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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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




CHAPTER XXVII


In Which Amelia Joins Her Regiment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Amelia answered, smiling, "that she had."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As for Captain Dobbin, he never so much as spoke to
her during the whole evening.  But he and Captain Porter
of the l50th took home Jos to the hotel, who was in a
very maudlin state, and had told his tiger-hunt story with
great effect, both at the mess-table and at the soiree, to
Mrs. O'Dowd in her turban and bird of paradise.  Having
put the Collector into the hands of his servant, Dobbin
loitered about, smoking his cigar before the inn door.
George had meanwhile very carefully shawled his wife,
and brought her away from Mrs. O'Dowd's after a general
handshaking from the young officers, who accompanied
her to the fly, and cheered that vehicle as it drove off.  So
Amelia gave Dobbin her little hand as she got out of the
carriage, and rebuked him smilingly for not having taken
any notice of her all night.

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





CHAPTER XVIII


In Which Amelia Invades the Low Countries

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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