st and most artful of vixens.
One of the great conditions of anger and hatred is, that
you must tell and believe lies against the hated object, in
order, as we said, to be consistent.

When the great crash came--the announcement of
ruin, and the departure from Russell Square, and the
declaration that all was over between her and George--all
over between her and love, her and happiness, her and
faith in the world--a brutal letter from John Osborne
told her in a few curt lines that her father's conduct had
been of such a nature that all engagements between the
families were at an end--when the final award came, it
did not shock her so much as her parents, as her mother
rather expected (for John Sedley himself was entirely
prostrate in the ruins of his own affairs and shattered
honour).  Amelia took the news very palely and calmly.
It was only the confirmation of the dark presages which
had long gone before.  It was the mere reading of the
sentence--of the crime she had long ago been guilty--the
crime of loving wrongly, too violently, against reason.
She told no more of her thoughts now than she had
before.  She seemed scarcely more unhappy now when
convinced all hope was over, than before when she felt but
dared not confess that it was gone.  So she changed from
the large house to the small one without any mark or
difference; remained in her little room for the most part;
pined silently; and died away day by day.  I do not mean
to say that all females are so.  My dear Miss Bullock, I
do not think your heart would break in this way.  You are
a strong-minded young woman with proper principles.
I do not venture to say that mine would; it has suffered,
and, it must be confessed, survived.  But there are some
souls thus gently constituted, thus frail, and delicate, and
tender.

Whenever old John Sedley thought of the affair
between George and Amelia, or alluded to it, it was with
bitterness almost as great as Mr. Osborne himself had
shown.  He cursed Osborne and his family as heartless,
wicked, and ungrateful.  No power on earth, he swore,
would induce him to marry his daughter to the son of
such a villain, and he ordered Emmy to banish George
from her mind, and to return all the presents and letters
which she had ever had from him.

She promised acquiescence, and tried to obey.  She put
up the two or three trinkets: and, as for the letters, she
drew them out of the place.where she kept them; and
read them over--as if she did not know them by heart
already: but she could not part with them.  That effort
was too much for her; she placed them back in her
bosom again--as you have seen a woman nurse a child
that is dead.  Young Amelia felt that she would die or lose
her senses outright, if torn away from this last consolation.
How she used to blush and lighten up when those
letters came!  How she used to trip away with a beating
heart, so that she might read unseen!  If they were cold,
yet how perversely this fond little soul interpreted them
into warmth.  If they were short or selfish, what excuses
she found for the writer!

It was over these few worthless papers that she brooded
and brooded.  She lived in her past life--every letter
seemed to recall some circumstance of it.  How well she
remembered them all!  His looks and tones, his dress,
what he said and how--these relics and remembrances
of dead affection were all that were left her in the world.
And the business of her life, was--to watch the corpse
of Love.

To death she looked with inexpressible longing.  Then,
she thought, I shall always be able to follow him.  I am not
praising her conduct or setting her up as a model for
Miss Bullock to imitate.  Miss B. knows how to regulate
her feelings better than this poor little creature.  Miss B.
would never have committed herself as that imprudent
Amelia had done; pledged her love irretrievably;
confessed her heart away, and got back nothing--only a
brittle promise which was snapt and worthless in a
moment.  A long engagement is a partnership which one
party is free to keep or to break, but which involves all
the capital of the other.

Be cautious then, young ladies; be wary how you
engage.  Be shy of loving frankly; never tell all you feel, or
(a better way still), feel very little.  See the consequences
of being prematurely honest and confiding, and mistrust
yourselves and everybody.  Get yourselves married as they
do in France, where the lawyers are the bridesmaids and
confidantes.  At any rate, never have any feelings which
may make you uncomfortable, or make any promises
which you cannot at any required moment command and
withdraw.  That is the way to get on, and be respected,
and have a virtuous character in Vanity Fair.

If Amelia could have heard the comments regarding
her which were made in the circle from which her father's
ruin had just driven her, she would have seen what her
own crimes were, and how entirely her character was
jeopardised.  Such criminal imprudence Mrs. Smith never
knew of; such horrid familiarities Mrs. Brown had
always condemned, and the end might be a warning to HER
daughters.  "Captain Osborne, of course, could not marry
a bankrupt's daughter," the Misses Dobbin said.  "It was
quite enough to have been swindled by the father.  As for
that little Amelia, her folly had really passed all--"

"All what?" Captain Dobbin roared out.  "Haven't they
been engaged ever since they were children?  Wasn't it
as good as a marriage?  Dare any soul on earth breathe a
word against the sweetest, the purest, the tenderest, the
most angelical of young women?"

"La, William, don't be so highty-tighty with US.  We're
not men.  We can't fight you," Miss Jane said.  "We've said
nothing against Miss Sedley: but that her conduct
throughout was MOST IMPRUDENT, not to call it by any
worse name; and that her parents are people who
certainly merit their misfortunes."

"Hadn't you better, now that Miss Sedley is free,
propose for her yourself, William?" Miss Ann asked
sarcastically.  "It would be a most eligible family
connection.  He!  he!"

"I marry her!" Dobbin said, blushing very much, and
talking quick.  "If you are so ready, young ladies, to chop
and change, do you suppose that she is?  Laugh and sneer
at that angel.  She can't hear it; and she's miserable and
unfortunate, and deserves to be laughed at.  Go on
joking, Ann.  You're the wit of the family, and the others
like to hear it."

"I must tell you again we're not in a barrack, William,"
Miss Ann remarked.

"In a barrack, by Jove--I wish anybody in a barrack
would say what you do," cried out this uproused British
lion.  "I should like to hear a man breathe a word against
her, by Jupiter.  But men don't talk in this way, Ann: it's
only women, who get together and hiss, and shriek, and
cackle.  There, get away--don't begin to cry.  I only said
you were a couple of geese," Will Dobbin said, perceiving
Miss Ann's pink eyes were beginning to moisten as
usual.  "Well, you're not geese, you're swans--anything
you like, only do, do leave Miss Sedley alone."

Anything like William's infatuation about that silly little
flirting, ogling thing was never known, the mamma
and sisters agreed together in thinking: and they trembled
lest, her engagement being off with Osborne, she should
take up immediately her other admirer and Captain.
In which forebodings these worthy young women no
doubt judged according to the best of their experience; or
rather (for as yet they had had no opportunities of
marrying or of jilting) according to their own notions of
right and wrong.

"It is a mercy, Mamma, that the regiment is ordered
abroad," the girls said.  "THIS danger, at any rate, is
spared our brother."

Such, indeed, was the fact; and so it is that the French
Emperor comes in to perform a part in this domestic
comedy of Vanity Fair which we are now playing, and
which would never have been enacted without the
intervention of this august mute personage.  It was he
that ruined the Bourbons and Mr. John Sedley.  It was
he whose arrival in his capital called up all France in
arms to defend him there; and all Europe to oust him.
While the French nation and army were swearing fidelity
round the eagles in the Champ de Mars, four mighty
European hosts were getting in motion for the great
chasse a l'aigle; and one of these was a British army, of
which two heroes of ours, Captain Dobbin and Captain
Osborne, formed a portion.

The news of Napoleon's escape and landing was
received by the gallant --th with a fiery delight and
enthusiasm, which everybody can understand who knows
that famous corps.  From the colonel to the smallest
drummer in the regiment, all were filled with hope and
ambition and patriotic fury; and thanked the French Emperor
as for a personal kindness in coming to disturb the peace
of Europe.  Now was the time the --th had so long
panted for, to show their comrades in arms that they
could fight as well as the Peninsular veterans, and that
all the pluck and valour of the --th had not been killed
by the West Indies and the yellow fever.  Stubble and
Spooney looked to get their companies without purchase.
Before the end of the campaign (which she resolved
to share), Mrs. Major O'Dowd hoped to write
herself Mrs. Colonel O'Dowd, C.B.  Our two friends
(Dobbin and Osborne) were quite as much excited as the
rest: and each in his way--Mr. Dobbin very quietly, Mr.
Osborne very loudly and energetically--was bent upon
doing his duty, and gaining his share of honour and
distinction.

The agitation thrilling through the country and army
in consequence of this news was so great, that private
matters were little heeded: and hence probably George
Osborne, just gazetted to his company, busy with preparations
for the march, which must come inevitably, and
panting for further promotion--was not so much affected
by other incidents which would have interested him at a
more quiet period.  He was not, it must be confessed,
very much cast down by good old Mr. Sedley's catastrophe.
He tried his new uniform, which became him
very handsomely, on the day when the first meeting of
the creditors of the unfortunate gentleman took place.
His father told him of the wicked, rascally, shameful
conduct of the bankrupt, reminded him of what he had
said about Amelia, and that their connection was broken
off for ever; and gave him that evening a good sum of
money to pay for the new clothes and epaulets in which
he looked so well.  Money was always useful to this free-
handed young fellow, and he took it without many words.
The bills were up in the Sedley house, where he had
passed so many, many happy hours.  He could see
them as he walked from home that night (to the Old
Slaughters', where he put up when in town) shining white
in the moon.  That comfortable home was shut, then, upon
Amelia and her parents: where had they taken refuge?
The thought of their ruin affected him not a little.  He
was very melancholy that night in the coffee-room at
the Slaughters'; and drank a good deal, as his comrades
remarked there.

Dobbin came in presently, cautioned him about the
drink, which he only took, he said, because he was
deuced low; but when his friend began to put to him
clumsy inquiries, and asked him for news in a significant
manner, Osborne declined entering into conversation with
him, avowing, however, that he was devilish disturbed
and unhappy.

Three days afterwards, Dobbin found Osborne in his
room at the barracks--his head on the table, a number
of papers about, the young Captain evidently in a state
of great despondency.  "She--she's sent me back some
things I gave her--some damned trinkets.  Look here!"
There was a little packet directed in the well-known hand
to Captain George Osborne, and some things lying about
--a ring, a silver knife he had bought, as a boy, for her
at a fair; a gold chain, and a locket with hair in it.  "It's
all over," said he, with a groan of sickening remorse.
"Look, Will, you may read it if you like."

There was a little letter of a few lines, to which he
pointed, which said:


My papa has ordered me to return to you these
presents, which you made in happier days to me; and I
am to write to you for the last time.  I think, I know you
feel as much as I do the blow which has come upon us.
It is I that absolve you from an engagement which is
impossible in our present misery.  I am sure you had no
share in it, or in the cruel suspicions of Mr. Osborne,
which are the hardest of all our griefs to bear.  Farewell.
Farewell.  I pray God to strengthen me to bear this and
other calamities, and to bless you always.     A.

I shall often play upon the piano--your piano.  It was
like you to send it.

Dobbin was very soft-hearted.  The sight of women
and children in pain always used to melt him.  The idea
of Amelia broken-hearted and lonely tore that good-
natured soul with anguish.  And he broke out into an
emotion, which anybody who likes may consider unmanly.
He swore that Amelia was an angel, to which Osborne
said aye with all his heart.  He, too, had been reviewing
the history of their lives--and had seen her from her
childhood to her present age, so sweet, so innocent,
so charmingly simple, and artlessly fond and tender.

What a pang it was to lose all that: to have had it and
not prized it!  A thousand homely scenes and recollections
crowded on him--in which he always saw her good
and beautiful.  And for himself, he blushed with remorse
and shame, as the remembrance of his own selfishness
and indifference contrasted with that perfect purity.  For
a while, glory, war, everything was forgotten, and the
pair of friends talked about her only.

"Where are they?" Osborne asked, after a long talk,
and a long pause--and, in truth, with no little shame at
thinking that he had taken no steps to follow her.  "Where
are they? There's no address to the note."

Dobbin knew.  He had not merely sent the piano; but
had written a note to Mrs. Sedley, and asked permission
to come and see her--and he had seen her, and Amelia
too, yesterday, before he came down to Chatham; and,
what is more, he had brought that farewell letter and
packet which had so moved them.

The good-natured fellow had found Mrs. Sedley only
too willing to receive him, and greatly agitated by the
arrival of the piano, which, as she conjectured, MUST have
come from George, and was a signal of amity on his
part.  Captain Dobbin did not correct this error of the
worthy lady, but listened to all her story of complaints
and misfortunes with great sympathy--condoled with
her losses and privations, and agreed in reprehending the
cruel conduct of Mr. Osborne towards his first benefactor.
When she had eased her overflowing bosom somewhat,
and poured forth many of her sorrows, he had the
courage to ask actually to see Amelia, who was above in
her room as usual, and whom her mother led trembling
downstairs.

Her appearance was so ghastly, and her look of despair
so pathetic, that honest William Dobbin was frightened
as he beheld it; and read the most fatal forebodings in
that pale fixed face.  After sitting in his company a minute
or two, she put the packet into his hand, and said,
"Take this to Captain Osborne, if you please, and--and I
hope he's quite well--and it was very kind of you to
come and see us--and we like our new house very much.
And I--I think I'll go upstairs, Mamma, for I'm not very
strong." And with this, and a curtsey and a smile, the
poor child went her way.  The mother, as she led her up,
cast back looks of anguish towards Dobbin.  The good
fellow wanted no such appeal.  He loved her himself too
fondly for that.  Inexpressible grief, and pity, and terror
pursued him, and he came away as if he was a criminal
after seeing her.

When Osborne heard that his friend had found her,
he made hot and anxious inquiries regarding the poor
child.  How was she?  How did she look?  What did she
say?  His comrade took his hand, and looked him in the
face.

"George, she's dying," William Dobbin said--and could
speak no more.

There was a buxom Irish servant-girl, who performed
all the duties of the little house where the Sedley family
had found refuge: and this girl had in vain, on many
previous days, striven to give Amelia aid or consolation.
Emmy was much too sad to answer, or even to be aware
of the attempts the other was making in her favour.

Four hours after the talk between Dobbin and Osborne,
this servant-maid came into Amelia's room, where she
sate as usual, brooding silently over her letters--her
little treasures.  The girl, smiling, and looking arch and
happy, made many trials to attract poor Emmy's
attention, who, however, took no heed of her.

"Miss Emmy," said the girl.

"I'm coming," Emmy said, not looking round.

"There's a message," the maid went on.  "There's
something--somebody--sure, here's a new letter for you--
don't be reading them old ones any more." And she gave
her a letter, which Emmy took, and read.

"I must see you," the letter said.  "Dearest Emmy--
dearest love--dearest wife, come to me."

George and her mother were outside, waiting until she
had read the letter.




CHAPTER XIX


Miss Crawley at Nurse

We have seen how Mrs. Firkin, the lady's maid, as soon
as any event of importance to the Crawley family came
to her knowledge, felt bound to communicate it to Mrs.
Bute Crawley, at the Rectory; and have before
mentioned how particularly kind and attentive that good-
natured lady was to Miss Crawley's confidential servant.
She had been a gracious friend to Miss Briggs, the
companion, also; and had secured the latter's good-will by a
number of those attentions and promises, which cost so
little in the making, and are yet so valuable and agreeable to
the recipient.  Indeed every good economist and
manager of a household must know how cheap and yet
how amiable these professions are, and what a flavour
they give to the most homely dish in life.  Who was the
blundering idiot who said that "fine words butter no
parsnips"?  Half the parsnips of society are served and
rendered palatable with no other sauce.  As the immortal
Alexis Soyer can make more delicious soup for a half-
penny than an ignorant cook can concoct with pounds of
vegetables and meat, so a skilful artist will make a few
simple and pleasing phrases go farther than ever so much
substantial benefit-stock in the hands of a mere bungler.
Nay, we know that substantial benefits often sicken some
stomachs; whereas, most will digest any amount of fine
words, and be always eager for more of the same food.
Mrs. Bute had told Briggs and Firkin so often of the
depth of her affection for them; and what she would do,
if she had Miss Crawley's fortune, for friends so excellent
and attached, that the ladies in question had the deepest
regard for her; and felt as much gratitude and
confidence as if Mrs. Bute had loaded them with the most
expensive favours.

Rawdon Crawley, on the other hand, like a selfish
heavy dragoon as he was, never took the least trouble to
conciliate his aunt's aides-de-camp, showed his contempt
for the pair with entire frankness--made Firkin pull off
his boots on one occasion--sent her out in the rain on
ignominious messages--and if he gave her a guinea, flung
it to her as if it were a box on the ear.  As his aunt, too,
made a butt of Briggs, the Captain followed the
example, and levelled his jokes at her--jokes about as
delicate as a kick from his charger.  Whereas, Mrs. Bute
consulted her in matters of taste or difficulty, admired
her poetry, and by a thousand acts of kindness and
politeness, showed her appreciation of Briggs; and if she
made Firkin a twopenny-halfpenny present, accompanied
it with so many compliments, that the twopence-half-
penny was transmuted into gold in the heart of the grateful
waiting-maid, who, besides, was looking forwards
quite contentedly to some prodigious benefit which must
happen to her on the day when Mrs. Bute came into her
fortune.

The different conduct of these two people is pointed
out respectfully to the attention of persons commencing
the world.  Praise everybody, I say to such: never be
squeamish, but speak out your compliment both point-
blank in a man's face, and behind his back, when
you know there is a reasonable chance of his hearing it
again.  Never lose a chance of saying a kind word.  As
Collingwood never saw a vacant place in his estate but
he took an acorn out of his pocket and popped it in;
so deal with your compliments through life.  An acorn
costs nothing; but it may sprout into a prodigious bit of
timber.

In a word, during Rawdon Crawley's prosperity, he was
only obeyed with sulky acquiescence; when his disgrace
came, there was nobody to help or pity him.  Whereas,
when Mrs. Bute took the command at Miss Crawley's
house, the garrison there were charmed to act under
such a leader, expecting all sorts of promotion from her
promises, her generosity, and her kind words.

That he would consider himself beaten, after one defeat,
and make no attempt to regain the position he had
lost, Mrs. Bute Crawley never allowed herself to suppose.
She knew Rebecca to be too clever and spirited and
desperate a woman to submit without a struggle; and felt
that she must prepare for that combat, and be incessantly
watchful against assault; or mine, or surprise.

In the first place, though she held the town, was she
sure of the principal inhabitant?  Would Miss Crawley
herself hold out; and had she not a secret longing to
welcome back the ousted adversary?  The old lady liked
Rawdon, and Rebecca, who amused her.  Mrs. Bute could
not disguise from herself the fact that none of her party
could so contribute to the pleasures of the town-bred
lady.  "My girls' singing, after that little odious governess's,
I know is unbearable," the candid Rector's wife
owned to herself.  "She always used to go to sleep when
Martha and Louisa played their duets.  Jim's stiff
college manners and poor dear Bute's talk about his dogs
and horses always annoyed her.  If I took her to the
Rectory, she would grow angry with us all, and fly, I
know she would; and might fall into that horrid
Rawdon's clutches again, and be the victim of that little
viper of a Sharp.  Meanwhile, it is clear to me that she is
exceedingly unwell, and cannot move for some weeks, at
any rate; during which we must think of some plan to
protect her from the arts of those unprincipled people."

In the very best-of moments, if anybody told Miss
Crawley that she was, or looked ill, the trembling old
lady sent off for her doctor; and I daresay she was very
unwell after the sudden family event, which might serve
to shake stronger nerves than hers.  At least, Mrs. Bute
thought it was her duty to inform the physician, and the
apothecary, and the dame-de-compagnie, and the domestics,
that Miss Crawley was in a most critical state, and
that they were to act accordingly.  She had the street laid
knee-deep with straw; and the knocker put by with Mr.
Bowls's plate.  She insisted that the Doctor should call
twice a day; and deluged her patient with draughts every
two hours.  When anybody entered the room, she uttered
a shshshsh so sibilant and ominous, that it frightened the
poor old lady in her bed, from which she could
not look without seeing Mrs. Bute's beady eyes eagerly
fixed on her, as the latter sate steadfast in the arm-chair
by the bedside.  They seemed to lighten in the dark (for
she kept the curtains closed) as she moved about the
room on velvet paws like a cat.  There Miss Crawley lay
for days--ever so many days--Mr. Bute reading books
of devotion to her: for nights, long nights, during which
she had to hear the watchman sing, the night-light sputter;
visited at midnight, the last thing, by the stealthy apothecary;
and then left to look at Mrs. Bute's twinkling eyes,
or the flicks of yellow that the rushlight threw on the
dreary darkened ceiling.  Hygeia herself would have
fallen sick under such a regimen; and how much more
this poor old nervous victim?  It has been said that when
she was in health and good spirits, this venerable
inhabitant of Vanity Fair had as free notions about religion
and morals as Monsieur de Voltaire himself could desire,
but when illness overtook her, it was aggravated by
the most dreadful terrors of death, and an utter cowardice
took possession of the prostrate old sinner.

Sick-bed homilies and pious reflections are, to be sure,
out of place in mere story-books, and we are not going
(after the fashion of some novelists of the present day)
to cajole the.public into a sermon, when it is only a
comedy that the reader pays his money to witness.  But,
without preaching, the truth may surely be borne in mind,
that the bustle, and triumph, and laughter, and gaiety
which Vanity Fair exhibits in public, do not always pursue
the performer into private life, and that the most
dreary depression of spirits and dismal repentances
sometimes overcome him.  Recollection of the best ordained
banquets will scarcely cheer sick epicures.  Reminiscences
of the most becoming dresses and brilliant ball triumphs
will go very little way to console faded beauties.  Perhaps
statesmen, at a particular period of existence, are
not much gratified at thinking over the most triumphant
divisions; and the success or the pleasure of yesterday
becomes of very small account when a certain
(albeit uncertain) morrow is in view, about which all of
us must some day or other be speculating.  O brother
wearers of motley!  Are there not moments when one
grows sick of grinning and tumbling, and the jingling of
cap and bells?  This, dear friends and companions, is my
amiable object--to walk with you through the Fair, to
examine the shops and the shows there; and that we
should all come home after the flare, and the noise, and
the gaiety, and be perfectly miserable in private.

"If that poor man of mine had a head on his shoulders,"
Mrs. Bute Crawley thought to herself, "how useful he
might be, under present circumstances, to this unhappy
old lady!  He might make her repent of her shocking
free-thinking ways; he might urge her to do her duty,
and cast off that odious reprobate who has disgraced
himself and his family; and he might induce her to do
justice to my dear girls and the two boys, who require
and deserve, I am sure, every assistance which their
relatives can give them."

And, as the hatred of vice is always a progress towards
virtue, Mrs. Bute Crawley endeavoured to instil
her sister-in-law a proper abhorrence for all Rawdon
Crawley's manifold sins: of which his uncle's wife brought
forward such a catalogue as indeed would have served
to condemn a whole regiment of young officers.  If a man
has committed wrong in life, I don't know any moralist
more anxious to point his errors out to the world than
his own relations; so Mrs. Bute showed a perfect family
interest and knowledge of Rawdon's history.  She had all
the particulars of that ugly quarrel with Captain Marker,
in which Rawdon, wrong from the beginning, ended in
shooting the Captain.  She knew how the unhappy Lord
Dovedale, whose mamma had taken a house at Oxford,
so that he might be educated there, and who had never
touched a card in his life till he came to London, was
perverted by Rawdon at the Cocoa-Tree, made helplessly
tipsy by this abominable seducer and perverter of youth,
and fleeced of four thousand pounds.  She described with
the most vivid minuteness the agonies of the country
families whom he had ruined--the sons whom he had
plunged into dishonour and poverty--the daughters
whom he had inveigled into perdition.  She knew the poor
tradesmen who were bankrupt by his extravagance--the
mean shifts and rogueries with which he had ministered
to it--the astounding falsehoods by which he had imposed
upon the most generous of aunts, and the ingratitude and
ridicule by which he had repaid her sacrifices.  She
imparted these stories gradually to Miss Crawley; gave her
the whole benefit of them; felt it to be her bounden duty
as a Christian woman and mother of a family to do so;
had not the smallest remorse or compunction for the
victim whom her tongue was immolating; nay, very likely
thought her act was quite meritorious, and plumed
herself upon her resolute manner of performing it.  Yes,
if a man's character is to be abused, say what you will,
there's nobody like a relation to do the business.  And one
is bound to own, regarding this unfortunate wretch of a
Rawdon Crawley, that the mere truth was enough to
condemn him, and that all inventions of scandal were quite
superfluous pains on his friends' parts.

Rebecca, too, being now a relative, came in for the
fullest share of Mrs. Bute's kind inquiries.  This indefatigable
pursuer of truth (having given strict orders that the
door was to be denied to all emissaries or letters
from Rawdon), took Miss Crawley's carriage, and drove
to her old friend Miss Pinkerton, at Minerva House,
Chiswick Mall, to whom she announced the dreadful
intelligence of Captain Rawdon's seduction by Miss Sharp,
and from whom she got sundry strange particulars
regarding the ex-governess's birth and early history.  The
friend of the Lexicographer had plenty of information
to give.  Miss Jemima was made to fetch the drawing-
master's receipts and letters.  This one was from a
spunging-house: that entreated an advance: another was
full of gratitude for Rebecca's reception by the ladies of
Chiswick: and the last document from the unlucky artist's
pen was that in which, from his dying bed, he recommended
his orphan child to Miss Pinkerton's protection.  There
were juvenile letters and petitions from Rebecca, too, in
the collection, imploring aid for her father or declaring
her own gratitude.  Perhaps in Vanity Fair there are no
better satires than letters.  Take a bundle of your dear
friend's of ten years back--your dear friend whom you
hate now.  Look at a file of your sister's! how you clung
to each other till you quarrelled about the twenty-pound
legacy!  Get down the round-hand scrawls of your son
who has half broken your heart with selfish undutifulness
since; or a parcel of your own, breathing endless
ardour and love eternal, which were sent back by your
mistress when she married the Nabob--your mistress for
whom you now care no more than for Queen Elizabeth.
Vows, love, promises, confidences, gratitude, how queerly
they read after a while!  There ought to be a law in
Vanity Fair ordering the destruction of every written
document (except receipted tradesmen's bills) after a
certain brief and proper interval.  Those quacks and
misanthropes who advertise indelible Japan ink should be
made to perish along with their wicked discoveries.  The
best ink for Vanity Fair use would be one that faded
utterly in a couple of days, and left the paper clean and
blank, so that you might write on it to somebody else.

From Miss Pinkerton's the indefatigable Mrs. Bute
followed the track of Sharp and his daughter back to the
lodgings in Greek Street, which the defunct painter had
occupied; and where portraits of the landlady in white
satin, and of the husband in brass buttons, done by Sharp
in lieu of a quarter's rent, still decorated the parlour
walls.  Mrs. Stokes was a communicative person, and
quickly told all she knew about Mr. Sharp; how dissolute
and poor he was; how good-natured and amusing; how he
was always hunted by bailiffs and duns; how, to the landlady's horror, though she never could abide the woman,
he did not marry his wife till a short time before her
death; and what a queer little wild vixen his daughter
was; how she kept them all laughing with her fun and
mimicry; how she used to fetch the gin from the public-house,
and was known in all the studios in the quarter--in brief,
Mrs. Bute got such a full account of her new niece's
parentage, education, and behaviour as would
scarcely have pleased Rebecca, had the latter known that
such inquiries were being made concerning her.

Of all these industrious researches Miss Crawley had
the full benefit.  Mrs. Rawdon Crawley was the daughter
of an opera-girl.  She had danced herself.  She had been a
model to the painters.  She was brought up as became
her mother's daughter.  She drank gin with her father,
&c. &c. It was a lost woman who was married to a lost
man; and the moral to be inferred from Mrs. Bute's
tale was, that the knavery of the pair was irremediable,
and that no properly conducted person should ever notice
them again.

These were the materials which prudent Mrs. Bute
gathered together in Park Lane, the provisions and
ammunition as it were with which she fortified the house
against the siege which she knew that Rawdon and his
wife would lay to Miss Crawley.

But if a fault may be found with her arrangements, it
is this, that she was too eager: she managed rather too
well; undoubtedly she made Miss Crawley more ill than
was necessary; and though the old invalid succumbed
to her authority, it was so harassing and severe, that the
victim would be inclined to escape at the very first chance
which fell in her way.  Managing women, the ornaments
of their sex--women who order everything for everybody,
and know so much better than any person concerned
what is good for their neighbours, don't sometimes
speculate upon the possibility of a domestic revolt, or
upon other extreme consequences resulting from their
overstrained authority.

Thus, for instance, Mrs. Bute, with the best intentions
no doubt in the world, and wearing herself to death as
she did by foregoing sleep, dinner, fresh air, for the sake
of her invalid sister-in-law, carried her conviction of the
old lady's illness so far that she almost managed her
into her coffin.  She pointed out her sacrifices and their
results one day to the constant apothecary, Mr. Clump.

"I am sure, my dear Mr. Clump," she said, "no efforts
of mine have been wanting to restore our dear invalid,
whom the ingratitude of her nephew has laid on the bed
of sickness.  I never shrink from personal discomfort: I
never refuse to sacrifice myself."

"Your devotion, it must be confessed, is admirable,"
Mr. Clump says, with a low bow; "but--"

"I have scarcely closed my eyes since my arrival: I
give up sleep, health, every comfort, to my sense of duty.
When my poor James was in the smallpox, did I allow any
hireling to nurse him?  No."

"You did what became an excellent mother, my dear
Madam--the best of mothers; but--~'

"As the mother of a family and the wife of an English
clergyman, I humbly trust that my principles are good,"
Mrs. Bute said, with a happy solemnity of conviction;
"and, as long as Nature supports me, never, never, Mr.
Clump, will I desert the post of duty.  Others may bring
that grey head with sorrow to the bed of sickness (here
Mrs. Bute, waving her hand, pointed to one of old Miss
Crawley's coffee-coloured fronts, which was perched on
a stand in the dressing-room), but I will never quit it.
Ah, Mr. Clump!  I fear, I know, that the couch needs
spiritual as well as medical consolation."

"What I was going to observe, my dear Madam,"--
here the resolute Clump once more interposed with a
bland air--"what I was going to observe when you gave
utterance to sentiments which do you so much honour,
was that I think you alarm yourself needlessly about our
kind friend, and sacrifice your own health too prodigally
in her favour."

"I would lay down my life for my duty, or for any
member of my husband's family," Mrs. Bute interposed.

"Yes, Madam, if need were; but we don't want Mrs
Bute Crawley to be a martyr," Clump said gallantly.  "Dr
Squills and myself have both considered Miss Crawley's
case with every anxiety and care, as you may suppose.  We
see her low-spirited and nervous; family events have
agitated her."

"Her nephew will come to perdition," Mrs. Crawley
cried.

"Have agitated her: and you arrived like a guardian
angel, my dear Madam, a positive guardian angel, I
assure you, to soothe her under the pressure of calamity.
But Dr. Squills and I were thinking that our amiable
friend is not in such a state as renders confinement to her
bed necessary.  She is depressed, but this confinement
perhaps adds to her depression.  She should have change,
fresh air, gaiety; the most delightful remedies in the
pharmacopoeia," Mr. Clump said, grinning and showing
his handsome teeth.  "Persuade her to rise, dear Madam;
drag her from her couch and her low spirits; insist upon
her taking little drives.  They will restore the roses too to
your cheeks, if I may so speak to Mrs. Bute Crawley."

"The sight of her horrid nephew casually in the Park,
where I am told the wretch drives with the brazen partner
of his crimes," Mrs. Bute said (letting the cat of selfishness
out of the bag of secrecy), "would cause her such
a shock, that we should have to bring her back to bed
again.  She must not go out, Mr. Clump.  She shall not go
out as long as I remain to watch over her; And as for my
health, what matters it?  I give it cheerfully, sir.  I sacrifice
it at the altar of my duty."

"Upon my word, Madam," Mr. Clump now said bluntly,
"I won't answer for her life if she remains locked up
in that dark room.  She is so nervous that we may lose
her any day; and if you wish Captain Crawley to be her
heir, I warn you frankly, Madam, that you are doing
your very best to serve him."

"Gracious mercy! is her life in danger?" Mrs. Bute
cried.  "Why, why, Mr. Clump, did you not inform me
sooner?"

The night before, Mr. Clump and Dr. Squills had had a
consultation (over a bottle of wine at the house of Sir
Lapin Warren, whose lady was about to present him
with a thirteenth blessing), regarding Miss Crawley and
her case.

"What a little harpy that woman from Hampshire is,
Clump," Squills remarked, "that has seized upon old
Tilly Crawley.  Devilish good Madeira."

"What a fool Rawdon Crawley has been," Clump replied,
"to go and marry a governess!  There was something
about the girl, too."

"Green eyes, fair skin, pretty figure, famous frontal
development," Squills remarked.  "There is something
about her; and Crawley was a fool, Squills."

"A d-- fool--always was," the apothecary replied.

"Of course the old girl will fling him over," said the
physician, and after a pause added, "She'll cut up well, I
suppose."

"Cut up," says Clump with a grin; "I wouldn't have her
cut up for two hundred a year."

"That Hampshire woman will kill her in two months,
Clump, my boy, if she stops about her," Dr. Squills said.
"Old woman; full feeder; nervous subject; palpitation of
the heart; pressure on the brain; apoplexy; off she goes.
Get her up, Clump; get her out: or I wouldn't give many
weeks' purchase for your two hundred a year." And it was
acting upon this hint that the worthy apothecary spoke
with so much candour to Mrs. Bute Crawley.

Having the old lady under her hand: in bed: with nobody
near, Mrs. Bute had made more than one assault
upon her, to induce her to alter her will.  But Miss Crawley's
usual terrors regarding death increased greatly when
such dismal propositions were made to her, and Mrs.
Bute saw that she must get her patient into cheerful spirits
and health before she could hope to attain the pious object
which she had in view.  Whither to take her was the
next puzzle.  The only place where she is not likely to
meet those odious Rawdons is at church, and that won't
amuse her, Mrs. Bute justly felt.  "We must go and visit
our beautiful suburbs of London," she then thought.  "I
hear they are the most picturesque in the world"; and so
she had a sudden interest for Hampstead, and Hornsey,
and found that Dulwich had great charms for her, and
getting her victim into her carriage, drove her to those
rustic spots, beguiling the little journeys with conversations
about Rawdon and his wife, and telling every story
to the old lady which could add to her indignation against
this pair of reprobates.

Perhaps Mrs. Bute pulled the string unnecessarily tight.
For though she worked up Miss Crawley to a proper dislike
of her disobedient nephew, the invalid had a great
hatred and secret terror of her victimizer, and panted
to escape from her.  After a brief space, she rebelled
against Highgate and Hornsey utterly.  She would go into
the Park.  Mrs. Bute knew they would meet the abominable
Rawdon there, and she was right.  One day in the
ring, Rawdon's stanhope came in sight; Rebecca was
seated by him.  In the enemy's equipage Miss Crawley
occupied her usual place, with Mrs. Bute on her left, the
poodle and Miss Briggs on the back seat.  It was a nervous
moment, and Rebecca's heart beat quick as she recognized the carriage; and as the two vehicles crossed each
other in a line, she clasped her hands, and looked towards
the spinster with a face of agonized attachment and devotion. Rawdon himself trembled, and his face grew purple
behind his dyed mustachios.  Only old Briggs was moved
in the other carriage, and cast her great eyes nervously
towards her old friends.  Miss Crawley's bonnet was resolutely
turned towards the Serpentine.