prompt:
Chapter: 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.

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

completion: Mr. Sedley is shaken into some rather pathetic business-type activity by the idea that Jos is coming. He starts going through his papers as if Jos is going to do some kind of audit, then cries because Mrs. Sedley is dead and won't be able to ride on Jos's carriage. He's really a very sad old man at this point. But Jos doesn't come; he sends a letter saying he will be there in a day or two. Before coming to London, Jos has to get a whole bunch of new clothes and spends the day shopping. He is as vain and metrosexual about his appearance as ever. Then, when he is finally on the road, he stops at every single inn along the way and eats and drinks an enormous amount of food. Obviously this makes his travel slow going. Finally he gets to the Sedley house. Amelia tells him about their mother's death. He sees how decrepit his father is and is moved by all of this. He's always been a pretty generous guy and now decides to really take care of them well. Jos tells Amelia that she will make a nice hostess at his house until she has a house of her own . Amelia shakes her head and says no way, because she will never stop loving old dead George. But still, it's always nice to be loved, and Amelia acts pretty nice to Dobbin because of his love for her. She tries hard not to lead him on, and thus relegates him strictly to the dreaded friend zone. She decides that she thinks of him as a brother. Ouch! Jos rents a nice house in a neighborhood where other people formerly stationed in India now live. Amelia is really happy to leave the gross little house they've been renting all this time. She's also happy to leave behind the Clapps, who apparently have not been the best of landlords. She leaves all her furniture except the piano which someone bought back for her at the auction of all their stuff when Mr. Sedley first went bankrupt. Dobbin is totally excited to see that she kept it and asks about it. Amelia, who all along has thought it was George who bought it for her, is like, "Oh, I love it so much since George bought it for me." Dobbin is completely defeated and crushed. Based on his reaction, Amelia suddenly realizes that George never bought her any such thing. Um, because he was a selfish jerk. She apologizes to Dobbin for not realizing it was him, but then she no longer wants to play the piano again. Dobbin finally busts out with all his love. He tells her he's loved her forever and ever and asks why she doesn't care about him. Amelia cries. Like always. About everything. The narrator snipes a little something about her really, really not being worth it. She then does her thing about only loving dead George and asks Dobbin to be her friend. She criticizes him for not coming sooner, since maybe he could have prevented George Jr. from having to go live with Mr. Osborne. Dobbin doesn't have anything to say to this and just asks to be able to see her often, to which she agrees. The narrator sums it up nicely by quipping that Dobbin was now "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" .


prompt:
Chapter: 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: Now that she is restored to reasonable wealth again, Amelia suddenly regains a bunch of her old "friends." Maybe frenemies is a better word? In any case, Miss Osborne and Dobbin's sisters now start to visit her. She starts to make friends with Jos's circle of India retirees. She does well. The women like her OK, and the men like her better. Dobbin comes to the house almost daily. The person there who likes him the best is George Jr., who is now allowed to come visit a lot more frequently. Dobbin is the only person that George Jr. is a little scared of and impressed by. Which is interesting, since Dobbin is the only person who does not brag about his own accomplishments nor think extremely highly of himself. The narrator tells us that this marks him as a gentleman, and George Jr. is able to sense that somehow. Dobbin takes the boy to the theater and tells him stories about his father. In turn, George Jr. tells Amelia how much he likes Dobbin. But Jos? Not such a huge fan of George Jr. And actually, the feeling is mutual. Jos starts to live the life befitting a man of his level of importance. Soon enough he even gets presented at Court, which makes him a very devoted fan of the King. Remind you of anyone else?


prompt:
Chapter: In Which Two Lights are Put Out

There came a day when the round of decorous pleasures and solemn
gaieties in which Mr. Jos Sedley's family indulged was interrupted by
an event which happens in most houses.  As you ascend the staircase of
your house from the drawing towards the bedroom floors, you may have
remarked a little arch in the wall right before you, which at once
gives light to the stair which leads from the second story to the third
(where the nursery and servants' chambers commonly are) and serves for
another purpose of utility, of which the undertaker's men can give you
a notion.  They rest the coffins upon that arch, or pass them through
it so as not to disturb in any unseemly manner the cold tenant
slumbering within the black ark.

That second-floor arch in a London house, looking up and down the well
of the staircase and commanding the main thoroughfare by which the
inhabitants are passing; by which cook lurks down before daylight to
scour her pots and pans in the kitchen; by which young master
stealthily ascends, having left his boots in the hall, and let himself
in after dawn from a jolly night at the Club; down which miss comes
rustling in fresh ribbons and spreading muslins, brilliant and
beautiful, and prepared for conquest and the ball; or Master Tommy
slides, preferring the banisters for a mode of conveyance, and
disdaining danger and the stair; down which the mother is fondly
carried smiling in her strong husband's arms, as he steps steadily step
by step, and followed by the monthly nurse, on the day when the medical
man has pronounced that the charming patient may go downstairs; up
which John lurks to bed, yawning, with a sputtering tallow candle, and
to gather up before sunrise the boots which are awaiting him in the
passages--that stair, up or down which babies are carried, old people
are helped, guests are marshalled to the ball, the parson walks to the
christening, the doctor to the sick-room, and the undertaker's men to
the upper floor--what a memento of Life, Death, and Vanity it is--that
arch and stair--if you choose to consider it, and sit on the landing,
looking up and down the well!  The doctor will come up to us too for
the last time there, my friend in motley.  The nurse will look in at
the curtains, and you take no notice--and then she will fling open the
windows for a little and let in the air.  Then they will pull down all
the front blinds of the house and live in the back rooms--then they
will send for the lawyer and other men in black, &c.  Your comedy and
mine will have been played then, and we shall be removed, oh, how far,
from the trumpets, and the shouting, and the posture-making.  If we
are gentlefolks they will put hatchments over our late domicile, with
gilt cherubim, and mottoes stating that there is "Quiet in Heaven."
Your son will new furnish the house, or perhaps let it, and go into a
more modern quarter; your name will be among the "Members Deceased" in
the lists of your clubs next year. However much you may be mourned,
your widow will like to have her weeds neatly made--the cook will send
or come up to ask about dinner--the survivor will soon bear to look at
your picture over the mantelpiece, which will presently be deposed from
the place of honour, to make way for the portrait of the son who reigns.

Which of the dead are most tenderly and passionately deplored? Those
who love the survivors the least, I believe.  The death of a child
occasions a passion of grief and frantic tears, such as your end,
brother reader, will never inspire.  The death of an infant which
scarce knew you, which a week's absence from you would have caused to
forget you, will strike you down more than the loss of your closest
friend, or your first-born son--a man grown like yourself, with
children of his own.  We may be harsh and stern with Judah and
Simeon--our love and pity gush out for Benjamin, the little one. And if
you are old, as some reader of this may be or shall be old and rich, or
old and poor--you may one day be thinking for yourself--"These people
are very good round about me, but they won't grieve too much when I am
gone.  I am very rich, and they want my inheritance--or very poor, and
they are tired of supporting me."

The period of mourning for Mrs. Sedley's death was only just concluded,
and Jos scarcely had had time to cast off his black and appear in the
splendid waistcoats which he loved, when it became evident to those
about Mr. Sedley that another event was at hand, and that the old man
was about to go seek for his wife in the dark land whither she had
preceded him.  "The state of my father's health," Jos Sedley solemnly
remarked at the Club, "prevents me from giving any LARGE parties this
season:  but if you will come in quietly at half-past six, Chutney, my
boy, and fake a homely dinner with one or two of the old set--I shall
be always glad to see you." So Jos and his acquaintances dined and
drank their claret among themselves in silence, whilst the sands of
life were running out in the old man's glass upstairs.  The
velvet-footed butler brought them their wine, and they composed
themselves to a rubber after dinner, at which Major Dobbin would
sometimes come and take a hand; and Mrs. Osborne would occasionally
descend, when her patient above was settled for the night, and had
commenced one of those lightly troubled slumbers which visit the pillow
of old age.

The old man clung to his daughter during this sickness.  He would take
his broths and medicines from scarcely any other hand.  To tend him
became almost the sole business of her life.  Her bed was placed close
by the door which opened into his chamber, and she was alive at the
slightest noise or disturbance from the couch of the querulous invalid.
Though, to do him justice, he lay awake many an hour, silent and
without stirring, unwilling to awaken his kind and vigilant nurse.

He loved his daughter with more fondness now, perhaps, than ever he had
done since the days of her childhood.  In the discharge of gentle
offices and kind filial duties, this simple creature shone most
especially.  "She walks into the room as silently as a sunbeam," Mr.
Dobbin thought as he saw her passing in and out from her father's room,
a cheerful sweetness lighting up her face as she moved to and fro,
graceful and noiseless.  When women are brooding over their children,
or busied in a sick-room, who has not seen in their faces those sweet
angelic beams of love and pity?

A secret feud of some years' standing was thus healed, and with a tacit
reconciliation.  In these last hours, and touched by her love and
goodness, the old man forgot all his grief against her, and wrongs
which he and his wife had many a long night debated:  how she had given
up everything for her boy; how she was careless of her parents in their
old age and misfortune, and only thought of the child; how absurdly and
foolishly, impiously indeed, she took on when George was removed from
her.  Old Sedley forgot these charges as he was making up his last
account, and did justice to the gentle and uncomplaining little martyr.
One night when she stole into his room, she found him awake, when the
broken old man made his confession.  "Oh, Emmy, I've been thinking we
were very unkind and unjust to you," he said and put out his cold and
feeble hand to her. She knelt down and prayed by his bedside, as he did
too, having still hold of her hand.  When our turn comes, friend, may
we have such company in our prayers!

Perhaps as he was lying awake then, his life may have passed before
him--his early hopeful struggles, his manly successes and prosperity,
his downfall in his declining years, and his present helpless
condition--no chance of revenge against Fortune, which had had the
better of him--neither name nor money to bequeath--a spent-out,
bootless life of defeat and disappointment, and the end here! Which, I
wonder, brother reader, is the better lot, to die prosperous and
famous, or poor and disappointed? To have, and to be forced to yield;
or to sink out of life, having played and lost the game? That must be a
strange feeling, when a day of our life comes and we say, "To-morrow,
success or failure won't matter much, and the sun will rise, and all
the myriads of mankind go to their work or their pleasure as usual, but
I shall be out of the turmoil."

So there came one morning and sunrise when all the world got up and set
about its various works and pleasures, with the exception of old John
Sedley, who was not to fight with fortune, or to hope or scheme any
more, but to go and take up a quiet and utterly unknown residence in a
churchyard at Brompton by the side of his old wife.

Major Dobbin, Jos, and Georgy followed his remains to the grave, in a
black cloth coach.  Jos came on purpose from the Star and Garter at
Richmond, whither he retreated after the deplorable event.  He did not
care to remain in the house, with the--under the circumstances, you
understand.  But Emmy stayed and did her duty as usual.  She was bowed
down by no especial grief, and rather solemn than sorrowful.  She
prayed that her own end might be as calm and painless, and thought with
trust and reverence of the words which she had heard from her father
during his illness, indicative of his faith, his resignation, and his
future hope.

Yes, I think that will be the better ending of the two, after all.
Suppose you are particularly rich and well-to-do and say on that last
day, "I am very rich; I am tolerably well known; I have lived all my
life in the best society, and thank Heaven, come of a most respectable
family.  I have served my King and country with honour. I was in
Parliament for several years, where, I may say, my speeches were
listened to and pretty well received. I don't owe any man a shilling:
on the contrary, I lent my old college friend, Jack Lazarus, fifty
pounds, for which my executors will not press him.  I leave my
daughters with ten thousand pounds apiece--very good portions for
girls; I bequeath my plate and furniture, my house in Baker Street,
with a handsome jointure, to my widow for her life; and my landed
property, besides money in the funds, and my cellar of well-selected
wine in Baker Street, to my son.  I leave twenty pound a year to my
valet; and I defy any man after I have gone to find anything against my
character." Or suppose, on the other hand, your swan sings quite a
different sort of dirge and you say, "I am a poor blighted,
disappointed old fellow, and have made an utter failure through life.
I was not endowed either with brains or with good fortune, and confess
that I have committed a hundred mistakes and blunders. I own to having
forgotten my duty many a time.  I can't pay what I owe.  On my last bed
I lie utterly helpless and humble, and I pray forgiveness for my
weakness and throw myself, with a contrite heart, at the feet of the
Divine Mercy." Which of these two speeches, think you, would be the
best oration for your own funeral? Old Sedley made the last; and in
that humble frame of mind, and holding by the hand of his daughter,
life and disappointment and vanity sank away from under him.

"You see," said old Osborne to George, "what comes of merit, and
industry, and judicious speculations, and that.  Look at me and my
banker's account.  Look at your poor Grandfather Sedley and his
failure.  And yet he was a better man than I was, this day twenty
years--a better man, I should say, by ten thousand pound."

Beyond these people and Mr. Clapp's family, who came over from Brompton
to pay a visit of condolence, not a single soul alive ever cared a
penny piece about old John Sedley, or remembered the existence of such
a person.

When old Osborne first heard from his friend Colonel Buckler (as little
Georgy had already informed us) how distinguished an officer Major
Dobbin was, he exhibited a great deal of scornful incredulity and
expressed his surprise how ever such a feller as that should possess
either brains or reputation.  But he heard of the Major's fame from
various members of his society.  Sir William Dobbin had a great opinion
of his son and narrated many stories illustrative of the Major's
learning, valour, and estimation in the world's opinion. Finally, his
name appeared in the lists of one or two great parties of the nobility,
and this circumstance had a prodigious effect upon the old aristocrat
of Russell Square.

The Major's position, as guardian to Georgy, whose possession had been
ceded to his grandfather, rendered some meetings between the two
gentlemen inevitable; and it was in one of these that old Osborne, a
keen man of business, looking into the Major's accounts with his ward
and the boy's mother, got a hint, which staggered him very much, and at
once pained and pleased him, that it was out of William Dobbin's own
pocket that a part of the fund had been supplied upon which the poor
widow and the child had subsisted.

When pressed upon the point, Dobbin, who could not tell lies, blushed
and stammered a good deal and finally confessed.  "The marriage," he
said (at which his interlocutor's face grew dark) "was very much my
doing.  I thought my poor friend had gone so far that retreat from his
engagement would have been dishonour to him and death to Mrs. Osborne,
and I could do no less, when she was left without resources, than give
what money I could spare to maintain her."

"Major D.," Mr. Osborne said, looking hard at him and turning very red
too--"you did me a great injury; but give me leave to tell you, sir,
you are an honest feller. There's my hand, sir, though I little thought
that my flesh and blood was living on you--" and the pair shook hands,
with great confusion on Major Dobbin's part, thus found out in his act
of charitable hypocrisy.

He strove to soften the old man and reconcile him towards his son's
memory.  "He was such a noble fellow," he said, "that all of us loved
him, and would have done anything for him.  I, as a young man in those
days, was flattered beyond measure by his preference for me, and was
more pleased to be seen in his company than in that of the
Commander-in-Chief.  I never saw his equal for pluck and daring and all
the qualities of a soldier"; and Dobbin told the old father as many
stories as he could remember regarding the gallantry and achievements
of his son.  "And Georgy is so like him," the Major added.

"He's so like him that he makes me tremble sometimes," the grandfather
said.

On one or two evenings the Major came to dine with Mr. Osborne (it was
during the time of the sickness of Mr. Sedley), and as the two sat
together in the evening after dinner, all their talk was about the
departed hero. The father boasted about him according to his wont,
glorifying himself in recounting his son's feats and gallantry, but his
mood was at any rate better and more charitable than that in which he
had been disposed until now to regard the poor fellow; and the
Christian heart of the kind Major was pleased at these symptoms of
returning peace and good-will.  On the second evening old Osborne
called Dobbin William, just as he used to do at the time when Dobbin
and George were boys together, and the honest gentleman was pleased by
that mark of reconciliation.

On the next day at breakfast, when Miss Osborne, with the asperity of
her age and character, ventured to make some remark reflecting
slightingly upon the Major's appearance or behaviour--the master of the
house interrupted her.  "You'd have been glad enough to git him for
yourself, Miss O.  But them grapes are sour.  Ha!  ha! Major William is
a fine feller."

"That he is, Grandpapa," said Georgy approvingly; and going up close to
the old gentleman, he took a hold of his large grey whiskers, and
laughed in his face good-humouredly, and kissed him.  And he told the
story at night to his mother, who fully agreed with the boy. "Indeed he
is," she said.  "Your dear father always said so. He is one of the best
and most upright of men." Dobbin happened to drop in very soon after
this conversation, which made Amelia blush perhaps, and the young
scapegrace increased the confusion by telling Dobbin the other part of
the story.  "I say, Dob," he said, "there's such an uncommon nice girl
wants to marry you.  She's plenty of tin; she wears a front; and she
scolds the servants from morning till night." "Who is it?" asked
Dobbin.   "It's Aunt O.," the boy answered. "Grandpapa said so.  And I
say, Dob, how prime it would be to have you for my uncle." Old Sedley's
quavering voice from the next room at this moment weakly called for
Amelia, and the laughing ended.

That old Osborne's mind was changing was pretty clear. He asked George
about his uncle sometimes, and laughed at the boy's imitation of the
way in which Jos said "God-bless-my-soul" and gobbled his soup.  Then
he said, "It's not respectful, sir, of you younkers to be imitating of
your relations.  Miss O., when you go out adriving to-day, leave my
card upon Mr. Sedley, do you hear? There's no quarrel betwigst me and
him anyhow."

The card was returned, and Jos and the Major were asked to dinner--to
a dinner the most splendid and stupid that perhaps ever Mr. Osborne
gave; every inch of the family plate was exhibited, and the best
company was asked.  Mr. Sedley took down Miss O.  to dinner, and she
was very gracious to him; whereas she hardly spoke to the Major, who
sat apart from her, and by the side of Mr. Osborne, very timid.  Jos
said, with great solemnity, it was the best turtle soup he had ever
tasted in his life, and asked Mr. Osborne where he got his Madeira.

"It is some of Sedley's wine," whispered the butler to his master.
"I've had it a long time, and paid a good figure for it, too," Mr.
Osborne said aloud to his guest, and then whispered to his right-hand
neighbour how he had got it "at the old chap's sale."

More than once he asked the Major about--about Mrs. George Osborne--a
theme on which the Major could be very eloquent when he chose.  He told
Mr. Osborne of her sufferings--of her passionate attachment to her
husband, whose memory she worshipped still--of the tender and dutiful
manner in which she had supported her parents, and given up her boy,
when it seemed to her her duty to do so.  "You don't know what she
endured, sir," said honest Dobbin with a tremor in his voice, "and I
hope and trust you will be reconciled to her.  If she took your son
away from you, she gave hers to you; and however much you loved your
George, depend on it, she loved hers ten times more."

"By God, you are a good feller, sir," was all Mr. Osborne said.  It had
never struck him that the widow would feel any pain at parting from the
boy, or that his having a fine fortune could grieve her.  A
reconciliation was announced as speedy and inevitable, and Amelia's
heart already began to beat at the notion of the awful meeting with
George's father.

It was never, however, destined to take place.  Old Sedley's lingering
illness and death supervened, after which a meeting was for some time
impossible.  That catastrophe and other events may have worked upon Mr.
Osborne.  He was much shaken of late, and aged, and his mind was
working inwardly.  He had sent for his lawyers, and probably changed
something in his will.  The medical man who looked in pronounced him
shaky, agitated, and talked of a little blood and the seaside; but he
took neither of these remedies.

One day when he should have come down to breakfast, his servant missing
him, went into his dressing-room and found him lying at the foot of the
dressing-table in a fit.  Miss Osborne was apprised; the doctors were
sent for; Georgy stopped away from school; the bleeders and cuppers
came.  Osborne partially regained cognizance, but never could speak
again, though he tried dreadfully once or twice, and in four days he
died.  The doctors went down, and the undertaker's men went up the
stairs, and all the shutters were shut towards the garden in Russell
Square.  Bullock rushed from the City in a hurry. "How much money had
he left to that boy? Not half, surely? Surely share and share alike
between the three?" It was an agitating moment.

What was it that poor old man tried once or twice in vain to say? I
hope it was that he wanted to see Amelia and be reconciled before he
left the world to one dear and faithful wife of his son:  it was most
likely that, for his will showed that the hatred which he had so long
cherished had gone out of his heart.

They found in the pocket of his dressing-gown the letter with the great
red seal which George had written him from Waterloo.  He had looked at
the other papers too, relative to his son, for the key of the box in
which he kept them was also in his pocket, and it was found the seals
and envelopes had been broken--very likely on the night before the
seizure--when the butler had taken him tea into his study, and found
him reading in the great red family Bible.

When the will was opened, it was found that half the property was left
to George, and the remainder between the two sisters.  Mr. Bullock to
continue, for their joint benefit, the affairs of the commercial house,
or to go out, as he thought fit.  An annuity of five hundred pounds,
chargeable on George's property, was left to his mother, "the widow of
my beloved son, George Osborne," who was to resume the guardianship of
the boy.

"Major William Dobbin, my beloved son's friend," was appointed
executor; "and as out of his kindness and bounty, and with his own
private funds, he maintained my grandson and my son's widow, when they
were otherwise without means of support" (the testator went on to say)
"I hereby thank him heartily for his love and regard for them, and
beseech him to accept such a sum as may be sufficient to purchase his
commission as a Lieutenant-Colonel, or to be disposed of in any way he
may think fit."

When Amelia heard that her father-in-law was reconciled to her, her
heart melted, and she was grateful for the fortune left to her.  But
when she heard how Georgy was restored to her, and knew how and by
whom, and how it was William's bounty that supported her in poverty,
how it was William who gave her her husband and her son--oh, then she
sank on her knees, and prayed for blessings on that constant and kind
heart; she bowed down and humbled herself, and kissed the feet, as it
were, of that beautiful and generous affection.

And gratitude was all that she had to pay back for such admirable
devotion and benefits--only gratitude!  If she thought of any other
return, the image of George stood up out of the grave and said, "You
are mine, and mine only, now and forever."

William knew her feelings:  had he not passed his whole life in
divining them?

When the nature of Mr. Osborne's will became known to the world, it was
edifying to remark how Mrs. George Osborne rose in the estimation of
the people forming her circle of acquaintance.  The servants of Jos's
establishment, who used to question her humble orders and say they
would "ask Master" whether or not they could obey, never thought now of
that sort of appeal.  The cook forgot to sneer at her shabby old gowns
(which, indeed, were quite eclipsed by that lady's finery when she was
dressed to go to church of a Sunday evening), the others no longer
grumbled at the sound of her bell, or delayed to answer that summons.
The coachman, who grumbled that his 'osses should be brought out and
his carriage made into an hospital for that old feller and Mrs. O.,
drove her with the utmost alacrity now, and trembling lest he should be
superseded by Mr. Osborne's coachman, asked "what them there Russell
Square coachmen knew about town, and whether they was fit to sit on a
box before a lady?" Jos's friends, male and female, suddenly became
interested about Emmy, and cards of condolence multiplied on her hall
table.  Jos himself, who had looked on her as a good-natured harmless
pauper, to whom it was his duty to give victuals and shelter, paid her
and the rich little boy, his nephew, the greatest respect--was anxious
that she should have change and amusement after her troubles and
trials, "poor dear girl"--and began to appear at the breakfast-table,
and most particularly to ask how she would like to dispose of the day.

In her capacity of guardian to Georgy, she, with the consent of the
Major, her fellow-trustee, begged Miss Osborne to live in the Russell
Square house as long as ever she chose to dwell there; but that lady,
with thanks, declared that she never could think of remaining alone in
that melancholy mansion, and departed in deep mourning to Cheltenham,
with a couple of her old domestics. The rest were liberally paid and
dismissed, the faithful old butler, whom Mrs. Osborne proposed to
retain, resigning and preferring to invest his savings in a
public-house, where, let us hope, he was not unprosperous. Miss Osborne
not choosing to live in Russell Square, Mrs. Osborne also, after
consultation, declined to occupy the gloomy old mansion there.  The
house was dismantled; the rich furniture and effects, the awful
chandeliers and dreary blank mirrors packed away and hidden, the rich
rosewood drawing-room suite was muffled in straw, the carpets were
rolled up and corded, the small select library of well-bound books was
stowed into two wine-chests, and the whole paraphernalia rolled away in
several enormous vans to the Pantechnicon, where they were to lie until
Georgy's majority.  And the great heavy dark plate-chests went off to
Messrs.  Stumpy and Rowdy, to lie in the cellars of those eminent
bankers until the same period should arrive.

One day Emmy, with George in her hand and clad in deep sables, went to
visit the deserted mansion which she had not entered since she was a
girl.  The place in front was littered with straw where the vans had
been laden and rolled off.  They went into the great blank rooms, the
walls of which bore the marks where the pictures and mirrors had hung.
Then they went up the great blank stone staircases into the upper
rooms, into that where grandpapa died, as George said in a whisper, and
then higher still into George's own room.  The boy was still clinging
by her side, but she thought of another besides him.  She knew that it
had been his father's room as well as his own.

She went up to one of the open windows (one of those at which she used
to gaze with a sick heart when the child was first taken from her), and
thence as she looked out she could see, over the trees of Russell
Square, the old house in which she herself was born, and where she had
passed so many happy days of sacred youth. They all came back to her,
the pleasant holidays, the kind faces, the careless, joyful past times,
and the long pains and trials that had since cast her down. She thought
of these and of the man who had been her constant protector, her good
genius, her sole benefactor, her tender and generous friend.

"Look here, Mother," said Georgy, "here's a G.O. scratched on the glass
with a diamond, I never saw it before, I never did it."

"It was your father's room long before you were born, George," she
said, and she blushed as she kissed the boy.

She was very silent as they drove back to Richmond, where they had
taken a temporary house:  where the smiling lawyers used to come
bustling over to see her (and we may be sure noted the visit in the
bill):  and where of course there was a room for Major Dobbin too, who
rode over frequently, having much business to transact on behalf of his
little ward.

Georgy at this time was removed from Mr. Veal's on an unlimited
holiday, and that gentleman was engaged to prepare an inscription for a
fine marble slab, to be placed up in the Foundling under the monument
of Captain George Osborne.

The female Bullock, aunt of Georgy, although despoiled by that little
monster of one-half of the sum which she expected from her father,
nevertheless showed her charitableness of spirit by being reconciled to
the mother and the boy.  Roehampton is not far from Richmond, and one
day the chariot, with the golden bullocks emblazoned on the panels, and
the flaccid children within, drove to Amelia's house at Richmond; and
the Bullock family made an irruption into the garden, where Amelia was
reading a book, Jos was in an arbour placidly dipping strawberries into
wine, and the Major in one of his Indian jackets was giving a back to
Georgy, who chose to jump over him.  He went over his head and bounded
into the little advance of Bullocks, with immense black bows in their
hats, and huge black sashes, accompanying their mourning mamma.

"He is just of the age for Rosa," the fond parent thought, and glanced
towards that dear child, an unwholesome little miss of seven years of
age.

"Rosa, go and kiss your dear cousin," Mrs. Frederick said.  "Don't you
know me, George? I am your aunt."

"I know you well enough," George said; "but I don't like kissing,
please"; and he retreated from the obedient caresses of his cousin.

"Take me to your dear mamma, you droll child," Mrs. Frederick said, and
those ladies accordingly met, after an absence of more than fifteen
years.  During Emmy's cares and poverty the other had never once
thought about coming to see her, but now that she was decently
prosperous in the world, her sister-in-law came to her as a matter of
course.

So did numbers more.  Our old friend, Miss Swartz, and her husband came
thundering over from Hampton Court, with flaming yellow liveries, and
was as impetuously fond of Amelia as ever.  Miss Swartz would have
liked her always if she could have seen her.  One must do her that
justice.  But, que voulez vous?--in this vast town one has not the time
to go and seek one's friends; if they drop out of the rank they
disappear, and we march on without them.  Who is ever missed in Vanity
Fair?

But so, in a word, and before the period of grief for Mr. Osborne's
death had subsided, Emmy found herself in the centre of a very genteel
circle indeed, the members of which could not conceive that anybody
belonging to it was not very lucky.  There was scarce one of the ladies
that hadn't a relation a Peer, though the husband might be a drysalter
in the City.  Some of the ladies were very blue and well informed,
reading Mrs. Somerville and frequenting the Royal Institution; others
were severe and Evangelical, and held by Exeter Hall. Emmy, it must be
owned, found herself entirely at a loss in the midst of their clavers,
and suffered woefully on the one or two occasions on which she was
compelled to accept Mrs. Frederick Bullock's hospitalities.  That lady
persisted in patronizing her and determined most graciously to form
her.  She found Amelia's milliners for her and regulated her household
and her manners.  She drove over constantly from Roehampton and
entertained her friend with faint fashionable fiddle-faddle and feeble
Court slip-slop. Jos liked to hear it, but the Major used to go off
growling at the appearance of this woman, with her twopenny gentility.
He went to sleep under Frederick Bullock's bald head, after dinner, at
one of the banker's best parties (Fred was still anxious that the
balance of the Osborne property should be transferred from Stumpy and
Rowdy's to them), and whilst Amelia, who did not know Latin, or who
wrote the last crack article in the Edinburgh, and did not in the least
deplore, or otherwise, Mr. Peel's late extraordinary tergiversation on
the fatal Catholic Relief Bill, sat dumb amongst the ladies in the
grand drawing-room, looking out upon velvet lawns, trim gravel walks,
and glistening hot-houses.

"She seems good-natured but insipid," said Mrs. Rowdy; "that Major
seems to be particularly epris."

"She wants ton sadly," said Mrs. Hollyock.  "My dear creature, you
never will be able to form her."

"She is dreadfully ignorant or indifferent," said Mrs. Glowry with a
voice as if from the grave, and a sad shake of the head and turban. "I
asked her if she thought that it was in 1836, according to Mr. Jowls,
or in 1839, according to Mr. Wapshot, that the Pope was to fall: and
she said--'Poor Pope!  I hope not--What has he done?'"

"She is my brother's widow, my dear friends," Mrs. Frederick replied,
"and as such I think we're all bound to give her every attention and
instruction on entering into the world.  You may fancy there can be no
MERCENARY motives in those whose DISAPPOINTMENTS are well known."

"That poor dear Mrs. Bullock," said Rowdy to Hollyock, as they drove
away together--"she is always scheming and managing.  She wants Mrs.
Osborne's account to be taken from our house to hers--and the way in
which she coaxes that boy and makes him sit by that blear-eyed little
Rosa is perfectly ridiculous."

"I wish Glowry was choked with her Man of Sin and her Battle of
Armageddon," cried the other, and the carriage rolled away over Putney
Bridge.

But this sort of society was too cruelly genteel for Emmy, and all
jumped for joy when a foreign tour was proposed.

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

completion: Not long after Mrs. Sedley's death and Jos and Dobbin's return, Mr. Sedley takes a turn for the worse. Clearly he's about to die. Amelia takes care of him during his final days, and Mr. Sedley loves her more and more for it. Finally he apologizes for how he and her mother were angry with her over her excessive devotion to George Jr. Aw, folks - closure. The narrator talks a bit about how a good death is quiet, calm, resigned, and reconciled. Mr. Sedley dies. Mr. Osborne is one of the few people who even remembers who Mr. Sedley was, and his death really affects him. Also, he figures out two things: 1) Dobbin has a really impressive military career, even though he is modest and doesn't really talk about it; and 2) Amelia and her family were basically supported almost solely by Dobbin while Mr. Osborne refused to acknowledge their existence. Mr. Osborne is floored by this discovery. He makes up with Dobbin and invites him to dinner a few times. Then Mr. Osborne leaves his card with Jos. Jos comes over to dinner at the Osborne mansion a few times. Seems like a slow reconciliation is in progress. But, it's not to be. Remember how the title says that two lights are going to be put out? Sedley was one. You can probably guess who number two will be. Yes, that's right. Just before he can make up with Amelia, Mr. Osborne has a stroke or something - some kind of medical issue where he can't talk but lives for a few more days. Finally he dies. It turns out that Osbourne changed his will again just before he died. He leaves half of his property to George Jr. and the other half is split between the two Osborne sisters. Wow, crazy, since originally George was written out of the will entirely. Also he leaves Amelia 500 pounds a year, which is a pretty amazing fortune , and enough to Dobbin to buy him his next rank, Colonel. Amelia is happy to hear that Mr. Osborne apparently forgave her and dead George before he died, and she in turn forgives him too. She and George Jr. go to visit the old Osborne mansion before it's taken apart and sold. As soon as everyone learns how much Amelia now has, they start being nice to her again. Suddenly old friends come out of the woodwork to visit her. But she's bored to pieces with the company of Jos's friends and Mrs. Frederick Bullock's friends. So a trip abroad is proposed!