if she had been guilty of something.
When they brought her coffee, she started as
though it were a cup of poison which Mr. Hicks, the
butler, wished to propose to her.  What mystery was
there lurking? Oh, those women!  They nurse and cuddle
their presentiments, and make darlings of their ugliest
thoughts, as they do of their deformed children.

The gloom on the paternal countenance had also
impressed George Osborne with anxiety.  With such
eyebrows, and a look so decidedly bilious, how was he to
extract that money from the governor, of which George
was consumedly in want? He began praising his father's
wine.  That was generally a successful means of cajoling
the old gentleman.

"We never got such Madeira in the West Indies, sir, as
yours.  Colonel Heavytop took off three bottles of that you
sent me down, under his belt the other day."

"Did he?" said the old gentleman.  "It stands me in
eight shillings a bottle."

"Will you take six guineas a dozen for it, sir?" said
George, with a laugh.  "There's one of the greatest men in
the kingdom wants some."

"Does he?" growled the senior.  "Wish he may get it."

"When General Daguilet was at Chatham, sir, Heavytop
gave him a breakfast, and asked me for some of the
wine.  The General liked it just as well--wanted a pipe
for the Commander-in-Chief.  He's his Royal Highness's
right-hand man."

"It is devilish fine wine," said the Eyebrows, and they
looked more good-humoured; and George was going to
take advantage of this complacency, and bring the
supply question on the mahogany, when the father, relapsing
into solemnity, though rather cordial in manner, bade
him ring the bell for claret.  "And we'll see if that's as
good as the Madeira, George, to which his Royal
Highness is welcome, I'm sure.  And as we are drinking it,
I'll talk to you about a matter of importance."

Amelia heard the claret bell ringing as she sat
nervously upstairs.  She thought, somehow, it was a
mysterious and presentimental bell.  Of the presentiments
which some people are always having, some surely
must come right.

"What I want to know, George," the old gentleman
said, after slowly smacking his first bumper--"what I
want to know is, how you and--ah--that little thing
upstairs, are carrying on?"

"I think, sir, it is not hard to see," George said, with a
self-satisfied grin.  "Pretty clear, sir.--What capital wine!"

"What d'you mean, pretty clear, sir?"

"Why, hang it, sir, don't push me too hard.  I'm a
modest man.  I--ah--I don't set up to be a lady-killer;
but I do own that she's as devilish fond of me as she
can be.  Anybody can see that with half an eye."

"And you yourself?"

"Why, sir, didn't you order me to marry her, and ain't
I a good boy? Haven't our Papas settled it ever so long?"

"A pretty boy, indeed.  Haven't I heard of your doings,
sir, with Lord Tarquin, Captain Crawley of the Guards,
~the Honourable Mr. Deuceace and that set.  Have a care
sir, have a care."

The old gentleman pronounced these aristocratic
names with the greatest gusto.  Whenever he met a great
man he grovelled before him, and my-lorded him as only
a free-born Briton can do.  He came home and looked
out his history in the Peerage: he introduced his name
into his daily conversation; he bragged about his
Lordship to his daughters.  He fell down prostrate and basked
in him as a Neapolitan beggar does in the sun.  George
was alarmed when he heard the names.  He feared his
father might have been informed of certain transactions
at play.  But the old moralist eased him by saying
serenely:

"Well, well, young men will be young men.  And the
comfort to me is, George, that living in the best society
in England, as I hope you do; as I think you do; as my
means will allow you to do--"

"Thank you, sir," says George, making his point at
once.  "One can't live with these great folks for nothing;
and my purse, sir, look at it"; and he held up a little
token which had been netted by Amelia, and contained
the very last of Dobbin's pound notes.

"You shan't want, sir.  The British merchant's son
shan't want, sir.  My guineas are as good as theirs,
George, my boy; and I don't grudge 'em.  Call on Mr.
Chopper as you go through the City to-morrow; he'll
have something for you.  I don't grudge money when I
know you're in good society, because I know that good
society can never go wrong.  There's no pride in me.  I
was a humbly born man--but you have had advantages.
Make a good use of 'em.  Mix with the young nobility.
There's many of 'em who can't spend a dollar to your
guinea, my boy.  And as for the pink bonnets (here from
under the heavy eyebrows there came a knowing and not
very pleasing leer)--why boys will be boys.  Only there's
one thing I order you to avoid, which, if you do not, I'll
cut you off with a shilling, by Jove; and that's gambling,


"Oh, of course, sir," said George.

"But to return to the other business about Amelia:
why shouldn't you marry higher than a stockbroker's
daughter, George--that's what I want to know?"

"It's a family business, sir,".says George, cracking
filberts.  "You and Mr. Sedley made the match a hundred
years ago."

"I don't deny it; but people's positions alter, sir.  I don't
deny that Sedley made my fortune, or rather put me in
the way of acquiring, by my own talents and genius, that
proud position, which, I may say, I occupy in the tallow
trade and the City of London.  I've shown my gratitude
to Sedley; and he's tried it of late, sir, as my cheque-book
can show.  George!  I tell you in confidence I don't
like the looks of Mr. Sedley's affairs.  My chief clerk,
Mr. Chopper, does not like the looks of 'em, and he's an
old file, and knows 'Change as well as any man in
London.  Hulker & Bullock are looking shy at him.  He's been
dabbling on his own account I fear.  They say the Jeune
Amelie was his, which was taken by the Yankee
privateer Molasses.  And that's flat--unless I see Amelia's ten
thousand down you don't marry her.  I'll have no lame
duck's daughter in my family.  Pass the wine, sir--or
ring for coffee."

With which Mr. Osborne spread out the evening
paper, and George knew from this signal that the
colloquy was ended, and that his papa was about to
take a nap.

He hurried upstairs to Amelia in the highest spirits.
What was it that made him more attentive to her on that
night than he had been for a long time--more eager to
amuse her, more tender, more brilliant in talk?  Was it
that his generous heart warmed to her at the prospect of
misfortune; or that the idea of losing the dear little prize
made him value it more?

She lived upon the recollections of that happy evening
for many days afterwards, remembering his words; his
looks; the song he sang; his attitude, as he leant over her
or looked at her from a distance.  As it seemed to her,
no night ever passed so quickly at Mr. Osborne's house
before; and for once this young person was almost
provoked to be angry by the premature arrival of Mr.
Sambo with her shawl.

George came and took a tender leave of her the next
morning; and then hurried off to the City, where he
visited Mr. Chopper, his father's head man, and received
from that gentleman a document which he exchanged at
Hulker & Bullock's for a whole pocketful of money.  As
George entered the house, old John Sedley was passing
out of the banker's parlour, looking very dismal.  But his
godson was much too elated to mark the worthy
stockbroker's depression, or the dreary eyes which the kind
old gentleman cast upon him.  Young Bullock did not
come grinning out of the parlour with him as had been
his wont in former years.

And as the swinging doors of Hulker, Bullock & Co.
closed upon Mr. Sedley, Mr. Quill, the cashier (whose
benevolent occupation it is to hand out crisp bank-notes
from a drawer and dispense sovereigns out of a copper
shovel), winked at Mr. Driver, the clerk at the desk on
his right.  Mr. Driver winked again.

"No go," Mr. D. whispered.

"Not at no price," Mr. Q. said.  "Mr. George Osborne,
 sir, how will you take it?" George crammed eagerly a
quantity of notes into his pockets, and paid Dobbin fifty
pounds that very evening at mess.

That very evening Amelia wrote him the tenderest of
long letters.  Her heart was overflowing with tenderness,
but it still foreboded evil.  What was the cause of Mr.
Osborne's dark looks? she asked.  Had any difference
arisen between him and her papa? Her poor papa
returned so melancholy from the City, that all were
alarmed about him at home--in fine, there were four
pages of loves and fears and hopes and forebodings.

"Poor little Emmy--dear little Emmy.  How fond she
is of me," George said, as he perused the missive--"and
Gad, what a headache that mixed punch has given me!"
Poor little Emmy, indeed.




CHAPTER XIV


Miss Crawley at Home

About this time there drove up to an exceedingly snug
and well-appointed house in Park Lane, a travelling chariot
with a lozenge on the panels, a discontented female in a
green veil and crimped curls on the rumble, and a large
and confidential man on the box.  It was the equipage of
our friend Miss Crawley, returning from Hants.  The
carriage windows were shut; the fat spaniel, whose head and
tongue ordinarily lolled out of one of them, reposed on the
lap of the discontented female.  When the vehicle stopped,
a large round bundle of shawls was taken out of the
carriage by the aid of various domestics and a young
lady who accompanied the heap of cloaks.  That bundle
contained Miss Crawley, who was conveyed upstairs
forthwith, and put into a bed and chamber warmed properly
as for the reception of an invalid.  Messengers went off
for her physician and medical man.  They came,
consulted, prescribed, vanished.  The young companion of
Miss Crawley, at the conclusion of their interview, came
in to receive their instructions, and administered those
antiphlogistic medicines which the eminent men ordered.

Captain Crawley of the Life Guards rode up from
Knightsbridge Barracks the next day; his black charger
pawed the straw before his invalid aunt's door.  He was
most affectionate in his inquiries regarding that amiable
relative.  There seemed to be much source of apprehension.
He found Miss Crawley's maid (the discontented
female) unusually sulky and despondent; he found Miss
Briggs, her dame de compagnie, in tears alone in the
drawing-room.  She had hastened home, hearing of her
beloved friend's illness.  She wished to fly to her couch,
that couch which she, Briggs, had so often smoothed in
the hour of sickness.  She was denied admission to Miss
Crawley's apartment.  A stranger was administering her
medicines--a stranger from the country--an odious Miss
. . .--tears choked the utterance of the dame de
compagnie, and she buried her crushed affections and her
poor old red nose in her pocket handkerchief.

Rawdon Crawley sent up his name by the sulky femme
de chambre, and Miss Crawley's new companion, coming
tripping down from the sick-room, put a little hand into
his as he stepped forward eagerly to meet her, gave a
glance of great scorn at the bewildered Briggs, and
beckoning the young Guardsman out of the back drawing-
room, led him downstairs into that now desolate dining-
parlour, where so many a good dinner had been
celebrated.

Here these two talked for ten minutes, discussing, no
doubt, the symptoms of the old invalid above stairs; at
the end of which period the parlour bell was rung briskly,
and answered on that instant by Mr. Bowls, Miss
Crawley's large confidential butler (who, indeed, happened to
be at the keyhole during the most part of the interview);
and the Captain coming out, curling his mustachios,
mounted the black charger pawing among the straw, to
the admiration of the little blackguard boys collected in
the street.  He looked in at the dining-room window,
managing his horse, which curvetted and capered beautifully
--for one instant the young person might be seen at the
window, when her figure vanished, and, doubtless, she
went upstairs again to resume the affecting duties of
benevolence.

Who could this young woman be, I wonder?  That
evening a little dinner for two persons was laid in the dining-
room--when Mrs. Firkin, the lady's maid, pushed into her
mistress's apartment, and bustled about there during
the vacancy occasioned by the departure of the new
nurse--and the latter and Miss Briggs sat down to the
neat little meal.

Briggs was so much choked by emotion that she could
hardly take a morsel of meat.  The young person carved a
fowl with the utmost delicacy, and asked so distinctly for
egg-sauce, that poor Briggs, before whom that delicious
condiment was placed, started, made a great clattering
with the ladle, and once more fell back in the most
gushing hysterical state.

"Had you not better give Miss Briggs a glass of wine?"
said the person to Mr. Bowls, the large confidential man.
He did so.  Briggs seized it mechanically, gasped it down
convulsively, moaned a little, and began to play with the
chicken on her plate.

"I think we shall be able to help each other," said
the person with great suavity: "and shall have no need
of Mr. Bowls's kind services.  Mr. Bowls, if you please,
we will ring when we want you." He went downstairs,
where, by the way, he vented the most horrid curses
upon the unoffending footman, his subordinate.

"It is a pity you take on so, Miss Briggs," the young
lady said, with a cool, slightly sarcastic, air.

"My dearest friend is so ill, and wo--o--on't see
me," gurgled out Briggs in an agony of renewed grief.

"She's not very ill any more.  Console yourself, dear
Miss Briggs.  She has only overeaten herself--that is all.
She is greatly better.  She will soon be quite restored again.
She is weak from being cupped and from medical
treatment, but she will rally immediately.  Pray console
yourself, and take a little more wine."

"But why, why won't she see me again?" Miss Briggs
bleated out.  "Oh, Matilda, Matilda, after three-and-
twenty years' tenderness! is this the return to your poor,
poor Arabella?"

"Don't cry too much, poor Arabella," the other said
(with ever so little of a grin); "she only won't see you,
because she says you don't nurse her as well as I do.
It's no pleasure to me to sit up all night.  I wish you
might do it instead."

"Have I not tended that dear couch for years?"
Arabella said, "and now--"

"Now she prefers somebody else.  Well, sick people
have these fancies, and must be humoured.  When she's
well I shall go."

"Never, never," Arabella exclaimed, madly inhaling her
salts-bottle.

"Never be well or never go, Miss Briggs?" the other
said, with the same provoking good-nature.  "Pooh--she
will be well in a fortnight, when I shall go back to my
little pupils at Queen's Crawley, and to their mother,
who is a great deal more sick than our friend.  You need
not be jealous about me, my dear Miss Briggs.  I am a
poor little girl without any friends, or any harm in me.
I don't want to supplant you in Miss Crawley's good
graces.  She will forget me a week after I am gone: and
her affection for you has been the work of years.  Give
me a little wine if you please, my dear Miss Briggs,
and let us be friends.  I'm sure I want friends."

The placable and soft-hearted Briggs speechlessly
pushed out her hand at this appeal; but she felt the
desertion most keenly for all that, and bitterly, bitterly
moaned the fickleness of her Matilda.  At the end of half
an hour, the meal over, Miss Rebecca Sharp (for such,
astonishing to state, is the name of her who has been
described ingeniously as "the person" hitherto), went
upstairs again to her patient's rooms, from which, with
the most engaging politeness, she eliminated poor Firkin.
"Thank you, Mrs. Firkin, that will quite do; how nicely
you make it! I will ring when anything is wanted." "Thank
you"; and Firkin came downstairs in a tempest of
jealousy, only the more dangerous because she was forced
to confine it in her own bosom.

Could it be the tempest which, as she passed the
landing of the first floor, blew open the drawing-room door?
No; it was stealthily opened by the hand of Briggs.
Briggs had been on the watch. Briggs too well heard the
creaking Firkin descend the stairs, and the clink of the
spoon and gruel-basin the neglected female carried.

"Well, Firkin?" says she, as the other entered the
apartment. "Well, Jane?"

"Wuss and wuss, Miss B.," Firkin said, wagging her
head.

"Is she not better then?"

"She never spoke but once, and I asked her if she felt
a little more easy, and she told me to hold my stupid
tongue. Oh, Miss B., I never thought to have seen this
day!"  And the water-works again began to play.

"What sort of a person is this Miss Sharp, Firkin? I
little thought, while enjoying my Christmas revels in the
elegant home of my firm friends, the Reverend Lionel
Delamere and his amiable lady, to find a stranger had
taken my place in the affections of my dearest, my still
dearest Matilda!"  Miss Briggs, it will be seen by her
language, was of a literary and sentimental turn, and had
once published a volume of poems--"Trills of the
Nightingale"--by subscription.

"Miss B., they are all infatyated about that young
woman," Firkin replied. "Sir Pitt wouldn't have let her
go, but he daredn't refuse Miss Crawley anything. Mrs.
Bute at the Rectory jist as bad--never happy out of her
sight. The Capting quite wild about her. Mr. Crawley
mortial jealous. Since Miss C. was took ill, she won't
have nobody near her but Miss Sharp, I can't tell for
where nor for why; and I think somethink has bewidged
everybody."

Rebecca passed that night in constant watching upon
Miss Crawley; the next night the old lady slept so
comfortably, that Rebecca had time for several hours'
comfortable repose herself on the sofa, at the foot of her
patroness's bed; very soon, Miss Crawley was so well
that she sat up and laughed heartily at a perfect
imitation of Miss Briggs and her grief, which Rebecca
described to her. Briggs' weeping snuffle, and her manner
of using the handkerchief, were so completely rendered
that Miss Crawley became quite cheerful, to the
admiration of the doctors when they visited her, who usually
found this worthy woman of the world, when the least
sickness attacked her, under the most abject depression
and terror of death.

Captain Crawley came every day, and received bulletins
from Miss Rebecca respecting his aunt's health.
This improved so rapidly, that poor Briggs was allowed
to see her patroness; and persons with tender hearts
may imagine the smothered emotions of that sentimental
female, and the affecting nature of the interview.

Miss Crawley liked to have Briggs in a good deal
soon.  Rebecca used to mimic her to her face with the
most admirable gravity, thereby rendering the imitation
doubly piquant to her worthy patroness.

The causes which had led to the deplorable illness of
Miss Crawley, and her departure from her brother's
house in the country, were of such an unromantic nature
that they are hardly fit to be explained in this genteel
and sentimental novel.  For how is it possible to hint of a
delicate female, living in good society, that she ate and
drank too much, and that a hot supper of lobsters
profusely enjoyed at the Rectory was the reason of an
indisposition which Miss Crawley herself persisted was
solely attributable to the dampness of the weather?  The
attack was so sharp that Matilda--as his Reverence
expressed it--was very nearly "off the hooks"; all the
family were in a fever of expectation regarding the will,
and Rawdon Crawley was making sure of at least forty
thousand pounds before the commencement of the
London season.  Mr. Crawley sent over a choice parcel of
tracts, to prepare her for the change from Vanity Fair
and Park Lane for another world; but a good doctor
from Southampton being called in in time, vanquished
the lobster which was so nearly fatal to her, and gave
her sufficient strength to enable her to return to London.
The Baronet did not disguise his exceeding mortification
at the turn which affairs took.

While everybody was attending on Miss Crawley, and
messengers every hour from the Rectory were carrying
news of her health to the affectionate folks there, there
was a lady in another part of the house, being exceedingly
ill, of whom no one took any notice at all; and this was
the lady of Crawley herself.  The good doctor shook his
head after seeing her; to which visit Sir Pitt consented,
as it could be paid without a fee; and she was left fading
away in her lonely chamber, with no more heed paid to
her than to a weed in the park.

The young ladies, too, lost much of the inestimable
benefit of their governess's instruction, So affectionate a
nurse was Miss Sharp, that Miss Crawley would take
her medicines from no other hand.  Firkin had been
deposed long before her mistress's departure from the
country.  That faithful attendant found a gloomy consolation
on returning to London, in seeing Miss Briggs suffer
the same pangs of jealousy and undergo the same
faithless treatment to which she herself had been subject.

Captain Rawdon got an extension of leave on his
aunt's illness, and remained dutifully at home.  He was
always in her antechamber.  (She lay sick in the state
bedroom, into which you entered by the little blue
saloon.) His father was always meeting him there; or if he
came down the corridor ever so quietly, his father's
door was sure to open, and the hyena face of the old
gentleman to glare out.  What was it set one to watch
the other so?  A generous rivalry, no doubt, as to which
should be most attentive to the dear sufferer in the state
bedroom.  Rebecca used to come out and comfort both
of them; or one or the other of them rather.  Both of
these worthy gentlemen were most anxious to have news
of the invalid from her little confidential messenger.

At dinner--to which meal she descended for half an
hour--she kept the peace between them: after which she
disappeared for the night; when Rawdon would ride over
to the depot of the 150th at Mudbury, leaving his papa
to the society of Mr. Horrocks and his rum and water.
She passed as weary a fortnight as ever mortal spent in
Miss Crawley's sick-room; but her little nerves seemed
to be of iron, as she was quite unshaken by the duty and
the tedium of the sick-chamber.

She never told until long afterwards how painful that
duty was; how peevish a patient was the jovial old lady;
how angry; how sleepless; in what horrors of death;
during what long nights she lay moaning, and in almost
delirious agonies respecting that future world which she
quite ignored when she was in good health.--Picture to
yourself, oh fair young reader, a worldly, selfish,
graceless, thankless, religionless old woman, writhing in pain
and fear, and without her wig.  Picture her to yourself,
and ere you be old, learn to love and pray!

Sharp watched this graceless bedside with indomitable
patience.  Nothing escaped her; and, like a prudent steward,
she found a use for everything.  She told many a
good story about Miss Crawley's illness in after days--
stories which made the lady blush through her artificial
carnations.  During the illness she was never out of
temper; always alert; she slept light, having a perfectly clear
conscience; and could take that refreshment at almost
any minute's warning.  And so you saw very few traces of
fatigue in her appearance.  Her face might be a trifle
paler, and the circles round her eyes a little blacker than
usual; but whenever she came out from the sick-room
she was always smiling, fresh, and neat, and looked as
trim in her little dressing-gown and cap, as in her
smartest evening suit.

The Captain thought so, and raved about her in
uncouth convulsions.  The barbed shaft of love had
penetrated his dull hide.  Six weeks--appropinquity--
opportunity--had victimised him completely.  He made a
confidante of his aunt at the Rectory, of all persons in the
world.  She rallied him about it; she had perceived his
folly; she warned him; she finished by owning that little
Sharp was the most clever, droll, odd, good-natured,
simple, kindly creature in England.  Rawdon must not
trifle with her affections, though--dear Miss Crawley
would never pardon him for that; for she, too, was quite
overcome by the little governess, and loved Sharp like a
daughter.  Rawdon must go away--go back to his
regiment and naughty London, and not play with a poor
artless girl's feelings.

Many and many a time this good-natured lady,
compassionating the forlorn life-guardsman's condition,
gave him an opportunity of seeing Miss Sharp at the Rectory,
and of walking home with her, as we have seen.  When
men of a certain sort, ladies, are in love, though they
see the hook and the string, and the whole apparatus
with which they are to be taken, they gorge the bait
nevertheless--they must come to it--they must swallow
it--and are presently struck and landed gasping.  Rawdon
saw there was a manifest intention on Mrs. Bute's part
to captivate him with Rebecca.  He was not very wise;
but he was a man about town, and had seen several
seasons.  A light dawned upon his dusky soul, as he thought,
through a speech of Mrs. Bute's.

"Mark my words, Rawdon," she said.  "You will have
Miss Sharp one day for your relation."

"What relation--my cousin, hey, Mrs. Bute? James
sweet on her, hey?" inquired the waggish officer.

"More than that," Mrs. Bute said, with a flash from
her black eyes.

"Not Pitt?  He sha'n't have her.  The sneak a'n't
worthy of her.  He's booked to Lady Jane Sheepshanks."

"You men perceive nothing.  You silly, blind creature
--if anything happens to Lady Crawley, Miss Sharp will
be your mother-in-law; and that's what will happen."

Rawdon Crawley, Esquire, gave vent to a prodigious
whistle, in token of astonishment at this announcement.
He couldn't deny it.  His father's evident liking for Miss
Sharp had not escaped him.  He knew the old gentleman's
character well; and a more unscrupulous old--whyou--
he did not conclude the sentence, but walked home,
curling his mustachios, and convinced he had found a
clue to Mrs. Bute's mystery.

"By Jove, it's too bad," thought Rawdon, "too bad, by
Jove! I do believe the woman wants the poor girl to be
ruined, in order that she shouldn't come into the family
as Lady Crawley."

When he saw Rebecca alone, he rallied her about his
father's attachment in his graceful way.  She flung up her
head scornfully, looked him full in the face, and said,

"Well, suppose he is fond of me.  I know he is, and
others too.  You don't think I am afraid of him, Captain
Crawley?  You don't suppose I can't defend my own
honour," said the little woman, looking as stately as a
queen.

"Oh, ah, why--give you fair warning--look out, you
know--that's all," said the mustachio-twiddler.

"You hint at something not honourable, then?" said
she, flashing out.

"O Gad--really--Miss Rebecca," the heavy dragoon
interposed.

"Do you suppose I have no feeling of self-respect,
because I am poor and friendless, and because rich people
have none?  Do you think, because I am a governess, I
have not as much sense, and feeling, and good breeding
as you gentlefolks in Hampshire? I'm a Montmorency.
Do you suppose a Montmorency is not as good as a
Crawley?"

When Miss Sharp was agitated, and alluded to her
maternal relatives, she spoke with ever so slight a
foreign accent, which gave a great charm to her clear
ringing voice.  "No," she continued, kindling as she spoke to
the Captain; "I can endure poverty, but not shame--
neglect, but not insult; and insult from--from you."

Her feelings gave way, and she burst into tears.

"Hang it, Miss Sharp--Rebecca--by Jove--upon my
soul, I wouldn't for a thousand pounds.  Stop, Rebecca!"

She was gone.  She drove out with Miss Crawley that
day.  It was before the latter's illness.  At dinner she was
unusually brilliant and lively; but she would take no
notice of the hints, or the nods, or the clumsy expostulations
of the humiliated, infatuated guardsman.  Skirmishes
of this sort passed perpetually during the little campaign
--tedious to relate, and similar in result.  The Crawley
heavy cavalry was maddened by defeat, and routed
every day.

If the Baronet of Queen's Crawley had not had the
fear of losing his sister's legacy before his eyes, he never
would have permitted his dear girls to lose the educational
blessings which their invaluable governess was conferring
upon them.  The old house at home seemed a desert
without her, so useful and pleasant had Rebecca
made herself there.  Sir Pitt's letters were not copied and
corrected; his books not made up; his household
business and manifold schemes neglected, now that his little
secretary was away.  And it was easy to see how necessary
such an amanuensis was to him, by the tenor and
spelling of the numerous letters which he sent to her,
entreating her and commanding her to return.  Almost every
day brought a frank from the Baronet, enclosing the
most urgent prayers to Becky for her return, or conveying
pathetic statements to Miss Crawley, regarding the
neglected state of his daughters' education; of which
documents Miss Crawley took very little heed.

Miss Briggs was not formally dismissed, but her place
as companion was a sinecure and a derision; and her
company was the fat spaniel in the drawing-room, or
occasionally the discontented Firkin in the housekeeper's
closet.  Nor though the old lady would by no means
hear of Rebecca's departure, was the latter regularly
installed in office in Park Lane.  Like many wealthy people,
it was Miss Crawley's habit to accept as much service as
she could get from her inferiors; and good-naturedly to
take leave of them when she no longer found them
useful.  Gratitude among certain rich folks is scarcely natural
or to be thought of.  They take needy people's services
as their due.  Nor have you, O poor parasite and humble
hanger-on, much reason to complain!  Your friendship
for Dives is about as sincere as the return which it usually
gets.  It is money you love, and not the man; and were
Croesus and his footman to change places you know,
you poor rogue, who would have the benefit of your
allegiance.

And I am not sure that, in spite of Rebecca's simplicity
and activity, and gentleness and untiring good
humour, the shrewd old London lady, upon whom these
treasures of friendship were lavished, had not a lurking
suspicion all the while of her affectionate nurse and friend.
It must have often crossed Miss Crawley's mind that
nobody does anything for nothing.  If she measured her own
feeling towards the world, she must have been pretty
well able to gauge those of the world towards herself;
and perhaps she reflected that it is the ordinary lot of
people to have no friends if they themselves care for
nobody.

Well, meanwhile Becky was the greatest comfort and
convenience to her, and she gave her a couple of new
gowns, and an old necklace and shawl, and showed her
friendship by abusing all her intimate acquaintances to
her new confidante (than which there can't be a more
touching proof of regard), and meditated vaguely some
great future benefit--to marry her perhaps to Clump,
the apothecary, or to settle her in some advantageous
way of life; or at any rate, to send her back to Queen's
Crawley when she had done with her, and the full
London season had begun.

When Miss Crawley was convalescent and descended
to the drawing-room, Becky sang to her, and otherwise
amused her; when she was well enough to drive out,
Becky accompanied her.  And amongst the drives which
they took, whither, of all places in the world, did Miss
Crawley's admirable good-nature and friendship actually
induce her to penetrate, but to Russell Square,
Bloomsbury, and the house of John Sedley, Esquire.

Ere that event, many notes had passed, as may be
imagined, between the two dear friends.  During the
months of Rebecca's stay in Hampshire, the eternal
friendship had (must it be owned?) suffered considerable
diminution, and grown so decrepit and feeble with old
age as to threaten demise altogether.  The fact is, both
girls had their own real affairs to think of: Rebecca her
advance with her employers--Amelia her own absorbing
topic.  When the two girls met, and flew into each other's
arms with that impetuosity which distinguishes the
behaviour of young ladies towards each other, Rebecca
performed her part of the embrace with the most perfect
briskness and energy.  Poor little Amelia blushed as she
kissed her friend, and thought she had been guilty of
something very like coldness towards her.

Their first interview was but a very short one.  Amelia
was just ready to go out for a walk.  Miss Crawley was
waiting in her carriage below, her people wondering at
the locality in which they found themselves, and gazing
upon honest Sambo, the black footman of Bloomsbury,
as one of the queer natives of the place.  But when Amelia
came down with her kind smiling looks (Rebecca must
introduce her to her friend, Miss Crawley was longing
to see her, and was too ill to leave her carriage)--when,
I say, Amelia came down, the Park Lane shoulder-knot
aristocracy wondered more and more that such a thing
could come out of Bloomsbury; and Miss Crawley was
fairly captivated by the sweet blushing face of the young
lady who came forward so timidly and so gracefully to
pay her respects to the protector of her friend.

"What a complexion, my dear! What a sweet voice!"
Miss Crawley said, as they drove away westward after
the little interview.  "My dear Sharp, your young friend
is charming.  Send for her to Park Lane, do you hear?"
Miss Crawley had a good taste.  She liked natural
manners--a little timidity only set them off.  She liked pretty
faces near her; as she liked pretty pictures and nice
china.  She talked of Amelia with rapture half a dozen
times that day.  She mentioned her to Rawdon Crawley,
who came dutifully to partake of his aunt's chicken.

Of course, on this Rebecca instantly stated that Amelia
was engaged to be married--to a Lieutenant Osborne--
a very old flame.

"Is he a man in a line-regiment?" Captain Crawley
asked, remembering after an effort, as became a
guardsman, the number of the regiment, the --th.

Rebecca thought that was the regiment.  "The
Captain's name," she said, "was Captain Dobbin."

"A lanky gawky fellow," said Crawley, "tumbles over
everybody.  I know him; and Osborne's a goodish-looking
fellow, with large black whiskers?"

"Enormous," Miss Rebecca Sharp said, "and
enormously proud of them, I assure you."

Captain Rawdon Crawley burst into a horse-laugh by
way of reply; and being pressed by the ladies to explain,
did so when the explosion of hilarity was over.  "He
fancies he can play at billiards," said he.  "I won two
hundred of him at the Cocoa-Tree.  HE play, the young
flat!  He'd have played for anything that day, but his friend
Captain Dobbin carried him off, hang him!"

"Rawdon, Rawdon, don't be so wicked," Miss Crawley
remarked, highly pleased.

"Why, ma'am, of all the young fellows I've seen out
of the line, I think this fellow's the greenest.  Tarquin and
Deuceace get what money they like out of him.  He'd go
to the deuce to be seen with a lord.  He pays their
dinners at Greenwich, and they invite the company."

"And very pretty company too, I dare say."

"Quite right, Miss Sharp.  Right, as usual, Miss Sharp.
Uncommon pretty company--haw, haw!" and the
Captain laughed more and more, thinking he had made a
good joke.

"Rawdon, don't be naughty!" his aunt exclaimed.

"Well, his father's a City man--immensely rich, they
say.  Hang those City fellows, they must bleed; and I've
not done with him yet, I can tell you.  Haw, haw!"

"Fie, Captain Crawley; I shall warn Amelia.  A
gambling husband!"

"Horrid, ain't he, hey?" the Captain said with great
solemnity; and then added, a sudden thought having
struck him: "Gad, I say, ma'am, we'll have him here."

"Is he a presentable sort of a person?" the aunt
inquired.

"Presentable?--oh, very well.  You wouldn't see any
difference," Captain Crawley answered.  "Do let's have
him, when you begin to see a few people; and his
whatdyecallem--his inamorato--eh, Miss Sharp; that's what
you call it--comes.  Gad, I'll write him a note, and have
him; and I'll try if he can play piquet as well as billiards.
Where does he live, Miss Sharp?"

Miss Sharp told Crawley the Lieutenant's town address;
and a few days after this conversation, Lieutenant
Osborne received a letter, in Captain Rawdon's
schoolboy hand, and enclosing a note of invitation from
Miss Crawley.

Rebecca despatched also an invitation to her darling
Amelia, who, you may be sure, was ready enough to
accept it when she heard that George was to be of the
party.  It was arranged that Amelia was to spend the
morning with the ladies of Park Lane, where all were
very kind to her.  Rebecca patronised her with calm
superiority: she was so much the cleverer of the two, and
her friend so gentle and unassuming, that she always
yielded when anybody chose to command, and so took
Rebecca's orders with perfect meekness and good humour.
Miss Crawley's graciousness was also remarkable.  She
continued her raptures about little Amelia, talked about
her before her face as if she were a doll, or a servant,
or a picture, and admired her with the most benevolent
wonder possible.  I admire that admiration which the
genteel world sometimes extends to the commonalty.
There is no more agreeable object in life than to see
Mayfair folks condescending.  Miss Crawley's prodigious
benevolence rather fatigued poor little Amelia, and I am
not sure that of the three ladies in Park Lane she did
not find honest Miss Briggs the most agreeable.  She
sympathised with Briggs as with all neglected or gentle
people: she wasn't what you call a woman of spirit.

George came to dinner--a repast en garcon with
Captain Crawley.

The great family coach of the Osbornes transported
him to Park Lane from Russell Square; where the young
ladies, who were not themselves invited, and professed
the greatest indifference at that slight, nevertheless looked
at Sir Pitt Crawley's name in the baronetage; and learned
everything which that work had to teach about the
Crawley family and their pedigree, and the Binkies, their
relatives, &c., &c.  Rawdon Crawley received George Osborne
with great frankness and graciousness: praised his play at
billiards: asked him when he would have his revenge:
was interested about Osborne's regiment: and would have
proposed piquet to him that very evening, but Miss
Crawley absolutely forbade any gambling in her house;
so that the young Lieutenant's purse was not lightened
by his gallant patron, for that day at least.  However, they
made an engagement for the next, somewhere: to look
at a horse that Crawley had to sell, and to try him in the
Park; and to dine together, and to pass the evening with
some jolly fellows.  "That is, if you're not on duty to that
pretty Miss Sedley," Crawley said, with a knowing wink.
"Monstrous nice girl, 'pon my honour, though, Osborne,"
he was good enough to add.  "Lots of tin, I suppose, eh?"

Osborne wasn't on duty; he would join Crawley with
pleasure: and the latter, when they met the next day,
praised his new friend's horsemanship--as he might with
perfect honesty--and introduced him to three or four
young men of the first fashion, whose acquaintance
immensely elated the simple young officer.

"How's little Miss Sharp, by-the-bye?" Osborne inquired
of his friend over their wine, with a dandified air.
"Good-natured little girl that.  Does she suit you well at
Queen's Crawley? Miss Sedley liked her a good deal last
year."

Captain Crawley looked savagely at the Lieutenant out
of his little blue eyes, and watched him when he went up
to resume his acquaintance with the fair governess.  Her
conduct must have relieved Crawley if there was any
jealousy in the bosom of that life-guardsman.

When the young men went upstairs, and after
Osborne's introduction to Miss Crawley, he walked up to
Rebecca with a patronising, easy swagger.  He was going
to be kind to her and protect her.  He would even shake
hands with her, as a friend of Amelia's; and saying, "Ah,
Miss Sharp! how-dy-doo?" held out his left hand towards
her, expecting that she would be quite confounded at
the honour.

Miss Sharp put out her right forefinger, and gave him
a little nod, so cool and killing, that Rawdon Crawley,
watching the operations from the other room, could
hardly restrain his laughter as he saw the Lieutenant's
entire discomfiture; the start he gave, the pause, and the
perfect clumsiness with which he at length condescended
to take the finger which was offered for his embrace.

"She'd beat the devil, by Jove!" the Captain said, in a
rapture; and the Lieutenant, by way of beginning the
conversation, agreeably asked Rebecca how she liked her
new place.

"My place?" said Miss Sharp, coolly, "how kind of you
to remind me of it!  It's a tolerabl