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.



Am Rhein

The above everyday events had occurred, and a few weeks had passed,
when on one fine morning, Parliament being over, the summer advanced,
and all the good company in London about to quit that city for their
annual tour in search of pleasure or health, the Batavier steamboat
left the Tower-stairs laden with a goodly company of English fugitives.
The quarter-deck awnings were up, and the benches and gangways crowded
with scores of rosy children, bustling nursemaids; ladies in the
prettiest pink bonnets and summer dresses; gentlemen in travelling caps
and linen-jackets, whose mustachios had just begun to sprout for the
ensuing tour; and stout trim old veterans with starched neckcloths and
neat-brushed hats, such as have invaded Europe any time since the
conclusion of the war, and carry the national Goddem into every city of
the Continent.  The congregation of hat-boxes, and Bramah desks, and
dressing-cases was prodigious.  There were jaunty young Cambridge-men
travelling with their tutor, and going for a reading excursion to
Nonnenwerth or Konigswinter; there were Irish gentlemen, with the most
dashing whiskers and jewellery, talking about horses incessantly, and
prodigiously polite to the young ladies on board, whom, on the
contrary, the Cambridge lads and their pale-faced tutor avoided with
maiden coyness; there were old Pall Mall loungers bound for Ems and
Wiesbaden and a course of waters to clear off the dinners of the
season, and a little roulette and trente-et-quarante to keep the
excitement going; there was old Methuselah, who had married his young
wife, with Captain Papillon of the Guards holding her parasol and
guide-books; there was young May who was carrying off his bride on a
pleasure tour (Mrs. Winter that was, and who had been at school with
May's grandmother); there was Sir John and my Lady with a dozen
children, and corresponding nursemaids; and the great grandee Bareacres
family that sat by themselves near the wheel, stared at everybody, and
spoke to no one.  Their carriages, emblazoned with coronets and heaped
with shining imperials, were on the foredeck, locked in with a dozen
more such vehicles:  it was difficult to pass in and out amongst them;
and the poor inmates of the fore-cabin had scarcely any space for
locomotion.  These consisted of a few magnificently attired gentlemen
from Houndsditch, who brought their own provisions, and could have
bought half the gay people in the grand saloon; a few honest fellows
with mustachios and portfolios, who set to sketching before they had
been half an hour on board; one or two French femmes de chambre who
began to be dreadfully ill by the time the boat had passed Greenwich; a
groom or two who lounged in the neighbourhood of the horse-boxes under
their charge, or leaned over the side by the paddle-wheels, and talked
about who was good for the Leger, and what they stood to win or lose
for the Goodwood cup.

All the couriers, when they had done plunging about the ship and had
settled their various masters in the cabins or on the deck, congregated
together and began to chatter and smoke; the Hebrew gentlemen joining
them and looking at the carriages.  There was Sir John's great carriage
that would hold thirteen people; my Lord Methuselah's carriage, my Lord
Bareacres' chariot, britzska, and fourgon, that anybody might pay for
who liked. It was a wonder how my Lord got the ready money to pay for
the expenses of the journey. The Hebrew gentlemen knew how he got it.
They knew what money his Lordship had in his pocket at that instant,
and what interest he paid for it, and who gave it him.  Finally there
was a very neat, handsome travelling carriage, about which the
gentlemen speculated.

"A qui cette voiture la?" said one gentleman-courier with a large
morocco money-bag and ear-rings to another with ear-rings and a large
morocco money-bag.

"C'est a Kirsch je bense--je l'ai vu toute a l'heure--qui brenoit des
sangviches dans la voiture," said the courier in a fine German French.

Kirsch emerging presently from the neighbourhood of the hold, where he
had been bellowing instructions intermingled with polyglot oaths to the
ship's men engaged in secreting the passengers' luggage, came to give
an account of himself to his brother interpreters.  He informed them
that the carriage belonged to a Nabob from Calcutta and Jamaica
enormously rich, and with whom he was engaged to travel; and at this
moment a young gentleman who had been warned off the bridge between the
paddle-boxes, and who had dropped thence on to the roof of Lord
Methuselah's carriage, from which he made his way over other carriages
and imperials until he had clambered on to his own, descended thence
and through the window into the body of the carriage, to the applause
of the couriers looking on.

"Nous allons avoir une belle traversee, Monsieur George," said the
courier with a grin, as he lifted his gold-laced cap.

"D---- your French," said the young gentleman, "where's the biscuits,
ay?" Whereupon Kirsch answered him in the English language or in such
an imitation of it as he could command--for though he was familiar with
all languages, Mr. Kirsch was not acquainted with a single one, and
spoke all with indifferent volubility and incorrectness.

The imperious young gentleman who gobbled the biscuits (and indeed it
was time to refresh himself, for he had breakfasted at Richmond full
three hours before) was our young friend George Osborne.  Uncle Jos and
his mamma were on the quarter-deck with a gentleman of whom they used
to see a good deal, and the four were about to make a summer tour.

Jos was seated at that moment on deck under the awning, and pretty
nearly opposite to the Earl of Bareacres and his family, whose
proceedings absorbed the Bengalee almost entirely.  Both the noble
couple looked rather younger than in the eventful year '15, when Jos
remembered to have seen them at Brussels (indeed, he always gave out in
India that he was intimately acquainted with them).  Lady Bareacres'
hair, which was then dark, was now a beautiful golden auburn, whereas
Lord Bareacres' whiskers, formerly red, were at present of a rich black
with purple and green reflections in the light.  But changed as they
were, the movements of the noble pair occupied Jos's mind entirely.
The presence of a Lord fascinated him, and he could look at nothing
else.

"Those people seem to interest you a good deal," said Dobbin, laughing
and watching him.  Amelia too laughed. She was in a straw bonnet with
black ribbons, and otherwise dressed in mourning, but the little bustle
and holiday of the journey pleased and excited her, and she looked
particularly happy.

"What a heavenly day!" Emmy said and added, with great originality, "I
hope we shall have a calm passage."

Jos waved his hand, scornfully glancing at the same time under his
eyelids at the great folks opposite.  "If you had made the voyages we
have," he said, "you wouldn't much care about the weather." But
nevertheless, traveller as he was, he passed the night direfully sick
in his carriage, where his courier tended him with brandy-and-water
and every luxury.

In due time this happy party landed at the quays of Rotterdam, whence
they were transported by another steamer to the city of Cologne.  Here
the carriage and the family took to the shore, and Jos was not a little
gratified to see his arrival announced in the Cologne newspapers as
"Herr Graf Lord von Sedley nebst Begleitung aus London." He had his
court dress with him; he had insisted that Dobbin should bring his
regimental paraphernalia; he announced that it was his intention to be
presented at some foreign courts, and pay his respects to the
Sovereigns of the countries which he honoured with a visit.

Wherever the party stopped, and an opportunity was offered, Mr. Jos
left his own card and the Major's upon "Our Minister." It was with
great difficulty that he could be restrained from putting on his cocked
hat and tights to wait upon the English consul at the Free City of
Judenstadt, when that hospitable functionary asked our travellers to
dinner.  He kept a journal of his voyage and noted elaborately the
defects or excellences of the various inns at which he put up, and of
the wines and dishes of which he partook.

As for Emmy, she was very happy and pleased.  Dobbin used to carry
about for her her stool and sketch-book, and admired the drawings of
the good-natured little artist as they never had been admired before.
She sat upon steamers' decks and drew crags and castles, or she mounted
upon donkeys and ascended to ancient robber-towers, attended by her two
aides-de-camp, Georgy and Dobbin.  She laughed, and the Major did too,
at his droll figure on donkey-back, with his long legs touching the
ground.  He was the interpreter for the party; having a good military
knowledge of the German language, and he and the delighted George
fought the campaigns of the Rhine and the Palatinate.  In the course of
a few weeks, and by assiduously conversing with Herr Kirsch on the box
of the carriage, Georgy made prodigious advance in the knowledge of
High Dutch, and could talk to hotel waiters and postilions in a way
that charmed his mother and amused his guardian.

Mr. Jos did not much engage in the afternoon excursions of his
fellow-travellers.  He slept a good deal after dinner, or basked in the
arbours of the pleasant inn-gardens.  Pleasant Rhine gardens! Fair
scenes of peace and sunshine--noble purple mountains, whose crests are
reflected in the magnificent stream--who has ever seen you that has not
a grateful memory of those scenes of friendly repose and beauty? To lay
down the pen and even to think of that beautiful Rhineland makes one
happy.  At this time of summer evening, the cows are trooping down from
the hills, lowing and with their bells tinkling, to the old town, with
its old moats, and gates, and spires, and chestnut-trees, with long
blue shadows stretching over the grass; the sky and the river below
flame in crimson and gold; and the moon is already out, looking pale
towards the sunset.  The sun sinks behind the great castle-crested
mountains, the night falls suddenly, the river grows darker and darker,
lights quiver in it from the windows in the old ramparts, and twinkle
peacefully in the villages under the hills on the opposite shore.

So Jos used to go to sleep a good deal with his bandanna over his face
and be very comfortable, and read all the English news, and every word
of Galignani's admirable newspaper (may the blessings of all Englishmen
who have ever been abroad rest on the founders and proprietors of that
piratical print!  ) and whether he woke or slept, his friends did not
very much miss him.  Yes, they were very happy.  They went to the opera
often of evenings--to those snug, unassuming, dear old operas in the
German towns, where the noblesse sits and cries, and knits stockings on
the one side, over against the bourgeoisie on the other; and His
Transparency the Duke and his Transparent family, all very fat and
good-natured, come and occupy the great box in the middle; and the pit
is full of the most elegant slim-waisted officers with straw-coloured
mustachios, and twopence a day on full pay. Here it was that Emmy found
her delight, and was introduced for the first time to the wonders of
Mozart and Cimarosa. The Major's musical taste has been before alluded
to, and his performances on the flute commended. But perhaps the chief
pleasure he had in these operas was in watching Emmy's rapture while
listening to them. A new world of love and beauty broke upon her when
she was introduced to those divine compositions; this lady had the
keenest and finest sensibility, and how could she be indifferent when
she heard Mozart? The tender parts of "Don Juan" awakened in her
raptures so exquisite that she would ask herself when she went to say
her prayers of a night whether it was not wicked to feel so much
delight as that with which "Vedrai Carino" and "Batti Batti" filled her
gentle little bosom? But the Major, whom she consulted upon this head,
as her theological adviser (and who himself had a pious and reverent
soul), said that for his part, every beauty of art or nature made him
thankful as well as happy, and that the pleasure to be had in listening
to fine music, as in looking at the stars in the sky, or at a beautiful
landscape or picture, was a benefit for which we might thank Heaven as
sincerely as for any other worldly blessing.  And in reply to some
faint objections of Mrs. Amelia's (taken from certain theological works
like the Washerwoman of Finchley Common and others of that school, with
which Mrs. Osborne had been furnished during her life at Brompton) he
told her an Eastern fable of the Owl who thought that the sunshine was
unbearable for the eyes and that the Nightingale was a most overrated
bird.  "It is one's nature to sing and the other's to hoot," he said,
laughing, "and with such a sweet voice as you have yourself, you must
belong to the Bulbul faction."

I like to dwell upon this period of her life and to think that she was
cheerful and happy.  You see, she has not had too much of that sort of
existence as yet, and has not fallen in the way of means to educate her
tastes or her intelligence.  She has been domineered over hitherto by
vulgar intellects.  It is the lot of many a woman. And as every one of
the dear sex is the rival of the rest of her kind, timidity passes for
folly in their charitable judgments; and gentleness for dulness; and
silence--which is but timid denial of the unwelcome assertion of ruling
folks, and tacit protestantism--above all, finds no mercy at the hands
of the female Inquisition. Thus, my dear and civilized reader, if you
and I were to find ourselves this evening in a society of greengrocers,
let us say, it is probable that our conversation would not be
brilliant; if, on the other hand, a greengrocer should find himself at
your refined and polite tea-table, where everybody was saying witty
things, and everybody of fashion and repute tearing her friends to
pieces in the most delightful manner, it is possible that the stranger
would not be very talkative and by no means interesting or interested.

And it must be remembered that this poor lady had never met a gentleman
in her life until this present moment.  Perhaps these are rarer
personages than some of us think for.  Which of us can point out many
such in his circle--men whose aims are generous, whose truth is
constant, and not only constant in its kind but elevated in its degree;
whose want of meanness makes them simple; who can look the world
honestly in the face with an equal manly sympathy for the great and the
small? We all know a hundred whose coats are very well made, and a
score who have excellent manners, and one or two happy beings who are
what they call in the inner circles, and have shot into the very centre
and bull's-eye of the fashion; but of gentlemen how many? Let us take a
little scrap of paper and each make out his list.

My friend the Major I write, without any doubt, in mine.  He had very
long legs, a yellow face, and a slight lisp, which at first was rather
ridiculous.  But his thoughts were just, his brains were fairly good,
his life was honest and pure, and his heart warm and humble.  He
certainly had very large hands and feet, which the two George Osbornes
used to caricature and laugh at; and their jeers and laughter perhaps
led poor little Emmy astray as to his worth.  But have we not all been
misled about our heroes and changed our opinions a hundred times? Emmy,
in this happy time, found that hers underwent a very great change in
respect of the merits of the Major.

Perhaps it was the happiest time of both their lives, indeed, if they
did but know it--and who does? Which of us can point out and say that
was the culmination--that was the summit of human joy? But at all
events, this couple were very decently contented, and enjoyed as
pleasant a summer tour as any pair that left England that year. Georgy
was always present at the play, but it was the Major who put Emmy's
shawl on after the entertainment; and in the walks and excursions the
young lad would be on ahead, and up a tower-stair or a tree, whilst the
soberer couple were below, the Major smoking his cigar with great
placidity and constancy, whilst Emmy sketched the site or the ruin.  It
was on this very tour that I, the present writer of a history of which
every word is true, had the pleasure to see them first and to make
their acquaintance.

It was at the little comfortable Ducal town of Pumpernickel (that very
place where Sir Pitt Crawley had been so distinguished as an attache;
but that was in early early days, and before the news of the Battle of
Austerlitz sent all the English diplomatists in Germany to the right
about) that I first saw Colonel Dobbin and his party.  They had arrived
with the carriage and courier at the Erbprinz Hotel, the best of the
town, and the whole party dined at the table d'hote.  Everybody
remarked the majesty of Jos and the knowing way in which he sipped, or
rather sucked, the Johannisberger, which he ordered for dinner.  The
little boy, too, we observed, had a famous appetite, and consumed
schinken, and braten, and kartoffeln, and cranberry jam, and salad, and
pudding, and roast fowls, and sweetmeats, with a gallantry that did
honour to his nation.  After about fifteen dishes, he concluded the
repast with dessert, some of which he even carried out of doors, for
some young gentlemen at table, amused with his coolness and gallant
free-and-easy manner, induced him to pocket a handful of macaroons,
which he discussed on his way to the theatre, whither everybody went in
the cheery social little German place. The lady in black, the boy's
mamma, laughed and blushed, and looked exceedingly pleased and shy as
the dinner went on, and at the various feats and instances of
espieglerie on the part of her son.  The Colonel--for so he became very
soon afterwards--I remember joked the boy with a great deal of grave
fun, pointing out dishes which he hadn't tried, and entreating him not
to baulk his appetite, but to have a second supply of this or that.

It was what they call a gast-rolle night at the Royal Grand Ducal
Pumpernickelisch Hof--or Court theatre--and Madame Schroeder Devrient,
then in the bloom of her beauty and genius, performed the part of the
heroine in the wonderful opera of Fidelio.  From our places in the
stalls we could see our four friends of the table d'hote in the loge
which Schwendler of the Erbprinz kept for his best guests, and I could
not help remarking the effect which the magnificent actress and music
produced upon Mrs. Osborne, for so we heard the stout gentleman in the
mustachios call her.  During the astonishing Chorus of the Prisoners,
over which the delightful voice of the actress rose and soared in the
most ravishing harmony, the English lady's face wore such an expression
of wonder and delight that it struck even little Fipps, the blase
attache, who drawled out, as he fixed his glass upon her, "Gayd, it
really does one good to see a woman caypable of that stayt of
excaytement." And in the Prison Scene, where Fidelio, rushing to her
husband, cries, "Nichts, nichts, mein Florestan," she fairly lost
herself and covered her face with her handkerchief.  Every woman in the
house was snivelling at the time, but I suppose it was because it was
predestined that I was to write this particular lady's memoirs that I
remarked her.

The next day they gave another piece of Beethoven, Die Schlacht bei
Vittoria.  Malbrook is introduced at the beginning of the performance,
as indicative of the brisk advance of the French army. Then come drums,
trumpets, thunders of artillery, and groans of the dying, and at last,
in a grand triumphal swell, "God Save the King" is performed.

There may have been a score of Englishmen in the house, but at the
burst of that beloved and well-known music, every one of them, we young
fellows in the stalls, Sir John and Lady Bullminster (who had taken a
house at Pumpernickel for the education of their nine children), the
fat gentleman with the mustachios, the long Major in white duck
trousers, and the lady with the little boy upon whom he was so sweet,
even Kirsch, the courier in the gallery, stood bolt upright in their
places and proclaimed themselves to be members of the dear old British
nation.  As for Tapeworm, the Charge d'Affaires, he rose up in his box
and bowed and simpered, as if he would represent the whole empire.
Tapeworm was nephew and heir of old Marshal Tiptoff, who has been
introduced in this story as General Tiptoff, just before Waterloo, who
was Colonel of the --th regiment in which Major Dobbin served, and who
died in this year full of honours, and of an aspic of plovers' eggs;
when the regiment was graciously given by his Majesty to Colonel Sir
Michael O'Dowd, K.C.B.  who had commanded it in many glorious fields.

Tapeworm must have met with Colonel Dobbin at the house of the
Colonel's Colonel, the Marshal, for he recognized him on this night at
the theatre, and with the utmost condescension, his Majesty's minister
came over from his own box and publicly shook hands with his new-found
friend.

"Look at that infernal sly-boots of a Tapeworm," Fipps whispered,
examining his chief from the stalls. "Wherever there's a pretty woman
he always twists himself in." And I wonder what were diplomatists made
for but for that?

"Have I the honour of addressing myself to Mrs. Dobbin?" asked the
Secretary with a most insinuating grin.

Georgy burst out laughing and said, "By Jove, that was a good 'un."
Emmy and the Major blushed:  we saw them from the stalls.

"This lady is Mrs. George Osborne," said the Major, "and this is her
brother, Mr. Sedley, a distinguished officer of the Bengal Civil
Service:  permit me to introduce him to your lordship."

My lord nearly sent Jos off his legs with the most fascinating smile.
"Are you going to stop in Pumpernickel?" he said.  "It is a dull place,
but we want some nice people, and we would try and make it SO agreeable
to you.  Mr.--Ahum--Mrs.--Oho.  I shall do myself the honour of calling
upon you to-morrow at your inn." And he went away with a Parthian grin
and glance which he thought must finish Mrs. Osborne completely.

The performance over, the young fellows lounged about the lobbies, and
we saw the society take its departure. The Duchess Dowager went off in
her jingling old coach, attended by two faithful and withered old maids
of honour, and a little snuffy spindle-shanked gentleman in waiting, in
a brown jasey and a green coat covered with orders--of which the star
and the grand yellow cordon of the order of St. Michael of Pumpernickel
were most conspicuous.  The drums rolled, the guards saluted, and the
old carriage drove away.

Then came his Transparency the Duke and Transparent family, with his
great officers of state and household.  He bowed serenely to everybody.
And amid the saluting of the guards and the flaring of the torches of
the running footmen, clad in scarlet, the Transparent carriages drove
away to the old Ducal schloss, with its towers and pinacles standing on
the schlossberg.  Everybody in Pumpernickel knew everybody.  No sooner
was a foreigner seen there than the Minister of Foreign Affairs, or
some other great or small officer of state, went round to the Erbprinz
and found out the name of the new arrival.

We watched them, too, out of the theatre.  Tapeworm had just walked
off, enveloped in his cloak, with which his gigantic chasseur was
always in attendance, and looking as much as possible like Don Juan.
The Prime Minister's lady had just squeezed herself into her sedan, and
her daughter, the charming Ida, had put on her calash and clogs; when
the English party came out, the boy yawning drearily, the Major taking
great pains in keeping the shawl over Mrs. Osborne's head, and Mr.
Sedley looking grand, with a crush opera-hat on one side of his head
and his hand in the stomach of a voluminous white waistcoat.  We took
off our hats to our acquaintances of the table d'hote, and the lady, in
return, presented us with a little smile and a curtsey, for which
everybody might be thankful.

The carriage from the inn, under the superintendence of the bustling
Mr. Kirsch, was in waiting to convey the party; but the fat man said he
would walk and smoke his cigar on his way homewards, so the other
three, with nods and smiles to us, went without Mr. Sedley, Kirsch,
with the cigar case, following in his master's wake.

We all walked together and talked to the stout gentleman about the
agremens of the place.  It was very agreeable for the English. There
were shooting-parties and battues; there was a plenty of balls and
entertainments at the hospitable Court; the society was generally good;
the theatre excellent; and the living cheap.

"And our Minister seems a most delightful and affable person," our new
friend said.  "With such a representative, and--and a good medical man,
I can fancy the place to be most eligible.  Good-night, gentlemen." And
Jos creaked up the stairs to bedward, followed by Kirsch with a
flambeau.  We rather hoped that nice-looking woman would be induced to
stay some time in the town.



In Which We Meet an Old Acquaintance

Such polite behaviour as that of Lord Tapeworm did not fail to have the
most favourable effect upon Mr. Sedley's mind, and the very next
morning, at breakfast, he pronounced his opinion that Pumpernickel was
the pleasantest little place of any which he had visited on their tour.
Jos's motives and artifices were not very difficult of comprehension,
and Dobbin laughed in his sleeve, like a hypocrite as he was, when he
found, by the knowing air of the civilian and the offhand manner in
which the latter talked about Tapeworm Castle and the other members of
the family, that Jos had been up already in the morning, consulting his
travelling Peerage.  Yes, he had seen the Right Honourable the Earl of
Bagwig, his lordship's father; he was sure he had, he had met him
at--at the Levee--didn't Dob remember? and when the Diplomatist called
on the party, faithful to his promise, Jos received him with such a
salute and honours as were seldom accorded to the little Envoy.  He
winked at Kirsch on his Excellency's arrival, and that emissary,
instructed before-hand, went out and superintended an entertainment of
cold meats, jellies, and other delicacies, brought in upon trays, and
of which Mr. Jos absolutely insisted that his noble guest should
partake.

Tapeworm, so long as he could have an opportunity of admiring the
bright eyes of Mrs. Osborne (whose freshness of complexion bore
daylight remarkably well) was not ill pleased to accept any invitation
to stay in Mr. Sedley's lodgings; he put one or two dexterous questions
to him about India and the dancing-girls there; asked Amelia about that
beautiful boy who had been with her; and complimented the astonished
little woman upon the prodigious sensation which she had made in the
house; and tried to fascinate Dobbin by talking of the late war and the
exploits of the Pumpernickel contingent under the command of the
Hereditary Prince, now Duke of Pumpernickel.

Lord Tapeworm inherited no little portion of the family gallantry, and
it was his happy belief that almost every woman upon whom he himself
cast friendly eyes was in love with him.  He left Emmy under the
persuasion that she was slain by his wit and attractions and went home
to his lodgings to write a pretty little note to her.  She was not
fascinated, only puzzled, by his grinning, his simpering, his scented
cambric handkerchief, and his high-heeled lacquered boots.  She did not
understand one-half the compliments which he paid; she had never, in
her small experience of mankind, met a professional ladies' man as yet,
and looked upon my lord as something curious rather than pleasant; and
if she did not admire, certainly wondered at him.  Jos, on the
contrary, was delighted. "How very affable his Lordship is," he said;
"How very kind of his Lordship to say he would send his medical man!
Kirsch, you will carry our cards to the Count de Schlusselback
directly; the Major and I will have the greatest pleasure in paying our
respects at Court as soon as possible.  Put out my uniform,
Kirsch--both our uniforms.  It is a mark of politeness which every
English gentleman ought to show to the countries which he visits to pay
his respects to the sovereigns of those countries as to the
representatives of his own."

When Tapeworm's doctor came, Doctor von Glauber, Body Physician to
H.S.H.  the Duke, he speedily convinced Jos that the Pumpernickel
mineral springs and the Doctor's particular treatment would infallibly
restore the Bengalee to youth and slimness.  "Dere came here last
year," he said, "Sheneral Bulkeley, an English Sheneral, tvice so pic
as you, sir.  I sent him back qvite tin after tree months, and he
danced vid Baroness Glauber at the end of two."

Jos's mind was made up; the springs, the Doctor, the Court, and the
Charge d'Affaires convinced him, and he proposed to spend the autumn in
these delightful quarters.  And punctual to his word, on the next day
the Charge d'Affaires presented Jos and the Major to Victor Aurelius
XVII, being conducted to their audience with that sovereign by the
Count de Schlusselback, Marshal of the Court.

They were straightway invited to dinner at Court, and their intention
of staying in the town being announced, the politest ladies of the
whole town instantly called upon Mrs. Osborne; and as not one of these,
however poor they might be, was under the rank of a Baroness, Jos's
delight was beyond expression.  He wrote off to Chutney at the Club to
say that the Service was highly appreciated in Germany, that he was
going to show his friend, the Count de Schlusselback, how to stick a
pig in the Indian fashion, and that his august friends, the Duke and
Duchess, were everything that was kind and civil.

Emmy, too, was presented to the august family, and as mourning is not
admitted in Court on certain days, she appeared in a pink crape dress
with a diamond ornament in the corsage, presented to her by her
brother, and she looked so pretty in this costume that the Duke and
Court (putting out of the question the Major, who had scarcely ever
seen her before in an evening dress, and vowed that she did not look
five-and-twenty) all admired her excessively.

In this dress she walked a Polonaise with Major Dobbin at a Court ball,
in which easy dance Mr. Jos had the honour of leading out the Countess
of Schlusselback, an old lady with a hump back, but with sixteen good
quarters of nobility and related to half the royal houses of Germany.

Pumpernickel stands in the midst of a happy valley through which
sparkles--to mingle with the Rhine somewhere, but I have not the map at
hand to say exactly at what point--the fertilizing stream of the Pump.
In some places the river is big enough to support a ferry-boat, in
others to turn a mill; in Pumpernickel itself, the last Transparency
but three, the great and renowned Victor Aurelius XIV built a
magnificent bridge, on which his own statue rises, surrounded by
water-nymphs and emblems of victory, peace, and plenty; he has his foot
on the neck of a prostrate Turk--history says he engaged and ran a
Janissary through the body at the relief of Vienna by Sobieski--but,
quite undisturbed by the agonies of that prostrate Mahometan, who
writhes at his feet in the most ghastly manner, the Prince smiles
blandly and points with his truncheon in the direction of the Aurelius
Platz, where he began to erect a new palace that would have been the
wonder of his age had the great-souled Prince but had funds to
complete it.  But the completion of Monplaisir (Monblaisir the honest
German folks call it) was stopped for lack of ready money, and it and
its park and garden are now in rather a faded condition, and not more
than ten times big enough to accommodate the Court of the reigning
Sovereign.

The gardens were arranged to emulate those of Versailles, and amidst
the terraces and groves there are some huge allegorical waterworks
still, which spout and froth stupendously upon fete-days, and frighten
one with their enormous aquatic insurrections.  There is the
Trophonius' cave in which, by some artifice, the leaden Tritons are
made not only to spout water, but to play the most dreadful groans out
of their lead conchs--there is the nymphbath and the Niagara cataract,
which the people of the neighbourhood admire beyond expression, when
they come to the yearly fair at the opening of the Chamber, or to the
fetes with which the happy little nation still celebrates the birthdays
and marriage-days of its princely governors.

Then from all the towns of the Duchy, which stretches for nearly ten
mile--from Bolkum, which lies on its western frontier bidding defiance
to Prussia, from Grogwitz, where the Prince has a hunting-lodge, and
where his dominions are separated by the Pump River from those of the
neighbouring Prince of Potzenthal; from all the little villages, which
besides these three great cities, dot over the happy principality--from
the farms and the mills along the Pump come troops of people in red
petticoats and velvet head-dresses, or with three-cornered hats and
pipes in their mouths, who flock to the Residenz and share in the
pleasures of the fair and the festivities there.  Then the theatre is
open for nothing, then the waters of Monblaisir begin to play (it is
lucky that there is company to behold them, for one would be afraid to
see them alone)--then there come mountebanks and riding troops (the way
in which his Transparency was fascinated by one of the horse-riders is
well known, and it is believed that La Petite Vivandiere, as she was
called, was a spy in the French interest), and the delighted people are
permitted to march through room after room of the Grand Ducal palace
and admire the slippery floor, the rich hangings, and the spittoons at
the doors of all the innumerable chambers.  There is one Pavilion at
Monblaisir which Aurelius Victor XV had arranged--a great Prince but
too fond of pleasure--and which I am told is a perfect wonder of
licentious elegance. It is painted with the story of Bacchus and
Ariadne, and the table works in and out of the room by means of a
windlass, so that the company was served without any intervention of
domestics.  But the place was shut up by Barbara, Aurelius XV's widow,
a severe and devout Princess of the House of Bolkum and Regent of the
Duchy during her son's glorious minority, and after the death of her
husband, cut off in the pride of his pleasures.

The theatre of Pumpernickel is known and famous in that quarter of
Germany.  It languished a little when the present Duke in his youth
insisted upon having his own operas played there, and it is said one
day, in a fury, from his place in the orchestra, when he attended a
rehearsal, broke a bassoon on the head of the Chapel Master, who was
conducting, and led too slow; and during which time the Duchess Sophia
wrote domestic comedies, which must have been very dreary to witness.
But the Prince executes his music in private now, and the Duchess only
gives away her plays to the foreigners of distinction who visit her
kind little Court.

It is conducted with no small comfort and splendour. When there are
balls, though there may be four hundred people at supper, there is a
servant in scarlet and lace to attend upon every four, and every one is
served on silver.  There are festivals and entertainments going
continually on, and the Duke has his chamberlains and equerries, and
the Duchess her mistress of the wardrobe and ladies of honour, just
like any other and more potent potentates.

The Constitution is or was a moderate despotism, tempered by a Chamber
that might or might not be elected.  I never certainly could hear of
its sitting in my time at Pumpernickel.  The Prime Minister had
lodgings in a second floor, and the Foreign Secretary occupied the
comfortable lodgings over Zwieback's Conditorey.  The army consisted of
a magnificent band that also did duty on the stage, where it was quite
pleasant to see the worthy fellows marching in Turkish dresses with
rouge on and wooden scimitars, or as Roman warriors with ophicleides
and trombones--to see them again, I say, at night, after one had
listened to them all the morning in the Aurelius Platz, where they
performed opposite the cafe where we breakfasted.  Besides the band,
there was a rich and numerous staff of officers, and, I believe, a few
men.  Besides the regular sentries, three or four men, habited as
hussars, used to do duty at the Palace, but I never saw them on
horseback, and au fait, what was the use of cavalry in a time of
profound peace?--and whither the deuce should the hussars ride?

Everybody--everybody that was noble of course, for as for the bourgeois
we could not quite be expected to take notice of THEM--visited his
neighbour.  H. E. Madame de Burst received once a week, H. E. Madame de
Schnurrbart had her night--the theatre was open twice a week, the Court
graciously received once, so that a man's life might in fact be a
perfect round of pleasure in the unpretending Pumpernickel way.

That there were feuds in the place, no one can deny. Politics ran very
high at Pumpernickel, and parties were very bitter.  There was the
Strumpff faction and the Lederlung party, the one supported by our
envoy and the other by the French Charge d'Affaires, M. de Macabau.
Indeed it sufficed for our Minister to stand up for Madame Strumpff,
who was clearly the greater singer of the two, and had three more notes
in her voice than Madame Lederlung her rival--it sufficed, I say, for
our Minister to advance any opinion to have it instantly contradicted
by the French diplomatist.

Everybody in the town was ranged in one or other of these factions. The
Lederlung was a prettyish little creature certainly, and her voice
(what there was of it) was very sweet, and there is no doubt that the
Strumpff was not in her first youth and beauty, and certainly too
stout; when she came on in the last scene of the Sonnambula, for
instance, in her night-chemise with a lamp in her hand, and had to go
out of the window, and pass over the plank of the mill, it was all she
could do to squeeze out of the window, and the plank used to bend and
creak again under her weight--but how she poured out the finale of the
opera!  and with what a burst of feeling she rushed into Elvino's
arms--almost fit to smother him! Whereas the little Lederlung--but a
truce to this gossip--the fact is that these two women were the two
flags of the French and the English party at Pumpernickel, and the
society was divided in its allegiance to those two great nations.

We had on our side the Home Minister, the Master of the Horse, the
Duke's Private Secretary, and the Prince's Tutor; whereas of the French
party were the Foreign Minister, the Commander-in-Chief's Lady, who had
served under Napoleon, and the Hof-Marschall and his wife, who was glad
enough to get the fashions from Paris, and always had them and her caps
by M. de Macabau's courier.  The Secretary of his Chancery was little
Grignac, a young fellow, as malicious as Satan, and who made
caricatures of Tapeworm in all the albums of the place.

Their headquarters and table d'hote were established at the Pariser
Hof, the other inn of the town; and though, of course, these gentlemen
were obliged to be civil in public, yet they cut at each other with
epigrams that were as sharp as razors, as I have seen a couple of
wrestlers in Devonshire, lashing at each other's shins and never
showing their agony upon a muscle of their faces.  Neither Tapeworm nor
Macabau ever sent home a dispatch to his government without a most
savage series of attacks upon his rival.  For instance, on our side we
would write, "The interests of Great Britain in this place, and
throughout the whole of Germany, are perilled by the continuance in
office of the present French envoy; this man is of a character so
infamous that he will stick at no falsehood, or hesitate at no crime,
to attain his ends.  He poisons the mind of the Court against the
English minister, represents the conduct of Great Britain in the most
odious and atrocious light, and is unhappily backed by a minister whose
ignorance and necessities are as notorious as his influence is fatal."
On their side they would say, "M. de Tapeworm continues his system of
stupid insular arrogance and vulgar falsehood against the greatest
nation in the world.  Yesterday he was heard to speak lightly of Her
Royal Highness Madame the Duchess of Berri; on a former occasion he
insulted the heroic Duke of Angouleme and dared to insinuate that
H.R.H.  the Duke of Orleans was conspiring against the august throne of
the lilies.  His gold is prodigated in every direction which his stupid
menaces fail to frighten. By one and the other, he has won over
creatures of the Court here--and, in fine, Pumpernickel will not be
quiet, Germany tranquil, France respected, or Europe content until this
poisonous viper be crushed under heel":  and so on.  When one side or
the other had written any particularly spicy dispatch, news of it was
sure to slip out.

Before the winter was far advanced, it is actually on record that Emmy
took a night and received company with great propriety and modesty.
She had a French master, who complimented her upon the purity of her
accent and her facility of learning; the fact is she had learned long
ago and grounded herself subsequently in the grammar so as to be able
to teach it to George; and Madam Strumpff came to give her lessons in
singing, which she performed so well and with such a true voice that
the Major's windows, who had lodgings opposite under the Prime
Minister, were always open to hear the lesson. Some of the German
ladies, who are very sentimental and simple in their tastes, fell in
love with her and began to call her du at once.  These are trivial
details, but they relate to happy times.  The Major made himself
George's tutor and read Caesar and mathematics with him, and they had a
German master and rode out of evenings by the side of Emmy's
carriage--she was always too timid, and made a dreadful outcry at the
slightest disturbance on horse-back.  So she drove about with one of
her dear German friends, and Jos asleep on the back-seat of the
barouche.

He was becoming very sweet upon the Grafinn Fanny de Butterbrod, a very
gentle tender-hearted and unassuming young creature, a Canoness and
Countess in her own right, but with scarcely ten pounds per year to her
fortune, and Fanny for her part declared that to be Amelia's sister was
the greatest delight that Heaven could bestow on her, and Jos might
have put a Countess's shield and coronet by the side of his own arms on
his carriage and forks; when--when events occurred, and those grand
fetes given upon the marriage of the Hereditary Prince of Pumpernickel
with the lovely Princess Amelia of Humbourg-Schlippenschloppen took
place.

At this festival the magnificence displayed was such as had not been
known in the little German place since the days of the prodigal Victor
XIV.  All the neighbouring Princes, Princesses, and Grandees were
invited to the feast.  Beds rose to half a crown per night in
Pumpernickel, and the Army was exhausted in providing guards of honour
for the Highnesses, Serenities, and Excellencies who arrived from all
quarters.  The Princess was married by proxy, at her father's
residence, by the Count de Schlusselback.  Snuff-boxes were given away
in profusion (as we learned from the Court jeweller, who sold and
afterwards bought them again), and bushels of the Order of Saint
Michael of Pumpernickel were sent to the nobles of the Court, while
hampers of the cordons and decorations of the Wheel of St. Catherine of
Schlippenschloppen were brought to ours.  The French envoy got both.
"He is covered with ribbons like a prize cart-horse," Tapeworm said,
who was not allowed by the rules of his service to take any
decorations:  "Let him have the cordons; but with whom is the victory?"
The fact is, it was a triumph of British diplomacy, the French party
having proposed and tried their utmost to carry a marriage with a
Princess of the House of Potztausend-Donnerwetter, whom, as a matter
of course, we opposed.

Everybody was asked to the fetes of the marriage. Garlands and
triumphal arches were hung across the road to welcome the young bride.
The great Saint Michael's Fountain ran with uncommonly sour wine, while
that in the Artillery Place frothed with beer.  The great waters
played; and poles were put up in the park and gardens for the happy
peasantry, which they might climb at their leisure, carrying off
watches, silver forks, prize sausages hung with pink ribbon, &c., at
the top.  Georgy got one, wrenching it off, having swarmed up the pole
to the delight of the spectators, and sliding down with the rapidity of
a fall of water.  But it was for the glory's sake merely.  The boy gave
the sausage to a peasant, who had very nearly seized it, and stood at
the foot of the mast, blubbering, because he was unsuccessful.

At the French Chancellerie they had six more lampions in their
illumination than ours had; but our transparency, which represented the
young Couple advancing and Discord flying away, with the most ludicrous
likeness to the French Ambassador, beat the French picture hollow; and
I have no doubt got Tapeworm the advancement and the Cross of the Bath
which he subsequently attained.

Crowds of foreigners arrived for the fetes, and of English, of course.
Besides the Court balls, public balls were given at the Town Hall and
the Redoute, and in the former place there was a room for
trente-et-quarante and roulette established, for the week of the
festivities only, and by one of the great German companies from Ems or
Aix-la-Chapelle.  The officers or inhabitants of the town were not
allowed to play at these games, but strangers, peasants, ladies were
admitted, and any one who chose to lose or win money.

That little scapegrace Georgy Osborne amongst others, whose pockets
were always full of dollars and whose relations were away at the grand
festival of the Court, came to the Stadthaus Ball in company of his
uncle's courier, Mr. Kirsch, and having only peeped into a play-room at
Baden-Baden when he hung on Dobbin's arm, and where, of course, he was
not permitted to gamble, came eagerly to this part of the entertainment
and hankered round the tables where the croupiers and the punters were
at work.  Women were playing; they were masked, some of them; this
license was allowed in these wild times of carnival.

A woman with light hair, in a low dress by no means so fresh as it had
been, and with a black mask on, through the eyelets of which her eyes
twinkled strangely, was seated at one of the roulette-tables with a
card and a pin and a couple of florins before her.  As the croupier
called out the colour and number, she pricked on the card with great
care and regularity, and only ventured her money on the colours after
the red or black had come up a certain number of times.  It was strange
to look at her.

But in spite of her care and assiduity she guessed wrong and the last
two florins followed each other under the croupier's rake, as he cried
out with his inexorable voice the winning colour and number.  She gave
a sigh, a shrug with her shoulders, which were already too much out of
her gown, and dashing the pin through the card on to the table, sat
thrumming it for a while.  Then she looked round her and saw Georgy's
honest face staring at the scene.  The little scamp!  What business had
he to be there?

When she saw the boy, at whose face she looked hard through her shining
eyes and mask, she said, "Monsieur n'est pas joueur?"

"Non, Madame," said the boy; but she must have known, from his accent,
of what country he was, for she answered him with a slight foreign
tone.  "You have nevare played--will you do me a littl' favor?"

"What is it?" said Georgy, blushing again.  Mr. Kirsch was at work for
his part at the rouge et noir and did not see his young master.

"Play this for me, if you please; put it on any number, any number."
And she took from her bosom a purse, and out of it a gold piece, the
only coin there, and she put it into George's hand.  The boy laughed
and did as he was bid.

The number came up sure enough.  There is a power that arranges that,
they say, for beginners.

"Thank you," said she, pulling the money towards her, "thank you. What
is your name?"

"My name's Osborne," said Georgy, and was fingering in his own pockets
for dollars, and just about to make a trial, when the Major, in his
uniform, and Jos, en Marquis, from the Court ball, made their
appearance.  Other people, finding the entertainment stupid and
preferring the fun at the Stadthaus, had quitted the Palace ball
earlier; but it is probable the Major and Jos had gone home and found
the boy's absence, for the former instantly went up to him and, taking
him by the shoulder, pulled him briskly back from the place of
temptation.  Then, looking round the room, he saw Kirsch employed as we
have said, and going up to him, asked how he dared to bring Mr. George
to such a place.

"Laissez-moi tranquille," said Mr. Kirsch, very much excited by play
and wine.  "Il faut s'amuser, parbleu. Je ne suis pas au service de
Monsieur."

Seeing his condition the Major did not choose to argue with the man,
but contented himself with drawing away George and asking Jos if he
would come away.  He was standing close by the lady in the mask, who
was playing with pretty good luck now, and looking on much interested
at the game.

"Hadn't you better come, Jos," the Major said, "with George and me?"

"I'll stop and go home with that rascal, Kirsch," Jos said; and for the
same reason of modesty, which he thought ought to be preserved before
the boy, Dobbin did not care to remonstrate with Jos, but left him and
walked home with Georgy.

"Did you play?" asked the Major when they were out and on their way
home.

The boy said "No."

"Give me your word of honour as a gentleman that you never will."

"Why?" said the boy; "it seems very good fun." And, in a very eloquent
and impressive manner, the Major showed him why he shouldn't, and would
have enforced his precepts by the example of Georgy's own father, had
he liked to say anything that should reflect on the other's memory.
When he had housed him, he went to bed and saw his light, in the little
room outside of Amelia's, presently disappear.  Amelia's followed half
an hour afterwards.  I don't know what made the Major note it so
accurately.

Jos, however, remained behind over the play-table; he was no gambler,
but not averse to the little excitement of the sport now and then, and
he had some Napoleons chinking in the embroidered pockets of his court
waistcoat.  He put down one over the fair shoulder of the little
gambler before him, and they won.  She made a little movement to make
room for him by her side, and just took the skirt of her gown from a
vacant chair there.

"Come and give me good luck," she said, still in a foreign accent,
quite different from that frank and perfectly English "Thank you," with
which she had saluted Georgy's coup in her favour.  The portly
gentleman, looking round to see that nobody of rank observed him, sat
down; he muttered--"Ah, really, well now, God bless my soul. I'm very
fortunate; I'm sure to give you good fortune," and other words of
compliment and confusion. "Do you play much?" the foreign mask said.

"I put a Nap or two down," said Jos with a superb air, flinging down a
gold piece.

"Yes; ay nap after dinner," said the mask archly.  But Jos looking
frightened, she continued, in her pretty French accent, "You do not
play to win.  No more do I. I play to forget, but I cannot.  I cannot
forget old times, monsieur.  Your little nephew is the image of his
father; and you--you are not changed--but yes, you are. Everybody
changes, everybody forgets; nobody has any heart."

"Good God, who is it?" asked Jos in a flutter.

"Can't you guess, Joseph Sedley?" said the little woman in a sad voice,
and undoing her mask, she looked at him.  "You have forgotten me."

"Good heavens!  Mrs. Crawley!" gasped out Jos.

"Rebecca," said the other, putting her hand on his; but she followed
the game still, all the time she was looking at him.

"I am stopping at the Elephant," she continued.  "Ask for Madame de
Raudon.  I saw my dear Amelia to-day; how pretty she looked, and how
happy!  So do you! Everybody but me, who am wretched, Joseph Sedley."
And she put her money over from the red to the black, as if by a chance
movement of her hand, and while she was wiping her eyes with a
pocket-handkerchief fringed with torn lace.

The red came up again, and she lost the whole of that stake. "Come
away," she said.  "Come with me a little--we are old friends, are we
not, dear Mr. Sedley?"

And Mr. Kirsch having lost all his money by this time, followed his
master out into the moonlight, where the illuminations were winking out
and the transparency over our mission was scarcely visible.

 This section starts with an essay describing the appearance and use of the second-floor arch of a London house where, among other things, the undertaker's men rest the coffin of a deceased person in the household. The subject of this essay leads to Thackeray's revelation that old Mr. Sedley is dying. Before he dies he tells Amelia that he and her mother have been unkind and unjust to her. She prays with him. After Sedley dies, old Osborne points out his own success and tells Georgy, "He was a better man than I was, this day twenty years-a better man I should say by ten thousand pound." Old Osborne, at first inclined to underrate Dobbin, begins to hear of his fame from members of his own society. Sir William, Dobbin's father, praises him. Dobbin's name appears in parties of nobility. Then Osborne discovers that Dobbin has in part supported Amelia and Georgy. Dobbin says it was his responsibility that George married Amelia and he felt obligated. Osborne says he is an honest fellow. They discuss Georgy, who is so much like his father. Old Osborne is softening. He sends a card for Mr. Joseph Sedley and defends Dobbin when his daughter Jane belittles him. He asks about Amelia and says he will be reconciled to her, but Mr. Sedley's illness and death prevent. Meanwhile Osborne changes his will, and before he can be reconciled to Amelia, he dies. Frederick Bullock fears that Osborne has left half his property to his grandson, and he has, with prevision for Amelia and a legacy for Dobbin. Amelia is guardian of Georgy; Dobbin is executor. Amelia is grateful to Dobbin, but grateful only, for the reconciliation which he has effected. After Amelia has money, the servants respect her; people who never thought of her before visit her now and patronize her, especially Mrs. Frederick Bullock, her sister-in-law. Amelia does not enjoy these people. The house at Russell Square is dismantled and things put in storage until Georgy's majority. When Joseph, Amelia and Georgy, and Dobbin go to the continent, Joseph eats and sleeps, Amelia sketches Dobbin and Georgy act as her attendants. Amelia hears good music for the first time, likes Mozart, and wonders if it's wicked to be so happy. She begins to appreciate Dobbin, who is the first gentleman she has known despite his large feet and hands. The author claims to have seen the party at Pumpernickel, to have witnessed Amelia's delight in the opera, Jos interest in nobility, and to have admired Amelia himself. Joseph, greatly impressed by Lord Tapeworm and his doctor and the mineral springs, decides to stay at Pumpernickel. He thinks he will grow young and thin. Lord Tapeworm believes he has impressed Amelia, whereas he has only bewildered her. The group is presented at Court. The duchy stretches about ten miles but managed with in its small area to offer "famous" theatre, marriage "fetes" on a grand scale, and moderate despotism; even factional politics was thoroughly entrenched in Pumpernickel -- "the society was divided in its allegiance to those two great nations ." In short a variety of experiences, frequently available only in much larger places, was available in the small duchy of Pumpernickel. Amelia entertains, speaks French, sings, and charms the German ladies. Jos is enamored of Fanny de Butterbrod, a canoness and countess, but during the festival of a royal marriage, Becky shows up She spies Joseph, flatters him, asks him to visit her.

