were gathered round the musicians in the gilt scollop-shell, and received from his hearers a great deal of applause.

66

Brayvo, fat un !" said one;

Angcore, Daniel Lambert !" said another; "What a figure for the tight-rope !" exclaimed another wag, to the inexpressible alarm of the ladies, and the great anger of Mr. Osborne.

"For Heaven's sake, Jos, let us get up and go," cried that gentleman, and the young women rose.

"Stop, my dearest diddle-diddle-darling," shouted Jos, now as bold as a lion, and clasping Miss Rebecca round the waist. Rebecca started, but she could not get away her hand. The laughter outside redoubled. Jos continued to drink, to make love, and to sing, and, winking and waving his glass gracefully to his audience, challenged all or any to come in and take a share of his punch.

Mr. Osborne was just on the point of knocking down a gentleman in top-boots, who proposed to take advantage of this invitation, and a commotion seemed to be inevitable,

you! bless you!" Then seizing Captain Dobbin's hand, and weeping in the most pitiful way, he confided to that gentleman the secret of his loves. He adored that girl who had just gone out; he had broken her heart, he knew he had, by his conduct; he would marry her next morning at St. George's, Hanover Square; he'd knock up the Archbishop of Canterbury at Lambeth, he would by Jove! and have him in readiness; and, acting on this hint, Captain Dobbin shrewdly induced him to leave the gardens and hasten to Lambeth Place, and, when once out of the gates, easily conveyed Mr. Jos Sedley into a hackney-coach, which deposited him safely at his lodgings.

George Osborne conducted the girls home in safety, and when the door was closed upon them, and as he walked across Russell Square, laughed so as to astonish the

watchman. Amelia looked very ruefully at her friend as they went up-stairs, and kissed her, and went to bed without any more talking.

"He called me his soul's dar

"He must propose to-morrow," thought Rebecca. ling, four times; he squeezed my hand in Amelia's presence. He must propose tomorrow." And so thought Amelia too. And I dare say she thought of the dress she was to wear as bridesmaid, and of the presents which she should make to her nice little sister-in-law, and of a subsequent ceremony in which she herself might play a principal part, etc., and etc., and etc., and etc.

O ignorant young creatures! How little do you know the effect of rack punch! What is the rack in the punch at night to the rack in the head of a morning? To this truth I can vouch as a man; there is no headache in the world like that caused by Vauxhall punch. Through the lapse of twenty years, I can remember the consequence of two glasses !-two wine glasses !-but two, upon the honor of a gentleman; and Joseph Sedley, who had a liver complaint, had swallowed at least a quart of the abominable mixture.

That next morning, which Rebecca thought was to dawn upon her fortune, found Sedley groaning in agonies which the pen refuses to describe. Soda-water was not invented yet. Small beer--will it be believed !-was the only drink with which unhappy gentlemen soothed the fever of their previous night's potation. With this mild beverage before him, George Osborne found the ex-collector of Boggley Wollah groaning on the sofa at his lodgings. Dobbin was al. ready in the room, good-naturedly tending his patient of the night before. The two officers, looking at the prostrate Bacchanalian, and askance at each other, exchanged the most frightful sympathetic grins. Even Sedley's valet, the most solemn and correct of gentlemen, with the muteness and gravity of an undertaker, could hardly keep his countenance in order as he looked at his unfortunate master.

"Mr. Sedley was uncommon wild last night, sir," he whispered in confidence to Osborne, as the latter mounted the stair. He wanted to fight the 'ackney-coachman, sir. The capting was obliged to bring him up-stairs in his arms like

a babby." A momentary smile flickered over Mr. Brush's features as he spoke ; instantly, however, they relapsed into their usual unfathomable calm, as he flung open the drawing-room door, and announced "Mr. Hosbin."

66

"No

"How are you, Sedley?" that young wag began, after surveying his victim. bones broken? There's a hackney-coachman down-stairs with a black eye and a tiedup head, vowing he'll have the law of you."

"What do you mean-law?" Sedley faintly asked.

"For thrashing him last night-didn't he, Dobbin? You hit out, sir, like Molyneux. The watchman says he never saw a fellow go down so straight. Ask Dobbin.'

"You did have a round with the coachman," Captain Dobbin said, "and showed plenty of fight, too."

"And that fellow with the white coat at Vauxhall! How Jos drove at him! How the women screamed! By Jove, sir, it did my heart good to see you. I thought you civilians had no pluck; but I'll never get in your way when you are in your cups, Jos.' "I believe I'm very terrible when I'm roused," ejaculated Jos from the sofa, and made a grimace so dreary and ludicrous that the captain's politeness could restrain him no longer, and he and Osborne fired off a ringing volley of laughter.

Osborne pursued his advantage pitilessly. He thought Jos a milksop. He had been revolving in his mind the marriage question pending between Jos and Rebecca, and was not over-well pleased that a member of a family into which he, George Osborne, of the -th, was going to marry, should make a mésalliance with a little nobody -a little upstart governess. "You hit, you poor old fellow!" said Osborne. "You terrible! Why, man, you couldn't stand-you made everybody laugh in the gardens, though you were crying yourself. You were maudlin, Jos. Don't you remember singing a song?"

"A what?" Jos asked.

"A sentimental song, and calling Rosa, Rebecca, what's her name-Amelia's little friend-your dearest diddle-diddle-darling?" And this ruthless young fellow, seizing hold of Dobbin's hand, acted over the scene, to the horror of the original performer, and in spite of Dobbin's good-natured entreaties to him to have mercy.

Why should I spare him?" Osborne said to his friend's remonstrances, when they quitted the invalid, leaving him under the hands of Doctor Gollop. "What the deuce right has he to give himself his patronizing airs, and make fools of us at Vauxhall? Who's this little school-girl that is ogling and making love to him? Hang it, the family's low enough already without her. A governess is all very well, but I'd rather have a lady for my sister-in-law. I'm a liberal man, but I've proper pride, and know my own station : let her know hers. And I'll take down that great hectoring Nabob, and prevent him from being made a greater fool than he is. That's why I told him to look out, lest she brought an action against him."

"I suppose you know best," Dobbin said, though rather dubiously. "You always were a Tory, and your family's one of the oldest in England. But-"

"Come and see the girls, and make love to Miss Sharp yourself," the lieutenant here interrupted his friend; but Captain Dobbin declined to join Osborne in his daily visit to the young ladies in Russell Square.

As George walked down Southampton Row from Holborn, he laughed as he saw, at the Sedley mansion, in two different stories, two heads on the look-out.

The fact, is, Miss Amelia, in the drawing-room balcony, was looking very eagerly toward the opposite side of the square, where Mr. Osborne dwelt, on the watch for the lieutenant himself; and Miss Sharp, from her little bedroom on the second floor, was in observation until Mr. Joseph's great form should heave in sight.

"Sister Anne is on the watch-tower," said he to Amelia, "but there's nobody coming;" and laughing and enjoying the joke hugely, he described, in the most ludicrous terms, to Miss Sedley, the dismal condition of her brother.

"I think it's very cruel of you to laugh, George," she said, looking particularly unhappy; but George only laughed the more at her piteous and discomfited mien, persisted in thinking the joke a most diverting one, and when Miss Sharp came downstairs bantered her with a great deal of liveliness upon the effect of her charms on the fat civilian.

"O Miss Sharp! if you could but see him this morning," he said, "moaning in his flowered dressing-gown-writhing on his sofa; if you could but have seen him lolling out his tongue to Gollop the apothecary."

"See whom?" said Miss Sharp.

"Whom? Oh, whom? Captain Dobbin, of course, to whom we were all so attentive, by the way, last night."

"We were very unkind to him," Emmy said, blushing very much. "I-I quite forgot him."

"Of course you did," cried Osborne, still on the laugh. "One can't be always thinking about Dobbin, you know, Amelia. Can one, Miss Sharp ?"

"Except when he overset the glass of wine at dinner," Miss Sharp said, with a haughty air and a toss of the head, "I never gave the existence of Captain Dobbin one single moment's consideration."

66

Very good, Miss Sharp, I'll tell him," Osborne said; and as he spoke Miss Sharp began to have a feeling of distrust and hatred toward this young officer, which he was quite unconscious of having inspired. "He is to make fun of me, is he?” thought Rebecca. "Has he been laughing about me to Joseph ? Has he frightened him? Perhaps he won't come." A film passed over her eyes and her heart beat quite quick.

"You're always joking," said she, smiling as innocently as she could. "Joke away, Mr. George; there's nobody to defend me." And George Osborne, as she walked away, and Amelia looked reprovingly at him, felt some little manly compunc tion for having inflicted any unnecessary unkindness upon this helpless creature. My dearest Amelia," said he, "you are too good-too kind. You don't know the world. I do. And your little friend Miss Sharp must learn her station.”

"Don't you think Jos will—”

66

Upon my word, my dear, I don't know. He may or may not. I'm not his master. I only know he is a very foolish, vain fellow, and put my dear little girl into a very painful and awkward position last night. My dearest diddle-diddle-darling !" He was off laughing again; and he did it so drolly that Emmy laughed too

All that day Jos never came. But Amelia had no fear about this; for the little schemer had actually sent away the page, Mr. Sambo's aide-de-camp, to Mr. Joseph's lodgings, to ask for some book he had promised, and how he was; and the reply through Jos's man, Mr. Brush, was, that his master was ill in bed, and had just had the doctor with him. He must come to-morrow, she thought, but she never had the cour age to speak a word on the subject to Rebecca, nor did that young woman herself allude to it in any way during the whole evening after the night at Vauxhall.

The next day, however, as the two young ladies sate on the sofa, pretending to work, or to write letters, or to read novels, Sambo came into the room with his usual engaging grin, with a packet

under his arm and a note on a

Blenkinsop, the housekeeper, there sought her presently with consolation, on whose shoulder Amelia wept confidentially, and relieved herself a good deal. "Don't take on, miss. I didn't like to tell you. But none of us in the house have liked her, except at fust. I sor her with my own eyes reading your ma's letters. Pinner says she's always about your trinket-box and drawers, and everybody's drawers, and she's sure she's put your white ribbing into her box."

"I gave it her, I gave it her," said Amelia.

But this did not alter Mrs. Blenkinsop's opinion of Miss Sharp. "I don't trust them governesses, Pinner," she remarked to the maid. "They give themselves the hair and hupstarts of ladies, and their wages is no better than you nor me."

It now became clear to every soul in the house, except poor Amelia, that Rebecca should take her departure, and high and low (always with the one exception) agreed that that event should take place as speedily as possible. Our good child ransacked all her drawers, cupboards, reticules, and gimcrack-boxes-passed in review all her gowns, fichus, tags, bobbins, laces, silk stockings, and fallals-selecting this thing and that and the other, to make a little heap for Rebecca. And going to her papa-that gener

ous British merchant, who had promised to give her as many guineas as she was years old-she begged the old gentleman to give the money to dear Rebecca, who must want it, while she lacked for nothing.

She even made George Osborne contribute, and nothing loath (for he was as free-handed a young fellow as any in the army), he went to Bond Street, and bought the best hat and spencer that money could buy.

"That's George's present to you, Rebecca, dear," said Amelia, quite proud of the bandbox conveying these gifts." "What a taste he has ! There's nobody like him."

* It was the author's intention, faithful to history, to depict all the characters of this tale in their proper costumes, as they wore them at the commencement of the century. But when I remember the appearance of people in those days, and that an officer and lady were actually habited like this-I have not the heart to disfigure my heroes and heroines by costumes so hideous; and have, on the contrary, engaged a model of rank dressed according to the present fashion.

"Nobody," Rebecca answered. "How thankful I am to him!" She was thinking in her heart, "It was George Osborne who prevented my marriage." And she loved George Osborne accordingly.

She made her preparations for departure with great equanimity, and accepted all the kind little Amelia's presents, after just the proper degree of hesitation and reluctance. She vowed eternal gratitude to Mrs. Sedley, of course; but did not intrude herself upon that good lady too much, who was embarrassed, and evidently wishing to avoid her. She kissed Mr. Sedley's hand when he presented her with the purse, and asked permission to consider him for the future as her kind, kind friend and protector. Her behavior was so affecting that he was going to write her a check for twenty pounds more, but he restrained his feelings. The carriage was in waiting to take him to dinner, so he tripped away with a "God bless you, my dear; always come here when you come to town, you know. Drive to the Mansion House, James."

Finally came the parting with Miss Amelia, over which picture I intend to throw a veil. But after a scene in which one person was in earnest and the other a perfect performer-after the tenderest caresses, the most pathetic tears, the smelling-bottle, and some of the very best feelings of the heart, had been called into requisition-Rebecca and Amelia parted, the former vowing to love her friend for ever and ever and ever.

CHAPTER VII.

CRAWLEY OF QUEEN'S CRAWLEY.

MONG the most respected of the names beginning in C which the "Court Guide" contained, in the year 18, was that of Crawley, Sir Pitt, Baronet, Great Gaunt Street, and Queen's Crawley, Hants. This honorable name had figured constantly also in the Parliamentary List for many years, in conjunction with that of a number of other worthy gentlemen who sat in turns for the borough.

It is related, with regard to the borough of Queen's Crawley, that Queen Elizabeth in one of her progresses, stopping at Crawley to breakfast, was so delighted with some remarkably fine Hampshire beer which was then presented to her by the Crawley of the day (a handsome gentleman with a trim beard and a good leg), that she forthwith erected Crawley into a borough to send two members to Parliament; and the place, from the day of that illustrious visit, took the name of Queen's Crawley, which it holds up to the present moment. And though, by the lapse of time and those mutations which age produces in empires, cities, and boroughs, Queen's Crawley was no longer so populous a place as it had been in Queen Bess's time-nay, was come down to that condition of borough which used to be denominated rotten-yet, as Sir Pitt Crawley would say with perfect justice, in his elegant way, "Rotten! be hanged-it produces me a good fifteen hundred a year.

Sir Pitt Crawley (named after the great Commoner) was the son of Walpole Crawley, first baronet, of the Tape and Sealing-Wax Office in the reign of George II., when he was impeached for peculation, as were a great number of other honest gentlemen of those days; and Walpole Crawley was, as need scarcely be said, son of John Churchill Crawley, named after the celebrated military commander of the reign of Queen Anne. The family tree (which hangs up at Queen's Crawley) furthermore mentions Charles Stuart, afterward called Barebones, Crawley, son of the Crawley of James the First's time; and, finally, Queen Elizabeth's Crawley, who is represented as the foreground of the picture, in his forked beard and armor. Out of his waistcoat, as usual, grows a tree, on the main branches of which the above illustrious names are inscribed. Close by the name of Sir Pitt Crawley, Baronet, the subject of the present memoir, are written that of his brother, the Reverend Bute Crawley (the great Commoner was in disgrace when the reverend gentleman was born), rector of Crawley-cum-Snailby, and of various other male and female members of the Crawley family.