t think men were fond of putting poor harmless girls to pain.»

«By Gad, Miss Rebecca, I wouldn’t hurt you for the world.»

«No,» said she, «I KNOW you wouldn’t»; and then she gave him ever so gentle a pressure with her little hand, and drew it back quite frightened, and looked first for one instant in his face, and then down at the carpet-

rods; and I am not prepared to say that Joe’s heart did not thump at this little involuntary, timid, gentle motion of regard on the part of the simple girl.

It was an advance, and as such, perhaps, some ladies of indisputable correctness and gentility will condemn the action as immodest; but, you see, poor dear Rebecca had all this work to do for herself. If a person is too poor to keep a servant, though ever so elegant, he must sweep his own rooms: if a dear girl has no dear Mamma to settle matters with the young man, she must do it for herself. And oh, what a mercy it is that these women do not exercise their powers oftener! We can’t resist them, if they do. Let them show ever so little inclination, and men go down on their knees at once: old or ugly, it is all the same. And this I set down as a positive truth. A woman with fair opportunities, and without an absolute hump, may marry WHOM SHE LIKES. Only let us be thankful that the darlings are like the beasts of the field, and don’t know their own power. They would overcome us entirely if they did.

«Egad!» thought Joseph, entering the dining-room, «I

exactly begin to feel as I did at Dumdum with Miss

Cutler.» Many sweet little appeals, half tender, half jocular, did Miss Sharp make to him about the dishes at dinner; for by this time she was on a footing of considerable familiarity with the family, and as for the girls, they loved each other like sisters. Young unmarried girls always do, if they are in a house together for ten days.

As if bent upon advancing Rebecca’s plans in every way-what must Amelia do, but remind her brother of a promise made last Easter holidays-«When I was a girl at school,» said she, laughing-a promise that he,

Joseph, would take her to Vauxhall. «Now,» she said,

«that Rebecca is with us, will be the very time.»

«O, delightful!» said Rebecca, going to clap her hands;

but she recollected herself, and paused, like a modest creature, as she was.

«To-night is not the night,» said Joe.

«To-morrow your Papa and I dine out,» said Mrs.

«You don’t suppose that I’m going, Mrs. Sed?» said her husband, «and that a woman of your years and size is to catch cold, in such an abominable damp place?»

‘The children must have someone with them,» cried

«Let Joe go,» said-his father, laughing. «He’s big enough.» At which speech even Mr. Sambo at the sideboard burst out laughing, and poor fat Joe felt inclined to become a parricide almost.

«Undo his stays!» continued the pitiless old gentleman.

«Fling some water in his face, Miss Sharp, or carry him upstairs: the dear creature’s fainting. Poor victim! carry him up; he’s as light as a feather!»

«If I stand this, sir, I’m d-!» roared Joseph.

«Order Mr. Jos’s elephant, Sambo!» cried the father.

«Send to Exeter ‘Change, Sambo»; but seeing Jos ready almost to cry with vexation, the old joker stopped his laughter, and said, holding out his hand to his son, «It’s all fair on the Stock Exchange, Jos-and, Sambo, never mind the elephant, but give me and Mr. Jos a glass of

Champagne. Boney himself hasn’t got such in his cellar, my boy!»

A goblet of Champagne restored Joseph’s equanimity, and before the bottle was emptied, of which as an invalid he took two-thirds, he had agreed to take the young ladies to Vauxhall.

«The girls must have a gentleman apiece,» said the old gentleman. «Jos will be sure to leave Emmy in the crowd, he will be so taken up with Miss Sharp here. Send to 96, and ask George Osborne if he’ll come.»

At this, I don’t know in the least for what reason,

Mrs. Sedley looked at her husband and laughed. Mr.

Sedley’s eyes twinkled in a manner indescribably roguish, and he looked at Amelia; and Amelia, hanging down her head, blushed as only young ladies of seventeen know how to blush, and as Miss Rebecca Sharp never blushed in her life-at least not since she was eight years old, and when she was caught stealing jam out of a cupboard by her godmother. «Amelia had better write a note,» said her father; «and let George Osborne see what a beautiful handwriting we have brought back from

Miss Pinkerton’s. Do you remember when you wrote to him to come on Twelfth-night, Emmy, and spelt twelfth without the f?»

«That was years ago,» said Amelia.

«It seems like yesterday, don’t it, John?» said Mrs.

Sedley to her husband; and that night in a conversation which took place in a front room in the second floor, in a sort of tent, hung round with chintz of a rich and fantastic India pattern, and double with calico of a tender rose-colour; in the interior of which species of marquee was a featherbed, on which were two pillows, on which were two round red faces, one in a laced nightcap, and one in a simple cotton one, ending in a tassel

-in A CURTAIN LECTURE, I say, Mrs. Sedley took her husband to task for his cruel conduct to poor Joe.

«It was quite wicked of you, Mr. Sedley,» said she,

«to torment the poor boy so.»

«My dear,» said the cotton-tassel in defence of his conduct, «Jos is a great deal vainer than you ever were in your life, and that’s saying a good deal. Though, some thirty years ago, in the year seventeen hundred and eighty-what was it?-perhaps you had a right to be vain-I don’t say no. But I’ve no patience with Jos and his dandified modesty. It is out-Josephing Joseph, my dear, and all the while the boy is only thinking of himself, and what a fine fellow he is. I doubt, Ma’am, we shall have some trouble with him yet. Here is Emmy’s little friend making love to him as hard as she can; that’s quite clear; and if she does not catch him some other will. That man is destined to be a prey to woman, as

I am to go on ‘Change every day. It’s a mercy he did not bring us over a black daughter-in-law, my dear. But, mark my words, the first woman who fishes for him, hooks him.»

«She shall go off to-morrow, the little artful creature,»

said Mrs. Sedley, with great energy.

«Why not she as well as another, Mrs. Sedley? The girl’s a white face at any rate. I don’t care who marries him. Let Joe please himself.»

And presently the voices of the two speakers were hushed, or were replaced by the gentle but unromantic music of the nose; and save when the church bells tolled the hour and the watchman called it, all was silent at the house of John Sedley, Esquire, of Russell

Square, and the Stock Exchange.

When morning came, the good-natured Mrs. Sedley no longer thought of executing her threats with regard to

Miss Sharp; for though nothing is more keen, nor more common, nor more justifiable, than maternal jealousy, yet she could not bring herself to suppose that the little, humble, grateful, gentle governess would dare to look up to such a magnificent personage as the Collector of

Boggley Wollah. The petition, too, for an extension of the young lady’s leave of absence had already been despatched, and it would be difficult to find a pretext for abruptly dismissing her.

And as if all things conspired in favour of the gentle

Rebecca, the very elements (although she was not inclined at first to acknowledge their action in her behalf)

interposed to aid her. For on the evening appointed for the Vauxhall party, George Osborne having come to dinner, and the elders of the house having departed, according to invitation, to dine with Alderman Balls at

Highbury Barn, there came on such a thunder-storm as only happens on Vauxhall nights, and as obliged the young people, perforce, to remain at home. Mr. Osborne did not seem in the least disappointed at this occurrence.

He and Joseph Sedley drank a fitting quantity of port-wine, tete-a-tete, in the dining-room, during the drinking of which Sedley told a number of his best Indian stories; for he was extremely talkative in man’s society;

and afterwards Miss Amelia Sedley did the honours of the drawing-room; and these four young persons passed such a comfortable evening together, that they declared they were rather glad of the thunder-storm than otherwise, which had caused them to put off their visit to Vauxhall.

Osborne was Sedley’s godson, and had been one of the family any time these three-and-twenty years. At six weeks old, he had received from John Sedley a present of a silver cup; at six months old, a coral with gold whistle and bells; from his youth upwards he was

«tipped» regularly by the old gentleman at Christmas: and on going back to school, he remembered perfectly well being thrashed by Joseph Sedley, when the latter was a big, swaggering hobbadyhoy, and George an impudent urchin of ten years old. In a word, George was as familiar with the family as such daily acts of kindness and intercourse could make him.

«Do you remember, Sedley, what a fury you were in, when I cut off the tassels of your Hessian boots, and how Miss-hem!-how Amelia rescued me from a beating, by falling down on her knees and crying out to her brother Jos, not to beat little George?»

Jos remembered this remarkable circumstance perfectly well, but vowed that he had totally forgotten it.

«Well, do you remember coming down in a gig to Dr.

Swishtail’s to see me, before you went to India, and giving me half a guinea and a pat on the head? I always had an idea that you were at least seven feet high, and was quite astonished at your return from India to find you no taller than myself.»

«How good of Mr. Sedley to go to your school and give you the money!» exclaimed Rebecca, in accents of extreme delight.

«Yes, and after I had cut the tassels of his boots too.

Boys never forget those tips at school, nor the givers.»

«I delight in Hessian boots,» said Rebecca. Jos Sedley, who admired his own legs prodigiously, and always wore this ornamental chaussure, was extremely pleased at this remark, though he drew his legs under his chair as it was made.

«Miss Sharp!» said George Osborne, «you who are so clever an artist, you must make a grand historical picture of the scene of the boots. Sedley shall be represented in buckskins, and holding one of the injured boots in one hand; by the other he shall have hold of my shirt-frill. Amelia shall be kneeling near him, with her little hands up; and the picture shall have a grand allegorical title, as the frontispieces have in the

Medulla and the spelling-book.»

«I shan’t have time to do it here,» said Rebecca. ‘I’ll do it when-when I’m gone.» And she dropped her voice, and looked so sad and piteous, that everybody felt how cruel her lot was, and how sorry they would be to part with her.

«O that you could stay longer, dear Rebecca,» said

«Why?» answered the other, still more sadly. «That

I may be only the more unhap-unwilling to lose you?»

And she turned away her head. Amelia began to give way to that natural infirmity of tears which, we have said, was one of the defects of this silly little thing. George

Osborne looked at the two young women with a touched curiosity; and Joseph Sedley heaved something very like a sigh out of his big chest, as he cast his eyes down towards his favourite Hessian boots.

«Let us have some music, Miss Sedley-Amelia,» said

George, who felt at that moment an extraordinary, almost irresistible impulse to seize the above-mentioned young woman in his arms, and to kiss her in the face of the company; and she looked at him for a moment, and if I should say that they fell in love with each other at that single instant of time, I should perhaps be telling an untruth, for the fact is that these two young people had been bred up by their parents for this very purpose, and their banns had, as it were, been read in their respective families any time these ten years. They went off to the piano, which was situated, as pianos usually are, in the back drawing-room; and as it was rather dark,

Miss Amelia, in the most unaffected way in the world, put her hand into Mr. Osborne’s, who, of course, could see the way among the chairs and ottomans a great deal better than she could. But this arrangement left Mr.

Joseph Sedley tete-a-tete with Rebecca, at the drawing-room table, where the latter was occupied in knitting a green silk purse.

«There is no need to ask family secrets,» said Miss

Sharp. «Those two have told theirs.»

«As soon as he gets his company,» said Joseph, «I

believe the affair is settled. George Osborne is a capital fellow.»

«And your sister the dearest creature in the world,»

said Rebecca. «Happy the man who wins her!» With this, Miss Sharp gave a great sigh.

When two unmarried persons get together, and talk upon such delicate subjects as the present, a great deal of confidence and intimacy is presently established between them. There is no need of giving a special report of the conversation which now took place between Mr.

Sedley and the young lady; for the conversation, as may be judged from the foregoing specimen, was not especially witty or eloquent; it seldom is in private societies, or anywhere except in very high-flown and ingenious novels.

As there was music in the next room, the talk was carried on, of course, in a low and becoming tone, though, for the matter of that, the couple in the next apartment would not have been disturbed had the talking been ever so loud, so occupied were they with their own pursuits.

Joseph Sedley tete-a-tete with Rebecca, at the drawing-room table, where the latter was occupied in knitting a green silk purse.

«There is no need to ask family secrets,» said Miss

Sharp. «Those two have told theirs.»

«As soon as he gets his company,» said Joseph, «I

believe the affair is settled. George Osborne is a capital fellow.»

«And your sister the dearest creature in the world,»

said Rebecca. «Happy the man who wins her!» With this, Miss Sharp gave a great sigh.

When two unmarried persons get together, and talk upon such delicate subjects as the present, a great deal of confidence and intimacy is presently established between them. There is no need of giving a special report of the conversation which now took place between Mr.

Sedley and the young lady; for the conversation, as may be judged from the foregoing specimen, was not especially witty or eloquent; it seldom is in private societies, or anywhere except in very high-flown and ingenious novels.

As there was music in the next room, the talk was carried on, of course, in a low and becoming tone, though, for the matter of that, the couple in the next apartment would not have been disturbed had the talking been ever so loud, so occupied were they with their own pursuits.

«Pooh, pooh, Miss Sharp,» said he, pulling up his shirt-

collars; «the danger makes the sport only the pleasanter.»

He had never been but once at a tiger-hunt, when the accident in question occurred, and when he was half killed-not by the tiger, but by the fright. And as he talked on, he grew quite bold, and actually had the audacity to ask Miss Rebecca for whom she was knitting the green silk purse? He was quite surprised and delighted at his own graceful familiar manner.

«For any one who wants a purse,» replied Miss

Rebecca, looking at him in the most gentle winning way.

Sedley was going to make one of the most eloquent speeches possible, and had begun-«O Miss Sharp, how-» when some song which was performed in the other room came to an end, and caused him to hear his own voice so distinctly that he stopped, blushed, and blew his nose in great agitation.

«Did you ever hear anything like your brother’s eloquence?» whispered Mr. Osborne to Amelia. «Why, your friend has worked miracles.»

«The more the better,» said Miss Amelia; who, like almost all women who are worth a pin, was a match-

maker in her heart, and would have been delighted that

Joseph should carry back a wife to India. She had, too, in the course of this few days’ constant intercourse, warmed into a most tender friendship for Rebecca, and discovered a million of virtues and amiable qualities in her which she had not perceived when they were at

Chiswick together. For the affection of young ladies is of as rapid growth as Jack’s bean-stalk, and reaches up to the sky in a night. It is no blame to them that after marriage this Sehnsucht nach der Liebe subsides. It is what sentimentalists, who deal in very big words, call a yearning after the Ideal, and simply means that women are commonly not satisfied until they have husbands and children on whom they may centre affections, which are spent elsewhere, as it were, in small change.

Having expended her little store of songs, or having stayed long enough in the back drawing-room, it now appeared proper to Miss Amelia to ask her friend to sing. «You would not have listened to me,» she said to

Mr. Osborne (though she knew she was telling a fib),

«had you heard Rebecca first.»

«I give Miss Sharp warning, though,» said Osborne,

«that, right or wrong, I consider Miss Amelia Sedley the first singer in the world.»

«You shall hear,» said Amelia; and Joseph Sedley was actually polite enough to carry the candles to the piano.

Osborne hinted that he should like quite as well to sit in the dark; but Miss Sedley, laughing, declined to bear him company any farther, and the two accordingly followed Mr. Joseph. Rebecca sang far better than her friend (though of course Osborne was free to keep his opinion), and exerted herself to the utmost, and, indeed, to the wonder of Amelia, who had never known her perform so well. She sang a French song, which

Joseph did not understand in the least, and which George confessed he did not understand, and then a number of those simple ballads which were the fashion forty years ago, and in which British tars, our King, poor Susan, blue-eyed Mary, and the like, were the principal themes.

They are not, it is said, very brilliant, in a musical point of view, but contain numberless good-natured, simple appeals to the affections, which people understood better than the milk-and-water lagrime, sospiri, and felicita of the eternal Donizettian music with which we are favoured now-a-days.

Conversation of a sentimental sort, befitting the subject, was carried on between the songs, to which

Sambo, after he had brought the tea, the delighted cook, and even Mrs. Blenkinsop, the housekeeper, condescended to listen on the landing-place.

Among these ditties was one, the last of the concert, and to the following effect:

Ah! bleak and barren was the moor,

Ah! loud and piercing was the storm,

The cottage roof was shelter’d sure,

The cottage hearth was bright and warm-

An orphan boy the lattice pass’d,

And, as he mark’d its cheerful glow,

Felt doubly keen the midnight blast,

And doubly cold the fallen snow.

They mark’d him as he onward prest,

With fainting heart and weary limb;

Kind voices bade him turn and rest,

And gentle faces welcomed him.

The dawn is up-the guest is gone,

The cottage hearth is blazing still;

Heaven pity all poor wanderers lone!

Hark to the wind upon the hill!

It was the sentiment of the before-mentioned words,

«When I’m gone,» over again. As she came to the last words, Miss Sharp’s «deep-toned voice faltered.»

Everybody felt the allusion to her departure, and to her hapless orphan state. Joseph Sedley, who was fond of music, and soft-hearted, was in a state of ravishment during the performance of the song, and profoundly touched at its conclusion. If he had had the courage; if George and Miss

Sedley had remained, according to the former’s proposal, in the farther room, Joseph Sedley’s bachelorhood would have been at an end, and this work would never have been written. But at the close of the ditty, Rebecca quitted the piano, and giving her hand to Amelia, walked away into the front drawing-room twilight; and, at this moment, Mr. Sambo made his appearance with a tray, containing sandwiches, jellies, and some glittering glasses and decanters, on which Joseph Sedley’s attention was immediately fixed. When the parents of the house of Sedley returned from their dinner-party, they found the young people so busy in talking, that they had not heard the arrival of the carriage, and Mr. Joseph was in the act of saying, «My dear Miss Sharp, one little teaspoonful of jelly to recruit you after your immense-your-your delightful exertions.»

«Bravo, Jos!» said Mr. Sedley; on hearing the bantering of which well-known voice, Jos instantly relapsed into an alarmed silence, and quickly took his departure.

He did not lie awake all night thinking whether or not he was in love with Miss Sharp; the passion of love never interfered with the appetite or the slumber of Mr. Joseph

Sedley; but he thought to himself how delightful it would be to hear such songs as those after Cutcherry-what a distinguee girl she was-how she could speak French better than the Governor-General’s lady herself-and what a sensation she would make at the Calcutta balls.

«It’s evident the poor devil’s in love with me,» thought he. «She is just as rich as most of the girls who come out to India. I might go farther, and fare worse, egad!»

And in these meditations he fell asleep.

How Miss Sharp lay awake, thinking, will he come or not to-morrow? need not be told here. To-morrow came, and, as sure as fate, Mr. Joseph Sedley made his appearance before luncheon. He had never been known before to confer such an honour on Russell Square. George

Osborne was somehow there already (sadly «putting out»

Amelia, who was writing to her twelve dearest friends at

Chiswick Mall), and Rebecca was employed upon her yesterday’s work. As Joe’s buggy drove up, and while, after his usual thundering knock and pompous bustle at the door, the ex-Collector of Boggley Wollah laboured up stairs to the drawing-room, knowing glances were telegraphed between Osborne and Miss Sedley, and the pair, smiling archly, looked at Rebecca, who actually blushed as she bent her fair ringlets over her knitting. How her heart beat as Joseph appeared-Joseph, puffing from the staircase in shining creaking boots-Joseph, in a new waistcoat, red with heat and nervousness, and blushing behind his wadded neckcloth. It was a nervous moment for all; and as for Amelia, I think she was more frightened than even the people most concerned.

Sambo, who flung open the door and announced Mr.

Joseph, followed grinning, in the Collector’s rear, and bearing two handsome nosegays of flowers, which the monster had actually had the gallantry to purchase in

Covent Garden Market that morning-they were not as big as the haystacks which ladies carry about with them now-a-days, in cones of filigree paper; but the young women were delighted with the gift, as Joseph presented one to each, with an exceedingly solemn bow.

«Bravo, Jos!» cried Osborne.

«Thank you, dear Joseph,» said Amelia, quite ready to kiss her brother, if he were so minded. (And I think for a kiss from such a dear creature as Amelia, I would purchase all Mr. Lee’s conservatories out of hand.)

«O heavenly, heavenly flowers!» exclaimed Miss Sharp, and smelt them delicately, and held them to her bosom, and cast up her eyes to the ceiling, in an ecstasy of admiration. Perhaps she just looked first into the bouquet, to see whether there was a billet-doux hidden among the flowers; but there was no letter.

«Do they talk the language of flowers at Boggley

Wollah, Sedley?» asked Osborne, laughing.

«Pooh, nonsense!» replied the sentimental youth.

«Bought ’em at Nathan’s; very glad you like ’em; and eh,

Amelia, my dear, I bought a pine-apple at the same time, which I gave to Sambo. Let’s have it for tiffin;

very cool and nice this hot weather.» Rebecca said she had never tasted a pine, and longed beyond everything to taste one.

So the conversation went on. I don’t know on what pretext Osborne left the room, or why, presently, Amelia went away, perhaps to superintend the slicing of the pine-apple; but Jos was left alone with Rebecca, who had resumed her work, and the green silk and the shining needles were quivering rapidly under her white slender fingers.

«What a beautiful, BYOO-OOTIFUL song that was you sang last night, dear Miss Sharp,» said the Collector. «It made me cry almost; ‘pon my honour it did.»

«Because you have a kind heart, Mr. Joseph; all the

Sedleys have, I think.»

«It kept me awake last night, and I was trying to hum it this morning, in bed; I was, upon my honour. Gollop, my doctor, came in at eleven (for I’m a sad invalid, you know, and see Gollop every day), and, ‘gad! there I

was, singing away like-a robin.»

«O you droll creature! Do let me hear you sing it.»

«Me? No, you, Miss Sharp; my dear Miss Sharp, do sing it.

«Not now, Mr. Sedley,» said Rebecca, with a sigh. «My spirits are not equal to it; besides, I must finish the purse. Will you help me, Mr. Sedley?» And before he had time to ask how, Mr. Joseph Sedley, of the East India

Company’s service, was actually seated tete-a-tete with a young lady, looking at her with a most killing expression;

his arms stretched out before her in an imploring attitude, and his hands bound in a web of green silk, which she was unwinding.

In this romantic position Osborne and Amelia found the interesting pair, when they entered to announce that tiffin was ready. The skein of silk was just wound round the card; but Mr. Jos had never spoken.

«I am sure he will to-night, dear,» Amelia said, as she pressed Rebecca’s hand; and Sedley, too, had communed with his soul, and said to himself, » ‘Gad, I’ll pop the question at Vauxhall.»

Cuff’s fight with Dobbin, and the unexpected issue of that contest, will long be remembered by every man who was educated at Dr. Swishtail’s famous school. The latter

Youth (who used to be called Heigh-ho Dobbin, Gee-ho

Dobbin, and by many other names indicative of puerile contempt) was the quietest, the clumsiest, and, as it seemed, the dullest of all Dr. Swishtail’s young gentlemen.

His parent was a grocer in the city: and it was bruited abroad that he was admitted into Dr. Swishtail’s academy upon what are called «mutual principles»-that is to say, the expenses of his board and schooling were defrayed by his father in goods, not money; and he stood there-most at the bottom of the school-in his scraggy corduroys and jacket, through the seams of which his great big bones were bursting-as the representative of so many pounds of tea, candles, sugar, mottled-soap, plums (of which a very mild proportion was supplied for the puddings of the establishment), and other commodities. A dreadful day it was for young Dobbin when one of the youngsters of the school, having run into the town upon a poaching excursion for hardbake and polonies, espied the cart of Dobbin & Rudge, Grocers and Oilmen, Thames

Street, London, at the Doctor’s door, discharging a cargo of the wares in which the firm dealt.

Young Dobbin had no peace after that. The jokes were frightful, and merciless against him. «Hullo, Dobbin,» one wag would say, «here’s good news in the paper. Sugars is ris’, my boy.» Another would set a sum-«If a pound of mutton-candles cost sevenpence-halfpenny, how much must Dobbin cost?» and a roar would follow from all the circle of young knaves, usher and all, who rightly considered that the selling of goods by retail is a shameful and infamous practice, meriting the contempt and scorn of all real gentlemen.

«Your father’s only a merchant, Osborne,» Dobbin said in private to the little boy who had brought down the storm upon him. At which the latter replied haughtily,

«My father’s a gentleman, and keeps his carriage»; and

Mr. William Dobbin retreated to a remote outhouse in the playground, where he passed a half-holiday in the bitterest sadness and woe. Who amongst us is there that does not recollect similar hours of bitter, bitter childish grief? Who feels injustice; who shrinks before a slight;

who has a sense of wrong so acute, and so glowing a gratitude for kindness, as a generous boy? and how many of those gentle souls do you degrade, estrange, torture, for the sake of a little loose arithmetic, and miserable dog-latin?

Now, William Dobbin, from an incapacity to acquire the rudiments of the above language, as they are propounded in that wonderful book the Eton Latin Grammar, was compelled to remain among the very last of Doctor

Swishtail’s scholars, and was «taken down» continually by little fellows with pink faces and pinafores when he marched up with the lower form, a giant amongst them, with his downcast, stupefied look, his dog’s-eared primer, and his tight corduroys. High and low, all made fun of him. They sewed up those corduroys, tight as they were.

They cut his bed-strings. They upset buckets and benches, so that he might break his shins over them, which he never failed to do. They sent him parcels, which, when opened, were found to contain the paternal soap and candles. There was no little fellow but had his jeer and joke at Dobbin; and he bore everything quite patiently, and was entirely dumb and miserable.

Cuff, on the contrary, was the great chief and dandy of the Swishtail Seminary. He smuggled wine in. He fought the town-boys. Ponies used to come for him to ride home on Saturdays. He had his top-boots in his room, in which he used to hunt in the holidays. He had a gold repeater: and took snuff like the Doctor. He had been to the Opera, and knew the merits of the principal actors, preferring

Mr. Kean to Mr. Kemble. He could knock you off forty

Latin verses in an hour. He could make French poetry.

What else didn’t he know, or couldn’t he do? They said even the Doctor himself was afraid of him.

Cuff, the unquestioned king of the school, ruled over his subjects, and bullied them, with splendid superiority.

This one blacked his shoes: that toasted his bread, others would fag out, and give him balls at cricket during whole summer afternoons. «Figs» was the fellow whom he despised most, and with whom, though always abusing him, and sneering at him, he scarcely ever condescended to hold personal communication.

One day in private, the two young gentlemen had had a difference. Figs, alone in the schoolroom, was blundering over a home letter; when Cuff, entering, bade him go upon some message, of which tarts were probably the subject.

«I can’t,» says Dobbin; «I want to finish my letter.»

«You CAN’T?» says Mr. Cuff, laying hold of that document (in which many words were scratched out, many were mis-spelt, on which had been spent I don’t know how much thought, and labour, and tears; for the poor fellow was writing to his mother, who was fond of him, although she was a grocer’s wife, and lived in a back parlour in Thames Street). «You CAN’T?» says Mr. Cuff:

«I should like to know why, pray? Can’t you write to old

Mother Figs to-morrow?»

«Don’t call names,» Dobbin said, getting off the bench very nervous.

«Well, sir, will you go?» crowed the cock of the school.

«Put down the letter,» Dobbin replied; «no gentleman readth letterth.»

«Well, NOW will you go?» says the other.

«No, I won’t. Don’t strike, or I’ll THMASH you,» roars out Dobbin, springing to a leaden inkstand, and looking so wicked, that Mr. Cuff paused, turned down his coat sleeves again, put his hands into his pockets, and walked away with a sneer. But he never meddled.personally with the grocer’s boy after that; though we must do him the justice to say he always spoke of Mr. Dobbin with con-

tempt behind his back.

Some time after this interview, it happened that Mr.

Cuff, on a sunshiny afternoon, was in the neighbourhood of poor William Dobbin, who was lying under a tree in the playground, spelling over a favourite copy of the

Arabian Nights which he had apart from the rest of the school, who were pursuing their various sports-quite lonely, and almost happy. If people would but leave children to themselves; if teachers would cease to bully them; if parents would not insist upon directing their thoughts, and dominating their feelings-those feelings and thoughts which are a mystery to all (for how much do you and I know of each other, of our children, of our fathers, of our neighbour, and how far more beautiful and sacred are the thoughts of the poor lad or girl whom you govern likely to be, than those of the dull and world-

corrupted person who rules him?)-if, I say, parents and masters would leave their children alone a little more, small harm would accrue, although a less quantity of as in praesenti might be acquired.

Well, William Dobbin had for once forgotten the world, and was away with Sindbad the Sailor in the Valley of

Diamonds, or with Prince Ahmed and the Fairy Peribanou in that delightful cavern where the Prince found her, and whither we should all like to make a tour; when shrill cries, as of a little fellow weeping, woke up his pleasant reverie; and looking up, he saw Cuff before him, belabouring a little boy.

It was the lad who had peached upon him about the grocer’s cart; but he bore little malice, not at least towards the young and small. «How dare you, sir, break the bottle?» says Cuff to the little urchin, swinging a yellow cricket-stump over him.

The boy had been instructed to get over the playground wall (at a selected spot where the broken glass had been removed from the top, and niches made convenient in the brick); to run a quarter of a mile; to purchase a pint of rum-shrub on credit; to brave all the Doctor’s outlying spies, and to clamber back into the playground again;

during the performance of which feat, his foot had slipt, and the bottle was broken, and the shrub had been spilt, and his pantaloons had been damaged, and he appeared before his employer a perfectly guilty and trembling, though harmless, wretch.

«How dare you, sir, break it?» says Cuff; «you blundering little thief. You drank the shrub, and now you pretend to have broken the bottle. Hold out your hand, sir.»

Down came the stump with a great heavy thump on the child’s hand. A moan followed. Dobbin looked up.

The Fairy Peribanou had fled into the inmost cavern with Prince Ahmed: the Roc had whisked away Sindbad the Sailor out of the Valley of Diamonds out of sight, far into the clouds: and there was everyday life before honest William; and a big boy beating a little one without cause.

«Hold out your other hand, sir,» roars Cuff to his little schoolfellow, whose face was distorted with pain.

Dobbin quivered, and gathered himself up in his narrow old clothes.

«Take that, you little devil!» cried Mr. Cuff, and down came the wicket again on the child’s hand.-Don’t be horrified, ladies, every boy at a public school has done it.

Your children will so do and be done by, in all probability. Down came the wicket again; and Dobbin started up.

I can’t tell what his motive was. Torture in a public school is as much licensed as the knout in Russia. It would be ungentlemanlike (in a manner) to resist it.

Perhaps Dobbin’s foolish soul revolted against that exercise of tyranny; or perhaps he had a hankering feeling of revenge in his mind, and longed to measure himself against that splendid bully and tyrant, who had all the glory, pride, pomp, circumstance, banners flying, drums beating, guards saluting, in the place. Whatever may have been his incentive, however, up he sprang, and screamed out, «Hold off, Cuff; don’t bully that child any more; or

«Or you’ll what?» Cuff asked in amazement at this interruption. «Hold out your hand, you little beast.»

«I’ll give you the worst thrashing you ever had in your life,» Dobbin said, in reply to the first part of Cuff’s sentence; and little Osborne, gasping and in tears, looked up with wonder and incredulity at seeing this amazing champion put up suddenly to defend him: while Cuff’s astonishment was scarcely less. Fancy our late monarch

George III when he heard of the revolt of the North

American colonies: fancy brazen Goliath when little

David stepped forward and claimed a meeting; and you have the feelings of Mr. Reginald Cuff when this rencontre was proposed to him.

«After school,» says he, of course; after a pause and a look, as much as to say, «Make your will, and communicate your last wishes to your friends between this time and that.»

«As you please,» Dobbin said. «You must be my bottle holder, Osborne.»

«Well, if you like,» little Osborne replied; for you see his papa kept a carriage, and he was rather ashamed of his champion.

Yes, when the hour of battle came, he was almost ashamed to say, «Go it, Figs»; and not a single other boy in the place uttered that cry for the first two or three rounds of this famous combat; at the commencement of which the scientific Cuff, with a contemptuous smile on his face, and as light and as gay as if he was at a ball, planted his blows upon his adversary, and floored that unlucky champion three times running. At each fall there was a cheer; and everybody was anxious to have the honour of offering the conqueror a knee.

«What a licking I shall get when it’s over,» young

Osborne thought, picking up his man. «You’d best give in,»

he said to Dobbin; «it’s only a thrashing, Figs, and you know I’m used to it.» But Figs, all whose limbs were in a quiver, and whose nostrils were breathing rage, put his little bottle-holder aside, and went in for a fourth time.

As he did not in the least know how to parry the blows that were aimed at himself, and Cuff had begun the attack on the three preceding occasions, without ever allowing his enemy to strike, Figs now determined that he would commence the engagement by a charge on his own part; and accordingly, being a left-handed man, brought that arm into action, and hit out a couple of times with all his might-once at Mr. Cuff’s left eye, and once on his beautiful Roman nose.

Cuff went down this time, to the astonishment of the assembly. «Well hit, by Jove,» says little Osborne, with the air of a connoisseur, clapping his man on the back.

«Give it him with the left, Figs my boy.»

Figs’s left made terrific play during all the rest of the combat. Cuff went down every time. At the sixth round, there were almost as many fellows shouting out, «Go it,

Figs,» as there were youths exclaiming, «Go it, Cuff.» At the twelfth round the latter champion was all abroad, as the saying is, and had lost all presence of mind and power of attack or defence. Figs, on the contrary, was as calm as a quaker. His face being quite pale, his eyes shining open, and a great cut on his underlip bleeding profusely, gave this young fellow a fierce and ghastly air, which perhaps struck terror into many spectators. Nevertheless, his intrepid adversary prepared to close for the thirteenth time.

If I had the pen of a Napier, or a Bell’s Life, I should like to describe this combat properly. It was the last charge of the Guard-(that is, it would have been, only

Waterloo had not yet taken place)-it was Ney’s column breasting the hill of La Haye Sainte, bristling with ten thousand bayonets, and crowned with twenty eagles-it was the shout of the beef-eating British, as leaping down the hill they rushed to hug the enemy in the savage arms of battle-in other words, Cuff coming up full of pluck, but quite reeling and groggy, the Fig-merchant put in his left as usual on his adversary’s nose, and sent him down for the last time.

«I think that will do for him,» Figs said, as his opponent dropped as neatly on the green as I have seen Jack

Spot’s ball plump into the pocket at billiards; and the fact is, when time was called, Mr. Reginald Cuff was not able, or did not choose, to stand up again.

And now all the boys set up such a shout for Figs as would have made you think he had been their darling champion through the whole battle; and as absolutely brought Dr. Swishtail out of his study, curious to know the cause of the uproar. He threatened to flog Figs violently, of course; but Cuff, who had come to himself by this time, and was washing his wounds, stood up and said, «It’s my fault, sir-not Figs’-not Dobbin’s. I was bullying a little boy; and he served me right.» By which magnanimous speech he not only saved his conqueror a whipping, but got back all his ascendancy over the boys which his defeat had nearly cost him.

Young Osborne wrote home to his parents an account of the transaction.

Sugarcane House, Richmond, March, 18-

DEAR MAMA,-I hope you are quite well. I should be much obliged to you to send me a cake and five shillings.

There has been a fight here between Cuff & Dobbin.

Cuff, you know, was the Cock of the School. They fought thirteen rounds, and Dobbin Licked. So Cuff is now Only Second Cock. The fight was about me. Cuff was licking me for breaking a bottle of milk, and Figs wouldn’t stand it. We call him Figs because his father is a Grocer-Figs & Rudge, Thames St., City-I think as he fought for me you ought to buy your Tea & Sugar at his father’s. Cuff goes home every Saturday, but can’t this, because he has 2 Black Eyes. He has a white Pony to come and fetch him, and a groom in livery on a bay mare. I wish my Papa would let me have a Pony, and I

GEORGE SEDLEY OSBORNE

P.S.-Give my love to little Emmy. I am cutting her out a Coach in cardboard. Please not a seed-cake, but a plum-cake.

In consequence of Dobbin’s victory, his character rose prodigiously in the estimation of all his schoolfellows, and the name of Figs, which had been a byword of reproach, became as respectable and popular a nickname as any other in use in the school. «After all, it’s not his fault that his father’s a grocer,» George Osborne said, who, though a little chap, had a very high popularity among the Swishtail youth; and his opinion was received with great applause. It was voted low to sneer at Dobbin about this accident of birth. «Old Figs» grew to be a name of kindness and endearment; and the sneak of an usher jeered at him no longer.

And Dobbin’s spirit rose with his altered circumstances.

He made wonderful advances in scholastic learning. The superb Cuff himself, at whose condescension Dobbin could only blush and wonder, helped him on with his

Latin verses; «coached» him in play-hours: carried him triumphantly out of the little-boy class into the middle-

sized form; and even there got a fair place for him. It was discovered, that although dull at classical learning, at mathematics he was uncommonly quick. To the contentment of all he passed third in algebra, and got a

French prize-book at the public Midsummer examination.

You should have seen his mother’s face when Telemaque

(that delicious romance) was presented to him by the Doctor in the face of the whole school and the parents and company, with an inscription to Gulielmo Dobbin. All the boys clapped hands in token of applause and sympathy. His blushes, his stumbles, his awkwardness, and the number of feet which he crushed as he went back to his place, who shall describe or calculate? Old Dobbin, his father, who now respected him for the first time, gave him two guineas publicly; most of which he spent in a general tuck-out for the school: and he came back in a tail-coat after the holidays.

Dobbin was much too modest a young fellow to suppose that this happy change in all his circumstances arose from his own generous and manly disposition: he chose, from some perverseness, to attribute his good fortune to the sole agency and benevolence of little George

Osborne, to whom henceforth he vowed such a love and affection as is only felt by children-such an affection, as we read in the charming fairy-book, uncouth Orson had for splendid young Valentine his conqueror. He flung himself down at little Osborne’s feet, and loved him.

Even before they were acquainted, he had admired

Osborne in secret. Now he was his valet, his dog, his man

Friday. He believed Osborne to be the possessor of every perfection, to be the handsomest, the bravest, the most active, the cleverest, the most generous of created boys. He shared his money with him: bought him uncountable presents of knives, pencil-cases, gold seals, toffee, Little Warblers, and romantic books, with large coloured pictures of knights and robbers, in many of which latter you might read inscriptions to George Sedley

Osborne, Esquire, from his attached friend William Dobbin

-the which tokens of homage George received very graciously, as became his superior merit.

So that Lieutenant Osborne, when coming to Russell

Square on the day of the Vauxhall party, said to the ladies, «Mrs. Sedley, Ma’am, I hope you have room; I’ve asked Dobbin of ours to come and dine here, and go with us to Vauxhall. He’s almost as modest as Jos.»

«Modesty! pooh,» said the stout gentleman, casting a vainqueur look at Miss Sharp.

«He is-but you are incomparably more graceful,

Sedley,» Osborne added, laughing. «I met him at the

Bedford, when I went to look for you; and I told him that

Miss Amelia was come home, and that we were all bent on going out for a night’s pleasuring; and that Mrs. Sedley had forgiven his breaking the punch-bowl at the child’s party. Don’t you remember the catastrophe, Ma’am, seven years ago?»

«Over Mrs. Flamingo’s crimson silk gown,» said good-

natured Mrs. Sedley. «What a gawky it was! And his sisters are not much more graceful. Lady Dobbin was at

Highbury last night with three of them. Such figures! my dears.»

«The Alderman’s very rich, isn’t he?» Osborne said archly. «Don’t you think one of the daughters would be a good spec for me, Ma’am?»

«You foolish creature! Who would take you, I should like to know, with your yellow face?»

«Mine a yellow face? Stop till you see Dobbin. Why, he had the yellow fever three times; twice at Nassau, and once at St. Kitts.»

«Well, well; yours is quite yellow enough for us. Isn’t it, Emmy?» Mrs. Sedley said: at which speech Miss

Amelia only made a smile and a blush; and looking at Mr.

George Osborne’s pale interesting countenance, and those beautiful black, curling, shining whiskers, which the young gentleman himself regarded with no ordinary complacency, she thought in her little heart that in

His Majesty’s army, or in the wide world, there never was such a face or such a hero. «I don’t care about Captain

Dobbin’s complexion,» she said, «or about his awkwardness.

I shall always like him, I know,» her little reason being, that he was the friend and champion of George.

«There’s not a finer fellow in the service,» Osborne said, «nor a better officer, though he is not an Adonis, certainly.» And he looked towards the glass himself with much naivete; and in so doing, caught Miss Sharp’s eye fixed keenly upon him, at which he blushed a little, and

Rebecca thought in her heart, «Ah, mon beau Monsieur!

I think I have YOUR gauge»-the little artful minx!

That evening, when Amelia came tripping into the drawing-room in a white muslin frock, prepared for conquest at Vauxhall, singing like a lark, and as fresh as a rose-a very tall ungainly gentleman, with large hands and feet, and large ears, set off by a closely cropped head of black hair, and in the hideous military frogged coat and cocked hat of those times, advanced to meet her, and made her one of the clumsiest bows that was ever performed by a mortal.

This was no other than Captain William Dobbin, of

His Majesty’s Regiment of Foot, returned from yellow fever, in the West Indies, to which the fortune of the service had ordered his regiment, whilst so many of his gallant comrades were reaping glory in the Peninsula.

He had arrived with a knock so very timid and quiet that it was inaudible to the ladies upstairs: otherwise, you may be sure Miss Amelia would never have been so bold as to come singing into the room. As it was, the sweet fresh little voice went right into the Captain’s heart, and nestled there. When she held out her hand for him to shake, before he enveloped it in his own, he paused, and thought-«Well, is it possible-are you the little maid I

remember in the pink frock, such a short time ago-the night I upset the punch-bowl, just after I was gazetted?

Are you the little girl that George Osborne said should marry him? What a blooming young creature you seem, and what a prize the rogue has got!» All this he thought, before he took Amelia’s hand into his own, and as he let his cocked hat fall.

His history since he left school, until the very moment when we have the pleasure of meeting him again, although not fully narrated, has yet, I think, been indicated sufficiently for an ingenious reader by the conversation in the last page. Dobbin, the despised grocer, was Alderman

Dobbin-Alderman Dobbin was Colonel of the City Light

Horse, then burning with military ardour to resist the

French Invasion. Colonel Dobbin’s corps, in which old

Mr. Osborne himself was but an indifferent corporal, had been reviewed by the Sovereign and the Duke of York;

and the colonel and alderman had been knighted. His son had entered the army: and young Osborne followed presently in the same regiment. They had served in the

West Indies and in Canada. Their regiment had just come home, and the attachment of Dobbin to George Osborne was as warm and generous now as it had been when the two were schoolboys.

So these worthy people sat down to dinner presently.

They talked about war and glory, and Boney and Lord

Wellington, and the last Gazette. In those famous days every gazette had a victory in it, and the two gallant young men longed to see their own names in the glorious list, and cursed their unlucky fate to belong to a regiment which had been away from the chances of honour. Miss

Sharp kindled with this exciting talk, but Miss Sedley trembled and grew quite faint as she heard it. Mr. Jos told several of his tiger-hunting stories, finished the one about Miss Cutler and Lance the surgeon; helped

Rebecca to everything on the table, and himself gobbled and drank a great deal.

He sprang to open the door for the ladies, when they retired, with the most killing grace-and coming back to the table, filled himself bumper after bumper of claret, which he swallowed with nervous rapidity.

«He’s priming himself,» Osborne whispered to Dobbin, and at length the hour and the carriage arrived for Vauxhall.

I know that the tune I am piping is a very mild one (although there are some terrific chapters coming presently), and must beg the good-natured reader to remember that we are only discoursing at present about a stockbroker’s family in Russell

Square, who are taking walks, or luncheon, or dinner, or talking and making love as people do in common life, and without a single passionate and wonderful incident to mark the progress of their loves. The argument stands thus-Osborne, in love with Amelia, has asked an old friend to dinner and to Vauxhall-Jos

Sedley is in love with Rebecca. Will he marry her?

That is the great subject now in hand.

We might have treated this subject in the genteel, or in the romantic, or in the facetious manner. Suppose we had laid the scene in Grosvenor Square, with the very same adventures-would not some people have listened?

Suppose we had shown how Lord Joseph Sedley fell in love, and the Marquis of Osborne became attached to Lady

Amelia, with the full consent of the Duke, her noble father: or instead of the supremely genteel, suppose we had resorted to the entirely low, and described what was going on in Mr. Sedley’s kitchen-how black Sambo was in love with the cook (as indeed he was), and how he fought a battle with the coachman in her behalf; how the knife-boy was caught stealing a cold shoulder of mutton, and Miss Sedley’s new femme de chambre refused to go to bed without a wax candle; such incidents might be made to provoke much delightful laughter, and be supposed to represent scenes of «life.» Or if, on the contrary, we had taken a fancy for the terrible, and made the lover of the new femme de chambre a professional burglar, who bursts into the house with his band, slaughters black

Sambo at the feet of his master, and carries off Amelia in her night-dress, not to be let loose again till the third volume, we should easily have constructed a tale of thrilling interest, through the fiery chapters of which the reader should hurry, panting. But my readers must hope for no such romance, only a homely story, and must be content with a chapter about Vauxhall, which is so short that it scarce deserves to be called a chapter at all. And yet it is a chapter, and a very important one too. Are not there little chapters in everybody’s life, that seem to be nothing, and yet affect all the rest of the history?

Let us then step into the coach with the Russell Square party, and be off to the Gardens. There is barely room between Jos and Miss Sharp, who are on the front seat. Mr.

Osborne sitting bodkin opposite, between Captain Dobbin and Amelia.

Every soul in the coach agreed that on that night Jos would propose to make Rebecca Sharp Mrs. Sedley. The parents at home had acquiesced in the arrangement, though, between ourselves, old Mr. Sedley had a feeling very much akin to contempt for his son. He said he was vain, selfish, lazy, and effeminate. He could not endure his airs as a man of fashion, and laughed heartily at his pompous braggadocio stories. «I shall leave the fellow half my property,» he said; «and he will have, besides, plenty of his own; but as I am perfectly sure that if you, and I, and his sister were to die to-morrow, he would say ‘Good

Gad!’ and eat his dinner just as well as usual, I am not going to make myself anxious about him. Let him marry whom he likes. It’s no affair of mine.»

Amelia, on the other hand, as became a young woman of her prudence and temperament, was quite enthusiastic for the match. Once or twice Jos had been on the point of saying something very important to her, to which she was most willing to lend an ear, but the fat fellow could not be brought to unbosom himself of his great secret, and very much to his sister’s disappointment he only rid himself of a large sigh and turned away.

This mystery served to keep Amelia’s gentle bosom in a perpetual flutter of excitement. If she did not speak with

Rebecca on the tender subject, she compensated herself with long and intimate conversations with Mrs. Blenkinsop, the housekeeper, who dropped some hints to the lady’s-maid, who may have cursorily mentioned the matter to the cook, who carried the news, I have no doubt, to all the tradesmen, so that Mr. Jos’s marriage was now talked of by a very considerable number of persons in the

Russell Square world.

It was, of course, Mrs. Sedley’s opinion that her son would demean himself by a marriage with an artist’s daughter. «But, lor’, Ma’am,» ejaculated Mrs. Blenkinsop,

«we was only grocers when we married Mr. S., who was a stock-broker’s clerk, and we hadn’t five hundred pounds among us, and we’re rich enough now.» And

Amelia was entirely of this opinion, to which, gradually, the good-natured Mrs. Sedley was brought.

Mr. Sedley was neutral. «Let Jos marry whom he likes,»

he said; «it’s no affair of mine. This girl has no fortune;

no more had Mrs. Sedley. She seems good-humoured and clever, and will keep him in order, perhaps. Better she, my dear, than a black Mrs. Sedley, and a dozen of mahogany grandchildren.»

So that everything seemed to smile upon Rebecca’s fortunes. She took Jos’s arm, as a matter of course, on going to dinner; she had sate by him on the box of his open carriage (a most tremendous «buck» he was, as he sat there, serene, in state, driving his greys), and though nobody said a word on the subject of the marriage, everybody seemed to understand it. All she wanted was the proposal, and ah! how Rebecca now felt the want of a mother!-a dear, tender mother, who would have managed the business in ten minutes, and, in the course of a little delicate confidential conversation, would have extracted the interesting avowal from the bashful lips of the young man!

Such was the state of affairs as the carriage crossed

The party was landed at the Royal Gardens in due time.

As the majestic Jos stepped out of the creaking vehicle the crowd gave a cheer for the fat gentleman, who blushed and looked very big and mighty, as he walked away with

Rebecca under his arm. George, of course, took charge of

Amelia. She looked as happy as a rose-tree in sunshine.

«I say, Dobbin,» says George, «just look to the shawls and things, there’s a good fellow.» And so while he paired off with Miss Sedley, and Jos squeezed through the gate into the gardens with Rebecca at his side, honest Dobbin contented himself by giving an arm to the shawls, and by paying at the door for the whole party.

He walked very modestly behind them. He was not willing to spoil sport. About Rebecca and Jos he did not care a fig. But he thought Amelia worthy even of the brilliant George Osborne, and as he saw that good-looking couple threading the walks to the girl’s delight and wonder, he watched her artless happiness with a sort of fatherly pleasure. Perhaps he felt that he would have liked to have something on his own arm besides a shawl (the people laughed at seeing the gawky young officer carrying this female burthen); but William Dobbin was very little addicted to selfish calculation at all; and so long as his friend was enjoying himself, how should he be discontented?

And the truth is, that of all the delights of the

Gardens; of the hundred thousand extra lamps, which were always lighted; the fiddlers in cocked hats, who played ravishing melodies under the gilded cockle-shell in the midst of the gardens; the singers, both of comic and sentimental ballads, who charmed the ears there; the country dances, formed by bouncing cockneys and cockneyesses, and executed amidst jumping, thumping and laughter; the signal which announced that Madame Saqui was about to mount skyward on a slack-rope ascending to the stars; the hermit that always sat in the illuminated hermitage; the dark walks, so favourable to the interviews of young lovers; the pots of stout handed about by the people in the shabby old liveries; and the twinkling boxes, in which the happy feasters made-believe to eat slices of almost invisible ham-of all these things, and of the gentle Simpson, that kind smiling idiot, who, I daresay, presided even then over the place-Captain William Dobbin did not take the slightest notice.

He carried about Amelia’s white cashmere shawl, and having attended under the gilt cockle-shell, while Mrs.

Salmon performed the Battle of Borodino (a savage cantata against the Corsican upstart, who had lately met with his Russian reverses)-Mr. Dobbin tried to hum it as he walked away, and found he was humming-the tune which Amelia Sedley sang on the stairs, as she came down to dinner.

He burst out laughing at himself; for the truth is, he could sing no better than an owl.

It is to be understood, as a matter of course, that our young people, being in parties of two and two, made the most solemn promises to keep together during the evening, and separated in ten minutes afterwards. Parties at

Vauxhall always did separate, but ’twas only to meet again at supper-time, when they could talk of their mutual adventures in the interval.

What were the adventures of Mr. Osborne and Miss

Amelia? That is a secret. But be sure of this-they were perfectly happy, and correct in their behaviour; and as they had been in the habit of being together any time these fifteen years, their tete-a-tete offered no particular novelty.

But when Miss Rebecca Sharp and her stout companion lost themselves in a solitary walk, in which there were not above five score more of couples similarly straying, they both felt that the situation was extremely tender and critical, and now or never was the moment Miss Sharp thought, to provoke that declaration which was trembling on the timid lips of Mr. Sedley. They had previously been to the panorama of Moscow, where a rude fellow, treading on Miss Sharp’s foot, caused her to fall back with a little shriek into the arms of Mr. Sedley, and this little incident increased the tenderness and confidence of that gentleman to such a degree, that he told her several of his favourite

Indian stories over again for, at least, the sixth time.

«How I should like to see India!» said Rebecca.

«SHOULD you?» said Joseph, with a most killing tenderness;

and was no doubt about to follow up this artful interrogatory by a question still more tender (for he puffed and panted a great deal, and Rebecca’s hand, which was placed near his heart, could count the feverish pulsations of that organ), when, oh, provoking! the bell rang for the fireworks, and, a great scuffling and running taking place, these interesting lovers were obliged to follow in the stream of people.

Captain Dobbin had some thoughts of joining the party at supper: as, in truth, he found the Vauxhall amusements not particularly lively-but he paraded twice before the box where the now united couples were met, and nobody took any notice of him. Covers were laid for four. The mated pairs were prattling away quite happily, and Dobbin knew he was as clean forgotten as if he had never existed in this world.

«I should only be de trop,» said the Captain, looking at them rather wistfully. «I’d best go and talk to the hermit,»

-and so he strolled off out of the hum of men, and noise, and clatter of the banquet, into the dark walk, at the end of which lived that well-known pasteboard Solitary. It wasn’t very good fun for Dobbin-and, indeed, to be alone at Vauxhall, I have found, from my own experience, to be one of the most dismal sports ever entered into by a bachelor.

The two couples were perfectly happy then in their box: where the most delightful and intimate conversation took place. Jos was in his glory, ordering about the waiters with great majesty. He made the salad; and uncorked the Champagne; and carved the chickens; and ate and drank the greater part of the refreshments on the tables.

Finally, he insisted upon having a bowl of rack punch;

everybody had rack punch at Vauxhall. «Waiter, rack punch.»

That bowl of rack punch was the cause of all this history. And why not a bowl of rack punch as well as any other cause? Was not a bowl of prussic acid the cause of

Fair Rosamond’s retiring from the world? Was not a bowl of wine the cause of the demise of Alexander the Great, or, at least, does not Dr. Lempriere say so?-so did this bowl of rack punch influence the fates of all the principal characters in this «Novel without a Hero,» which we are now relating. It influenced their life, although most of them did not taste a drop of it.

The young ladies did not drink it; Osborne did not like it; and the consequence was that Jos, that fat gourmand, drank up the whole contents of the bowl;

and the consequence of his drinking up the whole contents of the bowl was a liveliness which at first was astonishing, and then became almost painful; for he talked and laughed so loud as to bring scores of listeners round the box, much to the confusion of the innocent party within it; and, volunteering to sing a song (which he did in that maudlin high key peculiar to gentlemen in an inebriated state), he almost drew away the audience who were gathered round the musicians in the gilt scollop-shell, and received from his hearers a great deal of applause.

«Brayvo, Fat un!» said one; «Angcore, Daniel Lambert!»

said another; «What a figure for the tight-rope!»

exclaimed another wag, to the inexpressible alarm of the ladies, and the great anger of Mr. Osborne.

«For Heaven’s sake, Jos, let us get up and go,» cried that gentleman, and the young women rose.

«Stop, my dearest diddle-diddle-darling,» shouted Jos, now as bold as a lion, and clasping Miss Rebecca round the waist. Rebecca started, but she could not get away her hand. The laughter outside redoubled. Jos continued to drink, to make love, and to sing; and, winking and waving his glass gracefully to his audience, challenged all or any to come in and take a share of his punch.

Mr. Osborne was just on the point of knocking down a gentleman in top-boots, who proposed to take advantage of this invitation, and a commotion seemed to be inevitable, when by the greatest good luck a gentleman of the name of Dobbin, who had been walking about the gardens, stepped up to the box. «Be off, you fools!» said this gentleman-shouldering off a great number of the crowd, who vanished presently before his cocked hat and fierce appearance-and he entered the box in a most agitated state.

«Good Heavens! Dobbin, where have you been?» 0sborne said, seizing the white cashmere shawl from his friend’s arm, and huddling up Amelia in it.-«Make yourself useful, and take charge of Jos here, whilst I

take the ladies to the carriage.»

Jos was for rising to interfere-but a single push from

Osborne’s finger sent him puffing back into his seat again, and the lieutenant was enabled to remove the ladies in safety. Jos kissed his hand to them as they retreated, and hiccupped out «Bless you! Bless you!» Then, seizing

Captain Dobbin’s hand, and weeping in the most pitiful way, he confided to that gentleman the secret of his loves. He adored that girl who had just gone out; he had broken her heart, he knew he had, by his conduct; he would marry her next morning at St. George’s, Hanover Square; he’d knock up the Archbishop of Canterbury at Lambeth: he would, by Jove! and have him in readiness; and, acting on this hint, Captain Dobbin shrewdly induced him to leave the gardens and hasten to Lambeth Palace, and, when once out of the gates, easily conveyed Mr. Jos Sedley into a hackney-coach, which deposited him safely at his lodgings.

George Osborne conducted the girls home in safety: and when the door was closed upon them, and as he walked across Russell Square, laughed so as to astonish the watchman. Amelia looked very ruefully at her friend, as they went up stairs, and kissed her, and went to bed without any more talking.

«He must propose to-morrow,» thought Rebecca. «He called me his soul’s darling, four times; he squeezed my hand in Amelia’s presence. He must propose to-morrow.»

And so thought Amelia, too. And I dare say she thought of the dress she was to wear as bridesmaid, and of the presents which she should make to her nice little sister-in-

law, and of a subsequent ceremony in which she herself might play a principal part, &c., and &c., and &c., and &c.

Oh, ignorant young creatures! How little do you know the effect of rack punch! What is the rack in the punch, at night, to the rack in the head of a morning? To this truth I can vouch as a man; there is no headache in the world like that caused by Vauxhall punch. Through the lapse of twenty years, I can remember the consequence of two glasses! two wine-glasses! but two, upon the honour of a gentleman; and Joseph Sedley, who had a liver complaint, had swallowed at least a quart of the abominable mixture.

That next morning, which Rebecca thought was to dawn upon her fortune, found Sedley groaning in agonies which the pen refuses to describe. Soda-water was not invented yet. Small beer-will it be believed!-was the only drink with which unhappy gentlemen soothed the fever of their previous night’s potation. With this mild beverage before him, George Osborne found the ex-

Collector of Boggley Wollah groaning on the sofa at his lodgings. Dobbin was already in the room, good-

naturedly tending his patient of the night before. The two officers, looking at the prostrate Bacchanalian, and askance at each other, exchanged the most frightful sympathetic grins. Even Sedley’s valet, the most solemn and correct of gentlemen, with the muteness and gravity of an undertaker, could hardly keep his countenance in order, as he looked at his unfortunate master.

«Mr. Sedley was uncommon wild last night, sir,» he whispered in confidence to Osborne, as the latter mounted the stair. «He wanted to fight the ‘ackney-coachman, sir.

The Capting was obliged to bring him upstairs in his harms like a babby.» A momentary smile flickered over

Mr. Brush’s features as he spoke; instantly, however, they relapsed into their usual unfathomable calm, as he flung open the drawing-room door, and announced «Mr.

«How are you, Sedley?» that young wag began, after surveying his victim. «No bones broke? There’s a hackney-coachman downstairs with a black eye, and a tied-up head, vowing he’ll have the law of you.»

«What do you mean-law?» Sedley faintly asked.

«For thrashing him last night-didn’t he, Dobbin? You hit out, sir, like Molyneux. The watchman says he never saw a fellow go down so straight. Ask Dobbin.»

«You DID have a round with the coachman,» Captain

Dobbin said, «and showed plenty of fight too.»

«And that fellow with the white coat at Vauxhall! How

Jos drove at him! How the women screamed! By Jove, sir, it did my heart good to see you. I thought you civilians had no pluck; but I’ll never get in your way when you are in your cups, Jos.»

«I believe I’m very terrible, when I’m roused,»

ejaculated Jos from the sofa, and made a grimace so dreary and ludicrous, that the Captain’s politeness could restrain him no longer, and he and Osborne fired off a ringing volley of laughter.

Osborne pursued his advantage pitilessly. He thought

-a little upstart governess. «You hit, you poor old fellow!» said Osborne. «You terrible! Why, man, you couldn’t stand-you made everybody laugh in the

Gardens, though you were crying yourself. You were maudlin, Jos. Don’t you remember singing a song?»

«A sentimental song, and calling Rosa, Rebecca, what’s her name, Amelia’s little friend-your dearest diddle-

diddle-darling?» And this ruthless young fellow, seizing hold of Dobbin’s hand, acted over the scene, to the horror of the original performer, and in spite of Dobbin’s good-

natured entreaties to him to have mercy.

«Why should I spare him?» Osborne said to his friend’s remonstrances, when they quitted the invalid, leaving him under the hands of Doctor Gollop. «What the deuce right has he to give himself his patronizing airs, and make fools of us at Vauxhall? Who’s this little schoolgirl that is ogling and making love to him? Hang it, the family’s low enough already, without HER. A governess is all very well, but I’d rather have a lady for my sister-in-law. I’m a liberal man; but I’ve proper pride, and know my own station: let her know hers. And I’ll take down that great hectoring Nabob, and prevent him from being made a greater fool than he is. That’s why I told him to look out, lest she brought an action against him.»

«Come and see the girls, and make love to Miss Sharp yourself,» the lieutenant here interrupted his friend; but

Captain Dobbin declined to join Osborne in his daily visit to the young ladies in Russell Square.

As George walked down Southampton Row, from

Holborn, he laughed as he saw, at the Sedley Mansion, in two different stories two heads on the look-out.

The fact is, Miss Amelia, in the drawing-room balcony, was looking very eagerly towards the opposite side of the

Square, where Mr. Osborne dwelt, on the watch for the lieutenant himself; and Miss Sharp, from her little bed-

room on the second floor, was in observation until Mr.

Joseph’s great form should heave in sight.

«Sister Anne is on the watch-tower,» said he to Amelia,

«but there’s nobody coming»; and laughing and enjoying the joke hugely, he described in the most ludicrous terms to Miss Sedley, the dismal condition of her brother.

«I think it’s very cruel of you to laugh, George,» she said, looking particularly unhappy; but George only laughed the more at her piteous and discomfited mien, persisted in thinking the joke a most diverting one, and when Miss Sharp came downstairs, bantered her with a great deal of liveliness upon the effect of her charms on the fat civilian.

«O Miss Sharp! if you could but see him this morning,»

he said-«moaning in his flowered dressing-gown-

writhing on his sofa; if you could but have seen him lolling out his tongue to Gollop the apothecary.»

«See whom?» said Miss Sharp.

«Whom? O whom? Captain Dobbin, of course, to whom we were all so attentive, by the way, last night.»

«We were very unkind to him,» Emmy said, blushing very much. «I-I quite forgot him.»

«Of course you did,» cried Osborne, still on the laugh.

«One can’t be ALWAYS thinking about Dobbin, you know,

Amelia. Can one, Miss Sharp?»

«Except when he overset the glass of wine at dinner,»

Miss Sharp said, with a haughty air and a toss of the head, «I never gave the existence of Captain Dobbin one single moment’s consideration.»

«Very good, Miss Sharp, I’ll tell him,» Osborne said;

and as he spoke Miss Sharp began to have a feeling of distrust and hatred towards this young officer, which he was quite unconscious of having inspired. «He is to make fun of me, is he?» thought Rebecca. «Has he been laughing about me to Joseph? Has he frightened him?

Perhaps he won’t come.»-A film passed over her eyes, and her heart beat quite quick.

«You’re always joking,» said she, smiling as innocently as she could. «Joke away, Mr. George; there’s nobody to defend ME.» And George Osborne, as she walked away

-and Amelia looked reprovingly at him-felt some little manly compunction for having inflicted any unnecessary unkindness upon this helpless creature. «My dearest

Amelia,» said he, «you are too good-too kind. You don’t know the world. I do. And your little friend Miss

Sharp must learn her station.»

«Don’t you think Jos will-«

«Upon my word, my dear, I don’t know. He may, or may not. I’m not his master. I only know he is a very foolish vain fellow, and put my dear little girl into a very painful and awkward position last night. My dearest diddle-diddle-darling!» He was off laughing again, and he did it so drolly that Emmy laughed too.

All that day Jos never came. But Amelia had no fear about this; for the little schemer had actually sent away the page, Mr. Sambo’s aide-de-camp, to Mr. Joseph’s lodgings, to ask for some book he had promised, and how he was; and the reply through Jos’s man, Mr. Brush, was, that his master was ill in bed, and had just had the doctor with him. He must come to-morrow, she thought, but she never had the courage to speak a word on the subject to Rebecca; nor did that young woman herself allude to it in any way during the whole evening after the night at Vauxhall.

The next day, however, as the two young ladies sate on the sofa, pretending to work, or to write letters, or to read novels, Sambo came into the room with his usual engaging grin, with a packet under his arm, and a note on a tray. «Note from Mr. Jos, Miss,» says Sambo.

How Amelia trembled as she opened it!

Dear Amelia,-I send you the «Orphan of the Forest.»

I was too ill to come yesterday. I leave town to-day for Cheltenham. Pray excuse me, if you can, to the amiable Miss Sharp, for my conduct at Vauxhall, and entreat her to pardon and forget every word I may have uttered when excited by that fatal supper. As soon as

I have recovered, for my health is very much shaken, I

shall go to Scotland for some months, and am

It was the death-warrant. All was over. Amelia did not dare to look at Rebecca’s pale face and burning eyes, but she dropt the letter into her friend’s lap; and got up, and went upstairs to her room, and cried her little heart out.

Blenkinsop, the housekeeper, there sought her presently with consolation, on whose shoulder Amelia wept confidentially, and relieved herself a good deal. «Don’t take on, Miss. I didn’t like to tell you. But none of us in the house have liked her except at fust. I sor her with my own eyes reading your Ma’s letters. Pinner says she’s always about your trinket-box and drawers, and everybody’s drawers, and she’s sure she’s put your white ribbing into her box.»

«I gave it her, I gave it her,» Amelia said.

But this did not alter Mrs. Blenkinsop’s opinion of Miss

Sharp. «I don’t trust them governesses, Pinner,» she remarked to the maid. «They give themselves the hairs and hupstarts of ladies, and their wages is no better than you nor me.»

It now became clear to every soul in the house, except poor Amelia, that Rebecca should take her departure, and high and low (always with the one exception) agreed that that event should take place as speedily as possible.

Our good child ransacked all her drawers, cupboards, reticules, and gimcrack boxes-passed in review all her gowns, fichus, tags, bobbins, laces, silk stockings, and fallals-selecting this thing and that and the other, to make a little heap for Rebecca. And going to her Papa, that generous British merchant, who had promised to give her as many guineas as she was years old-she begged the old gentleman to give the money to dear

Rebecca, who must want it, while she lacked for nothing.

She even made George Osborne contribute, and nothing loth (for he was as free-handed a young fellow as any in the army), he went to Bond Street, and bought the best hat and spenser that money could buy.

«That’s George’s present to you, Rebecca, dear,» said

Amelia, quite proud of the bandbox conveying these gifts. «What a taste he has! There’s nobody like him.»

«Nobody,» Rebecca answered. «How thankful I am to him!» She was thinking in her heart, «It was George

Osborne who prevented my marriage.»-And she loved

George Osborne accordingly.

She made her preparations for departure with great equanimity; and accepted all the kind little Amelia’s presents, after just the proper degree of hesitation and reluctance. She vowed eternal gratitude to Mrs. Sedley, of course; but did not intrude herself upon that good lady too much, who was embarrassed, and evidently wishing to avoid her. She kissed Mr. Sedley’s hand, when he presented her with the purse; and asked permission to consider him for the future as her kind, kind friend and protector. Her behaviour was so affecting that he was going to write her a cheque for twenty pounds more;

but he restrained his feelings: the carriage was in waiting to take him to dinner, so he tripped away with a «God bless you, my dear, always come here when you come to town, you know.-Drive to the Mansion House, James.»

Finally came the parting with Miss Amelia, over which picture I intend to throw a veil. But after a scene in which one person was in earnest and the other a perfect performer-after the tenderest caresses, the most pathetic tears, the smelling-bottle, and some of the very best feelings of the heart, had been called into requisition-

Rebecca and Amelia parted, the former vowing to love her friend for ever and ever and ever.

Crawley of Queen’s Crawley

Among the most respected of the names beginning in C

which the Court-Guide contained, in the year 18-, was that of Crawley, Sir Pitt, Baronet, Great Gaunt Street, and Queen’s Crawley, Hants. This honourable name had figured constantly also in the Parliamentary list for many years, in conjunction with that of a number of other worthy gentlemen who sat in turns for the borough.

It is related, with regard to the borough of Queen’s

Crawley, that Queen Elizabeth in one of her progresses, stopping at Crawley to breakfast, was so delighted with some remarkably fine Hampshire beer which was then presented to her by the Crawley of the day (a handsome gentleman with a trim beard and a good leg), that she forthwith erected Crawley into a borough to send two members to Parliament; and the place, from the day of that illustrious visit, took the name of Queen’s Crawley, which it holds up to the present moment. And though, by the lapse of time, and those mutations which age produces in empires, cities, and boroughs, Queen’s Crawley was no longer so populous a place as it had been in Queen Bess’s time-nay, was come down to that condition of borough which used to be denominated rotten-yet, as Sir Pitt

Crawley would say with perfect justice in his elegant way, «Rotten! be hanged-it produces me a good fifteen hundred a year.»

Sir Pitt Crawley (named after the great Commoner)

was the son of Walpole Crawley, first Baronet, of the

Tape and Sealing-Wax Office in the reign of George II., when he was impeached for peculation, as were a great number of other honest gentlemen of those days; and

Walpole Crawley was, as need scarcely be said, son of

John Churchill Crawley, named after the celebrated military commander of the reign of Queen Anne. The family tree (which hangs up at Queen’s Crawley) furthermore mentions Charles Stuart, afterwards called Barebones

Crawley, son of the Crawley of James the First’s time;

and finally, Queen Elizabeth’s Crawley, who is represented as the foreground of the picture in his forked beard and armour. Out of his waistcoat, as usual, grows a tree, on the main branches of which the above illustrious names are inscribed. Close by the name of Sir Pitt Crawley,

Baronet (the subject of the present memoir), are written that of his brother, the Reverend Bute Crawley (the great

Commoner was in disgrace when the reverend gentleman was born), rector of Crawley-cum-Snailby, and of various other male and female members of the Crawley family.

Sir Pitt was first married to Grizzel, sixth daughter of

Mungo Binkie, Lord Binkie, and cousin, in consequence, of Mr. Dundas. She brought him two sons: Pitt, named not so much after his father as after the heaven-born minister; and Rawdon Crawley, from the Prince of

Wales’s friend, whom his Majesty George IV forgot so completely. Many years after her ladyship’s demise, Sir

Pitt led to the altar Rosa, daughter of Mr. G. Dawson, of Mudbury, by whom he had two daughters, for whose benefit Miss Rebecca Sharp was now engaged as governess. It will be seen that the young lady was come into a family of very genteel connexions, and was about to move in a much more distinguished circle than that humble one which she had just quitted in Russell Square.

She had received her orders to join her pupils, in a note which was written upon an old envelope, and which contained the following words:

Sir Pitt Crawley begs Miss Sharp and baggidge may be hear on Tuesday, as I leaf for Queen’s Crawley to-morrow morning ERLY.

Great Gaunt Street.

Rebecca had never seen a Baronet, as far as she knew, and as soon as she had taken leave of Amelia, and counted the guineas which good-natured Mr. Sedley had put into a purse for her, and as soon as she had done wiping her eyes with her handkerchief (which operation she concluded the very moment the carriage had turned the corner of the street), she began to depict in her own mind what a Baronet must be. «I wonder, does he wear a star?» thought she, «or is it only lords that wear stars?

But he will be very handsomely dressed in a court suit, with ruffles, and his hair a little powdered, like Mr.

Wroughton at Covent Garden. I suppose he will be awfully proud, and that I shall be treated most contemptuously. Still I must bear my hard lot as well as I can-at least, I shall be amongst GENTLEFOLKS, and not with vulgar city people»: and she fell to thinking of her Russell Square friends with that very same philosophical bitterness with which, in a certain apologue, the fox is represented as speaking of the grapes.

Having passed through Gaunt Square into Great Gaunt

Street, the carriage at length stopped at a tall gloomy house between two other tall gloomy houses, each with a hatchment over the middle drawing-room window; as is the custom of houses in Great Gaunt Street, in which gloomy locality death seems to reign perpetual. The shutters of the first-floor windows of Sir Pitt’s mansion were closed-those of the dining-room were partially open, and the blinds neatly covered up in old newspapers.

John, the groom, who had driven the carriage alone, did not care to descend to ring the bell; and so prayed a passing milk-boy to perform that office for him. When the bell was rung, a head appeared between the interstices of the dining-room shutters, and the door was opened by a man in drab breeches and gaiters, with a dirty old coat, a foul old neckcloth lashed round his bristly neck, a shining bald head, a leering red face, a pair of twinkling grey eyes, and a mouth perpetually on the grin

«This Sir Pitt Crawley’s?» says John, from the box.

«Ees,» says the man at the door, with a nod.

«Hand down these ‘ere trunks then,» said John.

«Hand ‘n down yourself,» said the porter.

«Don’t you see I can’t leave my hosses? Come, bear a hand, my fine feller, and Miss will give you some beer,»

said John, with a horse-laugh, for he was no longer respectful to Miss Sharp, as her connexion with the family was broken off, and as she had given nothing to the servants on coming away.

The bald-headed man, taking his hands out of his breeches pockets, advanced on this summons, and throwing Miss Sharp’s trunk over his shoulder, carried it into the house.

«Take this basket and shawl, if you please, and open the door,» said Miss Sharp, and descended from the carriage in much indignation. «I shall write to Mr. Sedley and inform him of your conduct,» said she to the groom.

«Don’t,» replied that functionary. «I hope you’ve forgot nothink? Miss ‘Melia’s gownds-have you got them-as the lady’s maid was to have ‘ad? I hope they’ll fit you.

Shut the door, Jim, you’ll get no good out of ‘ER,»

continued John, pointing with his thumb towards Miss Sharp:

«a bad lot, I tell you, a bad lot,» and so saying, Mr.

Sedley’s groom drove away. The truth is, he was attached to the lady’s maid in question, and indignant that she should have been robbed of her perquisites.

On entering the dining-room, by the orders of the individual in gaiters, Rebecca found that apartment not more cheerful than such rooms usually are, when genteel families are out of town. The faithful chambers seem, as it were, to mourn the absence of their masters. The turkey carpet has rolled itself up, and retired sulkily under the sideboard: the pictures have hidden their faces behind old sheets of brown paper: the ceiling lamp is muffled up in a dismal sack of brown holland: the window-curtains have disappeared under all sorts of shabby envelopes: the marble bust of Sir Walpole Crawley is looking from its black corner at the bare boards and the oiled fire-irons, and the empty card-racks over the mantelpiece: the cellaret has lurked away behind the carpet: the chairs are turned up heads and tails along the walls: and in the dark corner opposite the statue, is an old-fashioned crabbed knife-box, locked and sitting on a dumb waiter.

Two kitchen chairs, and a round table, and an attenuated old poker and tongs were, however, gathered round the fire-place, as was a saucepan over a feeble sputtering fire. There was a bit of cheese and bread, and a tin candlestick on the table, and a little black porter in a pint-pot.

«Had your dinner, I suppose? It is not too warm for you? Like a drop of beer?»

«Where is Sir Pitt Crawley?» said Miss Sharp majestically.

«He, he! I’m Sir Pitt Crawley. Reklect you owe me a pint for bringing down your luggage. He, he! Ask

Tinker if I aynt. Mrs. Tinker, Miss Sharp; Miss

Governess, Mrs. Charwoman. Ho, ho!»

The lady addressed as Mrs. Tinker at this moment made her appearance with a pipe and a paper of tobacco, for which she had been despatched a minute before

Miss Sharp’s arrival; and she handed the articles over to

Sir Pitt, who had taken his seat by the fire.

«Where’s the farden?» said he. «I gave you three halfpence. Where’s the change, old Tinker?»

«There!» replied Mrs. Tinker, flinging down the coin;

it’s only baronets as cares about farthings.»

«A farthing a day is seven shillings a year,» answered the M.P.; «seven shillings a year is the interest of seven guineas. Take care of your farthings, old Tinker, and your guineas will come quite nat’ral.»

«You may be sure it’s Sir Pitt Crawley, young woman,»

said Mrs. Tinker, surlily; «because he looks to his farthings. You’ll know him better afore long.»

«And like me none the worse, Miss Sharp,» said the old gentleman, with an air almost of politeness. «I must be just before I’m generous.»

«He never gave away a farthing in his life,» growled

«Never, and never will: it’s against my principle. Go and get another chair from the kitchen, Tinker, if you want to sit down; and then we’ll have a bit of supper.»

Presently the baronet plunged a fork into the saucepan on the fire, and withdrew from the pot a piece of tripe and an onion, which he divided into pretty equal portions, and of which he partook with Mrs. Tinker. «You see, Miss Sharp, when I’m not here Tinker’s on board wages: when I’m in town she dines with the family.

Haw! haw! I’m glad Miss Sharp’s not hungry, ain’t you,

Tink?» And they fell to upon their frugal supper.

After supper Sir Pitt Crawley began to smoke his pipe; and when it became quite dark, he lighted the rushlight in the tin candlestick, and producing from an interminable pocket a huge mass of papers, began reading them, and putting them in order.

«I’m here on law business, my dear, and that’s how it happens that I shall have the pleasure of such a pretty travelling companion to-morrow.»

«He’s always at law business,» said Mrs. Tinker, taking up the pot of porter.

«Drink and drink about,» said the Baronet. «Yes; my dear, Tinker is quite right: I’ve lost and won more lawsuits than any man in England. Look here at Crawley,

Bart. v. Snaffle. I’ll throw him over, or my name’s not

Pitt Crawley. Podder and another versus Crawley, Bart.

Overseers of Snaily parish against Crawley, Bart. They can’t prove it’s common: I’ll defy ’em; the land’s mine.

It no more belongs to the parish than it does to you or

Tinker here. I’ll beat ’em, if it cost me a thousand guineas.

Look over the papers; you may if you like, my dear.

Do you write a good hand? I’ll make you useful when we’re at Queen’s Crawley, depend on it, Miss Sharp.

Now the dowager’s dead I want some one.»

«She was as bad as he,» said Tinker. «She took the law of every one of her tradesmen; and turned away forty-eight footmen in four year.»

«She was close-very close,» said the Baronet, simply;

«but she was a valyble woman to me, and saved me a steward.»-And in this confidential strain, and much to the amusement of the new-comer, the conversation continued for a considerable time. Whatever Sir Pitt

Crawley’s qualities might be, good or bad, he did not make the least disguise of them. He talked of himself incessantly, sometimes in the coarsest and vulgarest Hampshire accent; sometimes adopting the tone of a man of the world. And so, with injunctions to Miss Sharp to be ready at five in the morning, he bade her good night. «You’ll sleep with Tinker to-night,» he said; «it’s a big bed, and there’s room for two.

Lady Crawley died in it. Good night.»

Sir Pitt went off after this benediction, and the solemn

Tinker, rushlight in hand, led the way up the great bleak stone stairs, past the great dreary drawing-room doors, with the handles muffled up in paper, into the great front bedroom, where Lady Crawley had slept her last. The bed and chamber were so funereal and gloomy, you might have fancied, not only that Lady Crawley died in the room, but that her ghost inhabited it. Rebecca sprang about the apartment, however, with the greatest liveliness, and had peeped into the huge wardrobes, and the closets, and the cupboards, and tried the drawers which were locked, and examined the dreary pictures and toilette appointments, while the old charwoman was saying her prayers. «I shouldn’t like to sleep in this yeer bed without a good conscience, Miss,» said the old woman. «There’s room for us and a half-dozen of ghosts in it,» says Rebecca. «Tell me all about Lady Crawley and Sir Pitt Crawley, and everybody, my DEAR Mrs.

But old Tinker was not to be pumped by this little cross-questioner; and signifying to her that bed was a place for sleeping, not conversation, set up in her corner of the bed such a snore as only the nose of innocence can produce. Rebecca lay awake for a long, long time, thinking of the morrow, and of the new world into which she was going, and of her chances of success there. The rushlight flickered in the basin. The mantelpiece cast up a great black shadow, over half of a mouldy old sampler, which her defunct ladyship had worked, no doubt, and over two little family pictures of young lads, one in a college gown, and the other in a red jacket like a soldier.

When she went to sleep, Rebecca chose that one to dream about.

At four o’clock, on such a roseate summer’s morning as even made Great Gaunt Street look cheerful, the faithful Tinker, having wakened her bedfellow, and bid her prepare for departure, unbarred and unbolted the great hall door (the clanging and clapping whereof startled the sleeping echoes in the street), and taking her way into Oxford Street, summoned a coach from a stand there. It is needless to particularize the number of the vehicle, or to state that the driver was stationed thus early in the neighbourhood of Swallow Street, in hopes that some young buck, reeling homeward from the tavern, might need the aid of his vehicle, and pay him with the generosity of intoxication.

It is likewise needless to say that the driver, if he had any such hopes as those.above stated, was grossly disappointed; and that the worthy Baronet whom he drove to the City did not give him one single penny more than his fare. It was in vain that Jehu appealed and stormed;

that he flung down Miss Sharp’s bandboxes in the gutter at the ‘Necks, and swore he would take the law of his fare.

«You’d better not,» said one of the ostlers; «it’s Sir

«So it is, Joe,» cried the Baronet, approvingly; «and

I’d like to see the man can do me.»

«So should oi,» said Joe, grinning sulkily, and mounting the Baronet’s baggage on the roof of the coach.

«Keep the box for me, Leader,» exclaims the Member of Parliament to the coachman; who replied, «Yes,

Sir Pitt,» with a touch of his hat, and rage in his soul

(for he had promised the box to a young gentleman from Cambridge, who would have given a crown to a certainty), and Miss Sharp was accommodated with a back seat inside the carriage, which might be said to be carrying her into the wide world.

How the young man from Cambridge sulkily put his five great-coats in front; but was reconciled when little

Miss Sharp was made to quit the carriage, and mount up beside him-when he covered her up in one of his

Benjamins, and became perfectly good-humoured-how the asthmatic gentleman, the prim lady, who declared upon her sacred honour she had never travelled in a public carriage before (there is always such a lady in a coach-Alas! was; for the coaches, where are they?), and the fat widow with the brandy-bottle, took their places inside-how the porter asked them all for money, and got sixpence from the gentleman and five greasy halfpence from the fat widow-and how the carriage at length drove away-now threading the dark lanes of

Aldersgate, anon clattering by the Blue Cupola of St.

Paul’s, jingling rapidly by the strangers’ entry of Fleet-

Market, which, with Exeter ‘Change, has now departed to the world of shadows-how they passed the White

Bear in Piccadilly, and saw the dew rising up from the market-gardens of Knightsbridge-how Turnhamgreen,

Brentwood, Bagshot, were passed-need not be told here.

But the writer of these pages, who has pursued in former days, and in the same bright weather, the same remarkable journey, cannot but think of it with a sweet and tender regret. Where is the road now, and its merry incidents of life? Is there no Chelsea or Greenwich for the old honest pimple-nosed coachmen? I wonder where are they, those good fellows? Is old Weller alive or dead?

and the waiters, yea, and the inns at which they waited, and the cold rounds of beef inside, and the stunted ostler, with his blue nose and clinking pail, where is he, and where is his generation? To those great geniuses now in petticoats, who shall write novels for the beloved reader’s children, these men and things will be as much legend and history as Nineveh, or Coeur de Lion, or Jack

Sheppard. For them stage-coaches will have become romances

-a team of four bays as fabulous as Bucephalus or Black

Bess. Ah, how their coats shone, as the stable-men pulled their clothes off, and away they went-ah, how their tails shook, as with smoking sides at the stage’s end they demurely walked away into the inn-yard. Alas! we shall never hear the horn sing at midnight, or see the pike-gates fly open any more. Whither, however, is the light four-inside Trafalgar coach carrying us? Let us be set down at Queen’s Crawley without further divagation, and see how Miss Rebecca Sharp speeds there.

Miss Rebecca Sharp to Miss Amelia Sedley,

Russell Square, London.

MY DEAREST, SWEETEST AMELIA,

With what mingled joy and sorrow do I take up the pen to write to my dearest friend! Oh, what a change between to-day and yesterday! Now I am friendless and alone; yesterday I was at home, in the sweet company of a sister, whom I shall ever, ever cherish!

I will not tell you in what tears and sadness I passed the fatal night in which I separated from you. YOU went on Tuesday to joy and happiness, with your mother and

YOUR DEVOTED YOUNG SOLDIER by your side; and I thought of you all night, dancing at the Perkins’s, the prettiest,

I am sure, of all the young ladies at the Ball. I was brought by the groom in the old carriage to Sir Pitt

Crawley’s town house, where, after John the groom had behaved most rudely and insolently to me (alas! ’twas safe to insult poverty and misfortune!), I was given over to Sir P.’s care, and made to pass the night in an old gloomy bed, and by the side of a horrid gloomy old charwoman, who keeps the house. I did not sleep one single wink the whole night.

Sir Pitt is not what we silly girls, when we used to read Cecilia at Chiswick, imagined a baronet must have been. Anything, indeed, less like Lord Orville cannot be imagined. Fancy an old, stumpy, short, vulgar, and very dirty man, in old clothes and shabby old gaiters, who smokes a horrid pipe, and cooks his own horrid supper in a saucepan. He speaks with a country accent, and swore a great deal at the old charwoman, at the hackney coachman who drove us to the inn where the coach went from, and on which I made the journey OUTSIDE FOR THE

GREATER PART OF THE WAY.

I was awakened at daybreak by the charwoman, and having arrived at the inn, was at first placed inside the coach. But, when we got to a place called Leakington, where the rain began to fall very heavily-will you believe it?-I was forced to come outside; for Sir Pitt is a proprietor of the coach, and as a passenger came at

Mudbury, who wanted an inside place, I was obliged to go outside in the rain, where, however, a young gentleman from Cambridge College sheltered me very kindly in one of his several great coats.

This gentleman and the guard seemed to know Sir

Pitt very well, and laughed at him a great deal. They both agreed in calling him an old screw; which means a very stingy, avaricious person. He never gives any money to anybody, they said (and this meanness I hate); and the young gentleman made me remark that we drove very slow for the last two stages on the road, because

Sir Pitt was on the box, and because he is proprietor of the horses for this part of the journey. «But won’t I

flog ’em on to Squashmore, when I take the ribbons?»

said the young Cantab. «And sarve ’em right, Master

Jack,» said the guard. When I comprehended the meaning of this phrase, and that Master Jack intended to drive the rest of the way, and revenge himself on Sir

Pitt’s horses, of course I laughed too.

A carriage and four splendid horses, covered with armorial bearings, however, awaited us at Mudbury, four miles from Queen’s Crawley, and we made our entrance to the baronet’s park in state. There is a fine avenue of a mile long leading to the house, and the woman at the lodge-gate (over the pillars of which are a serpent and a dove, the supporters of the Crawley arms), made us a number of curtsies as she flung open the old iron carved doors, which are something like those at odious

«There’s an avenue,» said Sir Pitt, «a mile long.

There’s six thousand pound of timber in them there trees. Do you call that nothing?» He pronounced avenue

-EVENUE, and nothing-NOTHINK, so droll; and he had a Mr. Hodson, his hind from Mudbury, into the carriage with him, and they talked about distraining, and selling up, and draining and subsoiling, and a great deal about tenants and farming-much more than I could understand. Sam Miles had been caught poaching, and Peter

Bailey had gone to the workhouse at last. «Serve him right,» said Sir Pitt; «him and his family has been cheating me on that farm these hundred and fifty years.»

Some old tenant, I suppose, who could not pay his rent.

Sir Pitt might have said «he and his family,» to be sure;

but rich baronets do not need to be careful about grammar, as poor governesses must be.

As we passed, I remarked a beautiful church-spire rising above some old elms in the park; and before them, in the midst of a lawn, and some outhouses, an old red house with tall chimneys covered with ivy, and the windows shining in the sun. «Is that your church, sir?»

«Yes, hang it,» (said Sir Pitt, only he used, dear, A MUCH

WICKEDER WORD); «how’s Buty, Hodson? Buty’s my brother Bute, my dear-my brother the parson. Buty and the Beast I call him, ha, ha!»

Hodson laughed too, and then looking more grave and nodding his head, said, «I’m afraid he’s better, Sir

Pitt. He was out on his pony yesterday, looking at our corn.»

«Looking after his tithes, hang’un (only he used the same wicked word). Will brandy and water never kill him? He’s as tough as old whatdyecallum-old

Mr. Hodson laughed again. «The young men is home from college. They’ve whopped John Scroggins till he’s well nigh dead.»

«Whop my second keeper!» roared out Sir Pitt.

«He was on the parson’s ground, sir,» replied Mr.

Hodson; and Sir Pitt in a fury swore that if he ever caught

’em poaching on his ground, he’d transport ’em, by the lord he would. However, he said, «I’ve sold the presentation of the living, Hodson; none of that breed shall get it, I war’nt»; and Mr. Hodson said he was quite right: and I have no doubt from this that the two brothers are at variance-as brothers often are, and sisters too. Don’t you remember the two Miss Scratchleys at Chiswick, how they used always to fight and quarrel-and Mary

Box, how she was always thumping Louisa?

Presently, seeing two little boys gathering sticks in the wood, Mr. Hodson jumped out of the carriage, at Sir

Pitt’s order, and rushed upon them with his whip. «Pitch into ’em, Hodson,» roared the baronet; «flog their little souls out, and bring ’em up to the house, the vagabonds;

I’ll commit ’em as sure as my name’s Pitt.» And presently we heard Mr. Hodson’s whip cracking on the shoulders of the poor little blubbering wretches, and

Sir Pitt, seeing that the malefactors were in custody, drove on to the hall.

All the servants were ready to meet us, and

Here, my dear, I was interrupted last night by a dreadful thumping at my door: and who do you think it was? Sir Pitt Crawley in his night-cap and dressing-

gown, such a figure! As I shrank away from such a visitor, he came forward and seized my candle. «No candles after eleven o’clock, Miss Becky,» said he. «Go to bed in the dark, you pretty little hussy» (that is what he called me), «and unless you wish me to come for the candle every night, mind and be in bed at eleven.» And with this, he and Mr. Horrocks the butler went off laughing. You may be sure I shall not encourage any more of their visits. They let loose two immense bloodhounds at night, which all last night were yelling and howling at the moon. «I call the dog Gorer,» said Sir Pitt; «he’s killed a man that dog has, and is master of a bull, and the mother I used to call Flora; but now I calls her

Aroarer, for she’s too old to bite. Haw, haw!»

Before the house of Queen’s Crawley, which is an odious old-fashioned red brick mansion, with tall chimneys and gables of the style of Queen Bess, there is a terrace flanked by the family dove and serpent, and on which the great hall-door opens. And oh, my dear, the great hall I am sure is as big and as glum as the great hall in the dear castle of Udolpho. It has a large fireplace, in which we might put half Miss Pinkerton’s school, and the grate is big enough to roast an ox at the very least. Round the room hang I don’t know how many generations of Crawleys, some with beards and ruffs, some with huge wigs and toes turned out, some dressed in long straight stays and gowns that look as stiff as towers, and some with long ringlets, and oh, my dear! scarcely any stays at all. At one end of the hall is the great staircase all in black oak, as dismal as may be, and on either side are tall doors with stags’ heads.over them, leading to the billiard-room and the library, and the great yellow saloon and the morning-rooms. I think there are at least twenty bedrooms on the first floor; one of them has the bed in which Queen Elizabeth slept;

and I have been taken by my new pupils through all these fine apartments this morning. They are not rendered less gloomy, I promise you, by having the shutters always shut; and there is scarce one of the apartments, but when the light was let into it, I expected to see a ghost in the room. We have a schoolroom on the second floor, with my bedroom leading into it on one side, and that of the young ladies on the other. Then there are Mr. Pitt’s apartments-Mr. Crawley, he is called-the eldest son, and Mr. Rawdon Crawley’s rooms

-he is an officer like SOMEBODY, and away with his regiment. There is no want of room I assure you. You might lodge all the people in Russell Square in the house, I think, and have space to spare.

Half an hour after our arrival, the great dinner-bell was rung, and I came down with my two pupils (they are very thin insignificant little chits of ten and eight years old). I came down in your dear muslin gown

(about which that odious Mrs. Pinner was so rude, because you gave it me); for I am to be treated as one of the family, except on company days, when the young ladies and I are to dine upstairs.

Well, the great dinner-bell rang, and we all assembled in the little drawing-room where my Lady Crawley sits. She is the second Lady Crawley, and mother of the young ladies. She was an ironmonger’s daughter, and her marriage was thought a great match. She looks as if she had been handsome once, and her eyes are always weeping for the loss of her beauty. She is pale and meagre and high-shouldered, and has not a word to say for herself, evidently. Her stepson Mr. Crawley, was likewise in the room. He was in full dress, as pompous as an undertaker. He is pale, thin, ugly, silent; he has thin legs, no chest, hay-coloured whiskers, and straw-

coloured hair. He is the very picture of his sainted mother over the mantelpiece-Griselda of the noble house of Binkie.

«This is the new governess, Mr. Crawley,» said Lady

Crawley, coming forward and taking my hand. «Miss

«0!» said Mr. Crawley, and pushed his head once forward and began again to read a great pamphlet with which he was busy.

«I hope you will be kind to my girls,» said Lady

Crawley, with her pink eyes always full of tears.

«Law, Ma, of course she will,» said the eldest: and I

saw at a glance that I need not be afraid of THAT woman.

«My lady is served,» says the butler in black, in an immense white shirt-frill, that looked as if it had been one of the Queen Elizabeth’s ruffs depicted in the hall;

and so, taking Mr. Crawley’s arm, she led the way to the dining-room, whither I followed with my little pupils in each hand.

Sir Pitt was already in the room with a silver jug. He had just been to the cellar, and was in full dress too;

that is, he had taken his gaiters off, and showed his little dumpy legs in black worsted stockings. The sideboard was covered with glistening old plate-old cups, both gold and silver; old salvers and cruet-stands, like

Rundell and Bridge’s shop. Everything on the table was in silver too, and two footmen, with red hair and canary-

coloured liveries, stood on either side of the sideboard.

Mr. Crawley said a long grace, and Sir Pitt said amen, and the great silver dish-covers were removed.

«What have we for dinner, Betsy?’ said the Baronet.

«Mutton broth, I believe, Sir Pitt,» answered Lady

«Mouton aux navets,» added the butler gravely

(pronounce, if you please, moutongonavvy); «and the soup is potage de mouton a l’Ecossaise. The side-dishes contain pommes de terre au naturel, and choufleur a l’eau.»

«Mutton’s mutton,» said the Baronet, «and a devilish good thing. What SHIP was it, Horrocks, and when did you kill?»

«One of the black-faced Scotch, Sir Pitt: we killed on Thursday.

«Steel, of Mudbury, took the saddle and two legs, Sir

Pitt; but he says the last was too young and confounded woolly, Sir Pitt.»

«Will you take some potage, Miss ah-Miss Blunt?

«Capital Scotch broth, my dear,» said Sir Pitt, «though they call it by a French name.»

«I believe it is the custom, sir, in decent society,» said

Mr. Crawley, haughtily, «to call the dish as I have called it»; and it was served to us on silver soup plates by the

footmen in the canary coats, with the mouton aux navets. Then «ale and water» were brought, and served to us young ladies in wine-glasses. I am not a judge of ale, but I can say with a clear conscience I prefer water.

While we were enjoying our repast, Sir Pitt took occasion to ask what had become of the shoulders of the mutton.

«I believe they were eaten in the servants’ hall,» said my lady, humbly.

«They was, my lady,» said Horrocks, «and precious little else we get there neither.»

Sir Pitt burst into a horse-laugh, and continued his conversation with Mr. Horrocks. «That there little black pig of the Kent sow’s breed must be uncommon fat now.»

«It’s not quite busting, Sir Pitt,» said the butler with the gravest air, at which Sir Pitt, and with him the young ladies, this time, began to laugh violently.

«Miss Crawley, Miss Rose Crawley,» said Mr. Crawley,

«your laughter strikes me as being exceedingly out of place.»

«Never mind, my lord,» said the Baronet, «we’ll try the porker on Saturday. Kill un on Saturday morning,

John Horrocks. Miss Sharp adores pork, don’t you, Miss

And I think this is all the conversation that I remember at dinner. When the repast was concluded a jug of hot water was placed before Sir Pitt, with a case-bottle containing, I believe, rum. Mr. Horrocks served myself and my pupils with three little glasses of wine, and a bumper was poured out for my lady. When we retired, she took from her work-drawer an enormous interminable piece of knitting; the young ladies began to play at cribbage with a dirty pack of cards. We had but one candle lighted, but it was in a magnificent old silver candlestick, and after a very few questions from my lady,

I had my choice of amusement between a volume of sermons, and a pamphlet on the corn-laws, which Mr.

Crawley had been reading before dinner.

So we sat for an hour until steps were heard.

«Put away the cards, girls,» cried my lady, in a great tremor; «put down Mr. Crawley’s books, Miss Sharp»;

and these orders had been scarcely obeyed, when Mr.

Crawley entered the room.

«We will resume yesterday’s discourse, young ladies,»

said he, «and you shall each read a page by turns; so that Miss a-Miss Short may have an opportunity of hearing you»; and the poor girls began to spell a long dismal sermon delivered at Bethesda Chapel, Liverpool, on behalf of the mission for the Chickasaw Indians.

Was it not a charming evening?

At ten the servants were told to call Sir Pitt and the household to prayers. Sir Pitt came in first, very much flushed, and rather unsteady in his gait; and after him the butler, the canaries, Mr. Crawley’s man, three other men, smelling very much of the stable, and four women, one of whom, I remarked, was very much overdressed, and who flung me a look of great scorn as she plumped down on her knees.

After Mr. Crawley had done haranguing and expounding, we received our candles, and then we went to bed; and then I was disturbed in my writing, as

I have described to my dearest sweetest Amelia.

Good night. A thousand, thousand, thousand kisses!

Saturday.-This morning, at five, I heard the shrieking of the little black pig. Rose and Violet introduced me to it yesterday; and to the stables, and to the kennel, and to the gardener, who was picking fruit to send to market, and from whom they begged hard a bunch of hot-house grapes; but he said that Sir Pitt had numbered every «Man Jack» of them, and it would be as much as his place was worth to give any away. The darling girls caught a colt in a paddock, and asked me if I would ride, and began to ride themselves, when the groom, coming with horrid oaths, drove them away.

Lady Crawley is always knitting the worsted. Sir Pitt is always tipsy, every night; and, I believe, sits with

Horrocks, the butler. Mr. Crawley always reads sermons in the evening, and in the morning is locked up in his study, or else rides to Mudbury, on county business, or to Squashmore, where he preaches, on Wednesdays and Fridays, to the tenants there.

A hundred thousand grateful loves to your dear papa and mamma. Is your poor brother recovered of his rack-

punch? Oh, dear! Oh, dear! How men should beware of wicked punch!

Ever and ever thine own

Everything considered, I think it is quite as well for our dear Amelia Sedley, in Russell Square, that Miss

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