aid the young Cantab.  "And sarve 'em right, Master
Jack," said the guard.  When I comprehended the
meaning of this phrase, and that Master Jack intended to
drive the rest of the way, and revenge himself on Sir
Pitt's horses, of course I laughed too.

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

"There's an avenue," said Sir Pitt, "a mile long.
There's six thousand pound of timber in them there
trees.  Do you call that nothing?" He pronounced avenue
--EVENUE, and nothing--NOTHINK, so droll; and he had
a Mr. Hodson, his hind from Mudbury, into the carriage
with him, and they talked about distraining, and selling
up, and draining and subsoiling, and a great deal about
tenants and farming--much more than I could
understand.  Sam Miles had been caught poaching, and Peter
Bailey had gone to the workhouse at last.  "Serve him
right," said Sir Pitt; "him and his family has been
cheating me on that farm these hundred and fifty years."
Some old tenant, I suppose, who could not pay his rent.
Sir Pitt might have said "he and his family," to be sure;
but rich baronets do not need to be careful about
grammar, as poor governesses must be.

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

"Yes, hang it," (said Sir Pitt, only he used, dear, A MUCH
WICKEDER WORD); "how's Buty, Hodson? Buty's my
brother Bute, my dear--my brother the parson.  Buty and
the Beast I call him, ha, ha!"

Hodson laughed too, and then looking more grave
and nodding his head, said, "I'm afraid he's better, Sir
Pitt.  He was out on his pony yesterday, looking at our
corn."

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

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

"Whop my second keeper!" roared out Sir Pitt.

"He was on the parson's ground, sir," replied Mr.
Hodson; and Sir Pitt in a fury swore that if he ever caught
'em poaching on his ground, he'd transport 'em, by the
lord he would.  However, he said, "I've sold the
presentation of the living, Hodson; none of that breed
shall get it, I war'nt"; and Mr. Hodson said he was quite right:
and I have no doubt from this that the two brothers are
at variance--as brothers often are, and sisters too.  Don't
you remember the two Miss Scratchleys at Chiswick,
how they used always to fight and quarrel--and Mary
Box, how she was always thumping Louisa?

Presently, seeing two little boys gathering sticks in the
wood, Mr. Hodson jumped out of the carriage, at Sir
Pitt's order, and rushed upon them with his whip.  "Pitch
into 'em, Hodson," roared the baronet; "flog their little
souls out, and bring 'em up to the house, the vagabonds;
I'll commit 'em as sure as my name's Pitt." And presently
we heard Mr. Hodson's whip cracking on the
shoulders of the poor little blubbering wretches, and
Sir Pitt, seeing that the malefactors were in custody,
drove on to the hall.

All the servants were ready to meet us, and
. . .

Here, my dear, I was interrupted last night by a
dreadful thumping at my door: and who do you think it
was? Sir Pitt Crawley in his night-cap and dressing-
gown, such a figure! As I shrank away from such a
visitor, he came forward and seized my candle.  "No
candles after eleven o'clock, Miss Becky," said he.  "Go to
bed in the dark, you pretty little hussy" (that is what
he called me), "and unless you wish me to come for the
candle every night, mind and be in bed at eleven." And
with this, he and Mr. Horrocks the butler went off
laughing.  You may be sure I shall not encourage any more
of their visits.  They let loose two immense bloodhounds
at night, which all last night were yelling and howling
at the moon.  "I call the dog Gorer," said Sir Pitt; "he's
killed a man that dog has, and is master of a bull, and
the mother I used to call Flora; but now I calls her
Aroarer, for she's too old to bite.  Haw, haw!"

Before the house of Queen's Crawley, which is an
odious old-fashioned red brick mansion, with tall
chimneys and gables of the style of Queen Bess, there is a
terrace flanked by the family dove and serpent, and on
which the great hall-door opens.  And oh, my dear, the
great hall I am sure is as big and as glum as the great
hall in the dear castle of Udolpho.  It has a large
fireplace, in which we might put half Miss Pinkerton's
school, and the grate is big enough to roast an ox at the
very least.  Round the room hang I don't know how
many generations of Crawleys, some with beards and
ruffs, some with huge wigs and toes turned out, some
dressed in long straight stays and gowns that look as
stiff as towers, and some with long ringlets, and oh, my
dear! scarcely any stays at all.  At one end of the hall is
the great staircase all in black oak, as dismal as may be,
and on either side are tall doors with stags' heads.over
them, leading to the billiard-room and the library, and
the great yellow saloon and the morning-rooms.  I think
there are at least twenty bedrooms on the first floor; one
of them has the bed in which Queen Elizabeth slept;
and I have been taken by my new pupils through all
these fine apartments this morning.  They are not
rendered less gloomy, I promise you, by having the shutters
always shut; and there is scarce one of the apartments,
but when the light was let into it, I expected to
see a ghost in the room.  We have a schoolroom on the
second floor, with my bedroom leading into it on one
side, and that of the young ladies on the other.  Then
there are Mr. Pitt's apartments--Mr. Crawley, he is
called--the eldest son, and Mr. Rawdon Crawley's rooms
--he is an officer like SOMEBODY, and away with his
regiment.  There is no want of room I assure you.  You
might lodge all the people in Russell Square in the
house, I think, and have space to spare.

Half an hour after our arrival, the great dinner-bell
was rung, and I came down with my two pupils (they
are very thin insignificant little chits of ten and eight
years old).  I came down in your dear muslin gown
(about which that odious Mrs. Pinner was so rude,
because you gave it me); for I am to be treated as one of
the family, except on company days, when the young
ladies and I are to dine upstairs.

Well, the great dinner-bell rang, and we all assembled
in the little drawing-room where my Lady Crawley
sits.  She is the second Lady Crawley, and mother of the
young ladies.  She was an ironmonger's daughter, and
her marriage was thought a great match.  She looks as
if she had been handsome once, and her eyes are always
weeping for the loss of her beauty.  She is pale and
meagre and high-shouldered, and has not a word to say
for herself, evidently.  Her stepson Mr. Crawley, was
likewise in the room.  He was in full dress, as pompous
as an undertaker.  He is pale, thin, ugly, silent; he has
thin legs, no chest, hay-coloured whiskers, and straw-
coloured hair.  He is the very picture of his sainted
mother over the mantelpiece--Griselda of the noble
house of Binkie.

"This is the new governess, Mr. Crawley," said Lady
Crawley, coming forward and taking my hand.  "Miss
Sharp."

"0!" said Mr. Crawley, and pushed his head once
forward and began again to read a great pamphlet
with which he was busy.

"I hope you will be kind to my girls," said Lady
Crawley, with her pink eyes always full of tears.

"Law, Ma, of course she will," said the eldest: and I
saw at a glance that I need not be afraid of THAT woman.
"My lady is served," says the butler in black, in an
immense white shirt-frill, that looked as if it had been
one of the Queen Elizabeth's ruffs depicted in the hall;
and so, taking Mr. Crawley's arm, she led the way to the
dining-room, whither I followed with my little pupils in
each hand.

Sir Pitt was already in the room with a silver jug.  He
had just been to the cellar, and was in full dress too;
that is, he had taken his gaiters off, and showed his little
dumpy legs in black worsted stockings.  The sideboard
was covered with glistening old plate--old cups, both
gold and silver; old salvers and cruet-stands, like
Rundell and Bridge's shop.  Everything on the table was in
silver too, and two footmen, with red hair and canary-
coloured liveries, stood on either side of the sideboard.

Mr. Crawley said a long grace, and Sir Pitt said amen,
and the great silver dish-covers were removed.

"What have we for dinner, Betsy?' said the Baronet.

"Mutton broth, I believe, Sir Pitt," answered Lady
Crawley.

"Mouton aux navets," added the butler gravely
(pronounce, if you please, moutongonavvy); "and the
soup is potage de mouton a l'Ecossaise.  The side-dishes
contain pommes de terre au naturel, and choufleur a l'eau."

"Mutton's mutton," said the Baronet, "and a devilish
good thing.  What SHIP was it, Horrocks, and when did
you kill?"

"One of the black-faced Scotch, Sir Pitt: we killed on Thursday.

"Who took any?"

"Steel, of Mudbury, took the saddle and two legs, Sir
Pitt; but he says the last was too young and confounded
woolly, Sir Pitt."

"Will you take some potage, Miss ah--Miss Blunt?
said Mr. Crawley.

"Capital Scotch broth, my dear," said Sir Pitt, "though
they call it by a French name."

"I believe it is the custom, sir, in decent society," said
Mr. Crawley, haughtily, "to call the dish as I have called
it"; and it was served to us on silver soup plates by the

footmen in the canary coats, with the mouton aux
navets.  Then "ale and water" were brought, and served
to us young ladies in wine-glasses.  I am not a judge of
ale, but I can say with a clear conscience I prefer water.

While we were enjoying our repast, Sir Pitt took
occasion to ask what had become of the shoulders of
the mutton.

"I believe they were eaten in the servants' hall," said
my lady, humbly.

"They was, my lady," said Horrocks, "and precious
little else we get there neither."

Sir Pitt burst into a horse-laugh, and continued his
conversation with Mr. Horrocks.  "That there little black
pig of the Kent sow's breed must be uncommon fat
now."

"It's not quite busting, Sir Pitt," said the butler with
the gravest air, at which Sir Pitt, and with him the young
ladies, this time, began to laugh violently.

"Miss Crawley, Miss Rose Crawley," said Mr. Crawley,
"your laughter strikes me as being exceedingly out
of place."

"Never mind, my lord," said the Baronet, "we'll try
the porker on Saturday.  Kill un on Saturday morning,
John Horrocks.  Miss Sharp adores pork, don't you, Miss
Sharp?"

And I think this is all the conversation that I remember
at dinner.  When the repast was concluded a jug of
hot water was placed before Sir Pitt, with a case-bottle
containing, I believe, rum.  Mr. Horrocks served myself
and my pupils with three little glasses of wine, and a
bumper was poured out for my lady.  When we retired,
she took from her work-drawer an enormous interminable
piece of knitting; the young ladies began to play at
cribbage with a dirty pack of cards.  We had but one
candle lighted, but it was in a magnificent old silver
candlestick, and after a very few questions from my lady,
I had my choice of amusement between a volume of
sermons, and a pamphlet on the corn-laws, which Mr.
Crawley had been reading before dinner.

So we sat for an hour until steps were heard.

"Put away the cards, girls," cried my lady, in a great
tremor; "put down Mr. Crawley's books, Miss Sharp";
and these orders had been scarcely obeyed, when Mr.
Crawley entered the room.

"We will resume yesterday's discourse, young ladies,"
said he, "and you shall each read a page by turns; so
that Miss a--Miss Short may have an opportunity of
hearing you"; and the poor girls began to spell a long
dismal sermon delivered at Bethesda Chapel, Liverpool,
on behalf of the mission for the Chickasaw Indians.
Was it not a charming evening?

At ten the servants were told to call Sir Pitt and the
household to prayers.  Sir Pitt came in first, very much
flushed, and rather unsteady in his gait; and after him
the butler, the canaries, Mr. Crawley's man, three other
men, smelling very much of the stable, and four women,
one of whom, I remarked, was very much overdressed,
and who flung me a look of great scorn as she plumped
down on her knees.

After Mr. Crawley had done haranguing and
expounding, we received our candles, and then we
went to bed; and then I was disturbed in my writing, as
I have described to my dearest sweetest Amelia.

Good night.  A thousand, thousand, thousand kisses!

Saturday.--This morning, at five, I heard the
shrieking of the little black pig.  Rose and Violet introduced
me to it yesterday; and to the stables, and to the kennel,
and to the gardener, who was picking fruit to send to
market, and from whom they begged hard a bunch of
hot-house grapes; but he said that Sir Pitt had numbered
every "Man Jack" of them, and it would be as much as
his place was worth to give any away.  The darling girls
caught a colt in a paddock, and asked me if I would
ride, and began to ride themselves, when the groom,
coming with horrid oaths, drove them away.

Lady Crawley is always knitting the worsted.  Sir Pitt
is always tipsy, every night; and, I believe, sits with
Horrocks, the butler.  Mr. Crawley always reads sermons
in the evening, and in the morning is locked up in his
study, or else rides to Mudbury, on county business,
or to Squashmore, where he preaches, on Wednesdays
and Fridays, to the tenants there.

A hundred thousand grateful loves to your dear papa
and mamma.  Is your poor brother recovered of his rack-
punch? Oh, dear! Oh, dear! How men should beware of
wicked punch!

Ever and ever thine own
REBECCA

Everything considered, I think it is quite as well for
our dear Amelia Sedley, in Russell Square, that Miss
Sharp and she are parted.  Rebecca is a droll funny
creature, to be sure; and those descriptions of the poor lady
weeping for the loss of her beauty, and the gentleman
"with hay-coloured whiskers and straw-coloured hair,"
are very smart, doubtless, and show a great knowledge
of the world.  That she might, when on her knees, have
been thinking of something better than Miss Horrocks's
ribbons, has possibly struck both of us.  But my kind
reader will please to remember that this history has
"Vanity Fair" for a title, and that Vanity Fair is a
very vain, wicked, foolish place, full of all sorts of
humbugs and falsenesses and pretensions.  And while the
moralist, who is holding forth on the cover ( an accurate
portrait of your humble servant), professes to wear
neither gown nor bands, but only the very same long-
eared livery in which his congregation is arrayed: yet,
look you, one is bound to speak the truth as far as one
knows it, whether one mounts a cap and bells or a shovel
hat; and a deal of disagreeable matter must come out
in the course of such an undertaking.

I have heard a brother of the story-telling trade, at
Naples, preaching to a pack of good-for-nothing honest
lazy fellows by the sea-shore, work himself up into such a
rage and passion with some of the villains whose wicked
deeds he was describing and inventing, that the audience
could not resist it; and they and the poet together would
burst out into a roar of oaths and execrations against
the fictitious monster of the tale, so that the hat went
round, and the bajocchi tumbled into it, in the midst of
a perfect storm of sympathy.

At the little Paris theatres, on the other hand, you will
not only hear the people yelling out "Ah gredin! Ah
monstre:" and cursing the tyrant of the play from the
boxes; but the actors themselves positively refuse to play
the wicked parts, such as those of infames Anglais,
brutal Cossacks, and what not, and prefer to appear
at a smaller salary, in their real characters as loyal
Frenchmen.  I set the two stories one against the other,
so that you may see that it is not from mere mercenary
motives that the present performer is desirous to show
up and trounce his villains; but because he has a sincere
hatred of them, which he cannot keep down, and which
must find a vent in suitable abuse and bad language.

I warn my "kyind friends," then, that I am going to
tell a story of harrowing villainy and complicated--but,
as I trust, intensely interesting--crime.  My rascals are
no milk-and-water rascals, I promise you.  When we come
to the proper places we won't spare fine language--No,
no! But when we are going over the quiet country we
must perforce be calm.  A tempest in a slop-basin is
absurd.  We will reserve that sort of thing for the mighty
ocean and the lonely midnight.  The present Chapter is
very mild.  Others--But we will not anticipate THOSE.

And, as we bring our characters forward, I will ask
leave, as a man and a brother, not only to introduce
them, but occasionally to step down from the platform,
and talk about them: if they are good and kindly, to
love them and shake them by the hand: if they are silly,
to laugh at them confidentially in the reader's sleeve:
if they are wicked and heartless, to abuse them in the
strongest terms which politeness admits of.

Otherwise you might fancy it was I who was sneering
at the practice of devotion, which Miss Sharp finds so
ridiculous; that it was I who laughed good-humouredly
at the reeling old Silenus of a baronet--whereas the
laughter comes from one who has no reverence except
for prosperity, and no eye for anything beyond success.
Such people there are living and flourishing in the world
--Faithless, Hopeless, Charityless: let us have at them,
dear friends, with might and main.  Some there are, and
very successful too, mere quacks and fools: and it was
to combat and expose such as those, no doubt, that
Laughter was made.




CHAPTER IX


Family Portraits

Sir Pitt Crawley was a philosopher with a taste for what is
called low life.  His first marriage with the daughter of
the noble Binkie had been made under the auspices of
his parents; and as he often told Lady Crawley in her
lifetime she was such a confounded quarrelsome high-bred
jade that when she died he was hanged if he would ever take
another of her sort, at her ladyship's demise he kept his
promise, and selected for a second wife Miss Rose Dawson,
daughter of Mr. John Thomas Dawson, ironmonger, of Mudbury.
What a happy woman was Rose to be my Lady Crawley!

Let us set down the items of her happiness.  In the
first place, she gave up Peter Butt, a young man who
kept company with her, and in consequence of his
disappointment in love, took to smuggling, poaching, and a
thousand other bad courses.  Then she quarrelled, as in
duty bound, with all the friends and intimates of her youth,
who, of course, could not be received by my Lady at
Queen's Crawley--nor did she find in her new rank and
abode any persons who were willing to welcome her.
Who ever did? Sir Huddleston Fuddleston had three
daughters who all hoped to be Lady Crawley.  Sir Giles
Wapshot's family were insulted that one of the Wapshot
girls had not the preference in the marriage, and the
remaining baronets of the county were indignant at their
comrade's misalliance.  Never mind the commoners, whom
we will leave to grumble anonymously.

Sir Pitt did not care, as he said, a brass farden for
any one of them.  He had his pretty Rose, and what
more need a man require than to please himself? So he
used to get drunk every night: to beat his pretty Rose
sometimes: to leave her in Hampshire when he went to
London for the parliamentary session, without a single
friend in the wide world.  Even Mrs. Bute Crawley, the
Rector's wife, refused to visit her, as she said she would
never give the pas to a tradesman's daughter.

As the only endowments with which Nature had gifted
Lady Crawley were those of pink cheeks and a white
skin, and as she had no sort of character, nor talents,
nor opinions, nor occupations, nor amusements, nor that
vigour of soul and ferocity of temper which often falls
to the lot of entirely foolish women, her hold upon Sir
Pitt's affections was not very great.  Her roses faded out
of her cheeks, and the pretty freshness left her figure
after the birth of a couple of children, and she became
a mere machine in her husband's house of no more use
than the late Lady Crawley's grand piano.  Being a light-
complexioned woman, she wore light clothes, as most
blondes will, and appeared, in preference, in draggled sea-
green, or slatternly sky-blue.  She worked that worsted
day and night, or other pieces like it.  She had
counterpanes in the course of a few years to all the beds in
Crawley.  She had a small flower-garden, for which she
had rather an affection; but beyond this no other like
or disliking.  When her husband was rude to her she was
apathetic: whenever he struck her she cried.  She had not
character enough to take to drinking, and moaned about,
slipshod and in curl-papers all day.  0 Vanity Fair--
Vanity Fair! This might have been, but for you, a cheery
lass--Peter Butt and Rose a happy man and wife, in a
snug farm, with a hearty family; and an honest portion
of pleasures, cares, hopes and struggles--but a title and
a coach and four are toys more precious than happiness
in Vanity Fair: and if Harry the Eighth or Bluebeard
were alive now, and wanted a tenth wife, do you suppose
he could not get the prettiest girl that shall be presented
this season?

The languid dulness of their mamma did not, as it
may be supposed, awaken much affection in her little
daughters, but they were very happy in the servants' hall
and in the stables; and the Scotch gardener having
luckily a good wife and some good children, they got a
little wholesome society and instruction in his lodge,
which was the only education bestowed upon them until
Miss Sharp came.

Her engagement was owing to the remonstrances of
Mr. Pitt Crawley, the only friend or protector Lady
Crawley ever had, and the only person, besides her
children, for whom she entertained a little feeble
attachment.  Mr. Pitt took after the noble Binkies, from
whom he was descended, and was a very polite and proper
gentleman.  When he grew to man's estate, and came
back from Christchurch, he began to reform the
slackened discipline of the hall, in spite of his father, who
stood in awe of him.  He was a man of such rigid
refinement, that he would have starved rather than have
dined without a white neckcloth.  Once, when just from
college, and when Horrocks the butler brought him a
letter without placing it previously on a tray, he gave
that domestic a look, and administered to him a speech
so cutting, that Horrocks ever after trembled before him;
the whole household bowed to him: Lady Crawley's curl-
papers came off earlier when he was at home: Sir Pitt's
muddy gaiters disappeared; and if that incorrigible old
man still adhered to other old habits, he never fuddled
himself with rum-and-water in his son's presence, and
only talked to his servants in a very reserved and polite
manner; and those persons remarked that Sir Pitt never
swore at Lady Crawley while his son was in the room.

It was he who taught the butler to say, "My lady is
served," and who insisted on handing her ladyship in to
dinner.  He seldom spoke to her, but when he did it was
with the most powerful respect; and he never let her
quit the apartment without rising in the most stately
manner to open the door, and making an elegant bow
at her egress.

At Eton he was called Miss Crawley; and there, I
am sorry to say, his younger brother Rawdon used to
lick him violently.  But though his parts were not
brilliant, he made up for his lack of talent by meritorious
industry, and was never known, during eight years at
school, to be subject to that punishment which it is
generally thought none but a cherub can escape.

At college his career was of course highly creditable.
And here he prepared himself for public life, into which
he was to be introduced by the patronage of his
grandfather, Lord Binkie, by studying the ancient and modern
orators with great assiduity, and by speaking unceasingly
at the debating societies.  But though he had a fine flux
of words, and delivered his little voice with great
pomposity and pleasure to himself, and never advanced
any sentiment or opinion which was not perfectly trite and
stale, and supported by a Latin quotation; yet he failed
somehow, in spite of a mediocrity which ought to have
insured any man a success.  He did not even get the
prize poem, which all his friends said he was sure of.

After leaving college he became Private Secretary to
Lord Binkie, and was then appointed Attache to the
Legation at Pumpernickel, which post he filled with
perfect honour, and brought home despatches, consisting of
Strasburg pie, to the Foreign Minister of the day.  After
remaining ten years Attache (several years after the
lamented Lord Binkie's demise), and finding the
advancement slow, he at length gave up the diplomatic
service in some disgust, and began to turn country gentleman.

He wrote a pamphlet on Malt on returning to England
(for he was an ambitious man, and always liked
to be before the public), and took a strong part in the
Negro Emancipation question.  Then he became a friend
of Mr. Wilberforce's, whose politics he admired, and had
that famous correspondence with the Reverend Silas
Hornblower, on the Ashantee Mission.  He was in
London, if not for the Parliament session, at least in May,
for the religious meetings.  In the country he was a
magistrate, and an active visitor and speaker among those
destitute of religious instruction.  He was said to be
paying his addresses to Lady Jane Sheepshanks, Lord
Southdown's third daughter, and whose sister, Lady Emily,
wrote those sweet tracts, "The Sailor's True Binnacle,"
and "The Applewoman of Finchley Common."

Miss Sharp's accounts of his employment at Queen's
Crawley were not caricatures.  He subjected the servants
there to the devotional exercises before mentioned, in
which (and so much the better) he brought his father
to join.  He patronised an Independent meeting-house in
Crawley parish, much to the indignation of his uncle the
Rector, and to the consequent delight of Sir Pitt, who
was induced to go himself once or twice, which occasioned
some violent sermons at Crawley parish church, directed
point-blank at the Baronet's old Gothic pew there.  Honest
Sir Pitt, however, did not feel the force of these
discourses, as he always took his nap during sermon-time.

Mr. Crawley was very earnest, for the good of the
nation and of the Christian world, that the old gentleman
should yield him up his place in Parliament; but this the
elder constantly refused to do.  Both were of course too
prudent to give up the fifteen hundred a year which was
brought in by the second seat (at this period filled by
Mr. Quadroon, with carte blanche on the Slave question);
indeed the family estate was much embarrassed, and the
income drawn from the borough was of great use to the
house of Queen's Crawley.

It had never recovered the heavy fine imposed upon
Walpole Crawley, first baronet, for peculation in the Tape
and Sealing Wax Office.  Sir Walpole was a jolly fellow,
eager to seize and to spend money (alieni appetens, sui
profusus, as Mr. Crawley would remark with a sigh),
and in his day beloved by all the county for the
constant drunkenness and hospitality which was maintained
at Queen's Crawley.  The cellars were filled with burgundy
then, the kennels with hounds, and the stables with
gallant hunters; now, such horses as Queen's Crawley
possessed went to plough, or ran in the Trafalgar Coach;
and it was with a team of these very horses, on an off-
day, that Miss Sharp was brought to the Hall; for boor
as he was, Sir Pitt was a stickler for his dignity while
at home, and seldom drove out but with four horses,
and though he dined off boiled mutton, had always three
footmen to serve it.

If mere parsimony could have made a man rich, Sir
Pitt Crawley might have become very wealthy--if he
had been an attorney in a country town, with no capital
but his brains, it is very possible that he would have
turned them to good account, and might have achieved
for himself a very considerable influence and competency.
But he was unluckily endowed with a good name
and a large though encumbered estate, both of which
went rather to injure than to advance him.  He had a
taste for law, which cost him many thousands yearly;
and being a great deal too clever to be robbed, as he
said, by any single agent, allowed his affairs to be
mismanaged by a dozen, whom he all equally mistrusted.
He was such a sharp landlord, that he could hardly find
any but bankrupt tenants; and such a close farmer, as
to grudge almost the seed to the ground, whereupon
revengeful Nature grudged him the crops which she
granted to more liberal husbandmen.  He speculated in
every possible way; he worked mines; bought canal-shares;
horsed coaches; took government contracts, and was
the busiest man and magistrate of his county.  As he
would not pay honest agents at his granite quarry, he
had the satisfaction of finding that four overseers ran
away, and took fortunes with them to America.  For want
of proper precautions, his coal-mines filled with water:
the government flung his contract of damaged beef upon
his hands: and for his coach-horses, every mail proprietor
in the kingdom knew that he lost more horses than any
man in the country, from underfeeding and buying cheap.
In disposition he was sociable, and far from being proud;
nay, he rather preferred the society of a farmer or a
horse-dealer to that of a gentleman, like my lord, his
son: he was fond of drink, of swearing, of joking with
the farmers' daughters: he was never known to give away
a shilling or to do a good action, but was of a pleasant,
sly, laughing mood, and would cut his joke and drink
his glass with a tenant and sell him up the next day;
or have his laugh with the poacher he was transporting
with equal good humour.  His politeness for the fair sex
has already been hinted at by Miss Rebecca Sharp--in
a word, the whole baronetage, peerage, commonage of
England, did not contain a more cunning, mean, selfish,
foolish, disreputable old man.  That blood-red hand of
Sir Pitt Crawley's would be in anybody's pocket except
his own; and it is with grief and pain, that, as admirers
of the British aristocracy, we find ourselves obliged to
admit the existence of so many ill qualities in a person
whose name is in Debrett.

One great cause why Mr. Crawley had such a hold
over the affections of his father, resulted from money
arrangements.  The Baronet owed his son a sum of money
out of the jointure of his mother, which he did not find
it convenient to pay; indeed he had an almost invincible
repugnance to paying anybody, and could only be brought
by force to discharge his debts.  Miss Sharp calculated
(for she became, as we shall hear speedily, inducted
into most of the secrets of the family) that the mere
payment of his creditors cost the honourable Baronet
several hundreds yearly; but this was a delight he could
not forego; he had a savage pleasure in making the poor
wretches wait, and in shifting from court to court and
from term to term the period of satisfaction.  What's the
good of being in Parliament, he said, if you must pay your
debts? Hence, indeed, his position as a senator was not
a little useful to him.

Vanity Fair--Vanity Fair!  Here was a man, who could
not spell, and did not care to read--who had the habits
and the cunning of a boor: whose aim in life was
pettifogging: who never had a taste, or emotion, or
enjoyment, but what was sordid and foul; and yet he had
rank, and honours, and power, somehow: and was a
dignitary of the land, and a pillar of the state.  He was
high sheriff, and rode in a golden coach.  Great ministers
and statesmen courted him; and in Vanity Fair he had a
higher place than the most brilliant genius or spotless
virtue.

Sir Pitt had an unmarried half-sister who inherited her
mother's large fortune, and though the Baronet proposed
to borrow this money of her on mortgage, Miss Crawley
declined the offer, and preferred the security of the funds.
She had signified, however, her intention of leaving her
inheritance between Sir Pitt's second son and the family
at the Rectory, and had once or twice paid the debts of
Rawdon Crawley in his career at college and in the army.
Miss Crawley was, in consequence, an object of great
respect when she came to Queen's Crawley, for she had
a balance at her banker's which would have made her
beloved anywhere.

What a dignity it gives an old lady, that balance at
the banker's!  How tenderly we look at her faults if she
is a relative (and may every reader have a score of such),
what a kind good-natured old creature we find her!  How
the junior partner of Hobbs and Dobbs leads her smiling
to the carriage with the lozenge upon it, and the fat
wheezy coachman! How, when she comes to pay us a
visit, we generally find an opportunity to let our friends
know her station in the world!  We say (and with perfect
truth) I wish I had Miss MacWhirter's signature to a
cheque for five thousand pounds.  She wouldn't miss it,
says your wife.  She is my aunt, say you, in an easy
careless way, when your friend asks if Miss MacWhirter is
any relative.  Your wife is perpetually sending her little
testimonies of affection, your little girls work endless
worsted baskets, cushions, and footstools for her.  What a
good fire there is in her room when she comes to pay
you a visit, although your wife laces her stays without
one!  The house during her stay assumes a festive, neat,
warm, jovial, snug appearance not visible at other
seasons.  You yourself, dear sir, forget to go to sleep after
dinner, and find yourself all of a sudden (though you
invariably lose) very fond of a rubber.  What good
dinners you have--game every day, Malmsey-Madeira, and
no end of fish from London.  Even the servants in the
kitchen share in the general prosperity; and, somehow,
during the stay of Miss MacWhirter's fat coachman, the
beer is grown much stronger, and the consumption of tea
and sugar in the nursery (where her maid takes her
meals) is not regarded in the least.  Is it so, or is it not
so?  I appeal to the middle classes.  Ah, gracious powers!
I wish you would send me an old aunt--a maiden aunt
--an aunt with a lozenge on her carriage, and a front
of light coffee-coloured hair--how my children should
work workbags for her, and my Julia and I would make
her comfortable! Sweet--sweet vision! Foolish--foolish
dream!




CHAPTER X


Miss Sharp Begins to Make Friends

And now, being received as a member of the amiable
family whose portraits we have sketched in the foregoing
pages, it became naturally Rebecca's duty to make
herself, as she said, agreeable to her benefactors, and to
gain their confidence to the utmost of her power.  Who
can but admire this quality of gratitude in an unprotected
orphan; and, if there entered some degree of selfishness
into her calculations, who can say but that her
prudence was perfectly justifiable?  "I am alone in the
world," said the friendless girl.  "I have nothing to look
for but what my own labour can bring me; and while
that little pink-faced chit Amelia, with not half my sense,
has ten thousand pounds and an establishment secure,
poor Rebecca (and my figure is far better than hers)
has only herself and her own wits to trust to.  Well, let
us see if my wits cannot provide me with an honourable
maintenance, and if some day or the other I cannot show
Miss Amelia my real superiority over her.  Not that I
dislike poor Amelia: who can dislike such a harmless,
good-natured creature?--only it will be a fine day when
I can take my place above her in the world, as why,
indeed, should I not?"  Thus it was that our little
romantic friend formed visions of the future for herself--
nor must we be scandalised that, in all her castles in
the air, a husband was the principal inhabitant.  Of
what else have young ladies to think, but husbands? Of
what else do their dear mammas think?  "I must be my
own mamma," said Rebecca; not without a tingling
consciousness of defeat, as she thought over her little
misadventure with Jos Sedley.

So she wisely determined to render her position with
the Queen's Crawley family comfortable and secure, and
to this end resolved to make friends of every one around
her who could at all interfere with her comfort.

As my Lady Crawley was not one of these personages,
and a woman, moreover, so indolent and void of
character as not to be of the least consequence in her own
house, Rebecca soon found that it was not at all necessary
to cultivate her good will--indeed, impossible to gain it.  She
used to talk to her pupils about their "poor mamma"; and,
though she treated that lady with every demonstration
of cool respect, it was to the rest of the family that she
wisely directed the chief part of her attentions.

With the young people, whose applause she thoroughly
gained, her method was pretty simple.  She did not
pester their young brains with too much learning, but,
on the contrary, let them have their own way in
regard to educating themselves; for what instruction is more
effectual than self-instruction? The eldest was rather fond
of books, and as there was in the old library at Queen's
Crawley a considerable provision of works of light
literature of the last century, both in the French and English
languages (they had been purchased by the Secretary
of the Tape and Sealing Wax Office at the period of his
disgrace), and as nobody ever troubled the book-shelves
but herself, Rebecca was enabled agreeably, and, as
it were, in playing, to impart a great deal of instruction
to Miss Rose Crawley.

She and Miss Rose thus read together many delightful
French and English works, among which may be
mentioned those of the learned Dr. Smollett, of the ingenious
Mr. Henry Fielding, of the graceful and fantastic
Monsieur Crebillon the younger, whom our immortal poet
Gray so much admired, and of the universal Monsieur de
Voltaire.  Once, when Mr. Crawley asked what the young
people were reading, the governess replied "Smollett."
"Oh, Smollett," said Mr. Crawley, quite satisfied.  "His
history is more dull, but by no means so dangerous as
that of Mr. Hume.  It is history you are reading?" "Yes,"
said Miss Rose; without, however, adding that it was the
history of Mr. Humphrey Clinker.  On another occasion
he was rather scandalised at finding his sister with a
book of French plays; but as the governess remarked
that it was for the purpose of acquiring the French idiom
in conversation, he was fain to be content.  Mr. Crawley,
as a diplomatist, was exceedingly proud of his own skill
in speaking the French language (for he was of the world
still), and not a little pleased with the compliments which
the governess continually paid him upon his proficiency.

Miss Violet's tastes were, on the contrary, more rude
and boisterous than those of her sister.  She knew the
sequestered spots where the hens laid their eggs.  She
could climb a tree to rob the nests of the feathered
songsters of their speckled spoils.  And her pleasure was to
ride the young colts, and to scour the plains like Camilla.
She was the favourite of her father and of the stablemen.
She was the darling, and withal the terror of the
cook; for she discovered the haunts of the jam-pots, and
would attack them when they were within her reach.
She and her sister were engaged in constant battles.  Any
of which peccadilloes, if Miss Sharp discovered, she did
not tell them to Lady Crawley; who would have told
them to the father, or worse, to Mr. Crawley; but
promised not to tell if Miss Violet would be a good girl
and love her governess.

With Mr. Crawley Miss Sharp was respectful and
obedient.  She used to consult him on passages of French
which she could not understand, though her mother was
a Frenchwoman, and which he would construe to her
satisfaction: and, besides giving her his aid in profane
literature, he was kind enough to select for her books
of a more serious tendency, and address to her much of
his conversation.  She admired, beyond measure, his
speech at the Quashimaboo-Aid Society; took an
interest in his pamphlet on malt: was often affected, even
to tears, by his discourses of an evening, and