Chapter: In Which All the Principal Personages Think Fit to Leave Brighton

Conducted to the ladies, at the Ship Inn, Dobbin assumed a jovial and
rattling manner, which proved that this young officer was becoming a
more consummate hypocrite every day of his life.  He was trying to hide
his own private feelings, first upon seeing Mrs. George Osborne in her
new condition, and secondly to mask the apprehensions he entertained as
to the effect which the dismal news brought down by him would certainly
have upon her.

"It is my opinion, George," he said, "that the French Emperor will be
upon us, horse and foot, before three weeks are over, and will give the
Duke such a dance as shall make the Peninsula appear mere child's play.
But you need not say that to Mrs. Osborne, you know. There mayn't be
any fighting on our side after all, and our business in Belgium may
turn out to be a mere military occupation.  Many persons think so; and
Brussels is full of fine people and ladies of fashion." So it was
agreed to represent the duty of the British army in Belgium in this
harmless light to Amelia.

This plot being arranged, the hypocritical Dobbin saluted Mrs. George
Osborne quite gaily, tried to pay her one or two compliments relative
to her new position as a bride (which compliments, it must be
confessed, were exceedingly clumsy and hung fire woefully), and then
fell to talking about Brighton, and the sea-air, and the gaieties of
the place, and the beauties of the road and the merits of the Lightning
coach and horses--all in a manner quite incomprehensible to Amelia, and
very amusing to Rebecca, who was watching the Captain, as indeed she
watched every one near whom she came.

Little Amelia, it must be owned, had rather a mean opinion of her
husband's friend, Captain Dobbin.  He lisped--he was very plain and
homely-looking: and exceedingly awkward and ungainly.  She liked him
for his attachment to her husband (to be sure there was very little
merit in that), and she thought George was most generous and kind in
extending his friendship to his brother officer. George had mimicked
Dobbin's lisp and queer manners many times to her, though to do him
justice, he always spoke most highly of his friend's good qualities. In
her little day of triumph, and not knowing him intimately as yet, she
made light of honest William--and he knew her opinions of him quite
well, and acquiesced in them very humbly.  A time came when she knew
him better, and changed her notions regarding him; but that was distant
as yet.

As for Rebecca, Captain Dobbin had not been two hours in the ladies'
company before she understood his secret perfectly.  She did not like
him, and feared him privately; nor was he very much prepossessed in her
favour.  He was so honest, that her arts and cajoleries did not affect
him, and he shrank from her with instinctive repulsion. And, as she was
by no means so far superior to her sex as to be above jealousy, she
disliked him the more for his adoration of Amelia.  Nevertheless, she
was very respectful and cordial in her manner towards him.  A friend to
the Osbornes! a friend to her dearest benefactors!  She vowed she
should always love him sincerely: she remembered him quite well on the
Vauxhall night, as she told Amelia archly, and she made a little fun of
him when the two ladies went to dress for dinner.  Rawdon Crawley paid
scarcely any attention to Dobbin, looking upon him as a good-natured
nincompoop and under-bred City man.  Jos patronised him with much
dignity.

When George and Dobbin were alone in the latter's room, to which George
had followed him, Dobbin took from his desk the letter which he had
been charged by Mr. Osborne to deliver to his son.  "It's not in my
father's handwriting," said George, looking rather alarmed; nor was it:
the letter was from Mr. Osborne's lawyer, and to the following effect:

                                    "Bedford Row, May 7, 1815.

"SIR,

"I am commissioned by Mr. Osborne to inform you, that he abides by the
determination which he before expressed to you, and that in consequence
of the marriage which you have been pleased to contract, he ceases to
consider you henceforth as a member of his family. This determination
is final and irrevocable.

"Although the monies expended upon you in your minority, and the bills
which you have drawn upon him so unsparingly of late years, far exceed
in amount the sum to which you are entitled in your own right (being
the third part of the fortune of your mother, the late Mrs. Osborne and
which reverted to you at her decease, and to Miss Jane Osborne and Miss
Maria Frances Osborne); yet I am instructed by Mr. Osborne to say, that
he waives all claim upon your estate, and that the sum of 2,000 pounds,
4 per cent. annuities, at the value of the day (being your one-third
share of the sum of 6,000 pounds), shall be paid over to yourself or
your agents upon your receipt for the same, by

                          "Your obedient Servt.,
                                           "S. HIGGS.

"P.S.--Mr. Osborne desires me to say, once for all, that he declines to
receive any messages, letters, or communications from you on this or
any other subject.

"A pretty way you have managed the affair," said George, looking
savagely at William Dobbin.  "Look there, Dobbin," and he flung over to
the latter his parent's letter. "A beggar, by Jove, and all in
consequence of my d--d sentimentality.  Why couldn't we have waited? A
ball might have done for me in the course of the war, and may still,
and how will Emmy be bettered by being left a beggar's widow? It was
all your doing.  You were never easy until you had got me married and
ruined.  What the deuce am I to do with two thousand pounds?  Such a
sum won't last two years.  I've lost a hundred and forty to Crawley at
cards and billiards since I've been down here. A pretty manager of a
man's matters YOU are, forsooth."

"There's no denying that the position is a hard one," Dobbin replied,
after reading over the letter with a blank countenance; "and as you
say, it is partly of my making. There are some men who wouldn't mind
changing with you," he added, with a bitter smile. "How many captains
in the regiment have two thousand pounds to the fore, think you?  You
must live on your pay till your father relents, and if you die, you
leave your wife a hundred a year."

"Do you suppose a man of my habits can live on his pay and a hundred a
year?" George cried out in great anger.  "You must be a fool to talk
so, Dobbin.  How the deuce am I to keep up my position in the world
upon such a pitiful pittance?  I can't change my habits.  I must have
my comforts.  I wasn't brought up on porridge, like MacWhirter, or on
potatoes, like old O'Dowd.  Do you expect my wife to take in soldiers'
washing, or ride after the regiment in a baggage waggon?"

"Well, well," said Dobbin, still good-naturedly, "we'll get her a
better conveyance.  But try and remember that you are only a dethroned
prince now, George, my boy; and be quiet whilst the tempest lasts.  It
won't be for long.  Let your name be mentioned in the Gazette, and I'll
engage the old father relents towards you:"

"Mentioned in the Gazette!" George answered.  "And in what part of it?
Among the killed and wounded returns, and at the top of the list, very
likely."

"Psha!  It will be time enough to cry out when we are hurt," Dobbin
said.  "And if anything happens, you know, George, I have got a little,
and I am not a marrying man, and I shall not forget my godson in my
will," he added, with a smile.  Whereupon the dispute ended--as many
scores of  such conversations between Osborne and his friend had
concluded previously--by the former declaring there was no possibility
of being angry with Dobbin long, and forgiving him very generously
after abusing him without cause.

"I say, Becky," cried Rawdon Crawley out of his dressing-room, to his
lady, who was attiring herself for dinner in her own chamber.

"What?" said Becky's shrill voice.  She was looking over her shoulder
in the glass.  She had put on the neatest and freshest white frock
imaginable, and with bare shoulders and a little necklace, and a light
blue sash, she looked the image of youthful innocence and girlish
happiness.

"I say, what'll Mrs. O. do, when O. goes out with the regiment?"
Crawley said coming into the room, performing a duet on his head with
two huge hair-brushes, and looking out from under his hair with
admiration on his pretty little wife.

"I suppose she'll cry her eyes out," Becky answered. "She has been
whimpering half a dozen times, at the very notion of it, already to me."

"YOU don't care, I suppose?" Rawdon said, half angry at his wife's want
of feeling.

"You wretch! don't you know that I intend to go with you," Becky
replied.  "Besides, you're different.  You go as General Tufto's
aide-de-camp.  We don't belong to the line," Mrs. Crawley said,
throwing up her head with an air that so enchanted her husband that he
stooped down and kissed it.

"Rawdon dear--don't you think--you'd better get that--money from Cupid,
before he goes?" Becky continued, fixing on a killing bow. She called
George Osborne, Cupid.  She had flattered him about his good looks a
score of times already.  She watched over him kindly at ecarte of a
night when he would drop in to Rawdon's quarters for a half-hour before
bed-time.

She had often called him a horrid dissipated wretch, and threatened to
tell Emmy of his wicked ways and naughty extravagant habits.  She
brought his cigar and lighted it for him; she knew the effect of that
manoeuvre, having practised it in former days upon Rawdon Crawley. He
thought her gay, brisk, arch, distinguee, delightful. In their little
drives and dinners, Becky, of course, quite outshone poor Emmy, who
remained very mute and timid while Mrs. Crawley and her husband rattled
away together, and Captain Crawley (and Jos after he joined the young
married people) gobbled in silence.

Emmy's mind somehow misgave her about her friend. Rebecca's wit,
spirits, and accomplishments troubled her with a rueful disquiet. They
were only a week married, and here was George already suffering ennui,
and eager for others' society!  She trembled for the future. How shall
I be a companion for him, she thought--so clever and so brilliant, and
I such a humble foolish creature? How noble it was of him to marry
me--to give up everything and stoop down to me!  I ought to have
refused him, only I had not the heart.  I ought to have stopped at home
and taken care of poor Papa.  And her neglect of her parents (and
indeed there was some foundation for this charge which the poor child's
uneasy conscience brought against her) was now remembered for the first
time, and caused her to blush with humiliation.  Oh! thought she, I
have been very wicked and selfish--selfish in forgetting them in their
sorrows--selfish in forcing George to marry me.  I know I'm not worthy
of him--I know he would have been happy without me--and yet--I tried, I
tried to give him up.

It is hard when, before seven days of marriage are over, such thoughts
and confessions as these force themselves on a little bride's mind.
But so it was, and the night before Dobbin came to join these young
people--on a fine brilliant moonlight night of May--so warm and balmy
that the windows were flung open to the balcony, from which George and
Mrs. Crawley were gazing upon the calm ocean spread shining before
them, while Rawdon and Jos were engaged at backgammon within--Amelia
couched in a great chair quite neglected, and watching both these
parties, felt a despair and remorse such as were bitter companions for
that tender lonely soul.  Scarce a week was past, and it was come to
this! The future, had she regarded it, offered a dismal prospect; but
Emmy was too shy, so to speak, to look to that, and embark alone on
that wide sea, and unfit to navigate it without a guide and protector.
I know Miss Smith has a mean opinion of her.  But how many, my dear
Madam, are endowed with your prodigious strength of mind?

"Gad, what a fine night, and how bright the moon is!" George said, with
a puff of his cigar, which went soaring up skywards.

"How delicious they smell in the open air!  I adore them.  Who'd think
the moon was two hundred and thirty-six thousand eight hundred and
forty-seven miles off?" Becky added, gazing at that orb with a smile.
"Isn't it clever of me to remember that?  Pooh!  we learned it all at
Miss Pinkerton's!  How calm the sea is, and how clear everything.  I
declare I can almost see the coast of France!" and her bright green
eyes streamed out, and shot into the night as if they could see through
it.

"Do you know what I intend to do one morning?" she said; "I find I can
swim beautifully, and some day, when my Aunt Crawley's companion--old
Briggs, you know--you remember her--that hook-nosed woman, with the
long wisps of hair--when Briggs goes out to bathe, I intend to dive
under her awning, and insist on a reconciliation in the water.  Isn't
that a stratagem?"

George burst out laughing at the idea of this aquatic meeting. "What's
the row there, you two?" Rawdon shouted out, rattling the box.  Amelia
was making a fool of herself in an absurd hysterical manner, and
retired to her own room to whimper in private.

Our history is destined in this chapter to go backwards and forwards in
a very irresolute manner seemingly, and having conducted our story to
to-morrow presently, we shall immediately again have occasion to step
back to yesterday, so that the whole of the tale may get a hearing. As
you behold at her Majesty's drawing-room, the ambassadors' and high
dignitaries' carriages whisk off from a private door, while Captain
Jones's ladies are waiting for their fly: as you see in the Secretary
of the Treasury's antechamber, a half-dozen of petitioners waiting
patiently for their audience, and called out one by one, when suddenly
an Irish member or some eminent personage enters the apartment, and
instantly walks into Mr. Under-Secretary over the heads of all the
people present: so in the conduct of a tale, the romancer is obliged to
exercise this most partial sort of justice.  Although all the little
incidents must be heard, yet they must be put off when the great events
make their appearance; and surely such a circumstance as that which
brought Dobbin to Brighton, viz., the ordering out of the Guards and
the line to Belgium, and the mustering of the allied armies in that
country under the command of his Grace the Duke of Wellington--such a
dignified circumstance as that, I say, was entitled to the pas over all
minor occurrences whereof this history is composed mainly, and hence a
little trifling disarrangement and disorder was excusable and becoming.
We have only now advanced in time so far beyond Chapter XXII as to have
got our various characters up into their dressing-rooms before the
dinner, which took place as usual on the day of Dobbin's arrival.

George was too humane or too much occupied with the tie of his
neckcloth to convey at once all the news to Amelia which his comrade
had brought with him from London.  He came into her room, however,
holding the attorney's letter in his hand, and with so solemn and
important an air that his wife, always ingeniously on the watch for
calamity, thought the worst was about to befall, and running up to her
husband, besought her dearest George to tell her everything--he was
ordered abroad; there would be a battle next week--she knew there would.

Dearest George parried the question about foreign service, and with a
melancholy shake of the head said, "No, Emmy; it isn't that:  it's not
myself I care about: it's you.  I have had bad news from my father.  He
refuses any communication with me; he has flung us off; and leaves us
to poverty.  I can rough it well enough; but you, my dear, how will you
bear it? read here." And he handed her over the letter.

Amelia, with a look of tender alarm in her eyes, listened to her noble
hero as he uttered the above generous sentiments, and sitting down on
the bed, read the letter which George gave her with such a pompous
martyr-like air.  Her face cleared up as she read the document,
however. The idea of sharing poverty and privation in company with the
beloved object is, as we have before said, far from being disagreeable
to a warm-hearted woman. The notion was actually pleasant to little
Amelia.  Then, as usual, she was ashamed of herself for feeling happy
at such an indecorous moment, and checked her pleasure, saying
demurely, "O, George, how your poor heart must bleed at the idea of
being separated from your papa!"

"It does," said George, with an agonised countenance.

"But he can't be angry with you long," she continued. "Nobody could,
I'm sure.  He must forgive you, my dearest, kindest husband.  O, I
shall never forgive myself if he does not."

"What vexes me, my poor Emmy, is not my misfortune, but yours," George
said.  "I don't care for a little poverty; and I think, without vanity,
I've talents enough to make my own way."

"That you have," interposed his wife, who thought that war should
cease, and her husband should be made a general instantly.

"Yes, I shall make my way as well as another," Osborne went on; "but
you, my dear girl, how can I bear your being deprived of the comforts
and station in society which my wife had a right to expect? My dearest
girl in barracks; the wife of a soldier in a marching regiment; subject
to all sorts of annoyance and privation! It makes me miserable."

Emmy, quite at ease, as this was her husband's only cause of disquiet,
took his hand, and with a radiant face and smile began to warble that
stanza from the favourite song of "Wapping Old Stairs," in which the
heroine, after rebuking her Tom for inattention, promises "his trousers
to mend, and his grog too to make," if he will be constant and kind,
and not forsake her.  "Besides," she said, after a pause, during which
she looked as pretty and happy as any young woman need, "isn't two
thousand pounds an immense deal of money, George?"

George laughed at her naivete; and finally they went down to dinner,
Amelia clinging to George's arm, still warbling the tune of "Wapping
Old Stairs," and more pleased and light of mind than she had been for
some days past.

Thus the repast, which at length came off, instead of being dismal, was
an exceedingly brisk and merry one. The excitement of the campaign
counteracted in George's mind the depression occasioned by the
disinheriting letter. Dobbin still kept up his character of rattle.  He
amused the company with accounts of the army in Belgium; where nothing
but fetes and gaiety and fashion were going on.  Then, having a
particular end in view, this dexterous captain proceeded to describe
Mrs. Major O'Dowd packing her own and her Major's wardrobe, and how his
best epaulets had been stowed into a tea canister, whilst her own
famous yellow turban, with the bird of paradise wrapped in brown paper,
was locked up in the Major's tin cocked-hat case, and wondered what
effect it would have at the French king's court at Ghent, or the great
military balls at Brussels.

"Ghent! Brussels!" cried out Amelia with a sudden shock and start. "Is
the regiment ordered away, George--is it ordered away?" A look of
terror came over the sweet smiling face, and she clung to George as by
an instinct.

"Don't be afraid, dear," he said good-naturedly; "it is but a twelve
hours' passage.  It won't hurt you.  You shall go, too, Emmy."

"I intend to go," said Becky.  "I'm on the staff.  General Tufto is a
great flirt of mine.  Isn't he, Rawdon?" Rawdon laughed out with his
usual roar.  William Dobbin flushed up quite red.  "She can't go," he
said; "think of the--of the danger," he was going to add; but had not
all his conversation during dinner-time tended to prove there was none?
He became very confused and silent.

"I must and will go," Amelia cried with the greatest spirit; and
George, applauding her resolution, patted her under the chin, and asked
all the persons present if they ever saw such a termagant of a wife,
and agreed that the lady should bear him company.  "We'll have Mrs.
O'Dowd to chaperon you," he said.  What cared she so long as her
husband was near her?  Thus somehow the bitterness of a parting was
juggled away.  Though war and danger were in store, war and danger
might not befall for months to come.  There was a respite at any rate,
which made the timid little Amelia almost as happy as a full reprieve
would have done, and which even Dobbin owned in his heart was very
welcome.  For, to be permitted to see her was now the greatest
privilege and hope of his life, and he thought with himself secretly
how he would watch and protect her.  I wouldn't have let her go if I
had been married to her, he thought.  But George was the master, and
his friend did not think fit to remonstrate.

Putting her arm round her friend's waist, Rebecca at length carried
Amelia off from the dinner-table where so much business of importance
had been discussed, and left the gentlemen in a highly exhilarated
state, drinking and talking very gaily.

In the course of the evening Rawdon got a little family-note from his
wife, which, although he crumpled it up and burnt it instantly in the
candle, we had the good luck to read over Rebecca's shoulder. "Great
news," she wrote.  "Mrs. Bute is gone.  Get the money from Cupid
tonight, as he'll be off to-morrow most likely.  Mind this.--R." So
when the little company was about adjourning to coffee in the women's
apartment, Rawdon touched Osborne on the elbow, and said gracefully, "I
say, Osborne, my boy, if quite convenient, I'll trouble you for that
'ere small trifle." It was not quite convenient, but nevertheless
George gave him a considerable present instalment in bank-notes from
his pocket-book, and a bill on his agents at a week's date, for the
remaining sum.

This matter arranged, George, and Jos, and Dobbin, held a council of
war over their cigars, and agreed that a general move should be made
for London in Jos's open carriage the next day.  Jos, I think, would
have preferred staying until Rawdon Crawley quitted Brighton, but
Dobbin and George overruled him, and he agreed to carry the party to
town, and ordered four horses, as became his dignity.  With these they
set off in state, after breakfast, the next day.  Amelia had risen very
early in the morning, and packed her little trunks with the greatest
alacrity, while Osborne lay in bed deploring that she had not a maid to
help her.  She was only too glad, however, to perform this office for
herself.  A dim uneasy sentiment about Rebecca filled her mind already;
and although they kissed each other most tenderly at parting, yet we
know what jealousy is; and Mrs. Amelia possessed that among other
virtues of her sex.

Besides these characters who are coming and going away, we must
remember that there were some other old friends of ours at Brighton;
Miss Crawley, namely, and the suite in attendance upon her.  Now,
although Rebecca and her husband were but at a few stones' throw of the
lodgings which the invalid Miss Crawley occupied, the old lady's door
remained as pitilessly closed to them as it had been heretofore in
London.  As long as she remained by the side of her sister-in-law,
Mrs. Bute Crawley took care that her beloved Matilda should not be
agitated by a meeting with her nephew.  When the spinster took her
drive, the faithful Mrs. Bute sate beside her in the carriage. When
Miss Crawley took the air in a chair, Mrs. Bute marched on one side of
the vehicle, whilst honest Briggs occupied the other wing. And if they
met Rawdon and his wife by chance--although the former constantly and
obsequiously took off his hat, the Miss-Crawley party passed him by
with such a frigid and killing indifference, that Rawdon began to
despair.

"We might as well be in London as here," Captain Rawdon often said,
with a downcast air.

"A comfortable inn in Brighton is better than a spunging-house in
Chancery Lane," his wife answered, who was of a more cheerful
temperament.  "Think of those two aides-de-camp of Mr. Moses, the
sheriff's-officer, who watched our lodging for a week.  Our friends
here are very stupid, but Mr. Jos and Captain Cupid are better
companions than Mr. Moses's men, Rawdon, my love."

"I wonder the writs haven't followed me down here," Rawdon continued,
still desponding.

"When they do, we'll find means to give them the slip," said dauntless
little Becky, and further pointed out to her husband the great comfort
and advantage of meeting Jos and Osborne, whose acquaintance had
brought to Rawdon Crawley a most timely little supply of ready money.

"It will hardly be enough to pay the inn bill," grumbled the Guardsman.

"Why need we pay it?" said the lady, who had an answer for everything.

Through Rawdon's valet, who still kept up a trifling acquaintance with
the male inhabitants of Miss Crawley's servants' hall, and was
instructed to treat the coachman to drink whenever they met, old Miss
Crawley's movements were pretty well known by our young couple; and
Rebecca luckily bethought herself of being unwell, and of calling in
the same apothecary who was in attendance upon the spinster, so that
their information was on the whole tolerably complete.  Nor was Miss
Briggs, although forced to adopt a hostile attitude, secretly inimical
to Rawdon and his wife.  She was naturally of a kindly and forgiving
disposition.  Now that the cause of jealousy was removed, her dislike
for Rebecca disappeared also, and she remembered the latter's
invariable good words and good humour.  And, indeed, she and Mrs.
Firkin, the lady's-maid, and the whole of Miss Crawley's household,
groaned under the tyranny of the triumphant Mrs. Bute.

As often will be the case, that good but imperious woman pushed her
advantages too far, and her successes quite unmercifully.  She had in
the course of a few weeks brought the invalid to such a state of
helpless docility, that the poor soul yielded herself entirely to her
sister's orders, and did not even dare to complain of her slavery to
Briggs or Firkin.  Mrs. Bute measured out the glasses of wine which
Miss Crawley was daily allowed to take, with irresistible accuracy,
greatly to the annoyance of Firkin and the butler, who found themselves
deprived of control over even the sherry-bottle. She apportioned the
sweetbreads, jellies, chickens; their quantity and order. Night and
noon and morning she brought the abominable drinks ordained by the
Doctor, and made her patient swallow them with so affecting an
obedience that Firkin said "my poor Missus du take her physic like a
lamb." She prescribed the drive in the carriage or the ride in the
chair, and, in a word, ground down the old lady in her convalescence in
such a way as only belongs to your proper-managing, motherly moral
woman.  If ever the patient faintly resisted, and pleaded for a little
bit more dinner or a little drop less medicine, the nurse threatened
her with instantaneous death, when Miss Crawley instantly gave in.
"She's no spirit left in her," Firkin remarked to Briggs; "she ain't
ave called me a fool these three weeks." Finally, Mrs. Bute had made up
her mind to dismiss the aforesaid honest lady's-maid, Mr. Bowls the
large confidential man, and Briggs herself, and to send for her
daughters from the Rectory, previous to removing the dear invalid
bodily to Queen's Crawley, when an odious accident happened which
called her away from duties so pleasing.  The Reverend Bute Crawley,
her husband, riding home one night, fell with his horse and broke his
collar-bone.  Fever and inflammatory symptoms set in, and Mrs. Bute was
forced to leave Sussex for Hampshire.  As soon as ever Bute was
restored, she promised to return to her dearest friend, and departed,
leaving the strongest injunctions with the household regarding their
behaviour to their mistress; and as soon as she got into the
Southampton coach, there was such a jubilee and sense of relief in all
Miss Crawley's house, as the company of persons assembled there had not
experienced for many a week before.  That very day Miss Crawley left
off her afternoon dose of medicine:  that afternoon Bowls opened an
independent bottle of sherry for himself and Mrs. Firkin:  that night
Miss Crawley and Miss Briggs indulged in a game of piquet instead of
one of Porteus's sermons.  It was as in the old nursery-story, when
the stick forgot to beat the dog, and the whole course of events
underwent a peaceful and happy revolution.

At a very early hour in the morning, twice or thrice a week, Miss
Briggs used to betake herself to a bathing-machine, and disport in the
water in a flannel gown and an oilskin cap.  Rebecca, as we have seen,
was aware of this circumstance, and though she did not attempt to storm
Briggs as she had threatened, and actually dive into that lady's
presence and surprise her under the sacredness of the awning, Mrs.
Rawdon determined to attack Briggs as she came away from her bath,
refreshed and invigorated by her dip, and likely to be in good humour.

So getting up very early the next morning, Becky brought the telescope
in their sitting-room, which faced the sea, to bear upon the
bathing-machines on the beach; saw Briggs arrive, enter her box; and
put out to sea; and was on the shore just as the nymph of whom she came
in quest stepped out of the little caravan on to the shingles.  It was
a pretty picture:  the beach; the bathing-women's faces; the long line
of rocks and building were blushing and bright in the sunshine.
Rebecca wore a kind, tender smile on her face, and was holding out her
pretty white hand as Briggs emerged from the box.  What could Briggs do
but accept the salutation?

"Miss Sh--Mrs. Crawley," she said.

Mrs. Crawley seized her hand, pressed it to her heart, and with a
sudden impulse, flinging her arms round Briggs, kissed her
affectionately.  "Dear, dear friend!" she said, with a touch of such
natural feeling, that Miss Briggs of course at once began to melt, and
even the bathing-woman was mollified.

Rebecca found no difficulty in engaging Briggs in a long, intimate, and
delightful conversation.  Everything that had passed since the morning
of Becky's sudden departure from Miss Crawley's house in Park Lane up
to the present day, and Mrs. Bute's happy retreat, was discussed and
described by Briggs.  All Miss Crawley's symptoms, and the particulars
of her illness and medical treatment, were narrated by the confidante
with that fulness and accuracy which women delight in.  About their
complaints and their doctors do ladies ever tire of talking to each
other?  Briggs did not on this occasion; nor did Rebecca weary of
listening.  She was thankful, truly thankful, that the dear kind
Briggs, that the faithful, the invaluable Firkin, had been permitted to
remain with their benefactress through her illness.  Heaven bless her!
though she, Rebecca, had seemed to act undutifully towards Miss
Crawley; yet was not her fault a natural and excusable one? Could she
help giving her hand to the man who had won her heart?  Briggs, the
sentimental, could only turn up her eyes to heaven at this appeal, and
heave a sympathetic sigh, and think that she, too, had given away her
affections long years ago, and own that Rebecca was no very great
criminal.

"Can I ever forget her who so befriended the friendless orphan?  No,
though she has cast me off," the latter said, "I shall never cease to
love her, and I would devote my life to her service.  As my own
benefactress, as my beloved Rawdon's adored relative, I love and admire
Miss Crawley, dear Miss Briggs, beyond any woman in the world, and next
to her I love all those who are faithful to her.  I would never have
treated Miss Crawley's faithful friends as that odious designing Mrs.
Bute has done.  Rawdon, who was all heart," Rebecca continued,
"although his outward manners might seem rough and careless, had said a
hundred times, with tears in his eyes, that he blessed Heaven for
sending his dearest Aunty two such admirable nurses as her attached
Firkin and her admirable Miss Briggs.  Should the machinations of the
horrible Mrs. Bute end, as she too much feared they would, in banishing
everybody that Miss Crawley loved from her side, and leaving that poor
lady a victim to those harpies at the Rectory, Rebecca besought her
(Miss Briggs) to remember that her own home, humble as it was, was
always open to receive Briggs. Dear friend," she exclaimed, in a
transport of enthusiasm, "some hearts can never forget benefits; all
women are not Bute Crawleys! Though why should I complain of her,"
Rebecca added; "though I have been her tool and the victim to her arts,
do I not owe my dearest Rawdon to her?"  And Rebecca unfolded to Briggs
all Mrs. Bute's conduct at Queen's Crawley, which, though
unintelligible to her then, was clearly enough explained by the events
now--now that the attachment had sprung up which Mrs. Bute had
encouraged by a thousand artifices--now that two innocent people had
fallen into the snares which she had laid for them, and loved and
married and been ruined through her schemes.

It was all very true.  Briggs saw the stratagems as clearly as
possible.  Mrs. Bute had made the match between Rawdon and Rebecca.
Yet, though the latter was a perfectly innocent victim, Miss Briggs
could not disguise from her friend her fear that Miss Crawley's
affections were hopelessly estranged from Rebecca, and that the old
lady would never forgive her nephew for making so imprudent a marriage.

On this point Rebecca had her own opinion, and still kept up a good
heart.  If Miss Crawley did not forgive them at present, she might at
least relent on a future day.  Even now, there was only that puling,
sickly Pitt Crawley between Rawdon and a baronetcy; and should anything
happen to the former, all would be well.  At all events, to have Mrs.
Bute's designs exposed, and herself well abused, was a satisfaction,
and might be advantageous to Rawdon's interest; and Rebecca, after an
hour's chat with her recovered friend, left her with the most tender
demonstrations of regard, and quite assured that the conversation they
had had together would be reported to Miss Crawley before many hours
were over.

This interview ended, it became full time for Rebecca to return to her
inn, where all the party of the previous day were assembled at a
farewell breakfast.  Rebecca took such a tender leave of Amelia as
became two women who loved each other as sisters; and having used her
handkerchief plentifully, and hung on her friend's neck as if they were
parting for ever, and waved the handkerchief (which was quite dry, by
the way) out of window, as the carriage drove off, she came back to the
breakfast table, and ate some prawns with a good deal of appetite,
considering her emotion; and while she was munching these delicacies,
explained to Rawdon what had occurred in her morning walk between
herself and Briggs.  Her hopes were very high:  she made her husband
share them.  She generally succeeded in making her husband share all
her opinions, whether melancholy or cheerful.

"You will now, if you please, my dear, sit down at the writing-table
and pen me a pretty little letter to Miss Crawley, in which you'll say
that you are a good boy, and that sort of thing."  So Rawdon sate down,
and wrote off, "Brighton, Thursday," and "My dear Aunt," with great
rapidity: but there the gallant officer's imagination failed him.  He
mumbled the end of his pen, and looked up in his wife's face.  She
could not help laughing at his rueful countenance, and marching up and
down the room with her hands behind her, the little woman began to
dictate a letter, which he took down.

"Before quitting the country and commencing a campaign, which very
possibly may be fatal."

"What?" said Rawdon, rather surprised, but took the humour of the
phrase, and presently wrote it down with a grin.

"Which very possibly may be fatal, I have come hither--"

"Why not say come here, Becky?  Come here's grammar," the dragoon
interposed.

"I have come hither," Rebecca insisted, with a stamp of her foot, "to
say farewell to my dearest and earliest friend.  I beseech you before I
go, not perhaps to return, once more to let me press the hand from
which I have received nothing but kindnesses all my life."

"Kindnesses all my life," echoed Rawdon, scratching down the words, and
quite amazed at his own facility of composition.

"I ask nothing from you but that we should part not in anger.  I have
the pride of my family on some points, though not on all.  I married a
painter's daughter, and am not ashamed of the union."

"No, run me through the body if I am!" Rawdon ejaculated.

"You old booby," Rebecca said, pinching his ear and looking over to see
that he made no mistakes in spelling--"beseech is not spelt with an a,
and earliest is."  So he altered these words, bowing to the superior
knowledge of his little Missis.

"I thought that you were aware of the progress of my attachment,"
Rebecca continued:  "I knew that Mrs. Bute Crawley confirmed and
encouraged it.  But I make no reproaches.  I married a poor woman, and
am content to abide by what I have done.  Leave your property, dear
Aunt, as you will.  I shall never complain of the way in which you
dispose of it.  I would have you believe that I love you for yourself,
and not for money's sake.  I want to be reconciled to you ere I leave
England.  Let me, let me see you before I go.  A few weeks or months
hence it may be too late, and I cannot bear the notion of quitting the
country without a kind word of farewell from you."

"She won't recognise my style in that," said Becky.  "I made the
sentences short and brisk on purpose." And this authentic missive was
despatched under cover to Miss Briggs.

Old Miss Crawley laughed when Briggs, with great mystery, handed her
over this candid and simple statement.  "We may read it now Mrs. Bute
is away," she said.  "Read it to me, Briggs."

When Briggs had read the epistle out, her patroness laughed more.
"Don't you see, you goose," she said to Briggs, who professed to be
much touched by the honest affection which pervaded the composition,
"don't you see that Rawdon never wrote a word of it.  He never wrote to
me without asking for money in his life, and all his letters are full
of bad spelling, and dashes, and bad grammar.  It is that little
serpent of a governess who rules him." They are all alike, Miss Crawley
thought in her heart.  They all want me dead, and are hankering for my
money.

"I don't mind seeing Rawdon," she added, after a pause, and in a tone
of perfect indifference.  "I had just as soon shake hands with him as
not.  Provided there is no scene, why shouldn't we meet?  I don't mind.
But human patience has its limits; and mind, my dear, I respectfully
decline to receive Mrs. Rawdon--I can't support that quite"--and Miss
Briggs was fain to be content with this half-message of conciliation;
and thought that the best method of bringing the old lady and her
nephew together, was to warn Rawdon to be in waiting on the Cliff, when
Miss Crawley went out for her air in her chair.  There they met.  I
don't know whether Miss Crawley had any private feeling of regard or
emotion upon seeing her old favourite; but she held out a couple of
fingers to him with as smiling and good-humoured an air, as if they had
met only the day before.  And as for Rawdon, he turned as red as
scarlet, and wrung off Briggs's hand, so great was his rapture and his
confusion at the meeting. Perhaps it was interest that moved him:  or
perhaps affection:  perhaps he was touched by the change which the
illness of the last weeks had wrought in his aunt.

"The old girl has always acted like a trump to me," he said to his
wife, as he narrated the interview, "and I felt, you know, rather
queer, and that sort of thing.  I walked by the side of the
what-dy'e-call-'em, you know, and to her own door, where Bowls came to help
her in.  And I wanted to go in very much, only--"

"YOU DIDN'T GO IN, Rawdon!" screamed his wife.

"No, my dear; I'm hanged if I wasn't afraid when it came to the point."

"You fool! you ought to have gone in, and never come out again,"
Rebecca said.

"Don't call me names," said the big Guardsman, sulkily. "Perhaps I WAS
a fool, Becky, but you shouldn't say so"; and he gave his wife a look,
such as his countenance could wear when angered, and such as was not
pleasant to face.

"Well, dearest, to-morrow you must be on the look-out, and go and see
her, mind, whether she asks you or no," Rebecca said, trying to soothe
her angry yoke-mate.  On which he replied, that he would do exactly as
he liked, and would just thank her to keep a civil tongue in her
head--and the wounded husband went away, and passed the forenoon at the
billiard-room, sulky, silent, and suspicious.

But before the night was over he was compelled to give in, and own, as
usual, to his wife's superior prudence and foresight, by the most
melancholy confirmation of the presentiments which she had regarding
the consequences of the mistake which he had made.  Miss Crawley must
have had some emotion upon seeing him and shaking hands with him after
so long a rupture.  She mused upon the meeting a considerable time.
"Rawdon is getting very fat and old, Briggs," she said to her
companion.  "His nose has become red, and he is exceedingly coarse in
appearance.  His marriage to that woman has hopelessly vulgarised him.
Mrs. Bute always said they drank together; and I have no doubt they do.
Yes:  he smelt of gin abominably.  I remarked it.  Didn't you?"

In vain Briggs interposed that Mrs. Bute spoke ill of everybody: and,
as far as a person in her humble position could judge, was an--

"An artful designing woman?  Yes, so she is, and she does speak ill of
every one--but I am certain that woman has made Rawdon drink. All those
low people do--"

"He was very much affected at seeing you, ma'am," the companion said;
"and I am sure, when you remember that he is going to the field of
danger--"

"How much money has he promised you, Briggs?" the old spinster cried
out, working herself into a nervous rage--"there now, of course you
begin to cry.  I hate scenes.  Why am I always to be worried?  Go and
cry up in your own room, and send Firkin to me--no, stop, sit down and
blow your nose, and leave off crying, and write a letter to Captain
Crawley." Poor Briggs went and placed herself obediently at the
writing-book.  Its leaves were blotted all over with relics of the
firm, strong, rapid handwriting of the spinster's late amanuensis, Mrs.
Bute Crawley.

"Begin 'My dear sir,' or 'Dear sir,' that will be better, and say you
are desired by Miss Crawley--no, by Miss Crawley's medical man, by Mr.
Creamer, to state that my health is such that all strong emotions would
be dangerous in my present delicate condition--and that I must decline
any family discussions or interviews whatever. And thank him for coming
to Brighton, and so forth, and beg him not to stay any longer on my
account.  And, Miss Briggs, you may add that I wish him a bon voyage,
and that if he will take the trouble to call upon my lawyer's in Gray's
Inn Square, he will find there a communication for him.  Yes, that will
do; and that will make him leave Brighton." The benevolent Briggs
penned this sentence with the utmost satisfaction.

"To seize upon me the very day after Mrs. Bute was gone," the old lady
prattled on; "it was too indecent. Briggs, my dear, write to Mrs.
Crawley, and say SHE needn't come back.  No--she needn't--and she
shan't--and I won't be a slave in my own house--and I won't be starved
and choked with poison.  They all want to kill me--all--all"--and with
this the lonely old woman burst into a scream of hysterical tears.

The last scene of her dismal Vanity Fair comedy was fast approaching;
the tawdry lamps were going out one by one; and the dark curtain was
almost ready to descend.

That final paragraph, which referred Rawdon to Miss Crawley's solicitor
in London, and which Briggs had written so good-naturedly, consoled the
dragoon and his wife somewhat, after their first blank disappointment,
on reading the spinster's refusal of a reconciliation.  And it effected
the purpose for which the old lady had caused it to be written, by
making Rawdon very eager to get to London.

Out of Jos's losings and George Osborne's bank-notes, he paid his bill
at the inn, the landlord whereof does not probably know to this day how
doubtfully his account once stood.  For, as a general sends his baggage
to the rear before an action, Rebecca had wisely packed up all their
chief valuables and sent them off under care of George's servant, who
went in charge of the trunks on the coach back to London.  Rawdon and
his wife returned by the same conveyance next day.

"I should have liked to see the old girl before we went," Rawdon said.
"She looks so cut up and altered that I'm sure she can't last long.  I
wonder what sort of a cheque I shall have at Waxy's.  Two hundred--it
can't be less than two hundred--hey, Becky?"

In consequence of the repeated visits of the aides-de-camp of the
Sheriff of Middlesex, Rawdon and his wife did not go back to their
lodgings at Brompton, but put up at an inn.  Early the next morning,
Rebecca had an opportunity of seeing them as she skirted that suburb on
her road to old Mrs. Sedley's house at Fulham, whither she went to look
for her dear Amelia and her Brighton friends.  They were all off to
Chatham, thence to Harwich, to take shipping for Belgium with the
regiment--kind old Mrs. Sedley very much depressed and tearful,
solitary.  Returning from this visit, Rebecca found her husband, who
had been off to Gray's Inn, and learnt his fate.  He came back furious.

"By Jove, Becky," says he, "she's only given me twenty pound!"

Though it told against themselves, the joke was too good, and Becky
burst out laughing at Rawdon's discomfiture.



Between London and Chatham

On quitting Brighton, our friend George, as became a person of rank and
fashion travelling in a barouche with four horses, drove in state to a
fine hotel in Cavendish Square, where a suite of splendid rooms, and a
table magnificently furnished with plate and surrounded by a half-dozen
of black and silent waiters, was ready to receive the young gentleman
and his bride.  George did the honours of the place with a princely air
to Jos and Dobbin; and Amelia, for the first time, and with exceeding
shyness and timidity, presided at what George called her own table.

George pooh-poohed the wine and bullied the waiters royally, and Jos
gobbled the turtle with immense satisfaction. Dobbin helped him to it;
for the lady of the house, before whom the tureen was placed, was so
ignorant of the contents, that she was going to help Mr. Sedley without
bestowing upon him either calipash or calipee.

The splendour of the entertainment, and the apartments in which it was
given, alarmed Mr. Dobbin, who remonstrated after dinner, when Jos was
asleep in the great chair.  But in vain he cried out against the
enormity of turtle and champagne that was fit for an archbishop. "I've
always been accustomed to travel like a gentleman," George said, "and,
damme, my wife shall travel like a lady.  As long as there's a shot in
the locker, she shall want for nothing," said the generous fellow,
quite pleased with himself for his magnificence of spirit.  Nor did
Dobbin try and convince him that Amelia's happiness was not centred in
turtle-soup.

A while after dinner, Amelia timidly expressed a wish to go and see her
mamma, at Fulham: which permission George granted her with some
grumbling.  And she tripped away to her enormous bedroom, in the centre
of which stood the enormous funereal bed, "that the Emperor
Halixander's sister slep in when the allied sufferings was here," and
put on her little bonnet and shawl with the utmost eagerness and
pleasure.  George was still drinking claret when she returned to the
dining-room, and made no signs of moving.  "Ar'n't you coming with me,
dearest?" she asked him.  No; the "dearest" had "business" that night.
His man should get her a coach and go with her.  And the coach being at
the door of the hotel, Amelia made George a little disappointed curtsey
after looking vainly into his face once or twice, and went sadly down
the great staircase, Captain Dobbin after, who handed her into the
vehicle, and saw it drive away to its destination. The very valet was
ashamed of mentioning the address to the hackney-coachman before the
hotel waiters, and promised to instruct him when they got further on.

Dobbin walked home to his old quarters and the Slaughters', thinking
very likely that it would be delightful to be in that hackney-coach,
along with Mrs. Osborne. George was evidently of quite a different
taste; for when he had taken wine enough, he went off to half-price at
the play, to see Mr. Kean perform in Shylock.  Captain Osborne was a
great lover of the drama, and had himself performed high-comedy
characters with great distinction in several garrison theatrical
entertainments.  Jos slept on until long after dark, when he woke up
with a start at the motions of his servant, who was removing and
emptying the decanters on the table; and the hackney-coach stand was
again put into requisition for a carriage to convey this stout hero to
his lodgings and bed.

Mrs. Sedley, you may be sure, clasped her daughter to her heart with
all maternal eagerness and affection, running out of the door as the
carriage drew up before the little garden-gate, to welcome the weeping,
trembling, young bride.  Old Mr. Clapp, who was in his shirt-sleeves,
trimming the garden-plot, shrank back alarmed.  The Irish servant-lass
rushed up from the kitchen and smiled a "God bless you."  Amelia could
hardly walk along the flags and up the steps into the parlour.

How the floodgates were opened, and mother and daughter wept, when they
were together embracing each other in this sanctuary, may readily be
imagined by every reader who possesses the least sentimental turn.
When don't ladies weep?  At what occasion of joy, sorrow, or other
business of life, and, after such an event as a marriage, mother and
daughter were surely at liberty to give way to a sensibility which is
as tender as it is refreshing. About a question of marriage I have seen
women who hate each other kiss and cry together quite fondly. How much
more do they feel when they love!  Good mothers are married over again
at their daughters' weddings: and as for subsequent events, who does
not know how ultra-maternal grandmothers are?--in fact a woman, until
she is a grandmother, does not often really know what to be a mother
is.  Let us respect Amelia and her mamma whispering and whimpering and
laughing and crying in the parlour and the twilight.  Old Mr. Sedley
did.  HE had not divined who was in the carriage when it drove up. He
had not flown out to meet his daughter, though he kissed her very
warmly when she entered the room (where he was occupied, as usual, with
his papers and tapes and statements of accounts), and after sitting
with the mother and daughter for a short time, he very wisely left the
little apartment in their possession.

George's valet was looking on in a very supercilious manner at Mr.
Clapp in his shirt-sleeves, watering his rose-bushes.  He took off his
hat, however, with much condescension to Mr. Sedley, who asked news
about his son-in-law, and about Jos's carriage, and whether his horses
had been down to Brighton, and about that infernal traitor Bonaparty,
and the war; until the Irish maid-servant came with a plate and a
bottle of wine, from which the old gentleman insisted upon helping the
valet.  He gave him a half-guinea too, which the servant pocketed with
a mixture of wonder and contempt.  "To the health of your master and
mistress, Trotter," Mr. Sedley said, "and here's something to drink
your health when you get home, Trotter."

There were but nine days past since Amelia had left that little cottage
and home--and yet how far off the time seemed since she had bidden it
farewell.  What a gulf lay between her and that past life. She could
look back to it from her present standing-place, and contemplate,
almost as another being, the young unmarried girl absorbed in her love,
having no eyes but for one special object, receiving parental affection
if not ungratefully, at least indifferently, and as if it were her
due--her whole heart and thoughts bent on the accomplishment of one
desire.  The review of those days, so lately gone yet so far away,
touched her with shame; and the aspect of the kind parents filled her
with tender remorse. Was the prize gained--the heaven of life--and the
winner still doubtful and unsatisfied?  As his hero and heroine pass
the matrimonial barrier, the novelist generally drops the curtain, as
if the drama were over then:  the doubts and struggles of life ended:
as if, once landed in the marriage country, all were green and pleasant
there:  and wife and husband had nothing to do but to link each other's
arms together, and wander gently downwards towards old age in happy and
perfect fruition.  But our little Amelia was just on the bank of her
new country, and was already looking anxiously back towards the sad
friendly figures waving farewell to her across the stream, from the
other distant shore.

In honour of the young bride's arrival, her mother thought it necessary
to prepare I don't know what festive entertainment, and after the first
ebullition of talk, took leave of Mrs. George Osborne for a while, and
dived down to the lower regions of the house to a sort of
kitchen-parlour (occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Clapp, and in the evening,
when her dishes were washed and her curl-papers removed, by Miss
Flannigan, the Irish servant), there to take measures for the preparing
of a magnificent ornamented tea.  All people have their ways of
expressing kindness, and it seemed to Mrs. Sedley that a muffin and a
quantity of orange marmalade spread out in a little cut-glass saucer
would be peculiarly agreeable refreshments to Amelia in her most
interesting situation.

While these delicacies were being transacted below, Amelia, leaving the
drawing-room, walked upstairs and found herself, she scarce knew how,
in the little room which she had occupied before her marriage, and in
that very chair in which she had passed so many bitter hours. She sank
back in its arms as if it were an old friend; and fell to thinking over
the past week, and the life beyond it.  Already to be looking sadly and
vaguely back: always to be pining for something which, when obtained,
brought doubt and sadness rather than pleasure; here was the lot of our
poor little creature and harmless lost wanderer in the great struggling
crowds of Vanity Fair.

Here she sate, and recalled to herself fondly that image of George to
which she had knelt before marriage.  Did she own to herself how
different the real man was from that superb young hero whom she had
worshipped?  It requires many, many years--and a man must be very bad
indeed--before a woman's pride and vanity will let her own to such a
confession.  Then Rebecca's twinkling green eyes and baleful smile
lighted upon her, and filled her with dismay.  And so she sate for
awhile indulging in her usual mood of selfish brooding, in that very
listless melancholy attitude in which the honest maid-servant had found
her, on the day when she brought up the letter in which George renewed
his offer of marriage.

She looked at the little white bed, which had been hers a few days
before, and thought she would like to sleep in it that night, and wake,
as formerly, with her mother smiling over her in the morning: Then she
thought with terror of the great funereal damask pavilion in the vast
and dingy state bedroom, which was awaiting her at the grand hotel in
Cavendish Square.  Dear little white bed! how many a long night had she
wept on its pillow! How she had despaired and hoped to die there; and
now were not all her wishes accomplished, and the lover of whom she had
despaired her own for ever?  Kind mother! how patiently and tenderly
she had watched round that bed! She went and knelt down by the bedside;
and there this wounded and timorous, but gentle and loving soul, sought
for consolation, where as yet, it must be owned, our little girl had
but seldom looked for it.  Love had been her faith hitherto; and the
sad, bleeding disappointed heart began to feel the want of another
consoler.

Have we a right to repeat or to overhear her prayers? These, brother,
are secrets, and out of the domain of Vanity Fair, in which our story
lies.

But this may be said, that when the tea was finally announced, our
young lady came downstairs a great deal more cheerful; that she did not
despond, or deplore her fate, or think about George's coldness, or
Rebecca's eyes, as she had been wont to do of late.  She went
downstairs, and kissed her father and mother, and talked to the old
gentleman, and made him more merry than he had been for many a day. She
sate down at the piano which Dobbin had bought for her, and sang over
all her father's favourite old songs.  She pronounced the tea to be
excellent, and praised the exquisite taste in which the marmalade was
arranged in the saucers.  And in determining to make everybody else
happy, she found herself so; and was sound asleep in the great funereal
pavilion, and only woke up with a smile when George arrived from the
theatre.

For the next day, George had more important "business" to transact than
that which took him to see Mr. Kean in Shylock.  Immediately on his
arrival in London he had written off to his father's solicitors,
signifying his royal pleasure that an interview should take place
between them on the morrow.  His hotel bill, losses at billiards and
cards to Captain Crawley had almost drained the young man's purse,
which wanted replenishing before he set out on his travels, and he had
no resource but to infringe upon the two thousand pounds which the
attorneys were commissioned to pay over to him.  He had a perfect
belief in his own mind that his father would relent before very long.
How could any parent be obdurate for a length of time against such a
paragon as he was?  If his mere past and personal merits did not
succeed in mollifying his father, George determined that he would
distinguish himself so prodigiously in the ensuing campaign that the
old gentleman must give in to him.  And if not? Bah! the world was
before him.  His luck might change at cards, and there was a deal of
spending in two thousand pounds.

So he sent off Amelia once more in a carriage to her mamma, with strict
orders and carte blanche to the two ladies to purchase everything
requisite for a lady of Mrs. George Osborne's fashion, who was going on
a foreign tour.  They had but one day to complete the outfit, and it
may be imagined that their business therefore occupied them pretty
fully.  In a carriage once more, bustling about from milliner to
linen-draper, escorted back to the carriage by obsequious shopmen or
polite owners, Mrs. Sedley was herself again almost, and sincerely
happy for the first time since their misfortunes.  Nor was Mrs. Amelia
at all above the pleasure of shopping, and bargaining, and seeing and
buying pretty things. (Would any man, the most philosophic, give
twopence for a woman who was?)  She gave herself a little treat,
obedient to her husband's orders, and purchased a quantity of lady's
gear, showing a great deal of taste and elegant discernment, as all the
shopfolks said.

And about the war that was ensuing, Mrs. Osborne was not much alarmed;
Bonaparty was to be crushed almost without a struggle. Margate packets
were sailing every day, filled with men of fashion and ladies of note,
on their way to Brussels and Ghent.  People were going not so much to a
war as to a fashionable tour.  The newspapers laughed the wretched
upstart and swindler to scorn.  Such a Corsican wretch as that
withstand the armies of Europe and the genius of the immortal
Wellington!  Amelia held him in utter contempt; for it needs not to be
said that this soft and gentle creature took her opinions from those
people who surrounded her, such fidelity being much too humble-minded
to think for itself. Well, in a word, she and her mother performed a
great day's shopping, and she acquitted herself with considerable
liveliness and credit on this her first appearance in the genteel world
of London.

George meanwhile, with his hat on one side, his elbows squared, and his
swaggering martial air, made for Bedford Row, and stalked into the
attorney's offices as if he was lord of every pale-faced clerk who was
scribbling there.  He ordered somebody to inform Mr. Higgs that Captain
Osborne was waiting, in a fierce and patronizing way, as if the pekin
of an attorney, who had thrice his brains, fifty times his money, and a
thousand times his experience, was a wretched underling who should
instantly leave all his business in life to attend on the Captain's
pleasure.  He did not see the sneer of contempt which passed all round
the room, from the first clerk to the articled gents, from the articled
gents to the ragged writers and white-faced runners, in clothes too
tight for them, as he sate there tapping his boot with his cane, and
thinking what a parcel of miserable poor devils these were.  The
miserable poor devils knew all about his affairs.  They talked about
them over their pints of beer at their public-house clubs to other
clerks of a night. Ye gods, what do not attorneys and attorneys' clerks
know in London! Nothing is hidden from their inquisition, and their
families mutely rule our city.

Perhaps George expected, when he entered Mr. Higgs's apartment, to find
that gentleman commissioned to give him some message of compromise or
conciliation from his father; perhaps his haughty and cold demeanour
was adopted as a sign of his spirit and resolution: but if so, his
fierceness was met by a chilling coolness and indifference on the
attorney's part, that rendered swaggering absurd.  He pretended to be
writing at a paper, when the Captain entered.  "Pray, sit down, sir,"
said he, "and I will attend to your little affair in a moment.  Mr.
Poe, get the release papers, if you please"; and then he fell to
writing again.

Poe having produced those papers, his chief calculated the amount of
two thousand pounds stock at the rate of the day; and asked Captain
Osborne whether he would take the sum in a cheque upon the bankers, or
whether he should direct the latter to purchase stock to that amount.
"One of the late Mrs. Osborne's trustees is out of town," he said
indifferently, "but my client wishes to meet your wishes, and have done
with the business as quick as possible."

"Give me a cheque, sir," said the Captain very surlily. "Damn the
shillings and halfpence, sir," he added, as the lawyer was making out
the amount of the draft; and, flattering himself that by this stroke of
magnanimity he had put the old quiz to the blush, he stalked out of the
office with the paper in his pocket.

"That chap will be in gaol in two years," Mr. Higgs said to Mr. Poe.

"Won't O. come round, sir, don't you think?"

"Won't the monument come round," Mr. Higgs replied.

"He's going it pretty fast," said the clerk.  "He's only married a
week, and I saw him and some other military chaps handing Mrs.
Highflyer to her carriage after the play." And then another case was
called, and Mr. George Osborne thenceforth dismissed from these worthy
gentlemen's memory.

The draft was upon our friends Hulker and Bullock of Lombard Street, to
whose house, still thinking he was doing business, George bent his way,
and from whom he received his money.  Frederick Bullock, Esq., whose
yellow face was over a ledger, at which sate a demure clerk, happened
to be in the banking-room when George entered. His yellow face turned
to a more deadly colour when he saw the Captain, and he slunk back
guiltily into the inmost parlour.  George was too busy gloating over
the money (for he had never had such a sum before), to mark the
countenance or flight of the cadaverous suitor of his sister.

Fred Bullock told old Osborne of his son's appearance and conduct. "He
came in as bold as brass," said Frederick.  "He has drawn out every
shilling.  How long will a few hundred pounds last such a chap as
that?" Osborne swore with a great oath that he little cared when or how
soon he spent it.  Fred dined every day in Russell Square now.  But
altogether, George was highly pleased with his day's business.  All his
own baggage and outfit was put into a state of speedy preparation, and
he paid Amelia's purchases with cheques on his agents, and with the
splendour of a lord.



In Which Amelia Joins Her Regiment

When Jos's fine carriage drove up to the inn door at Chatham, the first
face which Amelia recognized was the friendly countenance of Captain
Dobbin, who had been pacing the street for an hour past in expectation
of his friends' arrival.  The Captain, with shells on his frockcoat,
and a crimson sash and sabre, presented a military appearance, which
made Jos quite proud to be able to claim such an acquaintance, and the
stout civilian hailed him with a cordiality very different from the
reception which Jos vouchsafed to his friend in Brighton and Bond
Street.

Along with the Captain was Ensign Stubble; who, as the barouche neared
the inn, burst out with an exclamation of "By Jove! what a pretty
girl"; highly applauding Osborne's choice.  Indeed, Amelia dressed in
her wedding-pelisse and pink ribbons, with a flush in her face,
occasioned by rapid travel through the open air, looked so fresh and
pretty, as fully to justify the Ensign's compliment. Dobbin liked him
for making it.  As he stepped forward to help the lady out of the
carriage, Stubble saw what a pretty little hand she gave him, and what
a sweet pretty little foot came tripping down the step.  He blushed
profusely, and made the very best bow of which he was capable; to which
Amelia, seeing the number of the the regiment embroidered on the
Ensign's cap, replied with a blushing smile, and a curtsey on her part;
which finished the young Ensign on the spot. Dobbin took most kindly to
Mr. Stubble from that day, and encouraged him to talk about Amelia in
their private walks, and at each other's quarters.  It became the
fashion, indeed, among all the honest young fellows of the --th to
adore and admire Mrs. Osborne.  Her simple artless behaviour, and
modest kindness of demeanour, won all their unsophisticated hearts; all
which simplicity and sweetness are quite impossible to describe in
print.  But who has not beheld these among women, and recognised the
presence of all sorts of qualities in them, even though they say no
more to you than that they are engaged to dance the next quadrille, or
that it is very hot weather? George, always the champion of his
regiment, rose immensely in the opinion of the youth of the corps, by
his gallantry in marrying this portionless young creature, and by his
choice of such a pretty kind partner.

In the sitting-room which was awaiting the travellers, Amelia, to her
surprise, found a letter addressed to Mrs. Captain Osborne.  It was a
triangular billet, on pink paper, and sealed with a dove and an olive
branch, and a profusion of light blue sealing wax, and it was written
in a very large, though undecided female hand.

"It's Peggy O'Dowd's fist," said George, laughing.  "I know it by the
kisses on the seal." And in fact, it was a note from Mrs. Major O'Dowd,
requesting the pleasure of Mrs. Osborne's company that very evening to
a small friendly party.  "You must go," George said. "You will make
acquaintance with the regiment there.  O'Dowd goes in command of the
regiment, and Peggy goes in command."

But they had not been for many minutes in the enjoyment of Mrs.
O'Dowd's letter, when the door was flung open, and a stout jolly lady,
in a riding-habit, followed by a couple of officers of Ours, entered
the room.

"Sure, I couldn't stop till tay-time.  Present me, Garge, my dear
fellow, to your lady.  Madam, I'm deloighted to see ye; and to present
to you me husband, Meejor O'Dowd"; and with this, the jolly lady in the
riding-habit grasped Amelia's hand very warmly, and the latter knew at
once that the lady was before her whom her husband had so often laughed
at.  "You've often heard of me from that husband of yours," said the
lady, with great vivacity.

"You've often heard of her," echoed her husband, the Major.

Amelia answered, smiling, "that she had."

"And small good he's told you of me," Mrs. O'Dowd replied; adding that
"George was a wicked divvle."

"That I'll go bail for," said the Major, trying to look knowing, at
which George laughed; and Mrs. O'Dowd, with a tap of her whip, told the
Major to be quiet; and then requested to be presented in form to Mrs.
Captain Osborne.

"This, my dear," said George with great gravity, "is my very good,
kind, and excellent friend, Auralia Margaretta, otherwise called Peggy."

"Faith, you're right," interposed the Major.

"Otherwise called Peggy, lady of Major Michael O'Dowd, of our regiment,
and daughter of Fitzjurld Ber'sford de Burgo Malony of Glenmalony,
County Kildare."

"And Muryan Squeer, Doblin," said the lady with calm superiority.

"And Muryan Square, sure enough," the Major whispered.

"'Twas there ye coorted me, Meejor dear," the lady said; and the Major
assented to this as to every other proposition which was made generally
in company.

Major O'Dowd, who had served his sovereign in every quarter of the
world, and had paid for every step in his profession by some more than
equivalent act of daring and gallantry, was the most modest, silent,
sheep-faced and meek of little men, and as obedient to his wife as if
he had been her tay-boy.  At the mess-table he sat silently, and drank
a great deal.  When full of liquor, he reeled silently home.  When he
spoke, it was to agree with everybody on every conceivable point; and
he passed through life in perfect ease and good-humour.  The hottest
suns of India never heated his temper; and the Walcheren ague never
shook it.  He walked up to a battery with just as much indifference as
to a dinner-table; had dined on horse-flesh and turtle with equal
relish and appetite; and had an old mother, Mrs. O'Dowd of O'Dowdstown
indeed, whom he had never disobeyed but when he ran away and enlisted,
and when he persisted in marrying that odious Peggy Malony.

Peggy was one of five sisters, and eleven children of the noble house
of Glenmalony; but her husband, though her own cousin, was of the
mother's side, and so had not the inestimable advantage of being allied
to the Malonys, whom she believed to be the most famous family in the
world.  Having tried nine seasons at Dublin and two at Bath and
Cheltenham, and not finding a partner for life, Miss Malony ordered her
cousin Mick to marry her when she was about thirty-three years of age;
and the honest fellow obeying, carried her off to the West Indies, to
preside over the ladies of the --th regiment, into which he had just
exchanged.

Before Mrs. O'Dowd was half an hour in Amelia's (or indeed in anybody
else's) company, this amiable lady told all her birth and pedigree to
her new friend.  "My dear," said she, good-naturedly, "it was my
intention that Garge should be a brother of my own, and my sister
Glorvina would have suited him entirely.  But as bygones are bygones,
and he was engaged to yourself, why, I'm determined to take you as a
sister instead, and to look upon you as such, and to love you as one of
the family.  Faith, you've got such a nice good-natured face and way
widg you, that I'm sure we'll agree; and that you'll be an addition to
our family anyway."

"'Deed and she will," said O'Dowd, with an approving air, and Amelia
felt herself not a little amused and grateful to be thus suddenly
introduced to so large a party of relations.

"We're all good fellows here," the Major's lady continued. "There's not
a regiment in the service where you'll find a more united society nor a
more agreeable mess-room.  There's no quarrelling, bickering,
slandthering, nor small talk amongst us.  We all love each other."

"Especially Mrs. Magenis," said George, laughing.

"Mrs. Captain Magenis and me has made up, though her treatment of me
would bring me gray hairs with sorrow to the grave."

"And you with such a beautiful front of black, Peggy, my dear," the
Major cried.

"Hould your tongue, Mick, you booby.  Them husbands are always in the
way, Mrs. Osborne, my dear; and as for my Mick, I often tell him he
should never open his mouth but to give the word of command, or to put
meat and drink into it.  I'll tell you about the regiment, and warn you
when we're alone.  Introduce me to your brother now; sure he's a mighty
fine man, and reminds me of me cousin, Dan Malony (Malony of
Ballymalony, my dear, you know who mar'ied Ophalia Scully, of
Oystherstown, own cousin to Lord Poldoody).  Mr. Sedley, sir, I'm
deloighted to be made known te ye.  I suppose you'll dine at the mess
to-day.  (Mind that divvle of a docther, Mick, and whatever ye du, keep
yourself sober for me party this evening.)"

"It's the 150th gives us a farewell dinner, my love," interposed the
Major, "but we'll easy get a card for Mr. Sedley."

"Run Simple (Ensign Simple, of Ours, my dear Amelia. I forgot to
introjuice him to ye).  Run in a hurry, with Mrs. Major O'Dowd's
compliments to Colonel Tavish, and Captain Osborne has brought his
brothernlaw down, and will bring him to the 150th mess at five o'clock
sharp--when you and I, my dear, will take a snack here, if you like."
Before Mrs. O'Dowd's speech was concluded, the young Ensign was
trotting downstairs on his commission.

"Obedience is the soul of the army.  We will go to our duty while Mrs.
O'Dowd will stay and enlighten you, Emmy," Captain Osborne said; and
the two gentlemen, taking each a wing of the Major, walked out with
that officer, grinning at each other over his head.

And, now having her new friend to herself, the impetuous Mrs. O'Dowd
proceeded to pour out such a quantity of information as no poor little
woman's memory could ever tax itself to bear.  She told Amelia a
thousand particulars relative to the very numerous family of which the
amazed young lady found herself a member.  "Mrs. Heavytop, the
Colonel's wife, died in Jamaica of the yellow faver and a broken heart
comboined, for the horrud old Colonel, with a head as bald as a
cannon-ball, was making sheep's eyes at a half-caste girl there.  Mrs.
Magenis, though without education, was a good woman, but she had the
divvle's tongue, and would cheat her own mother at whist.  Mrs. Captain
Kirk must turn up her lobster eyes forsooth at the idea of an honest
round game (wherein me fawther, as pious a man as ever went to church,
me uncle Dane Malony, and our cousin the Bishop, took a hand at loo, or
whist, every night of their lives).  Nayther of 'em's goin' with the
regiment this time," Mrs. O'Dowd added.  "Fanny Magenis stops with her
mother, who sells small coal and potatoes, most likely, in
Islington-town, hard by London, though she's always bragging of her
father's ships, and pointing them out to us as they go up the river:
and Mrs. Kirk and her children will stop here in Bethesda Place, to be
nigh to her favourite preacher, Dr. Ramshorn.  Mrs. Bunny's in an
interesting situation--faith, and she always is, then--and has given
the Lieutenant seven already.  And Ensign Posky's wife, who joined two
months before you, my dear, has quarl'd with Tom Posky a score of
times, till you can hear'm all over the bar'ck (they say they're come
to broken pleets, and Tom never accounted for his black oi), and she'll
go back to her mother, who keeps a ladies' siminary at Richmond--bad
luck to her for running away from it!  Where did ye get your finishing,
my dear?  I had moin, and no expince spared, at Madame Flanahan's, at
Ilyssus Grove, Booterstown, near Dublin, wid a Marchioness to teach us
the true Parisian pronunciation, and a retired Mejor-General of the
French service to put us through the exercise."

Of this incongruous family our astonished Amelia found herself all of a
sudden a member:  with Mrs. O'Dowd as an elder sister.  She was
presented to her other female relations at tea-time, on whom, as she
was quiet, good-natured, and not too handsome, she made rather an
agreeable impression until the arrival of the gentlemen from the mess
of the 150th, who all admired her so, that her sisters began, of
course, to find fault with her.

"I hope Osborne has sown his wild oats," said Mrs. Magenis to Mrs.
Bunny.  "If a reformed rake makes a good husband, sure it's she will
have the fine chance with Garge," Mrs. O'Dowd remarked to Posky, who
had lost her position as bride in the regiment, and was quite angry
with the usurper.  And as for Mrs. Kirk:  that disciple of Dr. Ramshorn
put one or two leading professional questions to Amelia, to see whether
she was awakened, whether she was a professing Christian and so forth,
and finding from the simplicity of Mrs. Osborne's replies that she was
yet in utter darkness, put into her hands three little penny books with
pictures, viz., the "Howling Wilderness," the "Washerwoman of
Wandsworth Common," and the "British Soldier's best Bayonet," which,
bent upon awakening her before she slept, Mrs. Kirk begged Amelia to
read that night ere she went to bed.

But all the men, like good fellows as they were, rallied round their
comrade's pretty wife, and paid her their court with soldierly
gallantry.  She had a little triumph, which flushed her spirits and
made her eyes sparkle. George was proud of her popularity, and pleased
with the manner (which was very gay and graceful, though naive and a
little timid) with which she received the gentlemen's attentions, and
answered their compliments.  And he in his uniform--how much handsomer
he was than any man in the room!  She felt that he was affectionately
watching her, and glowed with pleasure at his kindness.  "I will make
all his friends welcome," she resolved in her heart.  "I will love all
as I love him.  I will always try and be gay and good-humoured and make
his home happy."

The regiment indeed adopted her with acclamation. The Captains
approved, the Lieutenants applauded, the Ensigns admired.  Old Cutler,
the Doctor, made one or two jokes, which, being professional, need not
be repeated; and Cackle, the Assistant M.D. of Edinburgh, condescended
to examine her upon leeterature, and tried her with his three best
French quotations.  Young Stubble went about from man to man
whispering, "Jove, isn't she a pretty gal?" and never took his eyes off
her except when the negus came in.

As for Captain Dobbin, he never so much as spoke to her during the
whole evening.  But he and Captain Porter of the 150th took home Jos to
the hotel, who was in a very maudlin state, and had told his tiger-hunt
story with great effect, both at the mess-table and at the soiree, to
Mrs. O'Dowd in her turban and bird of paradise. Having put the
Collector into the hands of his servant, Dobbin loitered about, smoking
his cigar before the inn door. George had meanwhile very carefully
shawled his wife, and brought her away from Mrs. O'Dowd's after a
general handshaking from the young officers, who accompanied her to the
fly, and cheered that vehicle as it drove off.  So Amelia gave Dobbin
her little hand as she got out of the carriage, and rebuked him
smilingly for not having taken any notice of her all night.

The Captain continued that deleterious amusement of smoking, long after
the inn and the street were gone to bed.  He watched the lights vanish
from George's sitting-room windows, and shine out in the bedroom close
at hand.  It was almost morning when he returned to his own quarters.
He could hear the cheering from the ships in the river, where the
transports were already taking in their cargoes preparatory to dropping
down the Thames.



In Which Amelia Invades the Low Countries

The regiment with its officers was to be transported in ships provided
by His Majesty's government for the occasion:  and in two days after
the festive assembly at Mrs. O'Dowd's apartments, in the midst of
cheering from all the East India ships in the river, and the military
on shore, the band playing "God Save the King," the officers waving
their hats, and the crews hurrahing gallantly, the transports went down
the river and proceeded under convoy to Ostend. Meanwhile the gallant
Jos had agreed to escort his sister and the Major's wife, the bulk of
whose goods and chattels, including the famous bird of paradise and
turban, were with the regimental baggage: so that our two heroines
drove pretty much unencumbered to Ramsgate, where there were plenty of
packets plying, in one of which they had a speedy passage to Ostend.

That period of Jos's life which now ensued was so full of incident,
that it served him for conversation for many years after, and even the
tiger-hunt story was put aside for more stirring narratives which he
had to tell about the great campaign of Waterloo.  As soon as he had
agreed to escort his sister abroad, it was remarked that he ceased
shaving his upper lip.  At Chatham he followed the parades and drills
with great assiduity.  He listened with the utmost attention to the
conversation of his brother officers (as he called them in after days
sometimes), and learned as many military names as he could. In these
studies the excellent Mrs. O'Dowd was of great assistance to him; and
on the day finally when they embarked on board the Lovely Rose, which
was to carry them to their destination, he made his appearance in a
braided frock-coat and duck trousers, with a foraging cap ornamented
with a smart gold band.  Having his carriage with him, and informing
everybody on board confidentially that he was going to join the Duke of
Wellington's army, folks mistook him for a great personage, a
commissary-general, or a government courier at the very least.

He suffered hugely on the voyage, during which the ladies were likewise
prostrate; but Amelia was brought to life again as the packet made
Ostend, by the sight of the transports conveying her regiment, which
entered the harbour almost at the same time with the Lovely Rose. Jos
went in a collapsed state to an inn, while Captain Dobbin escorted the
ladies, and then busied himself in freeing Jos's carriage and luggage
from the ship and the custom-house, for Mr. Jos was at present without
a servant, Osborne's man and his own pampered menial having conspired
together at Chatham, and refused point-blank to cross the water.  This
revolt, which came very suddenly, and on the last day, so alarmed Mr.
Sedley, junior, that he was on the point of giving up the expedition,
but Captain Dobbin (who made himself immensely officious in the
business, Jos said), rated him and laughed at him soundly:  the
mustachios were grown in advance, and Jos finally was persuaded to
embark.  In place of the well-bred and well-fed London domestics, who
could only speak English, Dobbin procured for Jos's party a swarthy
little Belgian servant who could speak no language at all; but who, by
his bustling behaviour, and by invariably addressing Mr. Sedley as "My
lord," speedily acquired that gentleman's favour.  Times are altered at
Ostend now; of the Britons who go thither, very few look like lords, or
act like those members of our hereditary aristocracy.  They seem for
the most part shabby in attire, dingy of linen, lovers of billiards and
brandy, and cigars and greasy ordinaries.

But it may be said as a rule, that every Englishman in the Duke of
Wellington's army paid his way.  The remembrance of such a fact surely
becomes a nation of shopkeepers.  It was a blessing for a
commerce-loving country to be overrun by such an army of customers: and
to have such creditable warriors to feed.  And the country which they
came to protect is not military.  For a long period of history they
have let other people fight there.  When the present writer went to
survey with eagle glance the field of Waterloo, we asked the conductor
of the diligence, a portly warlike-looking veteran, whether he had been
at the battle.  "Pas si bete"--such an answer and sentiment as no
Frenchman would own to--was his reply.  But, on the other hand, the
postilion who drove us was a Viscount, a son of some bankrupt Imperial
General, who accepted a pennyworth of beer on the road.  The moral is
surely a good one.

This flat, flourishing, easy country never could have looked more rich
and prosperous than in that opening summer of 1815, when its green
fields and quiet cities were enlivened by multiplied red-coats: when
its wide chaussees swarmed with brilliant English equipages: when its
great canal-boats, gliding by rich pastures and pleasant quaint old
villages, by old chateaux lying amongst old trees, were all crowded
with well-to-do English travellers: when the soldier who drank at the
village inn, not only drank, but paid his score; and Donald, the
Highlander, billeted in the Flemish farm-house, rocked the baby's
cradle, while Jean and Jeannette were out getting in the hay.  As our
painters are bent on military subjects just now, I throw out this as a
good subject for the pencil, to illustrate the principle of an honest
English war.  All looked as brilliant and harmless as a Hyde Park
review.  Meanwhile, Napoleon screened behind his curtain of
frontier-fortresses, was preparing for the outbreak which was to drive
all these orderly people into fury and blood; and lay so many of them
low.

Everybody had such a perfect feeling of confidence in the leader (for
the resolute faith which the Duke of Wellington had inspired in the
whole English nation was as intense as that more frantic enthusiasm
with which at one time the French regarded Napoleon), the country
seemed in so perfect a state of orderly defence, and the help at hand
in case of need so near and overwhelming, that alarm was unknown, and
our travellers, among whom two were naturally of a very timid sort,
were, like all the other multiplied English tourists, entirely at ease.
The famous regiment, with so many of whose officers we have made
acquaintance, was drafted in canal boats to Bruges and Ghent, thence to
march to Brussels. Jos accompanied the ladies in the public boats; the
which all old travellers in Flanders must remember for the luxury and
accommodation they afforded.  So prodigiously good was the eating and
drinking on board these sluggish but most comfortable vessels, that
there are legends extant of an English traveller, who, coming to
Belgium for a week, and travelling in one of these boats, was so
delighted with the fare there that he went backwards and forwards from
Ghent to Bruges perpetually until the railroads were invented, when he
drowned himself on the last trip of the passage-boat.  Jos's death was
not to be of this sort, but his comfort was exceeding, and Mrs. O'Dowd
insisted that he only wanted her sister Glorvina to make his happiness
complete.  He sate on the roof of the cabin all day drinking Flemish
beer, shouting for Isidor, his servant, and talking gallantly to the
ladies.

His courage was prodigious.  "Boney attack us!" he cried.  "My dear
creature, my poor Emmy, don't be frightened.  There's no danger. The
allies will be in Paris in two months, I tell you; when I'll take you
to dine in the Palais Royal, by Jove!  There are three hundred thousand
Rooshians, I tell you, now entering France by Mayence and the
Rhine--three hundred thousand under Wittgenstein and Barclay de Tolly,
my poor love.  You don't know military affairs, my dear.  I do, and I
tell you there's no infantry in France can stand against Rooshian
infantry, and no general of Boney's that's fit to hold a candle to
Wittgenstein.  Then there are the Austrians, they are five hundred
thousand if a man, and they are within ten marches of the frontier by
this time, under Schwartzenberg and Prince Charles.  Then there are the
Prooshians under the gallant Prince Marshal.  Show me a cavalry chief
like him now that Murat is gone. Hey, Mrs. O'Dowd?  Do you think our
little girl here need be afraid? Is there any cause for fear, Isidor?
Hey, sir?  Get some more beer."

Mrs. O'Dowd said that her "Glorvina was not afraid of any man alive,
let alone a Frenchman," and tossed off a glass of beer with a wink
which expressed her liking for the beverage.

Having frequently been in presence of the enemy, or, in other words,
faced the ladies at Cheltenham and Bath, our friend, the Collector, had
lost a great deal of his pristine timidity, and was now, especially
when fortified with liquor, as talkative as might be.  He was rather a
favourite with the regiment, treating the young officers with
sumptuosity, and amusing them by his military airs. And as there is one
well-known regiment of the army which travels with a goat heading the
column, whilst another is led by a deer, George said with respect to
his brother-in-law, that his regiment marched with an elephant.

Since Amelia's introduction to the regiment, George began to be rather
ashamed of some of the company to which he had been forced to present
her; and determined, as he told Dobbin (with what satisfaction to the
latter it need not be said), to exchange into some better regiment
soon, and to get his wife away from those damned vulgar women.  But
this vulgarity of being ashamed of one's society is much more common
among men than women (except very great ladies of fashion, who, to be
sure, indulge in it); and Mrs. Amelia, a natural and unaffected person,
had none of that artificial shamefacedness which her husband mistook
for delicacy on his own part.  Thus Mrs. O'Dowd had a cock's plume in
her hat, and a very large "repayther" on her stomach, which she used to
ring on all occasions, narrating how it had been presented to her by
her fawther, as she stipt into the car'ge after her mar'ge; and these
ornaments, with other outward peculiarities of the Major's wife, gave
excruciating agonies to Captain Osborne, when his wife and the Major's
came in contact; whereas Amelia was only amused by the honest lady's
eccentricities, and not in the least ashamed of her company.

As they made that well-known journey, which almost every Englishman of
middle rank has travelled since, there might have been more
instructive, but few more entertaining, companions than Mrs. Major
O'Dowd.  "Talk about kenal boats; my dear!  Ye should see the kenal
boats between Dublin and Ballinasloe.  It's there the rapid travelling
is; and the beautiful cattle.  Sure me fawther got a goold medal (and
his Excellency himself eat a slice of it, and said never was finer mate
in his loif) for a four-year-old heifer, the like of which ye never saw
in this country any day." And Jos owned with a sigh, "that for good
streaky beef, really mingled with fat and lean, there was no country
like England."

"Except Ireland, where all your best mate comes from," said the Major's
lady; proceeding, as is not unusual with patriots of her nation, to
make comparisons greatly in favour of her own country. The idea of
comparing the market at Bruges with those of Dublin, although she had
suggested it herself, caused immense scorn and derision on her part.
"I'll thank ye tell me what they mean by that old gazabo on the top of
the market-place," said she, in a burst of ridicule fit to have brought
the old tower down.  The place was full of English soldiery as they
passed.  English bugles woke them in the morning; at nightfall they
went to bed to the note of the British fife and drum:  all the country
and Europe was in arms, and the greatest event of history pending:  and
honest Peggy O'Dowd, whom it concerned as well as another, went on
prattling about Ballinafad, and the horses in the stables at
Glenmalony, and the clar't drunk there; and Jos Sedley interposed about
curry and rice at Dumdum; and Amelia thought about her husband, and how
best she should show her love for him; as if these were the great
topics of the world.

Those who like to lay down the History-book, and to speculate upon what
MIGHT have happened in the world, but for the fatal occurrence of what
actually did take place (a most puzzling, amusing, ingenious, and
profitable kind of meditation), have no doubt often thought to
themselves what a specially bad time Napoleon took to come back from
Elba, and to let loose his eagle from Gulf San Juan to Notre Dame.  The
historians on our side tell us that the armies of the allied powers
were all providentially on a war-footing, and ready to bear down at a
moment's notice upon the Elban Emperor. The august jobbers assembled at
Vienna, and carving out the kingdoms of Europe according to their
wisdom, had such causes of quarrel among themselves as might have set
the armies which had overcome Napoleon to fight against each other, but
for the return of the object of unanimous hatred and fear.  This
monarch had an army in full force because he had jobbed to himself
Poland, and was determined to keep it:  another had robbed half Saxony,
and was bent upon maintaining his acquisition: Italy was the object of
a third's solicitude.  Each was protesting against the rapacity of the
other; and could the Corsican but have waited in prison until all these
parties were by the ears, he might have returned and reigned
unmolested.  But what would have become of our story and all our
friends, then?  If all the drops in it were dried up, what would become
of the sea?

In the meanwhile the business of life and living, and the pursuits of
pleasure, especially, went on as if no end were to be expected to them,
and no enemy in front. When our travellers arrived at Brussels, in
which their regiment was quartered, a great piece of good fortune, as
all said, they found themselves in one of the gayest and most brilliant
little capitals in Europe, and where all the Vanity Fair booths were
laid out with the most tempting liveliness and splendour.  Gambling was
here in profusion, and dancing in plenty:  feasting was there to fill
with delight that great gourmand of a Jos:  there was a theatre where a
miraculous Catalani was delighting all hearers:  beautiful rides, all
enlivened with martial splendour; a rare old city, with strange
costumes and wonderful architecture, to delight the eyes of little
Amelia, who had never before seen a foreign country, and fill her with
charming surprises: so that now and for a few weeks' space in a fine
handsome lodging, whereof the expenses were borne by Jos and Osborne,
who was flush of money and full of kind attentions to his wife--for
about a fortnight, I say, during which her honeymoon ended, Mrs. Amelia
was as pleased and happy as any little bride out of England.

Every day during this happy time there was novelty and amusement for
all parties.  There was a church to see, or a picture-gallery--there
was a ride, or an opera. The bands of the regiments were making music
at all hours.  The greatest folks of England walked in the Park--there
was a perpetual military festival.  George, taking out his wife to a
new jaunt or junket every night, was quite pleased with himself as
usual, and swore he was becoming quite a domestic character.  And a
jaunt or a junket with HIM!  Was it not enough to set this little heart
beating with joy?  Her letters home to her mother were filled with
delight and gratitude at this season.  Her husband bade her buy laces,
millinery, jewels, and gimcracks of all sorts.  Oh, he was the kindest,
best, and most generous of men!

The sight of the very great company of lords and ladies and fashionable
persons who thronged the town, and appeared in every public place,
filled George's truly British soul with intense delight.  They flung
off that happy frigidity and insolence of demeanour which occasionally
characterises the great at home, and appearing in numberless public
places, condescended to mingle with the rest of the company whom they
met there.  One night at a party given by the general of the division
to which George's regiment belonged, he had the honour of dancing with
Lady Blanche Thistlewood, Lord Bareacres' daughter; he bustled for ices
and refreshments for the two noble ladies; he pushed and squeezed for
Lady Bareacres' carriage; he bragged about the Countess when he got
home, in a way which his own father could not have surpassed.  He
called upon the ladies the next day; he rode by their side in the Park;
he asked their party to a great dinner at a restaurateur's, and was
quite wild with exultation when they agreed to come.  Old Bareacres,
who had not much pride and a large appetite, would go for a dinner
anywhere.

"I hope there will be no women besides our own party," Lady Bareacres
said, after reflecting upon the invitation which had been made, and
accepted with too much precipitancy.

"Gracious Heaven, Mamma--you don't suppose the man would bring his
wife," shrieked Lady Blanche, who had been languishing in George's arms
in the newly imported waltz for hours the night before.  "The men are
bearable, but their women--"

"Wife, just married, dev'lish pretty woman, I hear," the old Earl said.

"Well, my dear Blanche," said the mother, "I suppose, as Papa wants to
go, we must go; but we needn't know them in England, you know." And so,
determined to cut their new acquaintance in Bond Street, these great
folks went to eat his dinner at Brussels, and condescending to make him
pay for their pleasure, showed their dignity by making his wife
uncomfortable, and carefully excluding her from the conversation.  This
is a species of dignity in which the high-bred British female reigns
supreme.  To watch the behaviour of a fine lady to other and humbler
women, is a very good sport for a philosophical frequenter of Vanity
Fair.

This festival, on which honest George spent a great deal of money, was
the very dismallest of all the entertainments which Amelia had in her
honeymoon.  She wrote the most piteous accounts of the feast home to
her mamma:  how the Countess of Bareacres would not answer when spoken
to; how Lady Blanche stared at her with her eye-glass; and what a rage
Captain Dobbin was in at their behaviour; and how my lord, as they came
away from the feast, asked to see the bill, and pronounced it a d----
bad dinner, and d---- dear.  But though Amelia told all these stories,
and wrote home regarding her guests' rudeness, and her own
discomfiture, old Mrs. Sedley was mightily pleased nevertheless, and
talked about Emmy's friend, the Countess of Bareacres, with such
assiduity that the news how his son was entertaining peers and
peeresses actually came to Osborne's ears in the City.

Those who know the present Lieutenant-General Sir George Tufto, K.C.B.,
and have seen him, as they may on most days in the season, padded and
in stays, strutting down Pall Mall with a rickety swagger on his
high-heeled lacquered boots, leering under the bonnets of passers-by,
or riding a showy chestnut, and ogling broughams in the Parks--those
who know the present Sir George Tufto would hardly recognise the daring
Peninsular and Waterloo officer.  He has thick curling brown hair and
black eyebrows now, and his whiskers are of the deepest purple.  He was
light-haired and bald in 1815, and stouter in the person and in the
limbs, which especially have shrunk very much of late.  When he was
about seventy years of age (he is now nearly eighty), his hair, which
was very scarce and quite white, suddenly grew thick, and brown, and
curly, and his whiskers and eyebrows took their present colour.
Ill-natured people say that his chest is all wool, and that his hair,
because it never grows, is a wig.  Tom Tufto, with whose father he
quarrelled ever so many years ago, declares that Mademoiselle de
Jaisey, of the French theatre, pulled his grandpapa's hair off in the
green-room; but Tom is notoriously spiteful and jealous; and the
General's wig has nothing to do with our story.

One day, as some of our friends of the --th were sauntering in the
flower-market of Brussels, having been to see the Hotel de Ville, which
Mrs. Major O'Dowd declared was not near so large or handsome as her
fawther's mansion of Glenmalony, an officer of rank, with an orderly
behind him, rode up to the market, and descending from his horse, came
amongst the flowers, and selected the very finest bouquet which money
could buy. The beautiful bundle being tied up in a paper, the officer
remounted, giving the nosegay into the charge of his military groom,
who carried it with a grin, following his chief, who rode away in great
state and self-satisfaction.

"You should see the flowers at Glenmalony," Mrs. O'Dowd was remarking.
"Me fawther has three Scotch garners with nine helpers. We have an acre
of hot-houses, and pines as common as pays in the sayson.  Our greeps
weighs six pounds every bunch of 'em, and upon me honour and conscience
I think our magnolias is as big as taykettles."

Dobbin, who never used to "draw out" Mrs. O'Dowd as that wicked Osborne
delighted in doing (much to Amelia's terror, who implored him to spare
her), fell back in the crowd, crowing and sputtering until he reached a
safe distance, when he exploded amongst the astonished market-people
with shrieks of yelling laughter.

"Hwhat's that gawky guggling about?" said Mrs. O'Dowd.  "Is it his nose
bleedn?  He always used to say 'twas his nose bleedn, till he must have
pomped all the blood out of 'um.  An't the magnolias at Glenmalony as
big as taykettles, O'Dowd?"

"'Deed then they are, and bigger, Peggy," the Major said.  When the
conversation was interrupted in the manner stated by the arrival of the
officer who purchased the bouquet.

"Devlish fine horse--who is it?" George asked.

"You should see me brother Molloy Malony's horse, Molasses, that won
the cop at the Curragh," the Major's wife was exclaiming, and was
continuing the family history, when her husband interrupted her by
saying--

"It's General Tufto, who commands the ---- cavalry division"; adding
quietly, "he and I were both shot in the same leg at Talavera."

"Where you got your step," said George with a laugh. "General Tufto!
Then, my dear, the Crawleys are come."

Amelia's heart fell--she knew not why.  The sun did not seem to shine
so bright.  The tall old roofs and gables looked less picturesque all
of a sudden, though it was a brilliant sunset, and one of the brightest
and most beautiful days at the end of May.



Brussels

Mr. Jos had hired a pair of horses for his open carriage, with which
cattle, and the smart London vehicle, he made a very tolerable figure
in the drives about Brussels. George purchased a horse for his private
riding, and he and Captain Dobbin would often accompany the carriage in
which Jos and his sister took daily excursions of pleasure.  They went
out that day in the park for their accustomed diversion, and there,
sure enough, George's remark with regard to the arrival of Rawdon
Crawley and his wife proved to be correct.  In the midst of a little
troop of horsemen, consisting of some of the very greatest persons in
Brussels, Rebecca was seen in the prettiest and tightest of
riding-habits, mounted on a beautiful little Arab, which she rode to
perfection (having acquired the art at Queen's Crawley, where the
Baronet, Mr. Pitt, and Rawdon himself had given her many lessons), and
by the side of the gallant General Tufto.

"Sure it's the Juke himself," cried Mrs. Major O'Dowd to Jos, who began
to blush violently; "and that's Lord Uxbridge on the bay.  How elegant
he looks!  Me brother, Molloy Malony, is as like him as two pays."

Rebecca did not make for the carriage; but as soon as she perceived her
old acquaintance Amelia seated in it, acknowledged her presence by a
gracious nod and smile, and by kissing and shaking her fingers
playfully in the direction of the vehicle.  Then she resumed her
conversation with General Tufto, who asked "who the fat officer was in
the gold-laced cap?" on which Becky replied, "that he was an officer in
the East Indian service." But Rawdon Crawley rode out of the ranks of
his company, and came up and shook hands heartily with Amelia, and said
to Jos, "Well, old boy, how are you?" and stared in Mrs. O'Dowd's face
and at the black cock's feathers until she began to think she had made
a conquest of him.

George, who had been delayed behind, rode up almost immediately with
Dobbin, and they touched their caps to the august personages, among
whom Osborne at once perceived Mrs. Crawley.  He was delighted to see
Rawdon leaning over his carriage familiarly and talking to Amelia, and
met the aide-de-camp's cordial greeting with more than corresponding
warmth.  The nods between Rawdon and Dobbin were of the very faintest
specimens of politeness.

Crawley told George where they were stopping with General Tufto at the
Hotel du Parc, and George made his friend promise to come speedily to
Osborne's own residence.  "Sorry I hadn't seen you three days ago,"
George said.  "Had a dinner at the Restaurateur's--rather a nice thing.
Lord Bareacres, and the Countess, and Lady Blanche, were good enough to
dine with us--wish we'd had you." Having thus let his friend know his
claims to be a man of fashion, Osborne parted from Rawdon, who followed
the august squadron down an alley into which they cantered, while
George and Dobbin resumed their places, one on each side of Amelia's
carriage.

"How well the Juke looked," Mrs. O'Dowd remarked. "The Wellesleys and
Malonys are related; but, of course, poor I would never dream of
introjuicing myself unless his Grace thought proper to remember our
family-tie."

"He's a great soldier," Jos said, much more at ease now the great man
was gone.  "Was there ever a battle won like Salamanca?  Hey, Dobbin?
But where was it he learnt his art?  In India, my boy!  The jungle's
the school for a general, mark me that.  I knew him myself, too, Mrs.
O'Dowd:  we both of us danced the same evening with Miss Cutler,
daughter of Cutler of the Artillery, and a devilish fine girl, at
Dumdum."

The apparition of the great personages held them all in talk during the
drive; and at dinner; and until the hour came when they were all to go
to the Opera.

It was almost like Old England.  The house was filled with familiar
British faces, and those toilettes for which the British female has
long been celebrated.  Mrs. O'Dowd's was not the least splendid amongst
these, and she had a curl on her forehead, and a set of Irish diamonds
and Cairngorms, which outshone all the decorations in the house, in her
notion.  Her presence used to excruciate Osborne; but go she would upon
all parties of pleasure on which she heard her young friends were bent.
It never entered into her thought but that they must be charmed with
her company.

"She's been useful to you, my dear," George said to his wife, whom he
could leave alone with less scruple when she had this society. "But
what a comfort it is that Rebecca's come:  you will have her for a
friend, and we may get rid now of this damn'd Irishwoman."  To this
Amelia did not answer, yes or no:  and how do we know what her thoughts
were?

The coup d'oeil of the Brussels opera-house did not strike Mrs. O'Dowd
as being so fine as the theatre in Fishamble Street, Dublin, nor was
French music at all equal, in her opinion, to the melodies of her
native country. She favoured her friends with these and other opinions
in a very loud tone of voice, and tossed about a great clattering fan
she sported, with the most splendid complacency.

"Who is that wonderful woman with Amelia, Rawdon, love?" said a lady in
an opposite box (who, almost always civil to her husband in private,
was more fond than ever of him in company).

"Don't you see that creature with a yellow thing in her turban, and a
red satin gown, and a great watch?"

"Near the pretty little woman in white?" asked a middle-aged gentleman
seated by the querist's side, with orders in his button, and several
under-waistcoats, and a great, choky, white stock.

"That pretty woman in white is Amelia, General:  you are remarking all
the pretty women, you naughty man."

"Only one, begad, in the world!" said the General, delighted, and the
lady gave him a tap with a large bouquet which she had.

"Bedad it's him," said Mrs. O'Dowd; "and that's the very bokay he
bought in the Marshy aux Flures!" and when Rebecca, having caught her
friend's eye, performed the little hand-kissing operation once more,
Mrs. Major O'D., taking the compliment to herself, returned the salute
with a gracious smile, which sent that unfortunate Dobbin shrieking out
of the box again.

At the end of the act, George was out of the box in a moment, and he
was even going to pay his respects to Rebecca in her loge.  He met
Crawley in the lobby, however, where they exchanged a few sentences
upon the occurrences of the last fortnight.

"You found my cheque all right at the agent's? George said, with a
knowing air.

"All right, my boy," Rawdon answered.  "Happy to give you your revenge.
Governor come round?"

"Not yet," said George, "but he will; and you know I've some private
fortune through my mother.  Has Aunty relented?"

"Sent me twenty pound, damned old screw.  When shall we have a meet?
The General dines out on Tuesday. Can't you come Tuesday?  I say, make
Sedley cut off his moustache.  What the devil does a civilian mean with
a moustache and those infernal frogs to his coat!  By-bye. Try and come
on Tuesday"; and Rawdon was going-off with two brilliant young
gentlemen of fashion, who were, like himself, on the staff of a general
officer.

George was only half pleased to be asked to dinner on that particular
day when the General was not to dine.  "I will go in and pay my
respects to your wife," said he; at which Rawdon said, "Hm, as you
please," looking very glum, and at which the two young officers
exchanged knowing glances.  George parted from them and strutted down
the lobby to the General's box, the number of which he had carefully
counted.

"Entrez," said a clear little voice, and our friend found himself in
Rebecca's presence; who jumped up, clapped her hands together, and held
out both of them to George, so charmed was she to see him.  The
General, with the orders in his button, stared at the newcomer with a
sulky scowl, as much as to say, who the devil are you?

"My dear Captain George!" cried little Rebecca in an ecstasy.  "How
good of you to come.  The General and I were moping together tete-a-tete.
General, this is my Captain George of whom you heard me talk."

"Indeed," said the General, with a very small bow; "of what regiment is
Captain George?"

George mentioned the --th:  how he wished he could have said it was a
crack cavalry corps.

"Come home lately from the West Indies, I believe. Not seen much
service in the late war.  Quartered here, Captain George?"--the General
went on with killing haughtiness.

"Not Captain George, you stupid man; Captain Osborne," Rebecca said.
The General all the while was looking savagely from one to the other.

"Captain Osborne, indeed! Any relation to the L------ Osbornes?"

"We bear the same arms," George said, as indeed was the fact; Mr.
Osborne having consulted with a herald in Long Acre, and picked the
L------ arms out of the peerage, when he set up his carriage fifteen
years before.  The General made no reply to this announcement; but took
up his opera-glass--the double-barrelled lorgnon was not invented in
those days--and pretended to examine the house; but Rebecca saw that
his disengaged eye was working round in her direction, and shooting out
bloodshot glances at her and George.

She redoubled in cordiality.  "How is dearest Amelia? But I needn't
ask: how pretty she looks!  And who is that nice good-natured looking
creature with her--a flame of yours?  O, you wicked men! And there is
Mr. Sedley eating ice, I declare: how he seems to enjoy it!  General,
why have we not had any ices?"

"Shall I go and fetch you some?" said the General, bursting with wrath.

"Let ME go, I entreat you," George said.

"No, I will go to Amelia's box.  Dear, sweet girl!  Give me your arm,
Captain George"; and so saying, and with a nod to the General, she
tripped into the lobby.  She gave George the queerest, knowingest look,
when they were together, a look which might have been interpreted,
"Don't you see the state of affairs, and what a fool I'm making of
him?"  But he did not perceive it.  He was thinking of his own plans,
and lost in pompous admiration of his own irresistible powers of
pleasing.

The curses to which the General gave a low utterance, as soon as
Rebecca and her conqueror had quitted him, were so deep, that I am sure
no compositor would venture to print them were they written down.  They
came from the General's heart; and a wonderful thing it is to think
that the human heart is capable of generating such produce, and can
throw out, as occasion demands, such a supply of lust and fury, rage
and hatred.

Amelia's gentle eyes, too, had been fixed anxiously on the pair, whose
conduct had so chafed the jealous General; but when Rebecca entered her
box, she flew to her friend with an affectionate rapture which showed
itself, in spite of the publicity of the place; for she embraced her
dearest friend in the presence of the whole house, at least in full
view of the General's glass, now brought to bear upon the Osborne
party.  Mrs. Rawdon saluted Jos, too, with the kindliest greeting: she
admired Mrs. O'Dowd's large Cairngorm brooch and superb Irish diamonds,
and wouldn't believe that they were not from Golconda direct. She
bustled, she chattered, she turned and twisted, and smiled upon one,
and smirked on another, all in full view of the jealous opera-glass
opposite.  And when the time for the ballet came (in which there was no
dancer that went through her grimaces or performed her comedy of action
better), she skipped back to her own box, leaning on Captain Dobbin's
arm this time.  No, she would not have George's: he must stay and talk
to his dearest, best, little Amelia.

"What a humbug that woman is!" honest old Dobbin mumbled to George,
when he came back from Rebecca's box, whither he had conducted her in
perfect silence, and with a countenance as glum as an undertaker's.
"She writhes and twists about like a snake.  All the time she was here,
didn't you see, George, how she was acting at the General over the way?"

"Humbug--acting!  Hang it, she's the nicest little woman in England,"
George replied, showing his white teeth, and giving his ambrosial
whiskers a twirl.  "You ain't a man of the world, Dobbin. Dammy, look
at her now, she's talked over Tufto in no time.  Look how he's
laughing!  Gad, what a shoulder she has!  Emmy, why didn't you have a
bouquet?  Everybody has a bouquet."

"Faith, then, why didn't you BOY one?" Mrs. O'Dowd said; and both
Amelia and William Dobbin thanked her for this timely observation. But
beyond this neither of the ladies rallied.  Amelia was overpowered by
the flash and the dazzle and the fashionable talk of her worldly rival.
Even the O'Dowd was silent and subdued after Becky's brilliant
apparition, and scarcely said a word more about Glenmalony all the
evening.

"When do you intend to give up play, George, as you have promised me,
any time these hundred years?" Dobbin said to his friend a few days
after the night at the Opera.  "When do you intend to give up
sermonising?" was the other's reply.  "What the deuce, man, are you
alarmed about?  We play low; I won last night.  You don't suppose
Crawley cheats?  With fair play it comes to pretty much the same thing
at the year's end."

"But I don't think he could pay if he lost," Dobbin said; and his
advice met with the success which advice usually commands.  Osborne and
Crawley were repeatedly together now.  General Tufto dined abroad
almost constantly. George was always welcome in the apartments (very
close indeed to those of the General) which the aide-de-camp and his
wife occupied in the hotel.

Amelia's manners were such when she and George visited Crawley and his
wife at these quarters, that they had very nearly come to their first
quarrel; that is, George scolded his wife violently for her evident
unwillingness to go, and the high and mighty manner in which she
comported herself towards Mrs. Crawley, her old friend; and Amelia did
not say one single word in reply; but with her husband's eye upon her,
and Rebecca scanning her as she felt, was, if possible, more bashful
and awkward on the second visit which she paid to Mrs. Rawdon, than on
her first call.

Rebecca was doubly affectionate, of course, and would not take notice,
in the least, of her friend's coolness.  "I think Emmy has become
prouder since her father's name was in the--since Mr. Sedley's
MISFORTUNES," Rebecca said, softening the phrase charitably for
George's ear.

"Upon my word, I thought when we were at Brighton she was doing me the
honour to be jealous of me; and now I suppose she is scandalised
because Rawdon, and I, and the General live together.  Why, my dear
creature, how could we, with our means, live at all, but for a friend
to share expenses?  And do you suppose that Rawdon is not big enough to
take care of my honour?  But I'm very much obliged to Emmy, very," Mrs.
Rawdon said.

"Pooh, jealousy!" answered George, "all women are jealous."

"And all men too.  Weren't you jealous of General Tufto, and the
General of you, on the night of the Opera? Why, he was ready to eat me
for going with you to visit that foolish little wife of yours; as if I
care a pin for either of you," Crawley's wife said, with a pert toss of
her head.  "Will you dine here?  The dragon dines with the
Commander-in-Chief.  Great news is stirring.  They say the French have
crossed the frontier.  We shall have a quiet dinner."

George accepted the invitation, although his wife was a little ailing.
They were now not quite six weeks married. Another woman was laughing
or sneering at her expense, and he not angry.  He was not even angry
with himself, this good-natured fellow.  It is a shame, he owned to
himself; but hang it, if a pretty woman WILL throw herself in your way,
why, what can a fellow do, you know?  I AM rather free about women, he
had often said, smiling and nodding knowingly to Stubble and Spooney,
and other comrades of the mess-table; and they rather respected him
than otherwise for this prowess.  Next to conquering in war, conquering
in love has been a source of pride, time out of mind, amongst men in
Vanity Fair, or how should schoolboys brag of their amours, or Don Juan
be popular?

So Mr. Osborne, having a firm conviction in his own mind that he was a
woman-killer and destined to conquer, did not run counter to his fate,
but yielded himself up to it quite complacently.  And as Emmy did not
say much or plague him with her jealousy, but merely became unhappy and
pined over it miserably in secret, he chose to fancy that she was not
suspicious of what all his acquaintance were perfectly aware--namely,
that he was carrying on a desperate flirtation with Mrs. Crawley.  He
rode with her whenever she was free.  He pretended regimental business
to Amelia (by which falsehood she was not in the least deceived), and
consigning his wife to solitude or her brother's society, passed his
evenings in the Crawleys' company; losing money to the husband and
flattering himself that the wife was dying of love for him. It is very
likely that this worthy couple never absolutely conspired and agreed
together in so many words:  the one to cajole the young gentleman,
whilst the other won his money at cards: but they understood each other
perfectly well, and Rawdon let Osborne come and go with entire good
humour.

George was so occupied with his new acquaintances that he and William
Dobbin were by no means so much together as formerly. George avoided
him in public and in the regiment, and, as we see, did not like those
sermons which his senior was disposed to inflict upon him. If some
parts of his conduct made Captain Dobbin exceedingly grave and cool; of
what use was it to tell George that, though his whiskers were large,
and his own opinion of his knowingness great, he was as green as a
schoolboy? that Rawdon was making a victim of him as he had done of
many before, and as soon as he had used him would fling him off with
scorn?  He would not listen:  and so, as Dobbin, upon those days when
he visited the Osborne house, seldom had the advantage of meeting his
old friend, much painful and unavailing talk between them was spared.
Our friend George was in the full career of the pleasures of Vanity
Fair.

There never was, since the days of Darius, such a brilliant train of
camp-followers as hung round the Duke of Wellington's army in the Low
Countries, in 1815; and led it dancing and feasting, as it were, up to
the very brink of battle.  A certain ball which a noble Duchess gave at
Brussels on the 15th of June in the above-named year is historical.
All Brussels had been in a state of excitement about it, and I have
heard from ladies who were in that town at the period, that the talk
and interest of persons of their own sex regarding the ball was much
greater even than in respect of the enemy in their front. The
struggles, intrigues, and prayers to get tickets were such as only
English ladies will employ, in order to gain admission to the society
of the great of their own nation.

Jos and Mrs. O'Dowd, who were panting to be asked, strove in vain to
procure tickets; but others of our friends were more lucky.  For
instance, through the interest of my Lord Bareacres, and as a set-off
for the dinner at the restaurateur's, George got a card for Captain and
Mrs. Osborne; which circumstance greatly elated him. Dobbin, who was a
friend of the General commanding the division in which their regiment
was, came laughing one day to Mrs. Osborne, and displayed a similar
invitation, which made Jos envious, and George wonder how the deuce he
should be getting into society.  Mr. and Mrs. Rawdon, finally, were of
course invited; as became the friends of a General commanding a cavalry
brigade.

On the appointed night, George, having commanded new dresses and
ornaments of all sorts for Amelia, drove to the famous ball, where his
wife did not know a single soul.  After looking about for Lady
Bareacres, who cut him, thinking the card was quite enough--and after
placing Amelia on a bench, he left her to her own cogitations there,
thinking, on his own part, that he had behaved very handsomely in
getting her new clothes, and bringing her to the ball, where she was
free to amuse herself as she liked.  Her thoughts were not of the
pleasantest, and nobody except honest Dobbin came to disturb them.

Whilst her appearance was an utter failure (as her husband felt with a
sort of rage), Mrs. Rawdon Crawley's debut was, on the contrary, very
brilliant.  She arrived very late.  Her face was radiant; her dress
perfection.  In the midst of the great persons assembled, and the
eye-glasses directed to her, Rebecca seemed to be as cool and collected
as when she used to marshal Miss Pinkerton's little girls to church.
Numbers of the men she knew already, and the dandies thronged round
her.  As for the ladies, it was whispered among them that Rawdon had
run away with her from out of a convent, and that she was a relation of
the Montmorency family.  She spoke French so perfectly that there might
be some truth in this report, and it was agreed that her manners were
fine, and her air distingue.  Fifty would-be partners thronged round
her at once, and pressed to have the honour to dance with her.  But she
said she was engaged, and only going to dance very little; and made her
way at once to the place where Emmy sate quite unnoticed, and dismally
unhappy.  And so, to finish the poor child at once, Mrs. Rawdon ran and
greeted affectionately her dearest Amelia, and began forthwith to
patronise her. She found fault with her friend's dress, and her
hairdresser, and wondered how she could be so chaussee, and vowed that
she must send her corsetiere the next morning.  She vowed that it was a
delightful ball; that there was everybody that every one knew, and only
a VERY few nobodies in the whole room.  It is a fact, that in a
fortnight, and after three dinners in general society, this young woman
had got up the genteel jargon so well, that a native could not speak it
better; and it was only from her French being so good, that you could
know she was not a born woman of fashion.

George, who had left Emmy on her bench on entering the ball-room, very
soon found his way back when Rebecca was by her dear friend's side.
Becky was just lecturing Mrs. Osborne upon the follies which her
husband was committing.  "For God's sake, stop him from gambling, my
dear," she said, "or he will ruin himself. He and Rawdon are playing at
cards every night, and you know he is very poor, and Rawdon will win
every shilling from him if he does not take care.  Why don't you
prevent him, you little careless creature? Why don't you come to us of
an evening, instead of moping at home with that Captain Dobbin?  I dare
say he is tres aimable; but how could one love a man with feet of such
size? Your husband's feet are darlings--Here he comes.  Where have you
been, wretch?  Here is Emmy crying her eyes out for you.  Are you
coming to fetch me for the quadrille?" And she left her bouquet and
shawl by Amelia's side, and tripped off with George to dance.  Women
only know how to wound so. There is a poison on the tips of their
little shafts, which stings a thousand times more than a man's blunter
weapon.  Our poor Emmy, who had never hated, never sneered all her
life, was powerless in the hands of her remorseless little enemy.

George danced with Rebecca twice or thrice--how many times Amelia
scarcely knew.  She sat quite unnoticed in her corner, except when
Rawdon came up with some words of clumsy conversation:  and later in
the evening, when Captain Dobbin made so bold as to bring her
refreshments and sit beside her.  He did not like to ask her why she
was so sad; but as a pretext for the tears which were filling in her
eyes, she told him that Mrs. Crawley had alarmed her by telling her
that George would go on playing.

"It is curious, when a man is bent upon play, by what clumsy rogues he
will allow himself to be cheated," Dobbin said; and Emmy said,
"Indeed." She was thinking of something else.  It was not the loss of
the money that grieved her.

At last George came back for Rebecca's shawl and flowers.  She was
going away.  She did not even condescend to come back and say good-bye
to Amelia.  The poor girl let her husband come and go without saying a
word, and her head fell on her breast.  Dobbin had been called away,
and was whispering deep in conversation with the General of the
division, his friend, and had not seen this last parting.  George went
away then with the bouquet; but when he gave it to the owner, there lay
a note, coiled like a snake among the flowers.  Rebecca's eye caught it
at once.  She had been used to deal with notes in early life.  She put
out her hand and took the nosegay.  He saw by her eyes as they met,
that she was aware what she should find there.  Her husband hurried her
away, still too intent upon his own thoughts, seemingly, to take note
of any marks of recognition which might pass between his friend and his
wife. These were, however, but trifling.  Rebecca gave George her hand
with one of her usual quick knowing glances, and made a curtsey and
walked away.  George bowed over the hand, said nothing in reply to a
remark of Crawley's, did not hear it even, his brain was so throbbing
with triumph and excitement, and allowed them to go away without a word.

His wife saw the one part at least of the bouquet-scene. It was quite
natural that George should come at Rebecca's request to get her her
scarf and flowers:  it was no more than he had done twenty times before
in the course of the last few days; but now it was too much for her.
"William," she said, suddenly clinging to Dobbin, who was near her,
"you've always been very kind to me--I'm--I'm not well.  Take me home."
She did not know she called him by his Christian name, as George was
accustomed to do.  He went away with her quickly.  Her lodgings were
hard by; and they threaded through the crowd without, where everything
seemed to be more astir than even in the ball-room within.

George had been angry twice or thrice at finding his wife up on his
return from the parties which he frequented:  so she went straight to
bed now; but although she did not sleep, and although the din and
clatter, and the galloping of horsemen were incessant, she never heard
any of these noises, having quite other disturbances to keep her awake.

Osborne meanwhile, wild with elation, went off to a play-table, and
began to bet frantically.  He won repeatedly. "Everything succeeds with
me to-night," he said. But his luck at play even did not cure him of
his restlessness, and he started up after awhile, pocketing his
winnings, and went to a buffet, where he drank off many bumpers of wine.

Here, as he was rattling away to the people around, laughing loudly and
wild with spirits, Dobbin found him. He had been to the card-tables to
look there for his friend.  Dobbin looked as pale and grave as his
comrade was flushed and jovial.

"Hullo, Dob!  Come and drink, old Dob!  The Duke's wine is famous. Give
me some more, you sir"; and he held out a trembling glass for the
liquor.

"Come out, George," said Dobbin, still gravely; "don't drink."

"Drink!  there's nothing like it.  Drink yourself, and light up your
lantern jaws, old boy.  Here's to you."

Dobbin went up and whispered something to him, at which George, giving
a start and a wild hurray, tossed off his glass, clapped it on the
table, and walked away speedily on his friend's arm.  "The enemy has
passed the Sambre," William said, "and our left is already engaged.
Come away.  We are to march in three hours."

Away went George, his nerves quivering with excitement at the news so
long looked for, so sudden when it came.  What were love and intrigue
now?  He thought about a thousand things but these in his rapid walk to
his quarters--his past life and future chances--the fate which might be
before him--the wife, the child perhaps, from whom unseen he might be
about to part.  Oh, how he wished that night's work undone!  and that
with a clear conscience at least he might say farewell to the tender
and guileless being by whose love he had set such little store!

He thought over his brief married life.  In those few weeks he had
frightfully dissipated his little capital.  How wild and reckless he
had been!  Should any mischance befall him:  what was then left for
her?  How unworthy he was of her.  Why had he married her?  He was not
fit for marriage.  Why had he disobeyed his father, who had been always
so generous to him?  Hope, remorse, ambition, tenderness, and selfish
regret filled his heart.  He sate down and wrote to his father,
remembering what he had said once before, when he was engaged to fight
a duel. Dawn faintly streaked the sky as he closed this farewell
letter.  He sealed it, and kissed the superscription. He thought how he
had deserted that generous father, and of the thousand kindnesses which
the stern old man had done him.

He had looked into Amelia's bedroom when he entered; she lay quiet, and
her eyes seemed closed, and he was glad that she was asleep.  On
arriving at his quarters from the ball, he had found his regimental
servant already making preparations for his departure:  the man had
understood his signal to be still, and these arrangements were very
quickly and silently made.  Should he go in and wake Amelia, he
thought, or leave a note for her brother to break the news of departure
to her?  He went in to look at her once again.

She had been awake when he first entered her room, but had kept her
eyes closed, so that even her wakefulness should not seem to reproach
him.  But when he had returned, so soon after herself, too, this timid
little heart had felt more at ease, and turning towards him as he stept
softly out of the room, she had fallen into a light sleep.  George came
in and looked at her again, entering still more softly.  By the pale
night-lamp he could see her sweet, pale face--the purple eyelids were
fringed and closed, and one round arm, smooth and white, lay outside of
the coverlet.  Good God!  how pure she was; how gentle, how tender, and
how friendless!  and he, how selfish, brutal, and black with crime!
Heart-stained, and shame-stricken, he stood at the bed's foot, and
looked at the sleeping girl.  How dared he--who was he, to pray for one
so spotless!  God bless her!  God bless her!  He came to the bedside,
and looked at the hand, the little soft hand, lying asleep; and he bent
over the pillow noiselessly towards the gentle pale face.

Two fair arms closed tenderly round his neck as he stooped down.  "I am
awake, George," the poor child said, with a sob fit to break the little
heart that nestled so closely by his own.  She was awake, poor soul,
and to what?  At that moment a bugle from the Place of Arms began
sounding clearly, and was taken up through the town; and amidst the
drums of the infantry, and the shrill pipes of the Scotch, the whole
city awoke.


"The Girl I Left Behind Me"

We do not claim to rank among the military novelists. Our place is with
the non-combatants.  When the decks are cleared for action we go below
and wait meekly.  We should only be in the way of the manoeuvres that
the gallant fellows are performing overhead.  We shall go no farther
with the --th than to the city gate:  and leaving Major O'Dowd to his
duty, come back to the Major's wife, and the ladies and the baggage.

Now the Major and his lady, who had not been invited to the ball at
which in our last chapter other of our friends figured, had much more
time to take their wholesome natural rest in bed, than was accorded to
people who wished to enjoy pleasure as well as to do duty.  "It's my
belief, Peggy, my dear," said he, as he placidly pulled his nightcap
over his ears, "that there will be such a ball danced in a day or two
as some of 'em has never heard the chune of"; and he was much more
happy to retire to rest after partaking of a quiet tumbler, than to
figure at any other sort of amusement. Peggy, for her part, would have
liked to have shown her turban and bird of paradise at the ball, but
for the information which her husband had given her, and which made her
very grave.

"I'd like ye wake me about half an hour before the assembly beats," the
Major said to his lady.  "Call me at half-past one, Peggy dear, and see
me things is ready.  May be I'll not come back to breakfast, Mrs. O'D."
With which words, which signified his opinion that the regiment would
march the next morning, the Major ceased talking, and fell asleep.

Mrs. O'Dowd, the good housewife, arrayed in curl papers and a camisole,
felt that her duty was to act, and not to sleep, at this juncture.
"Time enough for that," she said, "when Mick's gone"; and so she packed
his travelling valise ready for the march, brushed his cloak, his cap,
and other warlike habiliments, set them out in order for him; and
stowed away in the cloak pockets a light package of portable
refreshments, and a wicker-covered flask or pocket-pistol, containing
near a pint of a remarkably sound Cognac brandy, of which she and the
Major approved very much; and as soon as the hands of the "repayther"
pointed to half-past one, and its interior arrangements (it had a tone
quite equal to a cathaydral, its fair owner considered) knelled forth
that fatal hour, Mrs. O'Dowd woke up her Major, and had as comfortable
a cup of coffee prepared for him as any made that morning in Brussels.
And who is there will deny that this worthy lady's preparations
betokened affection as much as the fits of tears and hysterics by which
more sensitive females exhibited their love, and that their partaking
of this coffee, which they drank together while the bugles were
sounding the turn-out and the drums beating in the various quarters of
the town, was not more useful and to the purpose than the outpouring of
any mere sentiment could be?  The consequence was, that the Major
appeared on parade quite trim, fresh, and alert, his well-shaved rosy
countenance, as he sate on horseback, giving cheerfulness and
confidence to the whole corps.  All the officers saluted her when the
regiment marched by the balcony on which this brave woman stood, and
waved them a cheer as they passed; and I daresay it was not from want
of courage, but from a sense of female delicacy and propriety, that she
refrained from leading the gallant--th personally into action.

On Sundays, and at periods of a solemn nature, Mrs. O'Dowd used to read
with great gravity out of a large volume of her uncle the Dean's
sermons.  It had been of great comfort to her on board the transport as
they were coming home, and were very nearly wrecked, on their return
from the West Indies.  After the regiment's departure she betook
herself to this volume for meditation; perhaps she did not understand
much of what she was reading, and her thoughts were elsewhere:  but the
sleep project, with poor Mick's nightcap there on the pillow, was quite
a vain one.  So it is in the world.  Jack or Donald marches away to
glory with his knapsack on his shoulder, stepping out briskly to the
tune of "The Girl I Left Behind Me." It is she who remains and
suffers--and has the leisure to think, and brood, and remember.

Knowing how useless regrets are, and how the indulgence of sentiment
only serves to make people more miserable, Mrs. Rebecca wisely
determined to give way to no vain feelings of sorrow, and bore the
parting from her husband with quite a Spartan equanimity.  Indeed
Captain Rawdon himself was much more affected at the leave-taking than
the resolute little woman to whom he bade farewell.  She had mastered
this rude coarse nature; and he loved and worshipped her with all his
faculties of regard and admiration.  In all his life he had never been
so happy, as, during the past few months, his wife had made him.  All
former delights of turf, mess, hunting-field, and gambling-table; all
previous loves and courtships of milliners, opera-dancers, and the like
easy triumphs of the clumsy military Adonis, were quite insipid when
compared to the lawful matrimonial pleasures which of late he had
enjoyed.  She had known perpetually how to divert him; and he had found
his house and her society a thousand times more pleasant than any place
or company which he had ever frequented from his childhood until now.
And he cursed his past follies and extravagances, and bemoaned his vast
outlying debts above all, which must remain for ever as obstacles to
prevent his wife's advancement in the world.  He had often groaned over
these in midnight conversations with Rebecca, although as a bachelor
they had never given him any disquiet.  He himself was struck with this
phenomenon.  "Hang it," he would say (or perhaps use a still stronger
expression out of his simple vocabulary), "before I was married I
didn't care what bills I put my name to, and so long as Moses would
wait or Levy would renew for three months, I kept on never minding.
But since I'm married, except renewing, of course, I give you my honour
I've not touched a bit of stamped paper."

Rebecca always knew how to conjure away these moods of melancholy.
"Why, my stupid love," she would say, "we have not done with your aunt
yet.  If she fails us, isn't there what you call the Gazette? or, stop,
when your uncle Bute's life drops, I have another scheme. The living
has always belonged to the younger brother, and why shouldn't you sell
out and go into the Church?"  The idea of this conversion set Rawdon
into roars of laughter: you might have heard the explosion through the
hotel at midnight, and the haw-haws of the great dragoon's voice.
General Tufto heard him from his quarters on the first floor above
them; and Rebecca acted the scene with great spirit, and preached
Rawdon's first sermon, to the immense delight of the General at
breakfast.

But these were mere by-gone days and talk.  When the final news arrived
that the campaign was opened, and the troops were to march, Rawdon's
gravity became such that Becky rallied him about it in a manner which
rather hurt the feelings of the Guardsman.  "You don't suppose I'm
afraid, Becky, I should think," he said, with a tremor in his voice.
"But I'm a pretty good mark for a shot, and you see if it brings me
down, why I leave one and perhaps two behind me whom I should wish to
provide for, as I brought 'em into the scrape.  It is no laughing
matter that, Mrs. C., anyways."

Rebecca by a hundred caresses and kind words tried to soothe the
feelings of the wounded lover.  It was only when her vivacity and sense
of humour got the better of this sprightly creature (as they would do
under most circumstances of life indeed) that she would break out with
her satire, but she could soon put on a demure face. "Dearest love,"
she said, "do you suppose I feel nothing?" and hastily dashing
something from her eyes, she looked up in her husband's face with a
smile.

"Look here," said he.  "If I drop, let us see what there is for you. I
have had a pretty good run of luck here, and here's two hundred and
thirty pounds.  I have got ten Napoleons in my pocket.  That is as much
as I shall want; for the General pays everything like a prince; and if
I'm hit, why you know I cost nothing.  Don't cry, little woman; I may
live to vex you yet.  Well, I shan't take either of my horses, but
shall ride the General's grey charger:  it's cheaper, and I told him
mine was lame.  If I'm done, those two ought to fetch you something.
Grigg offered ninety for the mare yesterday, before this confounded
news came, and like a fool I wouldn't let her go under the two o's.
Bullfinch will fetch his price any day, only you'd better sell him in
this country, because the dealers have so many bills of mine, and so
I'd rather he shouldn't go back to England.  Your little mare the
General gave you will fetch something, and there's no d--d livery
stable bills here as there are in London," Rawdon added, with a laugh.
"There's that dressing-case cost me two hundred--that is, I owe two for
it; and the gold tops and bottles must be worth thirty or forty.
Please to put THAT up the spout, ma'am, with my pins, and rings, and
watch and chain, and things.  They cost a precious lot of money.  Miss
Crawley, I know, paid a hundred down for the chain and ticker.  Gold
tops and bottles, indeed!  dammy, I'm sorry I didn't take more now.
Edwards pressed on me a silver-gilt boot-jack, and I might have had a
dressing-case fitted up with a silver warming-pan, and a service of
plate.  But we must make the best of what we've got, Becky, you know."

And so, making his last dispositions, Captain Crawley, who had seldom
thought about anything but himself, until the last few months of his
life, when Love had obtained the mastery over the dragoon, went through
the various items of his little catalogue of effects, striving to see
how they might be turned into money for his wife's benefit, in case any
accident should befall him.  He pleased himself by noting down with a
pencil, in his big schoolboy handwriting, the various items of his
portable property which might be sold for his widow's advantage as, for
example, "My double-barril by Manton, say 40 guineas; my driving cloak,
lined with sable fur, 50 pounds; my duelling pistols in rosewood case
(same which I shot Captain Marker), 20 pounds; my regulation
saddle-holsters and housings; my Laurie ditto," and so forth, over all
of which articles he made Rebecca the mistress.

Faithful to his plan of economy, the Captain dressed himself in his
oldest and shabbiest uniform and epaulets, leaving the newest behind,
under his wife's (or it might be his widow's) guardianship. And this
famous dandy of Windsor and Hyde Park went off on his campaign with a
kit as modest as that of a sergeant, and with something like a prayer
on his lips for the woman he was leaving. He took her up from the
ground, and held her in his arms for a minute, tight pressed against
his strong-beating heart.  His face was purple and his eyes dim, as he
put her down and left her.  He rode by his General's side, and smoked
his cigar in silence as they hastened after the troops of the General's
brigade, which preceded them; and it was not until they were some miles
on their way that he left off twirling his moustache and broke silence.

And Rebecca, as we have said, wisely determined not to give way to
unavailing sentimentality on her husband's departure.  She waved him an
adieu from the window, and stood there for a moment looking out after
he was gone. The cathedral towers and the full gables of the quaint old
houses were just beginning to blush in the sunrise. There had been no
rest for her that night.  She was still in her pretty ball-dress, her
fair hair hanging somewhat out of curl on her neck, and the circles
round her eyes dark with watching.  "What a fright I seem," she said,
examining herself in the glass, "and how pale this pink makes one
look!"  So she divested herself of this pink raiment; in doing which a
note fell out from her corsage, which she picked up with a smile, and
locked into her dressing-box. And then she put her bouquet of the ball
into a glass of water, and went to bed, and slept very comfortably.

The town was quite quiet when she woke up at ten o'clock, and partook
of coffee, very requisite and comforting after the exhaustion and grief
of the morning's occurrences.

This meal over, she resumed honest Rawdon's calculations of the night
previous, and surveyed her position. Should the worst befall, all
things considered, she was pretty well to do.  There were her own
trinkets and trousseau, in addition to those which her husband had left
behind. Rawdon's generosity, when they were first married, has already
been described and lauded.  Besides these, and the little mare, the
General, her slave and worshipper, had made her many very handsome
presents, in the shape of cashmere shawls bought at the auction of a
bankrupt French general's lady, and numerous tributes from the
jewellers' shops, all of which betokened her admirer's taste and
wealth.  As for "tickers," as poor Rawdon called watches, her
apartments were alive with their clicking. For, happening to mention
one night that hers, which Rawdon had given to her, was of English
workmanship, and went ill, on the very next morning there came to her a
little bijou marked Leroy, with a chain and cover charmingly set with
turquoises, and another signed Brequet, which was covered with pearls,
and yet scarcely bigger than a half-crown.  General Tufto had bought
one, and Captain Osborne had gallantly presented the other.  Mrs.
Osborne had no watch, though, to do George justice, she might have had
one for the asking, and the Honourable Mrs. Tufto in England had an old
instrument of her mother's that might have served for the plate-warming
pan which Rawdon talked about.  If Messrs. Howell and James were to
publish a list of the purchasers of all the trinkets which they sell,
how surprised would some families be: and if all these ornaments went
to gentlemen's lawful wives and daughters, what a profusion of
jewellery there would be exhibited in the genteelest homes of Vanity
Fair!

Every calculation made of these valuables Mrs. Rebecca found, not
without a pungent feeling of triumph and self-satisfaction, that should
circumstances occur, she might reckon on six or seven hundred pounds at
the very least, to begin the world with; and she passed the morning
disposing, ordering, looking out, and locking up her properties in the
most agreeable manner.  Among the notes in Rawdon's pocket-book was a
draft for twenty pounds on Osborne's banker.  This made her think about
Mrs. Osborne.  "I will go and get the draft cashed," she said, "and pay
a visit afterwards to poor little Emmy." If this is a novel without a
hero, at least let us lay claim to a heroine.  No man in the British
army which has marched away, not the great Duke himself, could be more
cool or collected in the presence of doubts and difficulties, than the
indomitable little aide-de-camp's wife.

And there was another of our acquaintances who was also to be left
behind, a non-combatant, and whose emotions and behaviour we have
therefore a right to know. This was our friend the ex-collector of
Boggley Wollah, whose rest was broken, like other people's, by the
sounding of the bugles in the early morning.  Being a great sleeper,
and fond of his bed, it is possible he would have snoozed on until his
usual hour of rising in the forenoon, in spite of all the drums,
bugles, and bagpipes in the British army, but for an interruption,
which did not come from George Osborne, who shared Jos's quarters with
him, and was as usual occupied too much with his own affairs or with
grief at parting with his wife, to think of taking leave of his
slumbering brother-in-law--it was not George, we say, who interposed
between Jos Sedley and sleep, but Captain Dobbin, who came and roused
him up, insisting on shaking hands with him before his departure.

"Very kind of you," said Jos, yawning, and wishing the Captain at the
deuce.

"I--I didn't like to go off without saying good-bye, you know," Dobbin
said in a very incoherent manner; "because you know some of us mayn't
come back again, and I like to see you all well, and--and that sort of
thing, you know."

"What do you mean?" Jos asked, rubbing his eyes.  The Captain did not
in the least hear him or look at the stout gentleman in the nightcap,
about whom he professed to have such a tender interest. The hypocrite
was looking and listening with all his might in the direction of
George's apartments, striding about the room, upsetting the chairs,
beating the tattoo, biting his nails, and showing other signs of great
inward emotion.

Jos had always had rather a mean opinion of the Captain, and now began
to think his courage was somewhat equivocal.  "What is it I can do for
you, Dobbin?" he said, in a sarcastic tone.

"I tell you what you can do," the Captain replied, coming up to the
bed; "we march in a quarter of an hour, Sedley, and neither George nor
I may ever come back. Mind you, you are not to stir from this town
until you ascertain how things go.  You are to stay here and watch over
your sister, and comfort her, and see that no harm comes to her.  If
anything happens to George, remember she has no one but you in the
world to look to.  If it goes wrong with the army, you'll see her safe
back to England; and you will promise me on your word that you will
never desert her.  I know you won't:  as far as money goes, you were
always free enough with that.  Do you want any? I mean, have you enough
gold to take you back to England in case of a misfortune?"

"Sir," said Jos, majestically, "when I want money, I know where to ask
for it.  And as for my sister, you needn't tell me how I ought to
behave to her."

"You speak like a man of spirit, Jos," the other answered good-naturedly,
"and I am glad that George can leave her in such good hands.
So I may give him your word of honour, may I, that in case of extremity
you will stand by her?"

"Of course, of course," answered Mr. Jos, whose generosity in money
matters Dobbin estimated quite correctly.

"And you'll see her safe out of Brussels in the event of a defeat?"

"A defeat! D---- it, sir, it's impossible.  Don't try and frighten ME,"
the hero cried from his bed; and Dobbin's mind was thus perfectly set
at ease now that Jos had spoken out so resolutely respecting his
conduct to his sister.  "At least," thought the Captain, "there will be
a retreat secured for her in case the worst should ensue."

If Captain Dobbin expected to get any personal comfort and satisfaction
from having one more view of Amelia before the regiment marched away,
his selfishness was punished just as such odious egotism deserved to
be.  The door of Jos's bedroom opened into the sitting-room which was
common to the family party, and opposite this door was that of Amelia's
chamber.  The bugles had wakened everybody:  there was no use in
concealment now.  George's servant was packing in this room:  Osborne
coming in and out of the contiguous bedroom, flinging to the man such
articles as he thought fit to carry on the campaign. And presently
Dobbin had the opportunity which his heart coveted, and he got sight of
Amelia's face once more.  But what a face it was!  So white, so wild
and despair-stricken, that the remembrance of it haunted him afterwards
like a crime, and the sight smote him with inexpressible pangs of
longing and pity.

She was wrapped in a white morning dress, her hair falling on her
shoulders, and her large eyes fixed and without light.  By way of
helping on the preparations for the departure, and showing that she too
could be useful at a moment so critical, this poor soul had taken up a
sash of George's from the drawers whereon it lay, and followed him to
and fro with the sash in her hand, looking on mutely as his packing
proceeded.  She came out and stood, leaning at the wall, holding this
sash against her bosom, from which the heavy net of crimson dropped
like a large stain of blood.  Our gentle-hearted Captain felt a guilty
shock as he looked at her.  "Good God," thought he, "and is it grief
like this I dared to pry into?" And there was no help:  no means to
soothe and comfort this helpless, speechless misery.  He stood for a
moment and looked at her, powerless and torn with pity, as a parent
regards an infant in pain.

At last, George took Emmy's hand, and led her back into the bedroom,
from whence he came out alone.  The parting had taken place in that
moment, and he was gone.

"Thank Heaven that is over," George thought, bounding down the stair,
his sword under his arm, as he ran swiftly to the alarm ground, where
the regiment was mustered, and whither trooped men and officers
hurrying from their billets; his pulse was throbbing and his cheeks
flushed:  the great game of war was going to be played, and he one of
the players.  What a fierce excitement of doubt, hope, and pleasure!
What tremendous hazards of loss or gain!  What were all the games of
chance he had ever played compared to this one? Into all contests
requiring athletic skill and courage, the young man, from his boyhood
upwards, had flung himself with all his might. The champion of his
school and his regiment, the bravos of his companions had followed him
everywhere; from the boys' cricket-match to the garrison-races, he had
won a hundred of triumphs; and wherever he went women and men had
admired and envied him.  What qualities are there for which a man gets
so speedy a return of applause, as those of bodily superiority,
activity, and valour? Time out of mind strength and courage have been
the theme of bards and romances; and from the story of Troy down to
to-day, poetry has always chosen a soldier for a hero.  I wonder is it
because men are cowards in heart that they admire bravery so much, and
place military valour so far beyond every other quality for reward and
worship?

So, at the sound of that stirring call to battle, George jumped away
from the gentle arms in which he had been dallying; not without a
feeling of shame (although his wife's hold on him had been but feeble),
that he should have been detained there so long.  The same feeling of
eagerness and excitement was amongst all those friends of his of whom
we have had occasional glimpses, from the stout senior Major, who led
the regiment into action, to little Stubble, the Ensign, who was to
bear its colours on that day.

The sun was just rising as the march began--it was a gallant sight--the
band led the column, playing the regimental march--then came the
Major in command, riding upon Pyramus, his stout charger--then marched
the grenadiers, their Captain at their head; in the centre were the
colours, borne by the senior and junior Ensigns--then George came
marching at the head of his company. He looked up, and smiled at
Amelia, and passed on; and even the sound of the music died away.

 Dobbin worries about Amelia discovering the danger of going to war. She tries to get the soldiers to talk about it as if it is just every day routine. Amelia is annoyed by Dobbin; she finds him unattractive, and his feelings for her make her uncomfortable. Becky also dislikes Dobbin, but here the feeling is mutual, because he senses how dishonest she is. George reads the letter, which is from his father's lawyer, and he blames Dobbin for being a bad manager. He asks Dobbin how he is possibly supposed to live off 2000 pounds, which is all that was left for him . Dobbin suggests living honestly off his paycheck, but George scoffs at that, remarking that he is used to a certain lifestyle and that he has already lost 140 pounds to Rawdon in gambling. Becky and George are hitting it off, which is making Amelia extremely uncomfortable. Becky is actually just being nice and charming to George because she wants him to pay Rawdon before they go off to war. The women decide to accompany their husbands to war, which worries Dobbin, since he doesn't want Amelia in danger. Meanwhile, Mrs. Bute Crawley has had to leave Aunt Matilda's service because her husband broke her collarbone. Rawdon and Becky see this as an opportunity to ingratiate themselves, so Becky sends a letter to her. Aunt Matilda refuses to see them, but after much pressuring she agrees to a meeting between Rawdon and her lawyer. Rawdon, expecting a great deal of money, is frustrated to see that she has only left him twenty pounds through the lawyer. The friends return to London before going to Belgium. George puts himself and Amelia up in a nice hotel room and goes off into the city to spend money. He confidently picks up the meager inheritance he was left and later sends his wife and her mother on a shopping trip. His military buddies wonder how he is going to sustain his lifestyle. Amelia, meanwhile, visits her family and frets about the budding relationship between Rebecca and her husband. George and Amelia go back to the hotel to meet his regiment. Amelia meets Mrs. O'Dowd and Major O'Dowd, who is the commander of the regiment. The two are from Ireland, and the men of the regiment make fun of them for their boisterous, loud ways. Mrs. O'Dowd takes an immediate liking to Amelia, and before they have even spent 30 minutes together, she manages to tell the young woman her entire history. Mrs. O'Dowd is actually interested in getting Jos to marry her sister, Glorvina. Dobbin is the only one who is not cheerful at this event. He watches Amelia and George with increasing sadness. At night, when they return to their room, he watches the lights go on, and remains awake the entire night, unable to fall asleep because of his depression. The characters set off for Brussels. Jos has a terrible time on the boat, and is constantly seasick. Dobbin, always the caretaker, makes sure to watch after his luggage, and when they finally arrive in Brussels, he procures for the extravagant man a servant who doesn't speak English. Many wealthy Britons have come over on boats to Brussels. The author describes the scene as a "military festival." They are all confident that the Duke of Wellington can win the war, as the Austrians, Russians and Prussians are on their way to join the forces. Meanwhile, Napoleon waits in his fortresses, ready to lay waste to the partying folks. The group of protagonists is having a grand time. Jos dresses up in military attire, even though he is a civilian, and causes an uproar. He is constantly drunk. Amelia and George go out every night; he takes her dancing, to the theater, drinking, to art galleries, etc. Amelia is as happy as can be, but George is his usual flirtatious self. She remains happy until the arrival of the Crawley regiment. The Crawleys and Osbornes meet each other in the park. The Crawleys, especially Becky, are doing their best to win the favor of General Tufto, who accompanies them on their ride. They pay little attention to the Osbornes. At the theater, Rebecca charms a Belgian noble, to whom she introduce George. George is excited to be meeting noblemen, and Rebecca believes that she has charmed and tricked both men. She gets George to escort her to the Osborne box, where she charms everyone, much to Amelia's dismay. Dobbin tries to tell George that Becky is dangerous, but George retorts that she is the nicest woman he knows. The Osbornes, Crawleys and Dobbin all receive invitations to the Duke's lavish ball. Rebecca is, of course, the star of the occasion; she spends much of the night dancing and flirting with George, criticizing Amelia for her behavior, and charming everyone with her perfect French. George, not interested in Amelia, sits her on a bench outside, alone. Amelia asks Dobbin to escort her back to her room. George, in the meantime, slips a note into some flowers that Becky takes home with her. The orders to march are given while the ball is taking place. When George discovers that he is about to go off to war, he feels sudden shame, so he writes an apologetic letter to his father and attempts to apologize to Amelia. Rawdon is worried that he has not left his wife in financial security. He reflects on how happy Becky makes him, and notes that her company is the company he most enjoys. He regrets not having provided her with more so that she could have risen further in society. He wears his shabby uniform so that he can leave behind his new one for her to sell. He advises her to sell jewelry, furniture, and most importantly, horses for people interested in leaving Brussels. Becky remains quite stoic through all this, since she is only concerned about her financial security. Amelia, on the other hand, is depressed over her husband's departure. Dobbin is sad to see her this way, and he makes Jos give his word that he will look after his sister. Jos is confused as to why her husband is not the one telling him these things. George, on the other, hand is very enthusiastic about the upcoming war, and he bids farewell to his wife.

