prompt:
Chapter: In Which the Same Subject is Pursued

Becky did not rally from the state of stupor and confusion in which the
events of the previous night had plunged her intrepid spirit until the
bells of the Curzon Street Chapels were ringing for afternoon service,
and rising from her bed she began to ply her own bell, in order to
summon the French maid who had left her some hours before.

Mrs. Rawdon Crawley rang many times in vain; and though, on the last
occasion, she rang with such vehemence as to pull down the bell-rope,
Mademoiselle Fifine did not make her appearance--no, not though her
mistress, in a great pet, and with the bell-rope in her hand, came out
to the landing-place with her hair over her shoulders and screamed out
repeatedly for her attendant.

The truth is, she had quitted the premises for many hours, and upon
that permission which is called French leave among us.  After picking up
the trinkets in the drawing-room, Mademoiselle had ascended to her own
apartments, packed and corded her own boxes there, tripped out and
called a cab for herself, brought down her trunks with her own hand,
and without ever so much as asking the aid of any of the other
servants, who would probably have refused it, as they hated her
cordially, and without wishing any one of them good-bye, had made her
exit from Curzon Street.

The game, in her opinion, was over in that little domestic
establishment.  Fifine went off in a cab, as we have known more exalted
persons of her nation to do under similar circumstances: but, more
provident or lucky than these, she secured not only her own property,
but some of her mistress's (if indeed that lady could be said to have
any property at all)--and not only carried off the trinkets before
alluded to, and some favourite dresses on which she had long kept her
eye, but four richly gilt Louis Quatorze candlesticks, six gilt albums,
keepsakes, and Books of Beauty, a gold enamelled snuff-box which had
once belonged to Madame du Barri, and the sweetest little inkstand and
mother-of-pearl blotting book, which Becky used when she composed her
charming little pink notes, had vanished from the premises in Curzon
Street together with Mademoiselle Fifine, and all the silver laid on
the table for the little festin which Rawdon interrupted.  The plated
ware Mademoiselle left behind her was too cumbrous, probably for which
reason, no doubt, she also left the fire irons, the chimney-glasses,
and the rosewood cottage piano.

A lady very like her subsequently kept a milliner's shop in the Rue du
Helder at Paris, where she lived with great credit and enjoyed the
patronage of my Lord Steyne.  This person always spoke of England as of
the most treacherous country in the world, and stated to her young
pupils that she had been affreusement vole by natives of that island.
It was no doubt compassion for her misfortunes which induced the
Marquis of Steyne to be so very kind to Madame de Saint-Amaranthe.  May
she flourish as she deserves--she appears no more in our quarter of
Vanity Fair.

Hearing a buzz and a stir below, and indignant at the impudence of
those servants who would not answer her summons, Mrs. Crawley flung her
morning robe round her and descended majestically to the drawing-room,
whence the noise proceeded.

The cook was there with blackened face, seated on the beautiful chintz
sofa by the side of Mrs. Raggles, to whom she was administering
Maraschino.  The page with the sugar-loaf buttons, who carried about
Becky's pink notes, and jumped about her little carriage with such
alacrity, was now engaged putting his fingers into a cream dish; the
footman was talking to Raggles, who had a face full of perplexity and
woe--and yet, though the door was open, and Becky had been screaming a
half-dozen of times a few feet off, not one of her attendants had
obeyed her call.  "Have a little drop, do'ee now, Mrs. Raggles," the
cook was saying as Becky entered, the white cashmere dressing-gown
flouncing around her.

"Simpson!  Trotter!" the mistress of the house cried in great wrath.
"How dare you stay here when you heard me call? How dare you sit down
in my presence? Where's my maid?" The page withdrew his fingers from
his mouth with a momentary terror, but the cook took off a glass of
Maraschino, of which Mrs. Raggles had had enough, staring at Becky over
the little gilt glass as she drained its contents. The liquor appeared
to give the odious rebel courage.

"YOUR sofy, indeed!" Mrs. Cook said.  "I'm a settin' on Mrs. Raggles's
sofy.  Don't you stir, Mrs. Raggles, Mum. I'm a settin' on Mr. and Mrs.
Raggles's sofy, which they bought with honest money, and very dear it
cost 'em, too.  And I'm thinkin' if I set here until I'm paid my wages,
I shall set a precious long time, Mrs. Raggles; and set I will,
too--ha!  ha!" and with this she filled herself another glass of the
liquor and drank it with a more hideously satirical air.

"Trotter!  Simpson!  turn that drunken wretch out," screamed Mrs.
Crawley.

"I shawn't," said Trotter the footman; "turn out yourself.  Pay our
selleries, and turn me out too.  WE'LL go fast enough."

"Are you all here to insult me?" cried Becky in a fury; "when Colonel
Crawley comes home I'll--"

At this the servants burst into a horse haw-haw, in which, however,
Raggles, who still kept a most melancholy countenance, did not join.
"He ain't a coming back," Mr. Trotter resumed.  "He sent for his
things, and I wouldn't let 'em go, although Mr. Raggles would; and I
don't b'lieve he's no more a Colonel than I am.  He's hoff, and I
suppose you're a goin' after him.  You're no better than swindlers,
both on you.  Don't be a bullyin' ME.  I won't stand it.  Pay us our
selleries, I say.  Pay us our selleries." It was evident, from Mr.
Trotter's flushed countenance and defective intonation, that he, too,
had had recourse to vinous stimulus.

"Mr. Raggles," said Becky in a passion of vexation, "you will not
surely let me be insulted by that drunken man?" "Hold your noise,
Trotter; do now," said Simpson the page.  He was affected by his
mistress's deplorable situation, and succeeded in preventing an
outrageous denial of the epithet "drunken" on the footman's part.

"Oh, M'am," said Raggles, "I never thought to live to see this year
day:  I've known the Crawley family ever since I was born.  I lived
butler with Miss Crawley for thirty years; and I little thought one of
that family was a goin' to ruing me--yes, ruing me"--said the poor
fellow with tears in his eyes.  "Har you a goin' to pay me? You've
lived in this 'ouse four year.  You've 'ad my substance: my plate and
linning.  You ho me a milk and butter bill of two 'undred pound, you
must 'ave noo laid heggs for your homlets, and cream for your spanil
dog."

"She didn't care what her own flesh and blood had," interposed the
cook.  "Many's the time, he'd have starved but for me."

"He's a charaty-boy now, Cooky," said Mr. Trotter, with a drunken "ha!
ha!"--and honest Raggles continued, in a lamentable tone, an
enumeration of his griefs.  All he said was true.  Becky and her
husband had ruined him. He had bills coming due next week and no means
to meet them.  He would be sold up and turned out of his shop and his
house, because he had trusted to the Crawley family.  His tears and
lamentations made Becky more peevish than ever.

"You all seem to be against me," she said bitterly. "What do you want?
I can't pay you on Sunday.  Come back to-morrow and I'll pay you
everything.  I thought Colonel Crawley had settled with you.  He will
to-morrow. I declare to you upon my honour that he left home this
morning with fifteen hundred pounds in his pocket-book. He has left me
nothing.  Apply to him.  Give me a bonnet and shawl and let me go out
and find him.  There was a difference between us this morning.  You all
seem to know it.  I promise you upon my word that you shall all be
paid.  He has got a good appointment.  Let me go out and find him."

This audacious statement caused Raggles and the other personages
present to look at one another with a wild surprise, and with it
Rebecca left them.  She went upstairs and dressed herself this time
without the aid of her French maid.  She went into Rawdon's room, and
there saw that a trunk and bag were packed ready for removal, with a
pencil direction that they should be given when called for; then she
went into the Frenchwoman's garret; everything was clean, and all the
drawers emptied there. She bethought herself of the trinkets which had
been left on the ground and felt certain that the woman had fled. "Good
Heavens!  was ever such ill luck as mine?" she said; "to be so near,
and to lose all.  Is it all too late?" No; there was one chance more.

She dressed herself and went away unmolested this time, but alone. It
was four o'clock.  She went swiftly down the streets (she had no money
to pay for a carriage), and never stopped until she came to Sir Pitt
Crawley's door, in Great Gaunt Street.  Where was Lady Jane Crawley?
She was at church.  Becky was not sorry. Sir Pitt was in his study, and
had given orders not to be disturbed--she must see him--she slipped by
the sentinel in livery at once, and was in Sir Pitt's room before the
astonished Baronet had even laid down the paper.

He turned red and started back from her with a look of great alarm and
horror.

"Do not look so," she said.  "I am not guilty, Pitt, dear Pitt; you
were my friend once.  Before God, I am not guilty.  I seem so.
Everything is against me.  And oh!  at such a moment!  just when all my
hopes were about to be realized:  just when happiness was in store for
us."

"Is this true, what I see in the paper then?" Sir Pitt said--a
paragraph in which had greatly surprised him.

"It is true.  Lord Steyne told me on Friday night, the night of that
fatal ball.  He has been promised an appointment any time these six
months.  Mr. Martyr, the Colonial Secretary, told him yesterday that it
was made out. That unlucky arrest ensued; that horrible meeting. I was
only guilty of too much devotedness to Rawdon's service.  I have
received Lord Steyne alone a hundred times before. I confess I had
money of which Rawdon knew nothing. Don't you know how careless he is
of it, and could I dare to confide it to him?" And so she went on with
a perfectly connected story, which she poured into the ears of her
perplexed kinsman.

It was to the following effect.  Becky owned, and with perfect
frankness, but deep contrition, that having remarked Lord Steyne's
partiality for her (at the mention of which Pitt blushed), and being
secure of her own virtue, she had determined to turn the great peer's
attachment to the advantage of herself and her family.  "I looked for a
peerage for you, Pitt," she said (the brother-in-law again turned red).
"We have talked about it.  Your genius and Lord Steyne's interest made
it more than probable, had not this dreadful calamity come to put an
end to all our hopes.  But, first, I own that it was my object to
rescue my dear husband--him whom I love in spite of all his ill usage
and suspicions of me--to remove him from the poverty and ruin which was
impending over us.  I saw Lord Steyne's partiality for me," she said,
casting down her eyes.  "I own that I did everything in my power to
make myself pleasing to him, and as far as an honest woman may, to
secure his--his esteem. It was only on Friday morning that the news
arrived of the death of the Governor of Coventry Island, and my Lord
instantly secured the appointment for my dear husband. It was intended
as a surprise for him--he was to see it in the papers to-day.  Even
after that horrid arrest took place (the expenses of which Lord Steyne
generously said he would settle, so that I was in a manner prevented
from coming to my husband's assistance), my Lord was laughing with me,
and saying that my dearest Rawdon would be consoled when he read of his
appointment in the paper, in that shocking spun--bailiff's house. And
then--then he came home.  His suspicions were excited,--the dreadful
scene took place between my Lord and my cruel, cruel Rawdon--and, O my
God, what will happen next? Pitt, dear Pitt!  pity me, and reconcile
us!" And as she spoke she flung herself down on her knees, and bursting
into tears, seized hold of Pitt's hand, which she kissed passionately.

It was in this very attitude that Lady Jane, who, returning from
church, ran to her husband's room directly she heard Mrs. Rawdon
Crawley was closeted there, found the Baronet and his sister-in-law.

"I am surprised that woman has the audacity to enter this house," Lady
Jane said, trembling in every limb and turning quite pale. (Her
Ladyship had sent out her maid directly after breakfast, who had
communicated with Raggles and Rawdon Crawley's household, who had told
her all, and a great deal more than they knew, of that story, and many
others besides).  "How dare Mrs. Crawley to enter the house of--of an
honest family?"

Sir Pitt started back, amazed at his wife's display of vigour. Becky
still kept her kneeling posture and clung to Sir Pitt's hand.

"Tell her that she does not know all:  Tell her that I am innocent,
dear Pitt," she whimpered out.

"Upon my word, my love, I think you do Mrs. Crawley injustice," Sir
Pitt said; at which speech Rebecca was vastly relieved.  "Indeed I
believe her to be--"

"To be what?" cried out Lady Jane, her clear voice thrilling and, her
heart beating violently as she spoke. "To be a wicked woman--a
heartless mother, a false wife? She never loved her dear little boy,
who used to fly here and tell me of her cruelty to him.  She never came
into a family but she strove to bring misery with her and to weaken the
most sacred affections with her wicked flattery and falsehoods.  She
has deceived her husband, as she has deceived everybody; her soul is
black with vanity, worldliness, and all sorts of crime.  I tremble when
I touch her.  I keep my children out of her sight."

"Lady Jane!" cried Sir Pitt, starting up, "this is really language--"
"I have been a true and faithful wife to you, Sir Pitt," Lady Jane
continued, intrepidly; "I have kept my marriage vow as I made it to God
and have been obedient and gentle as a wife should.  But righteous
obedience has its limits, and I declare that I will not bear that--that
woman again under my roof; if she enters it, I and my children will
leave it.  She is not worthy to sit down with Christian people.
You--you must choose, sir, between her and me"; and with this my Lady
swept out of the room, fluttering with her own audacity, and leaving
Rebecca and Sir Pitt not a little astonished at it.

As for Becky, she was not hurt; nay, she was pleased. "It was the
diamond-clasp you gave me," she said to Sir Pitt, reaching him out her
hand; and before she left him (for which event you may be sure my Lady
Jane was looking out from her dressing-room window in the upper story)
the Baronet had promised to go and seek out his brother, and endeavour
to bring about a reconciliation.

Rawdon found some of the young fellows of the regiment seated in the
mess-room at breakfast, and was induced without much difficulty to
partake of that meal, and of the devilled legs of fowls and soda-water
with which these young gentlemen fortified themselves.  Then they had a
conversation befitting the day and their time of life: about the next
pigeon-match at Battersea, with relative bets upon Ross and
Osbaldiston; about Mademoiselle Ariane of the French Opera, and who had
left her, and how she was consoled by Panther Carr; and about the fight
between the Butcher and the Pet, and the probabilities that it was a
cross.  Young Tandyman, a hero of seventeen, laboriously endeavouring
to get up a pair of mustachios, had seen the fight, and spoke in the
most scientific manner about the battle and the condition of the men.
It was he who had driven the Butcher on to the ground in his drag and
passed the whole of the previous night with him.  Had there not been
foul play he must have won it.  All the old files of the Ring were in
it; and Tandyman wouldn't pay; no, dammy, he wouldn't pay.  It was but
a year since the young Cornet, now so knowing a hand in Cribb's
parlour, had a still lingering liking for toffy, and used to be birched
at Eton.

So they went on talking about dancers, fights, drinking, demireps,
until Macmurdo came down and joined the boys and the conversation. He
did not appear to think that any especial reverence was due to their
boyhood; the old fellow cut in with stories, to the full as choice as
any the youngest rake present had to tell--nor did his own grey hairs
nor their smooth faces detain him.  Old Mac was famous for his good
stories.  He was not exactly a lady's man; that is, men asked him to
dine rather at the houses of their mistresses than of their mothers.
There can scarcely be a life lower, perhaps, than his, but he was quite
contented with it, such as it was, and led it in perfect good nature,
simplicity, and modesty of demeanour.

By the time Mac had finished a copious breakfast, most of the others
had concluded their meal.  Young Lord Varinas was smoking an immense
Meerschaum pipe, while Captain Hugues was employed with a cigar: that
violent little devil Tandyman, with his little bull-terrier between his
legs, was tossing for shillings with all his might (that fellow was
always at some game or other) against Captain Deuceace; and Mac and
Rawdon walked off to the Club, neither, of course, having given any
hint of the business which was occupying their minds.  Both, on the
other hand, had joined pretty gaily in the conversation, for why should
they interrupt it? Feasting, drinking, ribaldry, laughter, go on
alongside of all sorts of other occupations in Vanity Fair--the crowds
were pouring out of church as Rawdon and his friend passed down St.
James's Street and entered into their Club.

The old bucks and habitues, who ordinarily stand gaping and grinning
out of the great front window of the Club, had not arrived at their
posts as yet--the newspaper-room was almost empty.  One man was present
whom Rawdon did not know; another to whom he owed a little score for
whist, and whom, in consequence, he did not care to meet; a third was
reading the Royalist (a periodical famous for its scandal and its
attachment to Church and King) Sunday paper at the table, and looking
up at Crawley with some interest, said, "Crawley, I congratulate you."

"What do you mean?" said the Colonel.

"It's in the Observer and the Royalist too," said Mr. Smith.

"What?" Rawdon cried, turning very red.  He thought that the affair
with Lord Steyne was already in the public prints.  Smith looked up
wondering and smiling at the agitation which the Colonel exhibited as
he took up the paper and, trembling, began to read.

Mr. Smith and Mr. Brown (the gentleman with whom Rawdon had the
outstanding whist account) had been talking about the Colonel just
before he came in.

"It is come just in the nick of time," said Smith.  "I suppose Crawley
had not a shilling in the world."

"It's a wind that blows everybody good," Mr. Brown said.  "He can't go
away without paying me a pony he owes me."

"What's the salary?" asked Smith.

"Two or three thousand," answered the other.  "But the climate's so
infernal, they don't enjoy it long. Liverseege died after eighteen
months of it, and the man before went off in six weeks, I hear."

"Some people say his brother is a very clever man.  I always found him
a d------ bore," Smith ejaculated.  "He must have good interest, though.
He must have got the Colonel the place."

"He!" said Brown, with a sneer.  "Pooh.  It was Lord Steyne got it."

"How do you mean?"

"A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband," answered the other
enigmatically, and went to read his papers.

Rawdon, for his part, read in the Royalist the following astonishing
paragraph:

GOVERNORSHIP OF COVENTRY ISLAND.--H.M.S. Yellowjack, Commander
Jaunders, has brought letters and papers from Coventry Island.  H. E.
Sir Thomas Liverseege had fallen a victim to the prevailing fever at
Swampton.  His loss is deeply felt in the flourishing colony.  We hear
that the Governorship has been offered to Colonel Rawdon Crawley, C.B.,
a distinguished Waterloo officer.  We need not only men of acknowledged
bravery, but men of administrative talents to superintend the affairs
of our colonies, and we have no doubt that the gentleman selected by
the Colonial Office to fill the lamented vacancy which has occurred at
Coventry Island is admirably calculated for the post which he is about
to occupy.

"Coventry Island!  Where was it? Who had appointed him to the
government? You must take me out as your secretary, old boy," Captain
Macmurdo said laughing; and as Crawley and his friend sat wondering and
perplexed over the announcement, the Club waiter brought in to the
Colonel a card on which the name of Mr. Wenham was engraved, who begged
to see Colonel Crawley.

The Colonel and his aide-de-camp went out to meet the gentleman,
rightly conjecturing that he was an emissary of Lord Steyne.  "How d'ye
do, Crawley? I am glad to see you," said Mr. Wenham with a bland smile,
and grasping Crawley's hand with great cordiality.

"You come, I suppose, from--"

"Exactly," said Mr. Wenham.

"Then this is my friend Captain Macmurdo, of the Life Guards Green."

"Delighted to know Captain Macmurdo, I'm sure," Mr. Wenham said and
tendered another smile and shake of the hand to the second, as he had
done to the principal. Mac put out one finger, armed with a buckskin
glove, and made a very frigid bow to Mr. Wenham over his tight cravat.
He was, perhaps, discontented at being put in communication with a
pekin, and thought that Lord Steyne should have sent him a Colonel at
the very least.

"As Macmurdo acts for me, and knows what I mean," Crawley said, "I had
better retire and leave you together."

"Of course," said Macmurdo.

"By no means, my dear Colonel," Mr. Wenham said; "the interview which I
had the honour of requesting was with you personally, though the
company of Captain Macmurdo cannot fail to be also most pleasing.  In
fact, Captain, I hope that our conversation will lead to none but the
most agreeable results, very different from those which my friend
Colonel Crawley appears to anticipate."

"Humph!" said Captain Macmurdo.  Be hanged to these civilians, he
thought to himself, they are always for arranging and speechifying. Mr.
Wenham took a chair which was not offered to him--took a paper from his
pocket, and resumed--

"You have seen this gratifying announcement in the papers this morning,
Colonel? Government has secured a most valuable servant, and you, if
you accept office, as I presume you will, an excellent appointment.
Three thousand a year, delightful climate, excellent government-house,
all your own way in the Colony, and a certain promotion.  I
congratulate you with all my heart.  I presume you know, gentlemen, to
whom my friend is indebted for this piece of patronage?"

"Hanged if I know," the Captain said; his principal turned very red.

"To one of the most generous and kindest men in the world, as he is one
of the greatest--to my excellent friend, the Marquis of Steyne."

"I'll see him d---- before I take his place," growled out Rawdon.

"You are irritated against my noble friend," Mr. Wenham calmly resumed;
"and now, in the name of common sense and justice, tell me why?"

"WHY?" cried Rawdon in surprise.

"Why? Dammy!" said the Captain, ringing his stick on the ground.

"Dammy, indeed," said Mr. Wenham with the most agreeable smile; "still,
look at the matter as a man of the world--as an honest man--and see if
you have not been in the wrong.  You come home from a journey, and
find--what?--my Lord Steyne supping at your house in Curzon Street with
Mrs. Crawley.  Is the circumstance strange or novel? Has he not been a
hundred times before in the same position? Upon my honour and word as a
gentleman"--Mr. Wenham here put his hand on his waistcoat with a
parliamentary air--"I declare I think that your suspicions are
monstrous and utterly unfounded, and that they injure an honourable
gentleman who has proved his good-will towards you by a thousand
benefactions--and a most spotless and innocent lady."

"You don't mean to say that--that Crawley's mistaken?" said Mr.
Macmurdo.

"I believe that Mrs. Crawley is as innocent as my wife, Mrs. Wenham,"
Mr. Wenham said with great energy.  "I believe that, misled by an
infernal jealousy, my friend here strikes a blow against not only an
infirm and old man of high station, his constant friend and benefactor,
but against his wife, his own dearest honour, his son's future
reputation, and his own prospects in life."

"I will tell you what happened," Mr. Wenham continued with great
solemnity; "I was sent for this morning by my Lord Steyne, and found
him in a pitiable state, as, I need hardly inform Colonel Crawley, any
man of age and infirmity would be after a personal conflict with a man
of your strength.  I say to your face; it was a cruel advantage you
took of that strength, Colonel Crawley.  It was not only the body of my
noble and excellent friend which was wounded--his heart, sir, was
bleeding.  A man whom he had loaded with benefits and regarded with
affection had subjected him to the foulest indignity.  What was this
very appointment, which appears in the journals of to-day, but a proof
of his kindness to you? When I saw his Lordship this morning I found
him in a state pitiable indeed to see, and as anxious as you are to
revenge the outrage committed upon him, by blood.  You know he has
given his proofs, I presume, Colonel Crawley?"

"He has plenty of pluck," said the Colonel.  "Nobody ever said he
hadn't."

"His first order to me was to write a letter of challenge, and to carry
it to Colonel Crawley.  One or other of us," he said, "must not survive
the outrage of last night."

Crawley nodded.  "You're coming to the point, Wenham," he said.

"I tried my utmost to calm Lord Steyne. 'Good God! sir,' I said, 'how I
regret that Mrs. Wenham and myself had not accepted Mrs. Crawley's
invitation to sup with her!'"

"She asked you to sup with her?" Captain Macmurdo said.

"After the opera.  Here's the note of invitation--stop--no, this is
another paper--I thought I had it, but it's of no consequence, and I
pledge you my word to the fact.  If we had come--and it was only one of
Mrs. Wenham's headaches which prevented us--she suffers under them a
good deal, especially in the spring--if we had come, and you had
returned home, there would have been no quarrel, no insult, no
suspicion--and so it is positively because my poor wife has a headache
that you are to bring death down upon two men of honour and plunge two
of the most excellent and ancient families in the kingdom into disgrace
and sorrow."

Mr. Macmurdo looked at his principal with the air of a man profoundly
puzzled, and Rawdon felt with a kind of rage that his prey was escaping
him.  He did not believe a word of the story, and yet, how discredit or
disprove it?

Mr. Wenham continued with the same fluent oratory, which in his place
in Parliament he had so often practised--"I sat for an hour or more by
Lord Steyne's bedside, beseeching, imploring Lord Steyne to forego his
intention of demanding a meeting.  I pointed out to him that the
circumstances were after all suspicious--they were suspicious.  I
acknowledge it--any man in your position might have been taken in--I
said that a man furious with jealousy is to all intents and purposes a
madman, and should be as such regarded--that a duel between you must
lead to the disgrace of all parties concerned--that a man of his
Lordship's exalted station had no right in these days, when the most
atrocious revolutionary principles, and the most dangerous levelling
doctrines are preached among the vulgar, to create a public scandal;
and that, however innocent, the common people would insist that he was
guilty.  In fine, I implored him not to send the challenge."

"I don't believe one word of the whole story," said Rawdon, grinding
his teeth.  "I believe it a d------ lie, and that you're in it, Mr.
Wenham.  If the challenge don't come from him, by Jove it shall come
from me."

Mr. Wenham turned deadly pale at this savage interruption of the
Colonel and looked towards the door.

But he found a champion in Captain Macmurdo.  That gentleman rose up
with an oath and rebuked Rawdon for his language.  "You put the affair
into my hands, and you shall act as I think fit, by Jove, and not as
you do. You have no right to insult Mr. Wenham with this sort of
language; and dammy, Mr. Wenham, you deserve an apology.  And as for a
challenge to Lord Steyne, you may get somebody else to carry it, I
won't.  If my lord, after being thrashed, chooses to sit still, dammy
let him. And as for the affair with--with Mrs. Crawley, my belief is,
there's nothing proved at all:  that your wife's innocent, as innocent
as Mr. Wenham says she is; and at any rate that you would be a d--fool
not to take the place and hold your tongue."

"Captain Macmurdo, you speak like a man of sense," Mr. Wenham cried
out, immensely relieved--"I forget any words that Colonel Crawley has
used in the irritation of the moment."

"I thought you would," Rawdon said with a sneer.

"Shut your mouth, you old stoopid," the Captain said good-naturedly.
"Mr. Wenham ain't a fighting man; and quite right, too."

"This matter, in my belief," the Steyne emissary cried, "ought to be
buried in the most profound oblivion.  A word concerning it should
never pass these doors.  I speak in the interest of my friend, as well
as of Colonel Crawley, who persists in considering me his enemy."

"I suppose Lord Steyne won't talk about it very much," said Captain
Macmurdo; "and I don't see why our side should.  The affair ain't a
very pretty one, any way you take it, and the less said about it the
better. It's you are thrashed, and not us; and if you are satisfied,
why, I think, we should be."

Mr. Wenham took his hat, upon this, and Captain Macmurdo following him
to the door, shut it upon himself and Lord Steyne's agent, leaving
Rawdon chafing within.  When the two were on the other side, Macmurdo
looked hard at the other ambassador and with an expression of anything
but respect on his round jolly face.

"You don't stick at a trifle, Mr. Wenham," he said.

"You flatter me, Captain Macmurdo," answered the other with a smile.
"Upon my honour and conscience now, Mrs. Crawley did ask us to sup
after the opera."

"Of course; and Mrs. Wenham had one of her head-aches.  I say, I've got
a thousand-pound note here, which I will give you if you will give me a
receipt, please; and I will put the note up in an envelope for Lord
Steyne. My man shan't fight him.  But we had rather not take his money."

"It was all a mistake--all a mistake, my dear sir," the other said with
the utmost innocence of manner; and was bowed down the Club steps by
Captain Macmurdo, just as Sir Pitt Crawley ascended them. There was a
slight acquaintance between these two gentlemen, and the Captain, going
back with the Baronet to the room where the latter's brother was, told
Sir Pitt, in confidence, that he had made the affair all right between
Lord Steyne and the Colonel.

Sir Pitt was well pleased, of course, at this intelligence, and
congratulated his brother warmly upon the peaceful issue of the affair,
making appropriate moral remarks upon the evils of duelling and the
unsatisfactory nature of that sort of settlement of disputes.

And after this preface, he tried with all his eloquence to effect a
reconciliation between Rawdon and his wife. He recapitulated the
statements which Becky had made, pointed out the probabilities of their
truth, and asserted his own firm belief in her innocence.

But Rawdon would not hear of it.  "She has kep money concealed from me
these ten years," he said "She swore, last night only, she had none
from Steyne.  She knew it was all up, directly I found it.  If she's
not guilty, Pitt, she's as bad as guilty, and I'll never see her
again--never." His head sank down on his chest as he spoke the words,
and he looked quite broken and sad.

"Poor old boy," Macmurdo said, shaking his head.

Rawdon Crawley resisted for some time the idea of taking the place
which had been procured for him by so odious a patron, and was also for
removing the boy from the school where Lord Steyne's interest had
placed him.  He was induced, however, to acquiesce in these benefits by
the entreaties of his brother and Macmurdo, but mainly by the latter,
pointing out to him what a fury Steyne would be in to think that his
enemy's fortune was made through his means.

When the Marquis of Steyne came abroad after his accident, the Colonial
Secretary bowed up to him and congratulated himself and the Service
upon having made so excellent an appointment.  These congratulations
were received with a degree of gratitude which may be imagined on the
part of Lord Steyne.

The secret of the rencontre between him and Colonel Crawley was buried
in the profoundest oblivion, as Wenham said; that is, by the seconds
and the principals. But before that evening was over it was talked of
at fifty dinner-tables in Vanity Fair.  Little Cackleby himself went to
seven evening parties and told the story with comments and emendations
at each place.  How Mrs. Washington White revelled in it!  The
Bishopess of Ealing was shocked beyond expression; the Bishop went and
wrote his name down in the visiting-book at Gaunt House that very day.
Little Southdown was sorry; so you may be sure was his sister Lady
Jane, very sorry.  Lady Southdown wrote it off to her other daughter at
the Cape of Good Hope.  It was town-talk for at least three days, and
was only kept out of the newspapers by the exertions of Mr. Wagg,
acting upon a hint from Mr. Wenham.

The bailiffs and brokers seized upon poor Raggles in Curzon Street, and
the late fair tenant of that poor little mansion was in the
meanwhile--where? Who cared!  Who asked after a day or two? Was she
guilty or not? We all know how charitable the world is, and how the
verdict of Vanity Fair goes when there is a doubt.  Some people said
she had gone to Naples in pursuit of Lord Steyne, whilst others averred
that his Lordship quitted that city and fled to Palermo on hearing of
Becky's arrival; some said she was living in Bierstadt, and had become
a dame d'honneur to the Queen of Bulgaria; some that she was at
Boulogne; and others, at a boarding-house at Cheltenham.

Rawdon made her a tolerable annuity, and we may be sure that she was a
woman who could make a little money go a great way, as the saying is.
He would have paid his debts on leaving England, could he have got any
Insurance Office to take his life, but the climate of Coventry Island
was so bad that he could borrow no money on the strength of his salary.
He remitted, however, to his brother punctually, and wrote to his
little boy regularly every mail.  He kept Macmurdo in cigars and sent
over quantities of shells, cayenne pepper, hot pickles, guava jelly,
and colonial produce to Lady Jane. He sent his brother home the Swamp
Town Gazette, in which the new Governor was praised with immense
enthusiasm; whereas the Swamp Town Sentinel, whose wife was not asked
to Government House, declared that his Excellency was a tyrant,
compared to whom Nero was an enlightened philanthropist.  Little Rawdon
used to like to get the papers and read about his Excellency.

His mother never made any movement to see the child. He went home to
his aunt for Sundays and holidays; he soon knew every bird's nest about
Queen's Crawley, and rode out with Sir Huddlestone's hounds, which he
admired so on his first well-remembered visit to Hampshire.

Georgy is Made a Gentleman

Georgy Osborne was now fairly established in his grandfather's mansion
in Russell Square, occupant of his father's room in the house and heir
apparent of all the splendours there.  The good looks, gallant bearing,
and gentlemanlike appearance of the boy won the grandsire's heart for
him.  Mr. Osborne was as proud of him as ever he had been of the elder
George.

The child had many more luxuries and indulgences than had been awarded
his father.  Osborne's commerce had prospered greatly of late years.
His wealth and importance in the City had very much increased.  He had
been glad enough in former days to put the elder George to a good
private school; and a commission in the army for his son had been a
source of no small pride to him; for little George and his future
prospects the old man looked much higher.  He would make a gentleman of
the little chap, was Mr. Osborne's constant saying regarding little
Georgy.  He saw him in his mind's eye, a collegian, a Parliament man, a
Baronet, perhaps.  The old man thought he would die contented if he
could see his grandson in a fair way to such honours.  He would have
none but a tip-top college man to educate him--none of your quacks and
pretenders--no, no.  A few years before, he used to be savage, and
inveigh against all parsons, scholars, and the like declaring that they
were a pack of humbugs, and quacks that weren't fit to get their living
but by grinding Latin and Greek, and a set of supercilious dogs that
pretended to look down upon British merchants and gentlemen, who could
buy up half a hundred of 'em.  He would mourn now, in a very solemn
manner, that his own education had been neglected, and repeatedly point
out, in pompous orations to Georgy, the necessity and excellence of
classical acquirements.

When they met at dinner the grandsire used to ask the lad what he had
been reading during the day, and was greatly interested at the report
the boy gave of his own studies, pretending to understand little George
when he spoke regarding them.  He made a hundred blunders and showed
his ignorance many a time.  It did not increase the respect which the
child had for his senior. A quick brain and a better education
elsewhere showed the boy very soon that his grandsire was a dullard,
and he began accordingly to command him and to look down upon him; for
his previous education, humble and contracted as it had been, had made
a much better gentleman of Georgy than any plans of his grandfather
could make him.  He had been brought up by a kind, weak, and tender
woman, who had no pride about anything but about him, and whose heart
was so pure and whose bearing was so meek and humble that she could not
but needs be a true lady.  She busied herself in gentle offices and
quiet duties; if she never said brilliant things, she never spoke or
thought unkind ones; guileless and artless, loving and pure, indeed how
could our poor little Amelia be other than a real gentlewoman!

Young Georgy lorded over this soft and yielding nature; and the
contrast of its simplicity and delicacy with the coarse pomposity of
the dull old man with whom he next came in contact made him lord over
the latter too.  If he had been a Prince Royal he could not have been
better brought up to think well of himself.

Whilst his mother was yearning after him at home, and I do believe
every hour of the day, and during most hours of the sad lonely nights,
thinking of him, this young gentleman had a number of pleasures and
consolations administered to him, which made him for his part bear the
separation from Amelia very easily.  Little boys who cry when they are
going to school cry because they are going to a very uncomfortable
place.  It is only a few who weep from sheer affection.  When you think
that the eyes of your childhood dried at the sight of a piece of
gingerbread, and that a plum cake was a compensation for the agony of
parting with your mamma and sisters, oh my friend and brother, you need
not be too confident of your own fine feelings.

Well, then, Master George Osborne had every comfort and luxury that a
wealthy and lavish old grandfather thought fit to provide.  The
coachman was instructed to purchase for him the handsomest pony which
could be bought for money, and on this George was taught to ride, first
at a riding-school, whence, after having performed satisfactorily
without stirrups, and over the leaping-bar, he was conducted through
the New Road to Regent's Park, and then to Hyde Park, where he rode in
state with Martin the coachman behind him. Old Osborne, who took
matters more easily in the City now, where he left his affairs to his
junior partners, would often ride out with Miss O.  in the same
fashionable direction. As little Georgy came cantering up with his
dandified air and his heels down, his grandfather would nudge the lad's
aunt and say, "Look, Miss O." And he would laugh, and his face would
grow red with pleasure, as he nodded out of the window to the boy, as
the groom saluted the carriage, and the footman saluted Master George.
Here too his aunt, Mrs. Frederick Bullock (whose chariot might daily be
seen in the Ring, with bullocks or emblazoned on the panels and
harness, and three pasty-faced little Bullocks, covered with cockades
and feathers, staring from the windows) Mrs. Frederick Bullock, I say,
flung glances of the bitterest hatred at the little upstart as he rode
by with his hand on his side and his hat on one ear, as proud as a lord.

Though he was scarcely eleven years of age, Master George wore straps
and the most beautiful little boots like a man.  He had gilt spurs, and
a gold-headed whip, and a fine pin in his handkerchief, and the neatest
little kid gloves which Lamb's Conduit Street could furnish. His mother
had given him a couple of neckcloths, and carefully hemmed and made
some little shirts for him; but when her Eli came to see the widow,
they were replaced by much finer linen. He had little jewelled buttons
in the lawn shirt fronts.  Her humble presents had been put aside--I
believe Miss Osborne had given them to the coachman's boy.  Amelia
tried to think she was pleased at the change.  Indeed, she was happy
and charmed to see the boy looking so beautiful.

She had had a little black profile of him done for a shilling, and this
was hung up by the side of another portrait over her bed.  One day the
boy came on his accustomed visit, galloping down the little street at
Brompton, and bringing, as usual, all the inhabitants to the windows to
admire his splendour, and with great eagerness and a look of triumph in
his face, he pulled a case out of his great-coat--it was a natty white
great-coat, with a cape and a velvet collar--pulled out a red morocco
case, which he gave her.

"I bought it with my own money, Mamma," he said. "I thought you'd like
it."

Amelia opened the case, and giving a little cry of delighted affection,
seized the boy and embraced him a hundred times.  It was a miniature of
himself, very prettily done (though not half handsome enough, we may be
sure, the widow thought).  His grandfather had wished to have a picture
of him by an artist whose works, exhibited in a shop-window, in
Southampton Row, had caught the old gentleman's eye; and George, who
had plenty of money, bethought him of asking the painter how much a
copy of the little portrait would cost, saying that he would pay for it
out of his own money and that he wanted to give it to his mother.  The
pleased painter executed it for a small price, and old Osborne himself,
when he heard of the incident, growled out his satisfaction and gave
the boy twice as many sovereigns as he paid for the miniature.

But what was the grandfather's pleasure compared to Amelia's ecstacy?
That proof of the boy's affection charmed her so that she thought no
child in the world was like hers for goodness.  For long weeks after,
the thought of his love made her happy.  She slept better with the
picture under her pillow, and how many many times did she kiss it and
weep and pray over it!  A small kindness from those she loved made that
timid heart grateful.  Since her parting with George she had had no
such joy and consolation.

At his new home Master George ruled like a lord; at dinner he invited
the ladies to drink wine with the utmost coolness, and took off his
champagne in a way which charmed his old grandfather.  "Look at him,"
the old man would say, nudging his neighbour with a delighted purple
face, "did you ever see such a chap? Lord, Lord! he'll be ordering a
dressing-case next, and razors to shave with; I'm blessed if he won't."

The antics of the lad did not, however, delight Mr. Osborne's friends
so much as they pleased the old gentleman.  It gave Mr. Justice Coffin
no pleasure to hear Georgy cut into the conversation and spoil his
stories. Colonel Fogey was not interested in seeing the little boy half
tipsy.  Mr. Sergeant Toffy's lady felt no particular gratitude, when,
with a twist of his elbow, he tilted a glass of port-wine over her
yellow satin and laughed at the disaster; nor was she better pleased,
although old Osborne was highly delighted, when Georgy "whopped" her
third boy (a young gentleman a year older than Georgy, and by chance
home for the holidays from Dr. Tickleus's at Ealing School) in Russell
Square. George's grandfather gave the boy a couple of sovereigns for
that feat and promised to reward him further for every boy above his
own size and age whom he whopped in a similar manner.  It is difficult
to say what good the old man saw in these combats; he had a vague
notion that quarrelling made boys hardy, and that tyranny was a useful
accomplishment for them to learn.  English youth have been so educated
time out of mind, and we have hundreds of thousands of apologists and
admirers of injustice, misery, and brutality, as perpetrated among
children.  Flushed with praise and victory over Master Toffy, George
wished naturally to pursue his conquests further, and one day as he was
strutting about in prodigiously dandified new clothes, near St.
Pancras, and a young baker's boy made sarcastic comments upon his
appearance, the youthful patrician pulled off his dandy jacket with
great spirit, and giving it in charge to the friend who accompanied him
(Master Todd, of Great Coram Street, Russell Square, son of the junior
partner of the house of Osborne and Co.), George tried to whop the
little baker.  But the chances of war were unfavourable this time, and
the little baker whopped Georgy, who came home with a rueful black eye
and all his fine shirt frill dabbled with the claret drawn from his own
little nose.  He told his grandfather that he had been in combat with a
giant, and frightened his poor mother at Brompton with long, and by no
means authentic, accounts of the battle.

This young Todd, of Coram Street, Russell Square, was Master George's
great friend and admirer.  They both had a taste for painting
theatrical characters; for hardbake and raspberry tarts; for sliding
and skating in the Regent's Park and the Serpentine, when the weather
permitted; for going to the play, whither they were often conducted, by
Mr. Osborne's orders, by Rowson, Master George's appointed
body-servant, with whom they sat in great comfort in the pit.

In the company of this gentleman they visited all the principal
theatres of the metropolis; knew the names of all the actors from Drury
Lane to Sadler's Wells; and performed, indeed, many of the plays to the
Todd family and their youthful friends, with West's famous characters,
on their pasteboard theatre.  Rowson, the footman, who was of a
generous disposition, would not unfrequently, when in cash, treat his
young master to oysters after the play, and to a glass of rum-shrub for
a night-cap. We may be pretty certain that Mr. Rowson profited in his
turn by his young master's liberality and gratitude for the pleasures
to which the footman inducted him.

A famous tailor from the West End of the town--Mr. Osborne would have
none of your City or Holborn bunglers, he said, for the boy (though a
City tailor was good enough for HIM)--was summoned to ornament little
George's person, and was told to spare no expense in so doing.  So, Mr.
Woolsey, of Conduit Street, gave a loose to his imagination and sent
the child home fancy trousers, fancy waistcoats, and fancy jackets
enough to furnish a school of little dandies.  Georgy had little white
waistcoats for evening parties, and little cut velvet waistcoats for
dinners, and a dear little darling shawl dressing-gown, for all the
world like a little man. He dressed for dinner every day, "like a
regular West End swell," as his grandfather remarked; one of the
domestics was affected to his special service, attended him at his
toilette, answered his bell, and brought him his letters always on a
silver tray.

Georgy, after breakfast, would sit in the arm-chair in the dining-room
and read the Morning Post, just like a grown-up man.  "How he DU dam
and swear," the servants would cry, delighted at his precocity.  Those
who remembered the Captain his father, declared Master George was his
Pa, every inch of him.  He made the house lively by his activity, his
imperiousness, his scolding, and his good-nature.

George's education was confided to a neighbouring scholar and private
pedagogue who "prepared young noblemen and gentlemen for the
Universities, the senate, and the learned professions:  whose system
did not embrace the degrading corporal severities still practised at
the ancient places of education, and in whose family the pupils would
find the elegances of refined society and the confidence and affection
of a home." It was in this way that the Reverend Lawrence Veal of Hart
Street, Bloomsbury, and domestic Chaplain to the Earl of Bareacres,
strove with Mrs. Veal his wife to entice pupils.

By thus advertising and pushing sedulously, the domestic Chaplain and
his Lady generally succeeded in having one or two scholars by them--who
paid a high figure and were thought to be in uncommonly comfortable
quarters.  There was a large West Indian, whom nobody came to see, with
a mahogany complexion, a woolly head, and an exceedingly dandyfied
appearance; there was another hulking boy of three-and-twenty whose
education had been neglected and whom Mr. and Mrs. Veal were to
introduce into the polite world; there were two sons of Colonel Bangles
of the East India Company's Service:  these four sat down to dinner at
Mrs. Veal's genteel board, when Georgy was introduced to her
establishment.

Georgy was, like some dozen other pupils, only a day boy; he arrived in
the morning under the guardianship of his friend Mr. Rowson, and if it
was fine, would ride away in the afternoon on his pony, followed by the
groom.  The wealth of his grandfather was reported in the school to be
prodigious.  The Rev. Mr. Veal used to compliment Georgy upon it
personally, warning him that he was destined for a high station; that
it became him to prepare, by sedulity and docility in youth, for the
lofty duties to which he would be called in mature age; that obedience
in the child was the best preparation for command in the man; and that
he therefore begged George would not bring toffee into the school and
ruin the health of the Masters Bangles, who had everything they wanted
at the elegant and abundant table of Mrs. Veal.

With respect to learning, "the Curriculum," as Mr. Veal loved to call
it, was of prodigious extent, and the young gentlemen in Hart Street
might learn a something of every known science.  The Rev. Mr. Veal had
an orrery, an electrifying machine, a turning lathe, a theatre (in the
wash-house), a chemical apparatus, and what he called a select library
of all the works of the best authors of ancient and modern times and
languages. He took the boys to the British Museum and descanted upon
the antiquities and the specimens of natural history there, so that
audiences would gather round him as he spoke, and all Bloomsbury highly
admired him as a prodigiously well-informed man.  And whenever he spoke
(which he did almost always), he took care to produce the very finest
and longest words of which the vocabulary gave him the use, rightly
judging that it was as cheap to employ a handsome, large, and sonorous
epithet, as to use a little stingy one.

Thus he would say to George in school, "I observed on my return home
from taking the indulgence of an evening's scientific conversation with
my excellent friend Doctor Bulders--a true archaeologian, gentlemen, a
true archaeologian--that the windows of your venerated grandfather's
almost princely mansion in Russell Square were illuminated as if for
the purposes of festivity.  Am I right in my conjecture that Mr.
Osborne entertained a society of chosen spirits round his sumptuous
board last night?"

Little Georgy, who had considerable humour, and used to mimic Mr. Veal
to his face with great spirit and dexterity, would reply that Mr. V.
was quite correct in his surmise.

"Then those friends who had the honour of partaking of Mr. Osborne's
hospitality, gentlemen, had no reason, I will lay any wager, to
complain of their repast.  I myself have been more than once so
favoured.  (By the way, Master Osborne, you came a little late this
morning, and have been a defaulter in this respect more than once.) I
myself, I say, gentlemen, humble as I am, have been found not unworthy
to share Mr. Osborne's elegant hospitality.  And though I have feasted
with the great and noble of the world--for I presume that I may call my
excellent friend and patron, the Right Honourable George Earl of
Bareacres, one of the number--yet I assure you that the board of the
British merchant was to the full as richly served, and his reception as
gratifying and noble.  Mr. Bluck, sir, we will resume, if you please,
that passage of Eutropis, which was interrupted by the late arrival of
Master Osborne."

To this great man George's education was for some time entrusted.
Amelia was bewildered by his phrases, but thought him a prodigy of
learning.  That poor widow made friends of Mrs. Veal, for reasons of
her own.  She liked to be in the house and see Georgy coming to school
there.  She liked to be asked to Mrs. Veal's conversazioni, which took
place once a month (as you were informed on pink cards, with AOHNH
[_Transcriber's Note: The name of the Greek goddess Athene; the "O"
represents a capital theta._] engraved on them), and where the professor
welcomed his pupils and their friends to weak tea and scientific
conversation. Poor little Amelia never missed one of these
entertainments and thought them delicious so long as she might have
Georgy sitting by her. And she would walk from Brompton in any weather,
and embrace Mrs. Veal with tearful gratitude for the delightful evening
she had passed, when, the company having retired and Georgy gone off
with Mr. Rowson, his attendant, poor Mrs. Osborne put on her cloaks and
her shawls preparatory to walking home.

As for the learning which Georgy imbibed under this valuable master of
a hundred sciences, to judge from the weekly reports which the lad took
home to his grandfather, his progress was remarkable.  The names of a
score or more of desirable branches of knowledge were printed in a
table, and the pupil's progress in each was marked by the professor.
In Greek Georgy was pronounced aristos, in Latin optimus, in French
tres bien, and so forth; and everybody had prizes for everything at the
end of the year.  Even Mr. Swartz, the wooly-headed young gentleman,
and half-brother to the Honourable Mrs. Mac Mull, and Mr. Bluck, the
neglected young pupil of three-and-twenty from the agricultural
district, and that idle young scapegrace of a Master Todd before
mentioned, received little eighteen-penny books, with "Athene" engraved
on them, and a pompous Latin inscription from the professor to his
young friends.

The family of this Master Todd were hangers-on of the house of Osborne.
The old gentleman had advanced Todd from being a clerk to be a junior
partner in his establishment.

Mr. Osborne was the godfather of young Master Todd (who in subsequent
life wrote Mr. Osborne Todd on his cards and became a man of decided
fashion), while Miss Osborne had accompanied Miss Maria Todd to the
font, and gave her protegee a prayer-book, a collection of tracts, a
volume of very low church poetry, or some such memento of her goodness
every year.  Miss O.  drove the Todds out in her carriage now and then;
when they were ill, her footman, in large plush smalls and waistcoat,
brought jellies and delicacies from Russell Square to Coram Street.
Coram Street trembled and looked up to Russell Square indeed, and Mrs.
Todd, who had a pretty hand at cutting out paper trimmings for haunches
of mutton, and could make flowers, ducks, &c., out of turnips and
carrots in a very creditable manner, would go to "the Square," as it
was called, and assist in the preparations incident to a great dinner,
without even so much as thinking of sitting down to the banquet.  If
any guest failed at the eleventh hour, Todd was asked to dine.  Mrs.
Todd and Maria came across in the evening, slipped in with a muffled
knock, and were in the drawing-room by the time Miss Osborne and the
ladies under her convoy reached that apartment--and ready to fire off
duets and sing until the gentlemen came up.  Poor Maria Todd; poor
young lady!  How she had to work and thrum at these duets and sonatas
in the Street, before they appeared in public in the Square!

Thus it seemed to be decreed by fate that Georgy was to domineer over
everybody with whom he came in contact, and that friends, relatives,
and domestics were all to bow the knee before the little fellow.  It
must be owned that he accommodated himself very willingly to this
arrangement.  Most people do so.  And Georgy liked to play the part of
master and perhaps had a natural aptitude for it.

In Russell Square everybody was afraid of Mr. Osborne, and Mr. Osborne
was afraid of Georgy.  The boy's dashing manners, and offhand rattle
about books and learning, his likeness to his father (dead unreconciled
in Brussels yonder) awed the old gentleman and gave the young boy the
mastery.  The old man would start at some hereditary feature or tone
unconsciously used by the little lad, and fancy that George's father
was again before him.  He tried by indulgence to the grandson to make
up for harshness to the elder George.  People were surprised at his
gentleness to the boy.  He growled and swore at Miss Osborne as usual,
and would smile when George came down late for breakfast.

Miss Osborne, George's aunt, was a faded old spinster, broken down by
more than forty years of dulness and coarse usage.  It was easy for a
lad of spirit to master her. And whenever George wanted anything from
her, from the jam-pots in her cupboards to the cracked and dry old
colours in her paint-box (the old paint-box which she had had when she
was a pupil of Mr. Smee and was still almost young and blooming),
Georgy took possession of the object of his desire, which obtained, he
took no further notice of his aunt.

For his friends and cronies, he had a pompous old schoolmaster, who
flattered him, and a toady, his senior, whom he could thrash.  It was
dear Mrs. Todd's delight to leave him with her youngest daughter, Rosa
Jemima, a darling child of eight years old.  The little pair looked so
well together, she would say (but not to the folks in "the Square," we
may be sure) "who knows what might happen? Don't they make a pretty
little couple?" the fond mother thought.

The broken-spirited, old, maternal grandfather was likewise subject to
the little tyrant.  He could not help respecting a lad who had such
fine clothes and rode with a groom behind him.  Georgy, on his side,
was in the constant habit of hearing coarse abuse and vulgar satire
levelled at John Sedley by his pitiless old enemy, Mr. Osborne.
Osborne used to call the other the old pauper, the old coal-man, the
old bankrupt, and by many other such names of brutal contumely.  How
was little George to respect a man so prostrate? A few months after he
was with his paternal grandfather, Mrs. Sedley died. There had been
little love between her and the child. He did not care to show much
grief.  He came down to visit his mother in a fine new suit of
mourning, and was very angry that he could not go to a play upon which
he had set his heart.

The illness of that old lady had been the occupation and perhaps the
safeguard of Amelia.  What do men know about women's martyrdoms? We
should go mad had we to endure the hundredth part of those daily pains
which are meekly borne by many women.  Ceaseless slavery meeting with
no reward; constant gentleness and kindness met by cruelty as constant;
love, labour, patience, watchfulness, without even so much as the
acknowledgement of a good word; all this, how many of them have to bear
in quiet, and appear abroad with cheerful faces as if they felt
nothing.  Tender slaves that they are, they must needs be hypocrites
and weak.

From her chair Amelia's mother had taken to her bed, which she had
never left, and from which Mrs. Osborne herself was never absent except
when she ran to see George.  The old lady grudged her even those rare
visits; she, who had been a kind, smiling, good-natured mother once, in
the days of her prosperity, but whom poverty and infirmities had broken
down.  Her illness or estrangement did not affect Amelia.  They rather
enabled her to support the other calamity under which she was
suffering, and from the thoughts of which she was kept by the ceaseless
calls of the invalid.  Amelia bore her harshness quite gently; smoothed
the uneasy pillow; was always ready with a soft answer to the watchful,
querulous voice; soothed the sufferer with words of hope, such as her
pious simple heart could best feel and utter, and closed the eyes that
had once looked so tenderly upon her.

Then all her time and tenderness were devoted to the consolation and
comfort of the bereaved old father, who was stunned by the blow which
had befallen him, and stood utterly alone in the world.  His wife, his
honour, his fortune, everything he loved best had fallen away from him.
There was only Amelia to stand by and support with her gentle arms the
tottering, heart-broken old man. We are not going to write the history:
it would be too dreary and stupid.  I can see Vanity Fair yawning over
it d'avance.

One day as the young gentlemen were assembled in the study at the Rev.
Mr. Veal's, and the domestic chaplain to the Right Honourable the Earl
of Bareacres was spouting away as usual, a smart carriage drove up to
the door decorated with the statue of Athene, and two gentlemen stepped
out.  The young Masters Bangles rushed to the window with a vague
notion that their father might have arrived from Bombay.  The great
hulking scholar of three-and-twenty, who was crying secretly over a
passage of Eutropius, flattened his neglected nose against the panes
and looked at the drag, as the laquais de place sprang from the box and
let out the persons in the carriage.

"It's a fat one and a thin one," Mr. Bluck said as a thundering knock
came to the door.

Everybody was interested, from the domestic chaplain himself, who hoped
he saw the fathers of some future pupils, down to Master Georgy, glad
of any pretext for laying his book down.

The boy in the shabby livery with the faded copper buttons, who always
thrust himself into the tight coat to open the door, came into the
study and said, "Two gentlemen want to see Master Osborne." The
professor had had a trifling altercation in the morning with that young
gentleman, owing to a difference about the introduction of crackers in
school-time; but his face resumed its habitual expression of bland
courtesy as he said, "Master Osborne, I give you full permission to go
and see your carriage friends--to whom I beg you to convey the
respectful compliments of myself and Mrs. Veal."

Georgy went into the reception-room and saw two strangers, whom he
looked at with his head up, in his usual haughty manner.  One was fat,
with mustachios, and the other was lean and long, in a blue frock-coat,
with a brown face and a grizzled head.

"My God, how like he is!" said the long gentleman with a start. "Can
you guess who we are, George?"

The boy's face flushed up, as it did usually when he was moved, and his
eyes brightened.  "I don't know the other," he said, "but I should
think you must be Major Dobbin."

Indeed it was our old friend.  His voice trembled with pleasure as he
greeted the boy, and taking both the other's hands in his own, drew the
lad to him.

"Your mother has talked to you about me--has she?" he said.

"That she has," Georgy answered, "hundreds and hundreds of times."

Eothen

It was one of the many causes for personal pride with which old Osborne
chose to recreate himself that Sedley, his ancient rival, enemy, and
benefactor, was in his last days so utterly defeated and humiliated as
to be forced to accept pecuniary obligations at the hands of the man
who had most injured and insulted him.  The successful man of the world
cursed the old pauper and relieved him from time to time.  As he
furnished George with money for his mother, he gave the boy to
understand by hints, delivered in his brutal, coarse way, that George's
maternal grandfather was but a wretched old bankrupt and dependant, and
that John Sedley might thank the man to whom he already owed ever so
much money for the aid which his generosity now chose to administer.
George carried the pompous supplies to his mother and the shattered old
widower whom it was now the main business of her life to tend and
comfort.  The little fellow patronized the feeble and disappointed old
man.

It may have shown a want of "proper pride" in Amelia that she chose to
accept these money benefits at the hands of her father's enemy. But
proper pride and this poor lady had never had much acquaintance
together. A disposition naturally simple and demanding protection; a
long course of poverty and humility, of daily privations, and hard
words, of kind offices and no returns, had been her lot ever since
womanhood almost, or since her luckless marriage with George Osborne.
You who see your betters bearing up under this shame every day, meekly
suffering under the slights of fortune, gentle and unpitied, poor, and
rather despised for their poverty, do you ever step down from your
prosperity and wash the feet of these poor wearied beggars? The very
thought of them is odious and low.  "There must be classes--there must
be rich and poor," Dives says, smacking his claret (it is well if he
even sends the broken meat out to Lazarus sitting under the window).
Very true; but think how mysterious and often unaccountable it is--that
lottery of life which gives to this man the purple and fine linen and
sends to the other rags for garments and dogs for comforters.

So I must own that, without much repining, on the contrary with
something akin to gratitude, Amelia took the crumbs that her father-in-law
let drop now and then, and with them fed her own parent.
Directly she understood it to be her duty, it was this young woman's
nature (ladies, she is but thirty still, and we choose to call her a
young woman even at that age) it was, I say, her nature to sacrifice
herself and to fling all that she had at the feet of the beloved
object.  During what long thankless nights had she worked out her
fingers for little Georgy whilst at home with her; what buffets,
scorns, privations, poverties had she endured for father and mother!
And in the midst of all these solitary resignations and unseen
sacrifices, she did not respect herself any more than the world
respected her, but I believe thought in her heart that she was a
poor-spirited, despicable little creature, whose luck in life was only
too good for her merits.  O you poor women!  O you poor secret martyrs
and victims, whose life is a torture, who are stretched on racks in
your bedrooms, and who lay your heads down on the block daily at the
drawing-room table; every man who watches your pains, or peers into
those dark places where the torture is administered to you, must pity
you--and--and thank God that he has a beard.  I recollect seeing, years
ago, at the prisons for idiots and madmen at Bicetre, near Paris, a
poor wretch bent down under the bondage of his imprisonment and his
personal infirmity, to whom one of our party gave a halfpenny worth of
snuff in a cornet or "screw" of paper.  The kindness was too much for
the poor epileptic creature. He cried in an anguish of delight and
gratitude:  if anybody gave you and me a thousand a year, or saved our
lives, we could not be so affected.  And so, if you properly tyrannize
over a woman, you will find a ha'p'orth of kindness act upon her and
bring tears into her eyes, as though you were an angel benefiting her.

Some such boons as these were the best which Fortune allotted to poor
little Amelia.  Her life, begun not unprosperously, had come down to
this--to a mean prison and a long, ignoble bondage.  Little George
visited her captivity sometimes and consoled it with feeble gleams of
encouragement.  Russell Square was the boundary of her prison:  she
might walk thither occasionally, but was always back to sleep in her
cell at night; to perform cheerless duties; to watch by thankless
sick-beds; to suffer the harassment and tyranny of querulous
disappointed old age.  How many thousands of people are there, women
for the most part, who are doomed to endure this long slavery?--who are
hospital nurses without wages--sisters of Charity, if you like, without
the romance and the sentiment of sacrifice--who strive, fast, watch,
and suffer, unpitied, and fade away ignobly and unknown.

The hidden and awful Wisdom which apportions the destinies of mankind
is pleased so to humiliate and cast down the tender, good, and wise,
and to set up the selfish, the foolish, or the wicked. Oh, be humble,
my brother, in your prosperity!  Be gentle with those who are less
lucky, if not more deserving.  Think, what right have you to be
scornful, whose virtue is a deficiency of temptation, whose success may
be a chance, whose rank may be an ancestor's accident, whose prosperity
is very likely a satire.

They buried Amelia's mother in the churchyard at Brompton, upon just
such a rainy, dark day as Amelia recollected when first she had been
there to marry George. Her little boy sat by her side in pompous new
sables. She remembered the old pew-woman and clerk.  Her thoughts were
away in other times as the parson read. But that she held George's hand
in her own, perhaps she would have liked to change places with....
Then, as usual, she felt ashamed of her selfish thoughts and prayed
inwardly to be strengthened to do her duty.

So she determined with all her might and strength to try and make her
old father happy.  She slaved, toiled, patched, and mended, sang and
played backgammon, read out the newspaper, cooked dishes for old
Sedley, walked him out sedulously into Kensington Gardens or the
Brompton Lanes, listened to his stories with untiring smiles and
affectionate hypocrisy, or sat musing by his side and communing with
her own thoughts and reminiscences, as the old man, feeble and
querulous, sunned himself on the garden benches and prattled about his
wrongs or his sorrows.  What sad, unsatisfactory thoughts those of the
widow were!  The children running up and down the slopes and broad
paths in the gardens reminded her of George, who was taken from her;
the first George was taken from her; her selfish, guilty love, in both
instances, had been rebuked and bitterly chastised. She strove to think
it was right that she should be so punished. She was such a miserable
wicked sinner.  She was quite alone in the world.

I know that the account of this kind of solitary imprisonment is
insufferably tedious, unless there is some cheerful or humorous
incident to enliven it--a tender gaoler, for instance, or a waggish
commandant of the fortress, or a mouse to come out and play about
Latude's beard and whiskers, or a subterranean passage under the
castle, dug by Trenck with his nails and a toothpick:  the historian
has no such enlivening incident to relate in the narrative of Amelia's
captivity.  Fancy her, if you please, during this period, very sad, but
always ready to smile when spoken to; in a very mean, poor, not to say
vulgar position of life; singing songs, making puddings, playing cards,
mending stockings, for her old father's benefit.  So, never mind,
whether she be a heroine or no; or you and I, however old, scolding,
and bankrupt--may we have in our last days a kind soft shoulder on
which to lean and a gentle hand to soothe our gouty old pillows.

Old Sedley grew very fond of his daughter after his wife's death, and
Amelia had her consolation in doing her duty by the old man.

But we are not going to leave these two people long in such a low and
ungenteel station of life.  Better days, as far as worldly prosperity
went, were in store for both. Perhaps the ingenious reader has guessed
who was the stout gentleman who called upon Georgy at his school in
company with our old friend Major Dobbin. It was another old
acquaintance returned to England, and at a time when his presence was
likely to be of great comfort to his relatives there.

Major Dobbin having easily succeeded in getting leave from his
good-natured commandant to proceed to Madras, and thence probably to
Europe, on urgent private affairs, never ceased travelling night and day
until he reached his journey's end, and had directed his march with such
celerity that he arrived at Madras in a high fever.  His servants who
accompanied him brought him to the house of the friend with whom he had
resolved to stay until his departure for Europe in a state of delirium;
and it was thought for many, many days that he would never travel
farther than the burying-ground of the church of St.  George's, where
the troops should fire a salvo over his grave, and where many a gallant
officer lies far away from his home.

Here, as the poor fellow lay tossing in his fever, the people who
watched him might have heard him raving about Amelia.  The idea that he
should never see her again depressed him in his lucid hours.  He
thought his last day was come, and he made his solemn preparations for
departure, setting his affairs in this world in order and leaving the
little property of which he was possessed to those whom he most desired
to benefit.  The friend in whose house he was located witnessed his
testament.  He desired to be buried with a little brown hair-chain
which he wore round his neck and which, if the truth must be known, he
had got from Amelia's maid at Brussels, when the young widow's hair was
cut off, during the fever which prostrated her after the death of
George Osborne on the plateau at Mount St.  John.

He recovered, rallied, relapsed again, having undergone such a process
of blood-letting and calomel as showed the strength of his original
constitution.  He was almost a skeleton when they put him on board the
Ramchunder East Indiaman, Captain Bragg, from Calcutta, touching at
Madras, and so weak and prostrate that his friend who had tended him
through his illness prophesied that the honest Major would never
survive the voyage, and that he would pass some morning, shrouded in
flag and hammock, over the ship's side, and carrying down to the sea
with him the relic that he wore at his heart.  But whether it was the
sea air, or the hope which sprung up in him afresh, from the day that
the ship spread her canvas and stood out of the roads towards home, our
friend began to amend, and he was quite well (though as gaunt as a
greyhound) before they reached the Cape.  "Kirk will be disappointed of
his majority this time," he said with a smile; "he will expect to find
himself gazetted by the time the regiment reaches home." For it must be
premised that while the Major was lying ill at Madras, having made such
prodigious haste to go thither, the gallant --th, which had passed many
years abroad, which after its return from the West Indies had been
baulked of its stay at home by the Waterloo campaign, and had been
ordered from Flanders to India, had received orders home; and the Major
might have accompanied his comrades, had he chosen to wait for their
arrival at Madras.

Perhaps he was not inclined to put himself in his exhausted state again
under the guardianship of Glorvina. "I think Miss O'Dowd would have
done for me," he said laughingly to a fellow-passenger, "if we had had
her on board, and when she had sunk me, she would have fallen upon you,
depend upon it, and carried you in as a prize to Southampton, Jos, my
boy."

For indeed it was no other than our stout friend who was also a
passenger on board the Ramchunder.  He had passed ten years in Bengal.
Constant dinners, tiffins, pale ale and claret, the prodigious labour
of cutcherry, and the refreshment of brandy-pawnee which he was forced
to take there, had their effect upon Waterloo Sedley. A voyage to
Europe was pronounced necessary for him--and having served his full
time in India and had fine appointments which had enabled him to lay by
a considerable sum of money, he was free to come home and stay with a
good pension, or to return and resume that rank in the service to which
his seniority and his vast talents entitled him.

He was rather thinner than when we last saw him, but had gained in
majesty and solemnity of demeanour. He had resumed the mustachios to
which his services at Waterloo entitled him, and swaggered about on
deck in a magnificent velvet cap with a gold band and a profuse
ornamentation of pins and jewellery about his person. He took breakfast
in his cabin and dressed as solemnly to appear on the quarter-deck as
if he were going to turn out for Bond Street, or the Course at
Calcutta.  He brought a native servant with him, who was his valet and
pipe-bearer and who wore the Sedley crest in silver on his turban.
That oriental menial had a wretched life under the tyranny of Jos
Sedley.  Jos was as vain of his person as a woman, and took as long a
time at his toilette as any fading beauty.  The youngsters among the
passengers, Young Chaffers of the 150th, and poor little Ricketts,
coming home after his third fever, used to draw out Sedley at the
cuddy-table and make him tell prodigious stories about himself and his
exploits against tigers and Napoleon. He was great when he visited the
Emperor's tomb at Longwood, when to these gentlemen and the young
officers of the ship, Major Dobbin not being by, he described the whole
battle of Waterloo and all but announced that Napoleon never would have
gone to Saint Helena at all but for him, Jos Sedley.

After leaving St.  Helena he became very generous, disposing of a great
quantity of ship stores, claret, preserved meats, and great casks
packed with soda-water, brought out for his private delectation.  There
were no ladies on board; the Major gave the pas of precedency to the
civilian, so that he was the first dignitary at table, and treated by
Captain Bragg and the officers of the Ramchunder with the respect which
his rank warranted.  He disappeared rather in a panic during a
two-days' gale, in which he had the portholes of his cabin battened
down, and remained in his cot reading the Washerwoman of Finchley
Common, left on board the Ramchunder by the Right Honourable the Lady
Emily Hornblower, wife of the Rev. Silas Hornblower, when on their
passage out to the Cape, where the Reverend gentleman was a missionary;
but, for common reading, he had brought a stock of novels and plays
which he lent to the rest of the ship, and rendered himself agreeable
to all by his kindness and condescension.

Many and many a night as the ship was cutting through the roaring dark
sea, the moon and stars shining overhead and the bell singing out the
watch, Mr. Sedley and the Major would sit on the quarter-deck of the
vessel talking about home, as the Major smoked his cheroot and the
civilian puffed at the hookah which his servant prepared for him.

In these conversations it was wonderful with what perseverance and
ingenuity Major Dobbin would manage to bring the talk round to the
subject of Amelia and her little boy.  Jos, a little testy about his
father's misfortunes and unceremonious applications to him, was soothed
down by the Major, who pointed out the elder's ill fortunes and old
age.  He would not perhaps like to live with the old couple, whose ways
and hours might not agree with those of a younger man, accustomed to
different society (Jos bowed at this compliment); but, the Major
pointed out, how advantageous it would be for Jos Sedley to have a
house of his own in London, and not a mere bachelor's establishment as
before; how his sister Amelia would be the very person to preside over
it; how elegant, how gentle she was, and of what refined good manners.
He recounted stories of the success which Mrs. George Osborne had had
in former days at Brussels, and in London, where she was much admired
by people of very great fashion; and he then hinted how becoming it
would be for Jos to send Georgy to a good school and make a man of him,
for his mother and her parents would be sure to spoil him.  In a word,
this artful Major made the civilian promise to take charge of Amelia
and her unprotected child.  He did not know as yet what events had
happened in the little Sedley family, and how death had removed the
mother, and riches had carried off George from Amelia.  But the fact is
that every day and always, this love-smitten and middle-aged gentleman
was thinking about Mrs. Osborne, and his whole heart was bent upon
doing her good.  He coaxed, wheedled, cajoled, and complimented Jos
Sedley with a perseverance and cordiality of which he was not aware
himself, very likely; but some men who have unmarried sisters or
daughters even, may remember how uncommonly agreeable gentlemen are to
the male relations when they are courting the females; and perhaps this
rogue of a Dobbin was urged by a similar hypocrisy.

The truth is, when Major Dobbin came on board the Ramchumder, very
sick, and for the three days she lay in the Madras Roads, he did not
begin to rally, nor did even the appearance and recognition of his old
acquaintance, Mr. Sedley, on board much cheer him, until after a
conversation which they had one day, as the Major was laid languidly on
the deck.  He said then he thought he was doomed; he had left a little
something to his godson in his will, and he trusted Mrs. Osborne would
remember him kindly and be happy in the marriage she was about to make.
"Married? not the least," Jos answered; "he had heard from her:  she
made no mention of the marriage, and by the way, it was curious, she
wrote to say that Major Dobbin was going to be married, and hoped that
HE would be happy." What were the dates of Sedley's letters from
Europe? The civilian fetched them. They were two months later than the
Major's; and the ship's surgeon congratulated himself upon the
treatment adopted by him towards his new patient, who had been
consigned to shipboard by the Madras practitioner with very small hopes
indeed; for, from that day, the very day that he changed the draught,
Major Dobbin began to mend. And thus it was that deserving officer,
Captain Kirk, was disappointed of his majority.

After they passed St.  Helena, Major Dobbin's gaiety and strength was
such as to astonish all his fellow passengers.  He larked with the
midshipmen, played single-stick with the mates, ran up the shrouds like
a boy, sang a comic song one night to the amusement of the whole party
assembled over their grog after supper, and rendered himself so gay,
lively, and amiable that even Captain Bragg, who thought there was
nothing in his passenger, and considered he was a poor-spirited feller
at first, was constrained to own that the Major was a reserved but
well-informed and meritorious officer.  "He ain't got distangy manners,
dammy," Bragg observed to his first mate; "he wouldn't do at Government
House, Roper, where his Lordship and Lady William was as kind to me,
and shook hands with me before the whole company, and asking me at
dinner to take beer with him, before the Commander-in-Chief himself; he
ain't got manners, but there's something about him--" And thus Captain
Bragg showed that he possessed discrimination as a man, as well as
ability as a commander.

But a calm taking place when the Ramchunder was within ten days' sail
of England, Dobbin became so impatient and ill-humoured as to surprise
those comrades who had before admired his vivacity and good temper. He
did not recover until the breeze sprang up again, and was in a highly
excited state when the pilot came on board.  Good God, how his heart
beat as the two friendly spires of Southampton came in sight.

Our Friend the Major

Our Major had rendered himself so popular on board the Ramchunder that
when he and Mr. Sedley descended into the welcome shore-boat which was
to take them from the ship, the whole crew, men and officers, the great
Captain Bragg himself leading off, gave three cheers for Major Dobbin,
who blushed very much and ducked his head in token of thanks.  Jos, who
very likely thought the cheers were for himself, took off his
gold-laced cap and waved it majestically to his friends, and they were
pulled to shore and landed with great dignity at the pier, whence they
proceeded to the Royal George Hotel.

Although the sight of that magnificent round of beef, and the silver
tankard suggestive of real British home-brewed ale and porter, which
perennially greet the eyes of the traveller returning from foreign
parts who enters the coffee-room of the George, are so invigorating and
delightful that a man entering such a comfortable snug homely English
inn might well like to stop some days there, yet Dobbin began to talk
about a post-chaise instantly, and was no sooner at Southampton than he
wished to be on the road to London.  Jos, however, would not hear of
moving that evening.  Why was he to pass a night in a post-chaise
instead of a great large undulating downy feather-bed which was there
ready to replace the horrid little narrow crib in which the portly
Bengal gentleman had been confined during the voyage? He could not
think of moving till his baggage was cleared, or of travelling until he
could do so with his chillum.  So the Major was forced to wait over
that night, and dispatched a letter to his family announcing his
arrival, entreating from Jos a promise to write to his own friends.
Jos promised, but didn't keep his promise.  The Captain, the surgeon,
and one or two passengers came and dined with our two gentlemen at the
inn, Jos exerting himself in a sumptuous way in ordering the dinner and
promising to go to town the next day with the Major. The landlord said
it did his eyes good to see Mr. Sedley take off his first pint of
porter.  If I had time and dared to enter into digressions, I would
write a chapter about that first pint of porter drunk upon English
ground. Ah, how good it is!  It is worth-while to leave home for a
year, just to enjoy that one draught.

Major Dobbin made his appearance the next morning very neatly shaved
and dressed, according to his wont. Indeed, it was so early in the
morning that nobody was up in the house except that wonderful Boots of
an inn who never seems to want sleep; and the Major could hear the
snores of the various inmates of the house roaring through the
corridors as he creaked about in those dim passages.  Then the
sleepless Boots went shirking round from door to door, gathering up at
each the Bluchers, Wellingtons, Oxonians, which stood outside. Then
Jos's native servant arose and began to get ready his master's
ponderous dressing apparatus and prepare his hookah; then the
maidservants got up, and meeting the dark man in the passages,
shrieked, and mistook him for the devil.  He and Dobbin stumbled over
their pails in the passages as they were scouring the decks of the
Royal George.  When the first unshorn waiter appeared and unbarred the
door of the inn, the Major thought that the time for departure was
arrived, and ordered a post-chaise to be fetched instantly, that they
might set off.

He then directed his steps to Mr. Sedley's room and opened the curtains
of the great large family bed wherein Mr. Jos was snoring. "Come, up!
Sedley," the Major said, "it's time to be off; the chaise will be at
the door in half an hour."

Jos growled from under the counterpane to know what the time was; but
when he at last extorted from the blushing Major (who never told fibs,
however they might be to his advantage) what was the real hour of the
morning, he broke out into a volley of bad language, which we will not
repeat here, but by which he gave Dobbin to understand that he would
jeopardy his soul if he got up at that moment, that the Major might go
and be hanged, that he would not travel with Dobbin, and that it was
most unkind and ungentlemanlike to disturb a man out of his sleep in
that way; on which the discomfited Major was obliged to retreat,
leaving Jos to resume his interrupted slumbers.

The chaise came up presently, and the Major would wait no longer.

If he had been an English nobleman travelling on a pleasure tour, or a
newspaper courier bearing dispatches (government messages are generally
carried much more quietly), he could not have travelled more quickly.
The post-boys wondered at the fees he flung amongst them. How happy and
green the country looked as the chaise whirled rapidly from mile-stone
to mile-stone, through neat country towns where landlords came out to
welcome him with smiles and bows; by pretty roadside inns, where the
signs hung on the elms, and horses and waggoners were drinking under
the chequered shadow of the trees; by old halls and parks; rustic
hamlets clustered round ancient grey churches--and through the charming
friendly English landscape.  Is there any in the world like it? To a
traveller returning home it looks so kind--it seems to shake hands with
you as you pass through it. Well, Major Dobbin passed through all this
from Southampton to London, and without noting much beyond the
milestones along the road.  You see he was so eager to see his parents
at Camberwell.

He grudged the time lost between Piccadilly and his old haunt at the
Slaughters', whither he drove faithfully. Long years had passed since
he saw it last, since he and George, as young men, had enjoyed many a
feast, and held many a revel there.  He had now passed into the stage
of old-fellow-hood.  His hair was grizzled, and many a passion and
feeling of his youth had grown grey in that interval. There, however,
stood the old waiter at the door, in the same greasy black suit, with
the same double chin and flaccid face, with the same huge bunch of
seals at his fob, rattling his money in his pockets as before, and
receiving the Major as if he had gone away only a week ago.  "Put the
Major's things in twenty-three, that's his room," John said, exhibiting
not the least surprise.  "Roast fowl for your dinner, I suppose.  You
ain't got married? They said you was married--the Scotch surgeon of
yours was here.  No, it was Captain Humby of the thirty-third, as was
quartered with the --th in Injee. Like any warm water? What do you come
in a chay for--ain't the coach good enough?" And with this, the
faithful waiter, who knew and remembered every officer who used the
house, and with whom ten years were but as yesterday, led the way up to
Dobbin's old room, where stood the great moreen bed, and the shabby
carpet, a thought more dingy, and all the old black furniture covered
with faded chintz, just as the Major recollected them in his youth.

He remembered George pacing up and down the room, and biting his nails,
and swearing that the Governor must come round, and that if he didn't,
he didn't care a straw, on the day before he was married. He could
fancy him walking in, banging the door of Dobbin's room, and his own
hard by--

"You ain't got young," John said, calmly surveying his friend of former
days.

Dobbin laughed.  "Ten years and a fever don't make a man young, John,"
he said.  "It is you that are always young--no, you are always old."

"What became of Captain Osborne's widow?" John said.  "Fine young
fellow that.  Lord, how he used to spend his money.  He never came back
after that day he was marched from here.  He owes me three pound at
this minute.  Look here, I have it in my book.  'April 10, 1815,
Captain Osborne:  3 pounds.' I wonder whether his father would pay
me," and so saying, John of the Slaughters' pulled out the very morocco
pocket-book in which he had noted his loan to the Captain, upon a
greasy faded page still extant, with many other scrawled memoranda
regarding the bygone frequenters of the house.

Having inducted his customer into the room, John retired with perfect
calmness; and Major Dobbin, not without a blush and a grin at his own
absurdity, chose out of his kit the very smartest and most becoming
civil costume he possessed, and laughed at his own tanned face and grey
hair, as he surveyed them in the dreary little toilet-glass on the
dressing-table.

"I'm glad old John didn't forget me," he thought. "She'll know me, too,
I hope." And he sallied out of the inn, bending his steps once more in
the direction of Brompton.

Every minute incident of his last meeting with Amelia was present to
the constant man's mind as he walked towards her house.  The arch and
the Achilles statue were up since he had last been in Piccadilly; a
hundred changes had occurred which his eye and mind vaguely noted.  He
began to tremble as he walked up the lane from Brompton, that
well-remembered lane leading to the street where she lived.  Was she
going to be married or not? If he were to meet her with the little
boy--Good God, what should he do? He saw a woman coming to him with a
child of five years old--was that she? He began to shake at the mere
possibility.  When he came up to the row of houses, at last, where she
lived, and to the gate, he caught hold of it and paused.  He might have
heard the thumping of his own heart. "May God Almighty bless her,
whatever has happened," he thought to himself.  "Psha!  she may be gone
from here," he said and went in through the gate.

The window of the parlour which she used to occupy was open, and there
were no inmates in the room.  The Major thought he recognized the
piano, though, with the picture over it, as it used to be in former
days, and his perturbations were renewed.  Mr. Clapp's brass plate was
still on the door, at the knocker of which Dobbin performed a summons.

A buxom-looking lass of sixteen, with bright eyes and purple cheeks,
came to answer the knock and looked hard at the Major as he leant back
against the little porch.

He was as pale as a ghost and could hardly falter out the words--"Does
Mrs. Osborne live here?"

She looked him hard in the face for a moment--and then turning white
too--said, "Lord bless me--it's Major Dobbin." She held out both her
hands shaking--"Don't you remember me?" she said.  "I used to call you
Major Sugarplums." On which, and I believe it was for the first time
that he ever so conducted himself in his life, the Major took the girl
in his arms and kissed her. She began to laugh and cry hysterically,
and calling out "Ma, Pa!" with all her voice, brought up those worthy
people, who had already been surveying the Major from the casement of
the ornamental kitchen, and were astonished to find their daughter in
the little passage in the embrace of a great tall man in a blue
frock-coat and white duck trousers.

"I'm an old friend," he said--not without blushing though.  "Don't you
remember me, Mrs. Clapp, and those good cakes you used to make for tea?
Don't you recollect me, Clapp? I'm George's godfather, and just come
back from India." A great shaking of hands ensued--Mrs. Clapp was
greatly affected and delighted; she called upon heaven to interpose a
vast many times in that passage.

The landlord and landlady of the house led the worthy Major into the
Sedleys' room (whereof he remembered every single article of furniture,
from the old brass ornamented piano, once a natty little instrument,
Stothard maker, to the screens and the alabaster miniature tombstone,
in the midst of which ticked Mr. Sedley's gold watch), and there, as he
sat down in the lodger's vacant arm-chair, the father, the mother, and
the daughter, with a thousand ejaculatory breaks in the narrative,
informed Major Dobbin of what we know already, but of particulars in
Amelia's history of which he was not aware--namely of Mrs. Sedley's
death, of George's reconcilement with his grandfather Osborne, of the
way in which the widow took on at leaving him, and of other particulars
of her life. Twice or thrice he was going to ask about the marriage
question, but his heart failed him. He did not care to lay it bare to
these people.  Finally, he was informed that Mrs. O.  was gone to walk
with her pa in Kensington Gardens, whither she always went with the old
gentleman (who was very weak and peevish now, and led her a sad life,
though she behaved to him like an angel, to be sure), of a fine
afternoon, after dinner.

"I'm very much pressed for time," the Major said, "and have business
to-night of importance.  I should like to see Mrs. Osborne tho'.
Suppose Miss Polly would come with me and show me the way?"

Miss Polly was charmed and astonished at this proposal.  She knew the
way.  She would show Major Dobbin.  She had often been with Mr. Sedley
when Mrs. O. was gone--was gone Russell Square way--and knew the bench
where he liked to sit.  She bounced away to her apartment and appeared
presently in her best bonnet and her mamma's yellow shawl and large
pebble brooch, of which she assumed the loan in order to make herself a
worthy companion for the Major.

That officer, then, in his blue frock-coat and buckskin gloves, gave
the young lady his arm, and they walked away very gaily.  He was glad
to have a friend at hand for the scene which he dreaded somehow.  He
asked a thousand more questions from his companion about Amelia:  his
kind heart grieved to think that she should have had to part with her
son.  How did she bear it? Did she see him often? Was Mr. Sedley pretty
comfortable now in a worldly point of view? Polly answered all these
questions of Major Sugarplums to the very best of her power.

And in the midst of their walk an incident occurred which, though very
simple in its nature, was productive of the greatest delight to Major
Dobbin.  A pale young man with feeble whiskers and a stiff white
neckcloth came walking down the lane, en sandwich--having a lady, that
is, on each arm.  One was a tall and commanding middle-aged female,
with features and a complexion similar to those of the clergyman of the
Church of England by whose side she marched, and the other a stunted
little woman with a dark face, ornamented by a fine new bonnet and
white ribbons, and in a smart pelisse, with a rich gold watch in the
midst of her person.  The gentleman, pinioned as he was by these two
ladies, carried further a parasol, shawl, and basket, so that his arms
were entirely engaged, and of course he was unable to touch his hat in
acknowledgement of the curtsey with which Miss Mary Clapp greeted him.

He merely bowed his head in reply to her salutation, which the two
ladies returned with a patronizing air, and at the same time looking
severely at the individual in the blue coat and bamboo cane who
accompanied Miss Polly.

"Who's that?" asked the Major, amused by the group, and after he had
made way for the three to pass up the lane.  Mary looked at him rather
roguishly.

"That is our curate, the Reverend Mr. Binny (a twitch from Major
Dobbin), and his sister Miss B.  Lord bless us, how she did use to
worret us at Sunday-school; and the other lady, the little one with a
cast in her eye and the handsome watch, is Mrs. Binny--Miss Grits that
was; her pa was a grocer, and kept the Little Original Gold Tea Pot in
Kensington Gravel Pits.  They were married last month, and are just
come back from Margate.  She's five thousand pound to her fortune; but
her and Miss B., who made the match, have quarrelled already."

If the Major had twitched before, he started now, and slapped the
bamboo on the ground with an emphasis which made Miss Clapp cry, "Law,"
and laugh too.  He stood for a moment, silent, with open mouth, looking
after the retreating young couple, while Miss Mary told their history;
but he did not hear beyond the announcement of the reverend gentleman's
marriage; his head was swimming with felicity.  After this rencontre he
began to walk double quick towards the place of his destination--and
yet they were too soon (for he was in a great tremor at the idea of a
meeting for which he had been longing any time these ten
years)--through the Brompton lanes, and entering at the little old
portal in Kensington Garden wall.

"There they are," said Miss Polly, and she felt him again start back on
her arm.  She was a confidante at once of the whole business. She knew
the story as well as if she had read it in one of her favourite
novel-books--Fatherless Fanny, or the Scottish Chiefs.

"Suppose you were to run on and tell her," the Major said.  Polly ran
forward, her yellow shawl streaming in the breeze.

Old Sedley was seated on a bench, his handkerchief placed over his
knees, prattling away, according to his wont, with some old story about
old times to which Amelia had listened and awarded a patient smile many
a time before.  She could of late think of her own affairs, and smile
or make other marks of recognition of her father's stories, scarcely
hearing a word of the old man's tales. As Mary came bouncing along, and
Amelia caught sight of her, she started up from her bench.  Her first
thought was that something had happened to Georgy, but the sight of the
messenger's eager and happy face dissipated that fear in the timorous
mother's bosom.

"News!  News!" cried the emissary of Major Dobbin. "He's come!  He's
come!"

"Who is come?" said Emmy, still thinking of her son.

"Look there," answered Miss Clapp, turning round and pointing; in which
direction Amelia looking, saw Dobbin's lean figure and long shadow
stalking across the grass.  Amelia started in her turn, blushed up,
and, of course, began to cry.  At all this simple little creature's
fetes, the grandes eaux were accustomed to play. He looked at her--oh,
how fondly--as she came running towards him, her hands before her,
ready to give them to him.  She wasn't changed. She was a little pale,
a little stouter in figure.  Her eyes were the same, the kind trustful
eyes.  There were scarce three lines of silver in her soft brown hair.
She gave him both her hands as she looked up flushing and smiling
through her tears into his honest homely face.  He took the two little
hands between his two and held them there.  He was speechless for a
moment.  Why did he not take her in his arms and swear that he would
never leave her? She must have yielded:  she could not but have obeyed
him.

"I--I've another arrival to announce," he said after a pause.

"Mrs. Dobbin?" Amelia said, making a movement back--why didn't he speak?

"No," he said, letting her hands go:  "Who has told you those lies? I
mean, your brother Jos came in the same ship with me, and is come home
to make you all happy."

"Papa, Papa!" Emmy cried out, "here are news!  My brother is in
England.  He is come to take care of you. Here is Major Dobbin."

Mr. Sedley started up, shaking a great deal and gathering up his
thoughts.  Then he stepped forward and made an old-fashioned bow to the
Major, whom he called Mr. Dobbin, and hoped his worthy father, Sir
William, was quite well.  He proposed to call upon Sir William, who had
done him the honour of a visit a short time ago.  Sir William had not
called upon the old gentleman for eight years--it was that visit he was
thinking of returning.

"He is very much shaken," Emmy whispered as Dobbin went up and
cordially shook hands with the old man.

Although he had such particular business in London that evening, the
Major consented to forego it upon Mr. Sedley's invitation to him to
come home and partake of tea.  Amelia put her arm under that of her
young friend with the yellow shawl and headed the party on their return
homewards, so that Mr. Sedley fell to Dobbin's share. The old man
walked very slowly and told a number of ancient histories about himself
and his poor Bessy, his former prosperity, and his bankruptcy.  His
thoughts, as is usual with failing old men, were quite in former times.
The present, with the exception of the one catastrophe which he felt,
he knew little about.  The Major was glad to let him talk on.  His eyes
were fixed upon the figure in front of him--the dear little figure
always present to his imagination and in his prayers, and visiting his
dreams wakeful or slumbering.

Amelia was very happy, smiling, and active all that evening, performing
her duties as hostess of the little entertainment with the utmost grace
and propriety, as Dobbin thought.  His eyes followed her about as they
sat in the twilight.  How many a time had he longed for that moment and
thought of her far away under hot winds and in weary marches, gentle
and happy, kindly ministering to the wants of old age, and decorating
poverty with sweet submission--as he saw her now.  I do not say that
his taste was the highest, or that it is the duty of great intellects
to be content with a bread-and-butter paradise, such as sufficed our
simple old friend; but his desires were of this sort, whether for good
or bad, and, with Amelia to help him, he was as ready to drink as many
cups of tea as Doctor Johnson.

Amelia seeing this propensity, laughingly encouraged it and looked
exceedingly roguish as she administered to him cup after cup.  It is
true she did not know that the Major had had no dinner and that the
cloth was laid for him at the Slaughters', and a plate laid thereon to
mark that the table was retained, in that very box in which the Major
and George had sat many a time carousing, when she was a child just
come home from Miss Pinkerton's school.

The first thing Mrs. Osborne showed the Major was Georgy's miniature,
for which she ran upstairs on her arrival at home.  It was not half
handsome enough of course for the boy, but wasn't it noble of him to
think of bringing it to his mother? Whilst her papa was awake she did
not talk much about Georgy.  To hear about Mr. Osborne and Russell
Square was not agreeable to the old man, who very likely was
unconscious that he had been living for some months past mainly on the
bounty of his richer rival, and lost his temper if allusion was made to
the other.

Dobbin told him all, and a little more perhaps than all, that had
happened on board the Ramchunder, and exaggerated Jos's benevolent
dispositions towards his father and resolution to make him comfortable
in his old days.  The truth is that during the voyage the Major had
impressed this duty most strongly upon his fellow-passenger and
extorted promises from him that he would take charge of his sister and
her child.  He soothed Jos's irritation with regard to the bills which
the old gentleman had drawn upon him, gave a laughing account of his
own sufferings on the same score and of the famous consignment of wine
with which the old man had favoured him, and brought Mr. Jos, who was
by no means an ill-natured person when well-pleased and moderately
flattered, to a very good state of feeling regarding his relatives in
Europe.

And in fine I am ashamed to say that the Major stretched the truth so
far as to tell old Mr. Sedley that it was mainly a desire to see his
parent which brought Jos once more to Europe.

At his accustomed hour Mr. Sedley began to doze in his chair, and then
it was Amelia's opportunity to commence her conversation, which she did
with great eagerness--it related exclusively to Georgy.  She did not
talk at all about her own sufferings at breaking from him, for indeed,
this worthy woman, though she was half-killed by the separation from
the child, yet thought it was very wicked in her to repine at losing
him; but everything concerning him, his virtues, talents, and
prospects, she poured out.  She described his angelic beauty; narrated
a hundred instances of his generosity and greatness of mind whilst
living with her; how a Royal Duchess had stopped and admired him in
Kensington Gardens; how splendidly he was cared for now, and how he had
a groom and a pony; what quickness and cleverness he had, and what a
prodigiously well-read and delightful person the Reverend Lawrence Veal
was, George's master.  "He knows EVERYTHING," Amelia said.  "He has the
most delightful parties.  You who are so learned yourself, and have
read so much, and are so clever and accomplished--don't shake your head
and say no--HE always used to say you were--you will be charmed with
Mr. Veal's parties. The last Tuesday in every month.  He says there is
no place in the bar or the senate that Georgy may not aspire to.  Look
here," and she went to the piano-drawer and drew out a theme of
Georgy's composition.  This great effort of genius, which is still in
the possession of George's mother, is as follows:

On Selfishness--Of all the vices which degrade the human character,
Selfishness is the most odious and contemptible.  An undue love of Self
leads to the most monstrous crimes and occasions the greatest
misfortunes both in States and Families.  As a selfish man will
impoverish his family and often bring them to ruin, so a selfish king
brings ruin on his people and often plunges them into war.

Example:  The selfishness of Achilles, as remarked by the poet Homer,
occasioned a thousand woes to the Greeks--muri Achaiois alge
etheke--(Hom. Il. A. 2). The selfishness of the late Napoleon Bonaparte
occasioned innumerable wars in Europe and caused him to perish,
himself, in a miserable island--that of Saint Helena in the Atlantic
Ocean.

We see by these examples that we are not to consult our own interest
and ambition, but that we are to consider the interests of others as
well as our own.

George S.  Osborne Athene House, 24 April, 1827

"Think of him writing such a hand, and quoting Greek too, at his age,"
the delighted mother said.  "Oh, William," she added, holding out her
hand to the Major, "what a treasure Heaven has given me in that boy!
He is the comfort of my life--and he is the image of--of him that's
gone!"

"Ought I to be angry with her for being faithful to him?" William
thought.  "Ought I to be jealous of my friend in the grave, or hurt
that such a heart as Amelia's can love only once and for ever? Oh,
George, George, how little you knew the prize you had, though." This
sentiment passed rapidly through William's mind as he was holding
Amelia's hand, whilst the handkerchief was veiling her eyes.

"Dear friend," she said, pressing the hand which held hers, "how good,
how kind you always have been to me! See!  Papa is stirring. You will
go and see Georgy tomorrow, won't you?"

"Not to-morrow," said poor old Dobbin.  "I have business." He did not
like to own that he had not as yet been to his parents' and his dear
sister Anne--a remissness for which I am sure every well-regulated
person will blame the Major.  And presently he took his leave, leaving
his address behind him for Jos, against the latter's arrival.  And so
the first day was over, and he had seen her.

When he got back to the Slaughters', the roast fowl was of course cold,
in which condition he ate it for supper.  And knowing what early hours
his family kept, and that it would be needless to disturb their
slumbers at so late an hour, it is on record, that Major Dobbin treated
himself to half-price at the Haymarket Theatre that evening, where let
us hope he enjoyed himself.

The Old Piano

The Major's visit left old John Sedley in a great state of agitation
and excitement.  His daughter could not induce him to settle down to
his customary occupations or amusements that night.  He passed the
evening fumbling amongst his boxes and desks, untying his papers with
trembling hands, and sorting and arranging them against Jos's arrival.
He had them in the greatest order--his tapes and his files, his
receipts, and his letters with lawyers and correspondents; the
documents relative to the wine project (which failed from a most
unaccountable accident, after commencing with the most splendid
prospects), the coal project (which only a want of capital prevented
from becoming the most successful scheme ever put before the public),
the patent saw-mills and sawdust consolidation project, &c., &c.  All
night, until a very late hour, he passed in the preparation of these
documents, trembling about from one room to another, with a quivering
candle and shaky hands.  Here's the wine papers, here's the sawdust,
here's the coals; here's my letters to Calcutta and Madras, and replies
from Major Dobbin, C.B., and Mr. Joseph Sedley to the same.  "He shall
find no irregularity about ME, Emmy," the old gentleman said.

Emmy smiled.  "I don't think Jos will care about seeing those papers,
Papa," she said.

"You don't know anything about business, my dear," answered the sire,
shaking his head with an important air.  And it must be confessed that
on this point Emmy was very ignorant, and that is a pity some people
are so knowing.  All these twopenny documents arranged on a side table,
old Sedley covered them carefully over with a clean bandanna
handkerchief (one out of Major Dobbin's lot) and enjoined the maid and
landlady of the house, in the most solemn way, not to disturb those
papers, which were arranged for the arrival of Mr. Joseph Sedley the
next morning, "Mr. Joseph Sedley of the Honourable East India Company's
Bengal Civil Service."

Amelia found him up very early the next morning, more eager, more
hectic, and more shaky than ever.  "I didn't sleep much, Emmy, my
dear," he said.  "I was thinking of my poor Bessy.  I wish she was
alive, to ride in Jos's carriage once again.  She kept her own and
became it very well." And his eyes filled with tears, which trickled
down his furrowed old face.  Amelia wiped them away, and smilingly
kissed him, and tied the old man's neckcloth in a smart bow, and put
his brooch into his best shirt frill, in which, in his Sunday suit of
mourning, he sat from six o'clock in the morning awaiting the arrival
of his son.

However, when the postman made his appearance, the little party were
put out of suspense by the receipt of a letter from Jos to his sister,
who announced that he felt a little fatigued after his voyage, and
should not be able to move on that day, but that he would leave
Southampton early the next morning and be with his father and mother at
evening.  Amelia, as she read out the letter to her father, paused over
the latter word; her brother, it was clear, did not know what had
happened in the family. Nor could he, for the fact is that, though the
Major rightly suspected that his travelling companion never would be
got into motion in so short a space as twenty-four hours, and would
find some excuse for delaying, yet Dobbin had not written to Jos to
inform him of the calamity which had befallen the Sedley family, being
occupied in talking with Amelia until long after post-hour.

There are some splendid tailors' shops in the High Street of
Southampton, in the fine plate-glass windows of which hang gorgeous
waistcoats of all sorts, of silk and velvet, and gold and crimson, and
pictures of the last new fashions, in which those wonderful gentlemen
with quizzing glasses, and holding on to little boys with the exceeding
large eyes and curly hair, ogle ladies in riding habits prancing by the
Statue of Achilles at Apsley House.  Jos, although provided with some
of the most splendid vests that Calcutta could furnish, thought he
could not go to town until he was supplied with one or two of these
garments, and selected a crimson satin, embroidered with gold
butterflies, and a black and red velvet tartan with white stripes and a
rolling collar, with which, and a rich blue satin stock and a gold pin,
consisting of a five-barred gate with a horseman in pink enamel jumping
over it, he thought he might make his entry into London with some
dignity.  For Jos's former shyness and blundering blushing timidity had
given way to a more candid and courageous self-assertion of his worth.
"I don't care about owning it," Waterloo Sedley would say to his
friends, "I am a dressy man"; and though rather uneasy if the ladies
looked at him at the Government House balls, and though he blushed and
turned away alarmed under their glances, it was chiefly from a dread
lest they should make love to him that he avoided them, being averse to
marriage altogether.  But there was no such swell in Calcutta as
Waterloo Sedley, I have heard say, and he had the handsomest turn-out,
gave the best bachelor dinners, and had the finest plate in the whole
place.

To make these waistcoats for a man of his size and dignity took at
least a day, part of which he employed in hiring a servant to wait upon
him and his native and in instructing the agent who cleared his
baggage, his boxes, his books, which he never read, his chests of
mangoes, chutney, and curry-powders, his shawls for presents to people
whom he didn't know as yet, and the rest of his Persicos apparatus.

At length, he drove leisurely to London on the third day and in the new
waistcoat, the native, with chattering teeth, shuddering in a shawl on
the box by the side of the new European servant; Jos puffing his pipe
at intervals within and looking so majestic that the little boys cried
Hooray, and many people thought he must be a Governor-General.  HE, I
promise, did not decline the obsequious invitation of the landlords to
alight and refresh himself in the neat country towns.  Having partaken
of a copious breakfast, with fish, and rice, and hard eggs, at
Southampton, he had so far rallied at Winchester as to think a glass of
sherry necessary.  At Alton he stepped out of the carriage at his
servant's request and imbibed some of the ale for which the place is
famous.  At Farnham he stopped to view the Bishop's Castle and to
partake of a light dinner of stewed eels, veal cutlets, and French
beans, with a bottle of claret.  He was cold over Bagshot Heath, where
the native chattered more and more, and Jos Sahib took some
brandy-and-water; in fact, when he drove into town he was as full of
wine, beer, meat, pickles, cherry-brandy, and tobacco as the steward's
cabin of a steam-packet. It was evening when his carriage thundered up
to the little door in Brompton, whither the affectionate fellow drove
first, and before hieing to the apartments secured for him by Mr.
Dobbin at the Slaughters'.

All the faces in the street were in the windows; the little maidservant
flew to the wicket-gate; the Mesdames Clapp looked out from the
casement of the ornamented kitchen; Emmy, in a great flutter, was in
the passage among the hats and coats; and old Sedley in the parlour
inside, shaking all over.  Jos descended from the post-chaise and down
the creaking swaying steps in awful state, supported by the new valet
from Southampton and the shuddering native, whose brown face was now
livid with cold and of the colour of a turkey's gizzard.  He created an
immense sensation in the passage presently, where Mrs. and Miss Clapp,
coming perhaps to listen at the parlour door, found Loll Jewab shaking
upon the hall-bench under the coats, moaning in a strange piteous way,
and showing his yellow eyeballs and white teeth.

For, you see, we have adroitly shut the door upon the meeting between
Jos and the old father and the poor little gentle sister inside.  The
old man was very much affected; so, of course, was his daughter; nor
was Jos without feeling.  In that long absence of ten years, the most
selfish will think about home and early ties. Distance sanctifies both.
Long brooding over those lost pleasures exaggerates their charm and
sweetness.  Jos was unaffectedly glad to see and shake the hand of his
father, between whom and himself there had been a coolness--glad to see
his little sister, whom he remembered so pretty and smiling, and pained
at the alteration which time, grief, and misfortune had made in the
shattered old man.  Emmy had come out to the door in her black clothes
and whispered to him of her mother's death, and not to speak of it to
their father. There was no need of this caution, for the elder Sedley
himself began immediately to speak of the event, and prattled about it,
and wept over it plenteously. It shocked the Indian not a little and
made him think of himself less than the poor fellow was accustomed to
do.

The result of the interview must have been very satisfactory, for when
Jos had reascended his post-chaise and had driven away to his hotel,
Emmy embraced her father tenderly, appealing to him with an air of
triumph, and asking the old man whether she did not always say that her
brother had a good heart?

Indeed, Joseph Sedley, affected by the humble position in which he
found his relations, and in the expansiveness and overflowing of heart
occasioned by the first meeting, declared that they should never suffer
want or discomfort any more, that he was at home for some time at any
rate, during which his house and everything he had should be theirs:
and that Amelia would look very pretty at the head of his table--until
she would accept one of her own.

She shook her head sadly and had, as usual, recourse to the waterworks.
She knew what he meant.  She and her young confidante, Miss Mary, had
talked over the matter most fully, the very night of the Major's visit,
beyond which time the impetuous Polly could not refrain from talking of
the discovery which she had made, and describing the start and tremor
of joy by which Major Dobbin betrayed himself when Mr. Binny passed
with his bride and the Major learned that he had no longer a rival to
fear.  "Didn't you see how he shook all over when you asked if he was
married and he said, 'Who told you those lies?' Oh, M'am," Polly said,
"he never kept his eyes off you, and I'm sure he's grown grey athinking
of you."

But Amelia, looking up at her bed, over which hung the portraits of her
husband and son, told her young protegee never, never, to speak on that
subject again; that Major Dobbin had been her husband's dearest friend
and her own and George's most kind and affectionate guardian; that she
loved him as a brother--but that a woman who had been married to such
an angel as that, and she pointed to the wall, could never think of any
other union.  Poor Polly sighed:  she thought what she should do if
young Mr. Tomkins, at the surgery, who always looked at her so at
church, and who, by those mere aggressive glances had put her timorous
little heart into such a flutter that she was ready to surrender at
once,--what she should do if he were to die? She knew he was
consumptive, his cheeks were so red and he was so uncommon thin in the
waist.

Not that Emmy, being made aware of the honest Major's passion, rebuffed
him in any way, or felt displeased with him.  Such an attachment from
so true and loyal a gentleman could make no woman angry. Desdemona was
not angry with Cassio, though there is very little doubt she saw the
Lieutenant's partiality for her (and I for my part believe that many
more things took place in that sad affair than the worthy Moorish
officer ever knew of); why, Miranda was even very kind to Caliban, and
we may be pretty sure for the same reason. Not that she would encourage
him in the least--the poor uncouth monster--of course not.  No more
would Emmy by any means encourage her admirer, the Major.  She would
give him that friendly regard, which so much excellence and fidelity
merited; she would treat him with perfect cordiality and frankness
until he made his proposals, and THEN it would be time enough for her
to speak and to put an end to hopes which never could be realized.

She slept, therefore, very soundly that evening, after the conversation
with Miss Polly, and was more than ordinarily happy, in spite of Jos's
delaying.  "I am glad he is not going to marry that Miss O'Dowd," she
thought. "Colonel O'Dowd never could have a sister fit for such an
accomplished man as Major William." Who was there amongst her little
circle who would make him a good wife? Not Miss Binny, she was too old
and ill-tempered; Miss Osborne? too old too. Little Polly was too
young. Mrs. Osborne could not find anybody to suit the Major before she
went to sleep.

The same morning brought Major Dobbin a letter to the Slaughters'
Coffee-house from his friend at Southampton, begging dear Dob to excuse
Jos for being in a rage when awakened the day before (he had a
confounded headache, and was just in his first sleep), and entreating
Dob to engage comfortable rooms at the Slaughters' for Mr. Sedley and
his servants.  The Major had become necessary to Jos during the voyage.
He was attached to him, and hung upon him.  The other passengers were
away to London. Young Ricketts and little Chaffers went away on the
coach that day--Ricketts on the box, and taking the reins from Botley;
the Doctor was off to his family at Portsea; Bragg gone to town to his
co-partners; and the first mate busy in the unloading of the
Ramchunder.  Mr. Joe was very lonely at Southampton, and got the
landlord of the George to take a glass of wine with him that day, at
the very hour at which Major Dobbin was seated at the table of his
father, Sir William, where his sister found out (for it was impossible
for the Major to tell fibs) that he had been to see Mrs. George Osborne.

Jos was so comfortably situated in St.  Martin's Lane, he could enjoy
his hookah there with such perfect ease, and could swagger down to the
theatres, when minded, so agreeably, that, perhaps, he would have
remained altogether at the Slaughters' had not his friend, the Major,
been at his elbow.  That gentleman would not let the Bengalee rest
until he had executed his promise of having a home for Amelia and his
father.  Jos was a soft fellow in anybody's hands, Dobbin most active
in anybody's concerns but his own; the civilian was, therefore, an easy
victim to the guileless arts of this good-natured diplomatist and was
ready to do, to purchase, hire, or relinquish whatever his friend
thought fit.  Loll Jewab, of whom the boys about St.  Martin's Lane
used to make cruel fun whenever he showed his dusky countenance in the
street, was sent back to Calcutta in the Lady Kicklebury East Indiaman,
in which Sir William Dobbin had a share, having previously taught Jos's
European the art of preparing curries, pilaus, and pipes.  It was a
matter of great delight and occupation to Jos to superintend the
building of a smart chariot which he and the Major ordered in the
neighbouring Long Acre:  and a pair of handsome horses were jobbed,
with which Jos drove about in state in the park, or to call upon his
Indian friends.  Amelia was not seldom by his side on these excursions,
when also Major Dobbin would be seen in the back seat of the carriage.
At other times old Sedley and his daughter took advantage of it, and
Miss Clapp, who frequently accompanied her friend, had great pleasure
in being recognized as she sat in the carriage, dressed in the famous
yellow shawl, by the young gentleman at the surgery, whose face might
commonly be seen over the window-blinds as she passed.

Shortly after Jos's first appearance at Brompton, a dismal scene,
indeed, took place at that humble cottage at which the Sedleys had
passed the last ten years of their life.  Jos's carriage (the temporary
one, not the chariot under construction) arrived one day and carried
off old Sedley and his daughter--to return no more.  The tears that
were shed by the landlady and the landlady's daughter at that event
were as genuine tears of sorrow as any that have been outpoured in the
course of this history. In their long acquaintanceship and intimacy
they could not recall a harsh word that had been uttered by Amelia. She
had been all sweetness and kindness, always thankful, always gentle,
even when Mrs. Clapp lost her own temper and pressed for the rent.
When the kind creature was going away for good and all, the landlady
reproached herself bitterly for ever having used a rough expression to
her--how she wept, as they stuck up with wafers on the window, a paper
notifying that the little rooms so long occupied were to let!  They
never would have such lodgers again, that was quite clear.  After-life
proved the truth of this melancholy prophecy, and Mrs. Clapp revenged
herself for the deterioration of mankind by levying the most savage
contributions upon the tea-caddies and legs of mutton of her
locataires.  Most of them scolded and grumbled; some of them did not
pay; none of them stayed. The landlady might well regret those old, old
friends, who had left her.

As for Miss Mary, her sorrow at Amelia's departure was such as I shall
not attempt to depict.  From childhood upwards she had been with her
daily and had attached herself so passionately to that dear good lady
that when the grand barouche came to carry her off into splendour, she
fainted in the arms of her friend, who was indeed scarcely less
affected than the good-natured girl.  Amelia loved her like a daughter.
During eleven years the girl had been her constant friend and
associate.  The separation was a very painful one indeed to her.  But
it was of course arranged that Mary was to come and stay often at the
grand new house whither Mrs. Osborne was going, and where Mary was sure
she would never be so happy as she had been in their humble cot, as
Miss Clapp called it, in the language of the novels which she loved.

Let us hope she was wrong in her judgement.  Poor Emmy's days of
happiness had been very few in that humble cot.  A gloomy Fate had
oppressed her there.  She never liked to come back to the house after
she had left it, or to face the landlady who had tyrannized over her
when ill-humoured and unpaid, or when pleased had treated her with a
coarse familiarity scarcely less odious. Her servility and fulsome
compliments when Emmy was in prosperity were not more to that lady's
liking.  She cast about notes of admiration all over the new house,
extolling every article of furniture or ornament; she fingered Mrs.
Osborne's dresses and calculated their price. Nothing could be too good
for that sweet lady, she vowed and protested.  But in the vulgar
sycophant who now paid court to her, Emmy always remembered the coarse
tyrant who had made her miserable many a time, to whom she had been
forced to put up petitions for time, when the rent was overdue; who
cried out at her extravagance if she bought delicacies for her ailing
mother or father; who had seen her humble and trampled upon her.

Nobody ever heard of these griefs, which had been part of our poor
little woman's lot in life.  She kept them secret from her father,
whose improvidence was the cause of much of her misery.  She had to
bear all the blame of his misdoings, and indeed was so utterly gentle
and humble as to be made by nature for a victim.

I hope she is not to suffer much more of that hard usage.  And, as in
all griefs there is said to be some consolation, I may mention that
poor Mary, when left at her friend's departure in a hysterical
condition, was placed under the medical treatment of the young fellow
from the surgery, under whose care she rallied after a short period.
Emmy, when she went away from Brompton, endowed Mary with every article
of furniture that the house contained, only taking away her pictures
(the two pictures over the bed) and her piano--that little old piano
which had now passed into a plaintive jingling old age, but which she
loved for reasons of her own.  She was a child when first she played on
it, and her parents gave it her.  It had been given to her again since,
as the reader may remember, when her father's house was gone to ruin
and the instrument was recovered out of the wreck.

Major Dobbin was exceedingly pleased when, as he was superintending the
arrangements of Jos's new house--which the Major insisted should be
very handsome and comfortable--the cart arrived from Brompton, bringing
the trunks and bandboxes of the emigrants from that village, and with
them the old piano.  Amelia would have it up in her sitting-room, a
neat little apartment on the second floor, adjoining her father's
chamber, and where the old gentleman sat commonly of evenings.

When the men appeared then bearing this old music-box, and Amelia gave
orders that it should be placed in the chamber aforesaid, Dobbin was
quite elated.  "I'm glad you've kept it," he said in a very sentimental
manner.  "I was afraid you didn't care about it."

"I value it more than anything I have in the world," said Amelia.

"Do you, Amelia?" cried the Major.  The fact was, as he had bought it
himself, though he never said anything about it, it never entered into
his head to suppose that Emmy should think anybody else was the
purchaser, and as a matter of course he fancied that she knew the gift
came from him.  "Do you, Amelia?" he said; and the question, the great
question of all, was trembling on his lips, when Emmy replied--

"Can I do otherwise?--did not he give it me?"

"I did not know," said poor old Dob, and his countenance fell.

Emmy did not note the circumstance at the time, nor take immediate heed
of the very dismal expression which honest Dobbin's countenance
assumed, but she thought of it afterwards.  And then it struck her,
with inexpressible pain and mortification too, that it was William who
was the giver of the piano, and not George, as she had fancied. It was
not George's gift; the only one which she had received from her lover,
as she thought--the thing she had cherished beyond all others--her
dearest relic and prize.  She had spoken to it about George; played his
favourite airs upon it; sat for long evening hours, touching, to the
best of her simple art, melancholy harmonies on the keys, and weeping
over them in silence. It was not George's relic.  It was valueless now.
The next time that old Sedley asked her to play, she said it was
shockingly out of tune, that she had a headache, that she couldn't play.

Then, according to her custom, she rebuked herself for her pettishness
and ingratitude and determined to make a reparation to honest William
for the slight she had not expressed to him, but had felt for his
piano. A few days afterwards, as they were seated in the drawing-room,
where Jos had fallen asleep with great comfort after dinner, Amelia
said with rather a faltering voice to Major Dobbin--

"I have to beg your pardon for something."

"About what?" said he.

"About--about that little square piano.  I never thanked you for it
when you gave it me, many, many years ago, before I was married.  I
thought somebody else had given it.  Thank you, William." She held out
her hand, but the poor little woman's heart was bleeding; and as for
her eyes, of course they were at their work.

But William could hold no more.  "Amelia, Amelia," he said, "I did buy
it for you.  I loved you then as I do now.  I must tell you.  I think I
loved you from the first minute that I saw you, when George brought me
to your house, to show me the Amelia whom he was engaged to.  You were
but a girl, in white, with large ringlets; you came down singing--do
you remember?--and we went to Vauxhall.  Since then I have thought of
but one woman in the world, and that was you.  I think there is no hour
in the day has passed for twelve years that I haven't thought of you.
I came to tell you this before I went to India, but you did not care,
and I hadn't the heart to speak.  You did not care whether I stayed or
went."

"I was very ungrateful," Amelia said.

"No, only indifferent," Dobbin continued desperately. "I have nothing
to make a woman to be otherwise.  I know what you are feeling now.  You
are hurt in your heart at the discovery about the piano, and that it
came from me and not from George.  I forgot, or I should never have
spoken of it so.  It is for me to ask your pardon for being a fool for
a moment, and thinking that years of constancy and devotion might have
pleaded with you."

"It is you who are cruel now," Amelia said with some spirit. "George is
my husband, here and in heaven.  How could I love any other but him? I
am his now as when you first saw me, dear William. It was he who told
me how good and generous you were, and who taught me to love you as a
brother.  Have you not been everything to me and my boy? Our dearest,
truest, kindest friend and protector? Had you come a few months sooner
perhaps you might have spared me that--that dreadful parting.  Oh, it
nearly killed me, William--but you didn't come, though I wished and
prayed for you to come, and they took him too away from me.  Isn't he a
noble boy, William? Be his friend still and mine"--and here her voice
broke, and she hid her face on his shoulder.

The Major folded his arms round her, holding her to him as if she was a
child, and kissed her head.  "I will not change, dear Amelia," he said.
"I ask for no more than your love.  I think I would not have it
otherwise. Only let me stay near you and see you often."

"Yes, often," Amelia said.  And so William was at liberty to look and
long--as the poor boy at school who has no money may sigh after the
contents of the tart-woman's tray.

Returns to the Genteel World

Good fortune now begins to smile upon Amelia.  We are glad to get her
out of that low sphere in which she has been creeping hitherto and
introduce her into a polite circle--not so grand and refined as that in
which our other female friend, Mrs. Becky, has appeared, but still
having no small pretensions to gentility and fashion.  Jos's friends
were all from the three presidencies, and his new house was in the
comfortable Anglo-Indian district of which Moira Place is the centre.
Minto Square, Great Clive Street, Warren Street, Hastings Street,
Ochterlony Place, Plassy Square, Assaye Terrace ("gardens" was a
felicitous word not applied to stucco houses with asphalt terraces in
front, so early as 1827)--who does not know these respectable abodes of
the retired Indian aristocracy, and the quarter which Mr. Wenham calls
the Black Hole, in a word? Jos's position in life was not grand enough
to entitle him to a house in Moira Place, where none can live but
retired Members of Council, and partners of Indian firms (who break,
after having settled a hundred thousand pounds on their wives, and
retire into comparative penury to a country place and four thousand a
year); he engaged a comfortable house of a second- or third-rate order
in Gillespie Street, purchasing the carpets, costly mirrors, and
handsome and appropriate planned furniture by Seddons from the
assignees of Mr. Scape, lately admitted partner into the great Calcutta
House of Fogle, Fake, and Cracksman, in which poor Scape had embarked
seventy thousand pounds, the earnings of a long and honourable life,
taking Fake's place, who retired to a princely park in Sussex (the
Fogles have been long out of the firm, and Sir Horace Fogle is about to
be raised to the peerage as Baron Bandanna)--admitted, I say, partner
into the great agency house of Fogle and Fake two years before it
failed for a million and plunged half the Indian public into misery and
ruin.

Scape, ruined, honest, and broken-hearted at sixty-five years of age,
went out to Calcutta to wind up the affairs of the house. Walter Scape
was withdrawn from Eton and put into a merchant's house.  Florence
Scape, Fanny Scape, and their mother faded away to Boulogne, and will
be heard of no more.  To be brief, Jos stepped in and bought their
carpets and sideboards and admired himself in the mirrors which had
reflected their kind handsome faces.  The Scape tradesmen, all
honourably paid, left their cards, and were eager to supply the new
household.  The large men in white waistcoats who waited at Scape's
dinners, greengrocers, bank-porters, and milkmen in their private
capacity, left their addresses and ingratiated themselves with the
butler.  Mr. Chummy, the chimney-purifier, who had swept the last three
families, tried to coax the butler and the boy under him, whose duty it
was to go out covered with buttons and with stripes down his trousers,
for the protection of Mrs. Amelia whenever she chose to walk abroad.

It was a modest establishment.  The butler was Jos's valet also, and
never was more drunk than a butler in a small family should be who has
a proper regard for his master's wine.  Emmy was supplied with a maid,
grown on Sir William Dobbin's suburban estate; a good girl, whose
kindness and humility disarmed Mrs. Osborne, who was at first terrified
at the idea of having a servant to wait upon herself, who did not in
the least know how to use one, and who always spoke to domestics with
the most reverential politeness.  But this maid was very useful in the
family, in dexterously tending old Mr. Sedley, who kept almost entirely
to his own quarter of the house and never mixed in any of the gay
doings which took place there.

Numbers of people came to see Mrs. Osborne.  Lady Dobbin and daughters
were delighted at her change of fortune, and waited upon her.  Miss
Osborne from Russell Square came in her grand chariot with the flaming
hammer-cloth emblazoned with the Leeds arms.  Jos was reported to be
immensely rich.  Old Osborne had no objection that Georgy should
inherit his uncle's property as well as his own. "Damn it, we will make
a man of the feller," he said; "and I'll see him in Parliament before I
die.  You may go and see his mother, Miss O., though I'll never set
eyes on her":  and Miss Osborne came. Emmy, you may be sure, was very
glad to see her, and so be brought nearer to George.  That young fellow
was allowed to come much more frequently than before to visit his
mother.  He dined once or twice a week in Gillespie Street and bullied
the servants and his relations there, just as he did in Russell Square.

He was always respectful to Major Dobbin, however, and more modest in
his demeanour when that gentleman was present.  He was a clever lad and
afraid of the Major.  George could not help admiring his friend's
simplicity, his good humour, his various learning quietly imparted, his
general love of truth and justice.  He had met no such man as yet in
the course of his experience, and he had an instinctive liking for a
gentleman.  He hung fondly by his godfather's side, and it was his
delight to walk in the parks and hear Dobbin talk.  William told George
about his father, about India and Waterloo, about everything but
himself.  When George was more than usually pert and conceited, the
Major made jokes at him, which Mrs. Osborne thought very cruel.  One
day, taking him to the play, and the boy declining to go into the pit
because it was vulgar, the Major took him to the boxes, left him there,
and went down himself to the pit.  He had not been seated there very
long before he felt an arm thrust under his and a dandy little hand in
a kid glove squeezing his arm.  George had seen the absurdity of his
ways and come down from the upper region.  A tender laugh of
benevolence lighted up old Dobbin's face and eyes as he looked at the
repentant little prodigal.  He loved the boy, as he did everything that
belonged to Amelia.  How charmed she was when she heard of this
instance of George's goodness!  Her eyes looked more kindly on Dobbin
than they ever had done.  She blushed, he thought, after looking at him
so.

Georgy never tired of his praises of the Major to his mother.  "I like
him, Mamma, because he knows such lots of things; and he ain't like old
Veal, who is always bragging and using such long words, don't you know?
The chaps call him 'Longtail' at school.  I gave him the name; ain't it
capital? But Dob reads Latin like English, and French and that; and
when we go out together he tells me stories about my Papa, and never
about himself; though I heard Colonel Buckler, at Grandpapa's, say that
he was one of the bravest officers in the army, and had distinguished
himself ever so much.  Grandpapa was quite surprised, and said, 'THAT
feller!  Why, I didn't think he could say Bo to a goose'--but I know he
could, couldn't he, Mamma?"

Emmy laughed:  she thought it was very likely the Major could do thus
much.

If there was a sincere liking between George and the Major, it must be
confessed that between the boy and his uncle no great love existed.
George had got a way of blowing out his cheeks, and putting his hands
in his waistcoat pockets, and saying, "God bless my soul, you don't say
so," so exactly after the fashion of old Jos that it was impossible to
refrain from laughter.  The servants would explode at dinner if the
lad, asking for something which wasn't at table, put on that
countenance and used that favourite phrase.  Even Dobbin would shoot
out a sudden peal at the boy's mimicry.  If George did not mimic his
uncle to his face, it was only by Dobbin's rebukes and Amelia's
terrified entreaties that the little scapegrace was induced to desist.
And the worthy civilian being haunted by a dim consciousness that the
lad thought him an ass, and was inclined to turn him into ridicule,
used to be extremely timorous and, of course, doubly pompous and
dignified in the presence of Master Georgy.  When it was announced that
the young gentleman was expected in Gillespie Street to dine with his
mother, Mr. Jos commonly found that he had an engagement at the Club.
Perhaps nobody was much grieved at his absence.  On those days Mr.
Sedley would commonly be induced to come out from his place of refuge
in the upper stories, and there would be a small family party, whereof
Major Dobbin pretty generally formed one.  He was the ami de la
maison--old Sedley's friend, Emmy's friend, Georgy's friend, Jos's
counsel and adviser. "He might almost as well be at Madras for anything
WE see of him," Miss Ann Dobbin remarked at Camberwell.  Ah!  Miss Ann,
did it not strike you that it was not YOU whom the Major wanted to
marry?

Joseph Sedley then led a life of dignified otiosity such as became a
person of his eminence.  His very first point, of course, was to become
a member of the Oriental Club, where he spent his mornings in the
company of his brother Indians, where he dined, or whence he brought
home men to dine.

Amelia had to receive and entertain these gentlemen and their ladies.
From these she heard how soon Smith would be in Council; how many lacs
Jones had brought home with him, how Thomson's House in London had
refused the bills drawn by Thomson, Kibobjee, and Co., the Bombay
House, and how it was thought the Calcutta House must go too; how very
imprudent, to say the least of it, Mrs. Brown's conduct (wife of Brown
of the Ahmednuggur Irregulars) had been with young Swankey of the Body
Guard, sitting up with him on deck until all hours, and losing
themselves as they were riding out at the Cape; how Mrs. Hardyman had
had out her thirteen sisters, daughters of a country curate, the Rev:
Felix Rabbits, and married eleven of them, seven high up in the
service; how Hornby was wild because his wife would stay in Europe, and
Trotter was appointed Collector at Ummerapoora.  This and similar talk
took place at the grand dinners all round.  They had the same
conversation; the same silver dishes; the same saddles of mutton,
boiled turkeys, and entrees.  Politics set in a short time after
dessert, when the ladies retired upstairs and talked about their
complaints and their children.

Mutato nomine, it is all the same.  Don't the barristers' wives talk
about Circuit? Don't the soldiers' ladies gossip about the Regiment?
Don't the clergymen's ladies discourse about Sunday-schools and who
takes whose duty? Don't the very greatest ladies of all talk about that
small clique of persons to whom they belong? And why should our Indian
friends not have their own conversation?--only I admit it is slow for
the laymen whose fate it sometimes is to sit by and listen.

Before long Emmy had a visiting-book, and was driving about regularly
in a carriage, calling upon Lady Bludyer (wife of Major-General Sir
Roger Bludyer, K.C.B., Bengal Army); Lady Huff, wife of Sir G.  Huff,
Bombay ditto; Mrs. Pice, the Lady of Pice the Director, &c.  We are not
long in using ourselves to changes in life.  That carriage came round
to Gillespie Street every day; that buttony boy sprang up and down from
the box with Emmy's and Jos's visiting-cards; at stated hours Emmy and
the carriage went for Jos to the Club and took him an airing; or,
putting old Sedley into the vehicle, she drove the old man round the
Regent's Park.  The lady's maid and the chariot, the visiting-book and
the buttony page, became soon as familiar to Amelia as the humble
routine of Brompton.  She accommodated herself to one as to the other.
If Fate had ordained that she should be a Duchess, she would even have
done that duty too.  She was voted, in Jos's female society, rather a
pleasing young person--not much in her, but pleasing, and that sort of
thing.

The men, as usual, liked her artless kindness and simple refined
demeanour.  The gallant young Indian dandies at home on furlough--immense
dandies these--chained and moustached--driving in tearing cabs,
the pillars of the theatres, living at West End hotels--nevertheless
admired Mrs. Osborne, liked to bow to her carriage in the park, and to
be admitted to have the honour of paying her a morning visit.  Swankey
of the Body Guard himself, that dangerous youth, and the greatest buck
of all the Indian army now on leave, was one day discovered by Major
Dobbin tete-a-tete with Amelia, and describing the sport of
pig-sticking to her with great humour and eloquence; and he spoke
afterwards of a d--d king's officer that's always hanging about the
house--a long, thin, queer-looking, oldish fellow--a dry fellow though,
that took the shine out of a man in the talking line.

Had the Major possessed a little more personal vanity he would have
been jealous of so dangerous a young buck as that fascinating Bengal
Captain.  But Dobbin was of too simple and generous a nature to have
any doubts about Amelia.  He was glad that the young men should pay her
respect, and that others should admire her.  Ever since her womanhood
almost, had she not been persecuted and undervalued? It pleased him to
see how kindness bought out her good qualities and how her spirits
gently rose with her prosperity.  Any person who appreciated her paid a
compliment to the Major's good judgement--that is, if a man may be
said to have good judgement who is under the influence of Love's
delusion.

After Jos went to Court, which we may be sure he did as a loyal subject
of his Sovereign (showing himself in his full court suit at the Club,
whither Dobbin came to fetch him in a very shabby old uniform) he who
had always been a staunch Loyalist and admirer of George IV, became
such a tremendous Tory and pillar of the State that he was for having
Amelia to go to a Drawing-room, too.  He somehow had worked himself up
to believe that he was implicated in the maintenance of the public
welfare and that the Sovereign would not be happy unless Jos Sedley and
his family appeared to rally round him at St.  James's.

Emmy laughed.  "Shall I wear the family diamonds, Jos?" she said.

"I wish you would let me buy you some," thought the Major.  "I should
like to see any that were too good for you."

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: When Becky wakes, late the next morning, she runs over to Sir Pitt and begs him to help her reconcile with Rawdon. She claims that she was only holding the money because Rawdon is a spendthrift and can't be trusted with it. Also, she claims that she only courted Lord Steyne in order to get a governorship for her husband. Lady Jane walks in on Becky kissing Sir Pitt's hand, and she screams at her husband, demanding that he make a choice between the two women. After his wife leaves, he promises that he will help Becky. Rawdon is breakfasting with Macmurdo when his friends approach him with congratulations. They say he is in the paper, and he checks, finding that he has been awarded a governorship by Lord Steyne. Mr. Wenham arrives, Lord Steyne's messenger, and he attempts to convince Rawdon of Becky and Lord Steyne's innocence. Rawdon refuses to believe him and demands a duel. Macmurdo steps in, encouraging Rawdon to take the position and forget about the duel. He finally agrees and moves to Coventry Island. Little Rawdon goes to stay at Queen's Crawley over the holidays, and Rebecca has disappeared. Georgy is the boss at his new home and at school. He is intelligent, demanding, and wears very fine clothing. He becomes best friends with a Mr. Todd. John Osborne hopes to marry Georgy to one of the Todd daughters. Georgy visits his mother often and gives her a portrait of himself, which she keeps under her pillow. Mrs. Sedley dies, and Amelia is left to spend all her time caring for her father. Georgy throws a fit about having to attend his grandmother's funeral, since he will have to miss a play in order to go. One day, Jos and Dobbin come to visit, and Georgy confesses to Dobbin that his mother, Amelia, talks about Dobbin all the time. Old Osborne tells little Georgy terrible things about his mother's family. He calls his former friend, Mr. Sedley, an old bankrupt. He claims that the only reason the Sedleys can get by at this point is because he pays Amelia a steady allowance. Georgy rejects his grandfather's mutterings. Dobbin, on his way back from India, has a fever, and he spends the entire time on the boat talking about Amelia to Jos Sedley. Jos convinces Dobbin that Amelia is not getting married, and it is this news that motivates Dobbin back to health. Dobbin insists that they go to the Sedley residence immediately, But Jos wants to get a good night's sleep in the hotel. The next day, Dobbin trembles as he approaches the Sedleys' door. Ms. Polly Clapps, the landlord's daughter, answers, and she recognizes Dobbin. She used to call him Major Sugarplums. Too afraid to ask whether or not Amelia is married, Dobbin asks Polly to take him to her. Polly tells him Amelia and Mr. Sedley are at Kensington Gardens. They walk over, and on the way, they run into Reverend Binney and his wife, Miss Grits. Dobbin is overjoyed to see the man Amelia was supposed to marry with another woman. Amelia and Dobbin enjoy a very pleasant reunion, during which they hold hands, and Amelia talks endlessly about Georgy. Mr. Sedley is nervous about seeing his son. He wakes up very early, puts on his best suit, and tries to get his business papers in order. Meanwhile, Jos is making sure that he doesn't lack for anything on his way to London. He buys a number of expensive vests, arranges for servants, and stops everywhere he can to eat and drink. Amelia has argued with Polly, who is convinced that Dobbin is in love with Amelia. Jos finally arrives at his home on the third day. His father tells him that his mother died, and the family grieves together. Then Jos, who has been encouraged by Dobbin, assures his family that he will take care of them from now on. The Sedleys find a new house. The only furniture that Amelia takes with her is the piano that Dobbin secretly bought for her at auction. Later, Amelia realizes that it is possible she is wrong about the piano, and that perhaps it was Dobbin who bought it for her. Dobbin finally confesses his love for Amelia. Amelia apologizes for not being able to love him back, explaining that she only has one husband and can never stop loving him. She tells Dobbin that she thinks of him as a brother and that she is grateful for all the things he has done for her over the years. Amelia asks him to continue to be a friend to her and to her son. The Sedleys experience a bit of good fortune. Jos Sedley moves into a small, but well-furnished, home. Georgy meets Dobbin and Jos. Georgy becomes very fond of Dobbin, but he has fun joking at the expense of Uncle Jos, who does not like the young boy's humor. "George had a way of blowing out his cheeks, and putting his hands in his waistcoat pockets, and saying 'God bless my soul, you don't say so'," just like Jos. Amelia reenters society. According to the narrator, "we are glad...to introduce her into a polite circle; not so grand and refined as that in which our other female friend, Mrs. Becky, has appeared, but still having no small pretensions to gentility and fashion." People who used to visit her come to see her once again. She reconnects with Dobbin's sisters and George's sisters. She also begins to entertain Jos's associates, and in so doing, she learns a great deal about politics and business. Dobbin worries at first about her having male callers, but then he reassures himself that she is a virtuous woman.