though he is not an Adonis, certainly." And he looked toward the glass himself with much naïveté, and in so doing caught Miss Sharp's eye fixed keenly upon him, at which he blushed a little, and Rebecca thought in her heart, "Ah, mon beau Monsieur! I think I have your gauge"-the little artful minx!

That evening, when Amelia came tripping into the drawing-room in a white muslin frock, prepared for conquest at Vauxhall, singing like a lark, and as fresh as a rose, a very tall, ungainly gentleman, with large hands and feet, and large ears, set off by a closely cropped head of black hair, and in the hideous military frogged coat and cockedhat of those times, advanced to meet her, and made her one of the clumsiest bows that was ever performed by a mortal.

This was no other than Captain William Dobbin, of His Majesty's -- Regiment of Foot, returned from yellow fever, in the West Indies, to which the fortune of the service had ordered his regiment, while so many of his gallant comrades were reaping glory in the Peninsula.

He had arrived with a knock so very timid and quiet that it was inaudible to the ladies up-stairs; otherwise, you may be sure Miss Amelia would never have been so bold as to come singing into the room. As it

was, the sweet fresh little voice went right into the, captain's heart, and nestled there. When she held out her hand for him to shake, before he enveloped it in his own, he paused, and thought, "Well, is it possibleare you the little maid I remember in the pink frock, such a short time ago -the night I upset the punch-bowl, just after I was gazetted? Are you the little girl that George Osborne said should marry him? What blooming young creature you seem, and what a prize the rogue has got!" All this he thought before he took Amelia's hand into his own, and as he let his cocked-hat fall.

a

His history since he left school, until the very moment when we have the pleasure of meeting him again, although not fully narrated, has yet, I think, been indicated sufficiently for an ingenious reader by the conversation in the last page. Dobbin, the despised grocer, was Alderman Dobbin-Alderman Dobbin was Colonel of the City Light Horse, then burning with mili

tary ardor to resist the French invasion. Colonel Dobbin's corps, in which old Mr. Osborne himself was but an indifferent corporal, had been reviewed by the sovereign and the Duke of York; and the colonel and alderman had been knighted. His son had entered the army, and young Osborne followed presently in the same regiment. They had served in the West Indies and in Canada. Their regiment had just come home, and the attachment of Dobbin to George Osborne was as warm and generous now as it had been when the two were school-boys.

So these worthy people sat down to dinner presently. They talked about war and glory, and Boney and Lord Wellington, and the last Gazette. In those famous days every Gazette had a victory in it, and the two gallant young men longed to see their own names in the glorious list, and cursed their unlucky fate to belong to a regiment which had been away from the chances of honor. Miss Sharp kindled with this exciting talk, but Miss Sedley trembled and grew quite faint as she heard it. Mr. Jos told several of his tiger-hunting stories, finished the one about Miss Cutler and Lance the surgeon, helped Rebecca to everything on the table, and himself gobbled and drank a great deal.

He sprang to open the door for the ladies, when they retired, with the most killing grace, and coming back to the table, filled himself bumper after bumper of claret, which he swallowed with nervous rapidity.

"He's priming himself," Osborne whispered to Dobbin, and at length the hour and the carriage arrived for Vauxhall.

CHAPTER VI.

VAUXHALL.

KNOW that the tune I am piping is a very mild one (although there are some terrific chapters coming presently), and must beg the good-natured reader to remember that we are only discoursing at present about a stock-broker's family in Russell Square, who are taking walks, or luncheon, or dinner, or talking and making love, as people do in common life, and without a single passionate and wonderful incident to mark the progress of their loves. The argument stands thus: Osborne, in love with Amelia, has asked an old friend to dinner and to Vauxhall; Jos Sedley is in love with Rebecca. Will he marry her? This is the great subject now in hand.

We might have treated this subject in the genteel, or in the romantic, or in the facetious manner. Suppose we had laid the scene in Grosvenor Square, with the very same adventures, would not some people have listened? Suppose we had shown how Lord Joseph Sedley fell in love, and the Marquis of Osborne became attached to Lady Amelia, with the full consent of the Duke, her noble father; or, instead of the supremely genteel, suppose we had resorted to the entirely low, and described what was going on in Mr. Sedley's kitchen ; how black Sambo was in love with the cook (as indeed he was), and how he fought a battle with the coachman in her behalf; how the knife-boy was caught stealing a cold shoulder of mutton, and Miss Sedley's new femme de chambre refused to go to bed without a wax candle: such incidents might be made to provoke much delightful laughter, and be supposed to represent scenes of "life." Or if, on the contrary, we had taken a fancy for the terrible, and made the lover of the new femme de chambre a professional burglar, who bursts into the house with his band, slaughters black Sambo at the feet of his master, and carries off Amelia in her night-dress, not to be let loose again till the third volume, we should easily have constructed a tale of thrilling interest, through the fiery chapters of which the reader should hurry panting. Fancy this chapter having been headed

THE NIGHT ATTACK.

The night was dark and wild; the clouds black, black, ink-black.

tore the chimney-pots from the roofs of the old houses, and sent the tiles whirling and crashing through the desolate streets. No soul braved that tempest-the watchmen shrank into their boxes, whither the searching rain followed them-where the crushing thunderbolt fell and destroyed them-one had so been slain opposite the Foundling. A scorched gaberdine, a shivered lantern, a staff rent in twain by the flash, were all that remained of stout Will Steadfast. A hackney-coachman had been blown off his coach-box, in Southampton Row-and whither? the whirlwind tells no tidings of its victim, save his parting scream as he is borne onward! Horrible night! It was dark, pitch dark; no moon. No, no. No moon. Not a star. Not a little feeble, twinkling, solitary star. There

had been one at early evening, but he showed his face, shuddering, for a moment in the black heaven, and then retreated back.

One, two, three! It is the signal that Black Vizard had agreed on.

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'Mofy! is that your snum?" said a voice from the area. "I'll gully the dag and bimbole the clicky in a snuffkin."

if

"Nuffle your clod, and beladle your glumbanions," said Vizard, with a dreadful oath. This way, men ; they screak, out with your snickers, and slick! Look to the pewter-room, Blowser. You, Mark, to the old gaff's mopus, box! and I," added he, in a lower but more horrible voice, "I will look to Amelia !"

"Ha!" said Vizard," was that the click of a pistol ?""

Or suppose we adopted the genteel rose-water style. The Marquis of Osborne has just dispatched his petit tigre with a billet-doux to the Lady Amelia.

The dear creature has received it from the hands of her femme de chambre, Mademoiselle Anastasie.

Dear Marquis! what amiable politeness ! His Lordship's note contains the wished-for invitation to Devonshire House !

"Who is that monstrous fine girl?" said the Semillant Prince G-rge of C-mbr-dge, at a mansion in Piccadilly, the same evening (having just arrived from the omnibus at the opera). "My dear Sedley, in

the name of all the Cupids, introduce me to

Vous avez alors un bien beau nom,' said the young prince, turning on his heel, rather disappointed, and treading on the foot of an old gentleman who stood behind, in deep admiration of the beautiful Lady Amelia.

"Trente mille tonnerres!" shouted the victim, writhing under the agonie du moment.

"I beg pardon of your Grace," said the

young étourdi, blushing, and bending low his fair curls. He had trodden on the toe of the great Captain of the age!

"O Devonshire!" cried the young prince, to a tall and good-natured nobleman, whose features proclaimed him of the blood of the Cavendishes. "A word with you! Have you still a mind to part with your diamond necklace?"

"I have sold it for two hundred and fifty thousand pounds, to Prince Easterhazy here."

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Und das war gar nicht theuer, potztausend!" exclaimed the princely Hungarian, etc.,. etc., etc.

Thus you see, ladies, how this story might have been written, if the author had but a mind; for, to tell the truth, he is just as familiar with Newgate as with the palaces of our revered aristocracy, and has seen the outside of both. But as I don't understand the language or manners of the Rookery, nor that polyglot conversation which, according to the fashionable novelists, is spoken by the leaders of ton, we must, if you please, preserve our middle course modestly, amid those scenes and personages with which we are most familiar. In a word, this chapter about Vauxhall would have been so exceeding short but for the above little disquisition, that it scarcely would have deserved to be called a chapter at all, and yet it is a chapter, and a very important one too. Are not there little chapters in everybody's life, that seem to be nothing, and yet affect all the rest of the history?

Let us, then, step into the coach with the Russell Square party, and be off to the Gardens. There is barely room between Jos and Miss Sharp, who are on the front seat, Mr. Osborne sitting bodkin opposite, between Captain Dobbin and Amelia.

Every soul in the coach agreed that on that night Jos would propose to make Rebecca Sharp Mrs. Sedley. The parents at home had acquiesced in the arrangement, though, between ourselves, old Mr. Sedley had a feeling very much akin to contempt for his son. He said he was vain, selfish, lazy, and effeminate. He could not endure his airs as a man of fashion, and laughed heartily at his pompous braggadocio stories. "I shall leave the fellow half my property," he said, "and he will have, besides, plenty of his own; but as I am perfectly sure that if you and I and his sister were to die tomorrow, he would say, 'Good Gad!' and eat his dinner just as well as usual, I am not going to make myself anxious about him. Let him marry whom he likes. It's no affair of mine."

Amelia, on the other hand, as became a young woman of her prudence and temperament, was quite enthusiastic for the match. Once or twice Jos had been on the point of saying something very important to her, to which she was most willing to lend an ear, but the fat fellow could not be brought to unbosom himself of his great secret, and very much to his sister's disappointment he only rid himself of a large sigh, and turned away.

This mystery served to keep Amelia's gentle bosom in a perpetual flutter of excitement. If she did not speak with Rebecca on the tender subject, she compensated herself with long and intimate conversations with Mrs. Blenkinsop, the housekeeper, who dropped some hints to the lady's-maid, who may have cursorily mentioned it

to the cook, who carried the news, I have no doubt, to all the tradesmen, so that Mr. Jos's marriage was now talked of by a very considerable number of persons in the Russell Square world.

It was, of course, Mrs. Sedley's opinion that her son would demean himself by a marriage with an artist's daughter. "But, lor', ma'am," ejaculated Mrs. Blenkinsop, "we was only grocers when we married Mr. S., who was a stock-broker's clerk, and we hadn't five hundred pounds among us, and we're rich enough now.' And Amelia was entirely of this opinion, to which, gradually, the good-natured Mrs. Sedley was brought. Mr. Sedley was neutral, Let Jos marry whom he likes," he said, "it's no affair of mine. This girl has no fortune; no more had Mrs. Sedley. She seems goodhumored and clever, and will keep him in order, perhaps. Better she, my dear, than a black Mrs. Sedley, and a dozen of mahogany grandchildren."

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So that everything seemed to smile upon Rebecca's fortunes. She took Jos's arm, as a matter of course, on going to dinner; she had sat by him on the box of his open carriage (a most tremendous" buck" he was, as he sat there, serene, in state, driving his grays), and though nobody said a word on the subject of the marriage, everybody seemed to understand it. All she wanted was the proposal, and ah! how Rebecca now felt the want of a mother!-a dear, tender mother, who would have managed the business in ten minutes, and, in the course of a little delicate confidential conversation, would have extracted the interesting avowal from the bashful lips of the young man !

Such was the state of affairs as the carriage crossed Westminster bridge.

The party was landed at the Royal Gardens in due time. As the majestic Jos stepped out of the creaking vehicle the crowd gave a cheer for the fat gentleman, who blushed and looked very big and mighty, as he walked away with Rebecca under his arm. George, of course, took charge of Amelia. She looked as happy as a rose-tree in sun

shine.

"I say, Dobbin," says George, "just look to the shawls and things, there's a good And so while he paired off with Miss Sedley, and Jos squeezed through the gate into the gardens with Rebecca at his side, honest Dobbin contented himself by giving an arm to the shawls, and by paying at the door for the whole party.

About

He walked very modestly behind them. He was not willing to spoil sport. Rebecca and Jos he did not care a fig. But he thought Amelia worthy even of the brilliant George Osborne, and as he saw that good-looking couple threading the walks, to the girl's delight and wonder, he watched her artless happiness with a sort of fatherly pleasure. Perhaps he felt that he would have liked to have something on his own arm besides a shawl (the people laughed at seeing the gawky young officer carrying this female burden); but William Doblin was very little addicted to selfish calculation at all, and so long as his friend was enjoying himself, how should he be discontented? And the truth is, that of all the delights of the Gardens-of the hundred thousand extra lamps, which were always lighted; the fiddlers in cocked-hats, who played ravishing melodies under the gilded cockle-shell in the midst of the gardens; the singers, both of comic and sentimental ballads, who charmed the ears there; the country dances, formed by bouncing cockneys and cockneyesses, and executed amid jumping, thumping, and laughter; the signal which announced that Madame Saqui was about to mount skyward on a slack-rope ascending to the stars; the hermit that always sat in the illuminated hermitage; the dark walks, so favorable to the interviews of young lovers; the pots of stout handed about by the people in the shabby old liveries; and the twinkling boxes, in which the happy feasters made believe to eat slices of almost invisible ham-of all these things, and of the gentle Simpson, that kind, smiling idiot, who, I dare say, presided even then over the place, Captain William Dobbin did not take the slightest notice.

He carried about Amelia's white cashmere shawl, and having attended under the gilt cockle-shell while Mrs. Salmon performed the Battle of Borodino (a savage cantata against the Corsican upstart, who had lately met with his Russian reverses), Mr. Dobbin tried to hum it as he walked away, and found he was humming the tune which Amelia Sedley sang on the stairs as she came down to dinner.

He burst out laughing at himself, for the truth is he could sing no better than an owl.

It is to be understood, as a matter of course, that our young people, being in parties of two and two, made the most solemn promises to keep together during the evening, and separated in ten minutes afterward. Parties at Vauxhall always did separate, but 'twas only to meet again at supper-time, when they could talk of their mutual adventures in the interval.

What were the adventures of Mr. Osborne and Miss Amelia? That is a secret.

But be sure of this-they were perfectly happy, and correct in their behavior; and as they had been in the habit of being together any time these fifteen years, their tête-à-tête offered no particular novelty.

But when Miss Rebecca Sharp and her stout companion lost themselves in a solitary walk, in which there were not above five score more of couples similarly straying, they both felt that the situation was extremely tender and critical, and now or never was the moment, Miss Sharp thought, to provoke that declaration which was trembling on the timid lips of Mr. Sedley. They had previously been to the panorama of Moscow, where a rude fellow, treading on Miss Sharp's foot, caused her to fall back with a little shriek into the arms of Mr. Sedley, and this little incident increased the tenderness and confidence of that gentleman to such a degree that he told her several of his favorite Indian stories over again for, at least, the sixth time.

"How I should like to see India !" said Rebecca.

"Should you?" said Joseph with a most killing tenderness, and was no doubt about to follow up this artful interrogatory by a question still more tender (for he puffed and panted a great deal, and Rebecca's hand, which was placed near his heart, could count the feverish pulsations of that organ), when oh, provoking! the bell rang for the fireworks, and, great scuffling and running taking place, these interesting lovers were obliged to follow in the stream of

people.

Captain Dobbin had some thoughts of joining the party at supper, as, in truth, he found the Vauxhall amusements not particularly lively-but he paraded twice before the box where the now united couples were met, and nobody took any notice of him. Covers were laid for four. The mated pairs were prattling away quite happily, and Dobbin knew he was as clean forgotten as if he had never existed in this world.

"I should only be de trop," said the captain, looking at them rather wistfully. "I'd best go and talk to the hermit;" and so he strolled off out of the hum of men, and noise and clatter of the banquet, into the dark walk at the end of which lived that well-known pasteboard solitary. It wasn't very good fun for Dobbin-and, indeed, to be alone at Vauxhall I have found, from my own experience, to be one of the most dismal sports ever entered into by a bachelor.

The two couples were perfectly happy, then, in their box, where the most delightful and intimate conversation took place. Jos was in his glory, ordering about the waiters with great majesty. He made the salad, and uncorked the champagne, and carved the chickens, and ate and drank the greater part of the refreshments on the tables. Finally, he insisted upon having a bowl of rack punch-everybody had rack punch at Vauxhall. Waiter, rack punch."

That bowl of rack punch was the cause of all this history. And why not a bowl of rack punch as well as any other cause? Was not a bowl of prussic acid the cause of fair Rosamond's retiring from the world? Was not a bowl of wine the cause of the demise of Alexander the Great, or, at least, does not Dr. Lempriere say so ?-so did this bowl of rack punch influence the fates of all the principal characters in this "Novel without a Hero," which we are now relating. It influenced their life, although most of them did not taste a drop of it.

The young ladies did not drink it, Osborne did not like it, and the consequence was that Jos, that fat gourmand, drank up the whole contents of the bowl; and the consequence of his drinking up the whole contents of the bowl was, a liveliness which at first was astonishing, and then became almost painful, for he talked and laughed so loud as to bring scores of listeners round the box, much to the confusion of the innocent party within it; and, volunteering to sing a song (which he did in that maudlin high key peculiar to gentlemen in an inebriated state), he almost drew away the audience who