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he cross the fight between Bill Soames and the Cheshire Trump, by which I lost forty pound? You know he did; and as for the women, why, you heard that before me, in my own magistrate's room-"

"For Heaven's sake, Mr. Crawley," said the lady, "spare me the details."

"And you ask this villain into your house!" continued the exasperated rector. "You, the mother of a young family-the wife of a clergyman of the Church of England. By Jove!"

"Bute Crawley, you are a fool," said the rector's wife scornfully.

"Well, ma'am, fool or not-and I don't say, Martha, I'm so clever as you are, I never did. But I won't meet Rawdon Crawley, that's flat. I'll go over to Huddleston, that I will, and see his black greyhound, Mrs. Crawley; and I'll run Lancelot against him for fifty. By Jove, I will; or against any dog in England. But I won't meet that beast Rawdon Crawley."

"Mr. Crawley, you are intoxicated, as usual," replied his wife. And the next morning, when the rector woke, and called for small beer, she put him in mind of his promise to visit Sir Huddleston Fuddleston on Saturday, and as he knew he should have a wet night, it was agreed that he might gallop back again in time for church on Sunday morning. Thus it will be seen that the parishioners of Crawley were equally happy in their squire and in their rector.

Miss Crawley had not long been established at the Hall before Rebecca's fascinations had won the heart of that good-natured London rake, as they had of the country innocents whom we have been describing. Taking her accustomed drive, one day, she thought fit to order that "that little governess" should accompany her to Mudbury. Before they had returned Rebecca had made a conquest of her; having made her laugh four times, and amused her during the whole of the little journey.

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"Not let Miss Sharp dine at table!" said she to Sir Pitt, who had arranged a dinner of ceremony, and asked all the neighboring_baronets. 'My dear creature, do you suppose I can talk about the nursery with Lady Fuddleston, or discuss justices' business with that goose, old Sir Giles Wapshot? I insist upon Miss Sharp appearing. Let Lady Crawley remain up-stairs, if there is no room. But little Miss Sharp! Why, she's the only person fit to talk to in the county!"

Of course, after such a peremptory order as this, Miss Sharp, the governess, received commands to dine with the illustrious company below stairs. And when Sir Huddleston had, with great pomp and ceremony, handed Miss Crawley into dinner, and was preparing to take his place by her side, the old lady cried out, in a shrill voice, "Becky Sharp! Miss Sharp! Come you and sit by me and amuse me; and let Sir Huddleston sit by Lady Wapshot."

When the parties were over, and the carriages had rolled away, the insatiable Miss Crawley would say, "Come to my dressing-room, Becky, and let us abuse the company"—which, between them, this pair of friends did perfectly. Old Sir Huddleston wheezed a great deal at dinner; Sir Giles Wapshot had a particularly noisy manner of imbibing his soup, and her ladyship a wink of the left eye; all of which Becky caricatured to admiration; as well as the particulars of the night's conversation; the politics; the war; the quarter-sessions; the famous run with the H. H., and those heavy and dreary themes about which country gentlemen converse. As for the Misses Wapshots' toilettes and Lady Fuddleston's famous yellow hat, Miss Sharp tore them to tatters, to the infinite amusement of her audiente. "I wish you

"My dear, you are a perfect trouvaille," Miss Crawley would say. could come to me in London, but I couldn't make a butt of you as I do of poor Briggs -no, no, you little sly creature; you are too clever-isn't she, Firkin ?"

Mrs. Firkin (who was dressing the very small remnant of hair which remained on Miss Crawley's pate) flung up her head and said, "I think Miss is very clever," with the most killing, sarcastic air. In fact, Mrs. Firkin had that natural jealousy which is one of the main principles of every honest woman.

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After rebuffing Sir Huddleston Fuddleston, Miss Crawley ordered that Rawdon Crawley should lead her into dinner every day, and that Becky should follow with her cushion-or else she would have Becky's arm and Rawdon with the pillow. 'We must sit together," she said. "We're the only three Christians in the county, my love" -in which case, it must be confessed that religion was at a very low ebb in the county of Hants.

Besides being such a fine religionist, Miss Crawley was, as we have said, an ultraliberal in opinions, and always took occasion to express these in the most candid

manner.

"What is birth, my dear?" she would say to Rebecca. "Look at my brother Pitt ;

look at the Huddlestons, who have been here since Henry II. ; look at poor Bute at the parsonage; is any one of them equal to you in intelligence or breeding? Equal to you -they are not even equal to poor dear Briggs, my companion, or Bowls, my butler. You, my love, are a little paragon-positively a little jewel. You have more brains than half the shire; if merit had its reward you ought to be a duchess-no, there ought to be no duchesses at all; but you ought to have no superior, and I consider you, my love, as my equal in every respect; and--will you put some coals on the fire, my dear; and will you pick this dress of mine, and alter it, you who can do it so well?" So this old philanthropist used to make her equal run of her errands, execute her millinery, and read her to sleep with French novels, every night.

At this time, as some old readers may recollect, the genteel world had been thrown into a considerable state of excitement, by two events, which, as the papers say, might give employment to the gentlemen of the long robe. Ensign Shafton had run away with Lady Barbara Fitzurse, the Earl of Bruin's daughter and heiress; and poor Vere Vane, a gentleman who, up to forty, had maintained a most respectable character and reared a numerous family, suddenly and outrageously left his home, for the sake of Mrs. Rougemont, the actress, who was sixty-five years of age.

said.

"That was the most beautiful part of dear Lord Nelson's character," Miss Crawley "He went to the deuce for a woman. There must be good in a man who will do that. I adore all imprudent matches. What I like best, is for a nobleman to marry a miller's daughter, as Lord Flowerdale did-it makes all the women so angry. I wish some great man would run away with you, my dear; I'm sure you're pretty enough.' "Two post-boys! Oh, it would be delightful!" Rebecca owned.

"And what I like next best is for a poor fellow to run away with a rich girl. I have set my heart on Rawdon running away with some one."

A rich some one, or a poor some one?''

Why, you goose! Rawdon has not a shilling but what I give him. He is criblé de dettes-he must repair his fortunes, and succeed in the world."

"Is he very clever?" Rebecca asked.

"Clever, my love?—not an idea in the world beyond his horses, and his regiment, and his hunting, and his play; but he must succeed-he's so delightfully wicked. Don't you know he has hit a man, and shot an injured father through the hat only? He's adored in his regiment; and all the young men at Wattier's and the Cocoa-Tree swear by him."

When Miss Rebecca Sharp wrote to her beloved friend the account of the little ball at Queen's Crawley, and the manner in which, for the first time, Captain Crawley had distinguished her, she did not, strange to relate, give an altogether accurate account of the transaction. The captain had distinguished her a great number of times before. The captain had met her in a half-score of walks. The captain had lighted upon her in a half-hundred of corridors and passages. The captain had hung over her piano twenty times of an evening (my lady was now up-stairs, being ill, and nobody heeded her) as Miss Sharp sang. The captain had written her notes (the best that the great, blundering dragoon could devise and spell; but dulness gets on as well as any other quality with women). But when he put the first of the notes into the leaves of the song she was singing, the little governess, rising and looking him steadily in the face, took up the triangular missive daintily, and waved it about as if it were a cocked hat, and she, advancing to the enemy, popped the note into the fire, and made him a very low courtesy, and went back to her place, and began to sing away again more merrily than ever. What's that?" said Miss Crawley, interrupted in her after dinner doze by the stoppage of the music.

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It's a false note," Miss Sharp, said with a laugh; and Rawdon Crawley fumed with rage and mortification.

Seeing the evident partiality of Miss Crawley for the new governess, how good i was of Mrs. Bute Crawley not to be jealous, and to welcome the young lady to the Rectory, and not only her, but Rawdon Crawley, her husband's rival in the old maid's five per cents! They became very fond of each other's society, Mrs. Crawley and her nephew. He gave up hunting; he declined entertainments at Fuddleston; he would not dine with the mess of the depot at Mudbury; his great pleasure was to stroli over to Crawley parsonage whither Miss Crawley came too; and as their mamma was ill, why not the children with Miss Sharp? So the children (little dears!) came with Miss Sharp; and of an evening some of the party would walk back together. Not Miss Crawley-she preferred her carriage-but the walk over the Rectory fields, and in at the little park wicket, and through the dark plantation, and up the checkered avenue to Queen's Crawley was charming in the moonlight to two such lovers of the picturesque as the captain and Miss Rebecca.

"Oh, those stars, those stars!" Miss Rebecca would say, turning her twinkling green eyes up toward them. "I feel myself almost a spirit when I gaze upon them."

"Oh-ah-Gad-yes, so do I exactly, Miss Sharp," the other enthusiast replied. "You don't mind my cigar, do you, Miss Sharp ?" Miss Sharp loved the smell of a cigar out of doors beyond everything in the world-and she just tasted one too, in the prettiest way possible, and gave a little puff, and a little scream, and a little giggle, and restored the delicacy to the captain, who twirled his mustache, and straightway puffed it into a blaze that glowed quite red in the dark plantation, and swore, "Jove-aw-Gad -aw-it's the finest segaw I ever smoked in the world aw," for his intellect and conversation were alike brilliant and becoming to a heavy young dragoon.

Old Sir Pitt, who was taking his pipe and beer, and talking to John Horrocks about a "ship" that was to be killed, espied the pair so occupied from his study-window, and with dreadful oaths swore that if it wasn't for Miss Crawley he'd take Rawdon and bundle un out of doors, like a rogue as he was.

"He be a bad 'n, sure enough," Mr. Horrocks remarked; "and his man Flethers is wuss, and have made such a row in the housekeeper's room about the dinners and hale as no lord would make; but I think Miss Sharp's a match for 'n, Sir Pitt," he added, after a pause.

And so, in truth, she was-for father and son too.

CHAPTER XII.

QUITE A SENTIMENTAL CHAPTER.

E must now take leave of Arcadia, and those amiable people practising the rural virtues there, and travel back to London, to inquire what has become of Miss Amelia. "We don't care a fig for her," writes some unknown correspondent with a pretty little handwriting and a pink seal to her note. "She is fade and insipid," and adds some more kind remarks in this strain, which I should never have repeated at all but that they are in truth prodigiously complimentary to the young lady whom they concern.

Has the beloved reader, in his experience of society, never heard similar remarks by good-natured female friends, who always wonder what you can see in Miss Smith that is so fascinating, or what could induce Major Jones to propose for that silly, insignificant, simpering Miss Thompson, who has nothing but her wax-doll face to recommend her? What is there in a pair of pink cheeks and blue eyes forsooth? these dear moralists ask, and hint wisely that the, gifts of genius the accomplishments of the mind, the mastery of Mangnall's Questions, and a ladylike knowledge of botany and geology, the knack of making poetry, the power of rattling sonatas in the Herz manner, and so forth, are far more valuable endowments for a female than those fugitive charms which a few years will inevitably tarnish. It is quite edifying to hear women speculate upon the worthlessness and the duration of beauty.

But though virtue is a much finer thing, and those hapless creatures who suffer under the misfortune of good looks ought to be continually put in mind of the fate which awaits them; and though, very likely, the heroic female character which ladies admire is a more glorious and beautiful object than the kind, fresh, smiling, artless, tender little domestic goddess whom men are inclined to worship-yet the latter and inferior sort of women must have this consolation-that the men do admire them after all; and that, in spite of all our kind friends' warnings and protests, we go on in our desperate error and folly, and shall to the end of the chapter. Indeed, for my own part, though I have been repeatedly told by persons for whom I have the greatest respect, that Miss Brown is an insignificant chit, and Mrs. White has nothing but her petit minois chiffonné, and Mrs. Black has not a word to say for herself, yet I know that I have had the most delightful conversations with Mrs. Black (of course, my dear madam, they are inviolable); I see all the men in a cluster round Mrs. White's chair; all the young fellows battling to dance

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with Miss Brown; and so I am tempted to think that to be despised by her sex is a very great compliment to a woman.

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The young ladies in Amelia's society did this for her very satisfactorily. For instance, there was scarcely any point upon which the Misses Osborne, George's sisters, and the Mesdemoiselles Dobbin agreed so well as in their estimate of her very trifling merits, and their wonder that their brothers could find any charms in her. We are kind to her," the Misses Osborne said, a pair of fine, black-browed young ladies who had had the best of governesses, masters, and milliners; and they treated her with such extreme kindness and condescension, and patronized her so insufferably, that the poor little thing was, in fact, perfectly dumb in their presence, and to all outward appearance as stupid as they thought her. She made efforts to like them, as in duty bound, and as sisters of her future husband. She passed "long mornings" with them-the most dreary and serious of forenoons. She drove out solemnly in their great family coach with them and Miss Wirt, their governess, that raw-boned vestal. They took her to the ancient concerts by way of a treat, and to the oratorio, and to St. Paul's to see the charity children, where in such terror was she of her friends, she almost did not dare be affected by the hymn the children sang. Their house was comfortable; their papa's table rich and handsome; their society solemn and genteel; their self-respect prodigious; they had the best pew at the Foundling; all their habits were pompous and orderly, and all their amusements intolerably dull and decorous. After every one of her visits (and oh, how glad she was when they were over !) Miss Osborne and Miss Maria Osborne, and Miss Wirt, the vestal governess, asked each other with increased wonder, "What could George find in that creature?"

How is this? some carping reader exclaims. How is it that Amelia, who had such a number of friends at school, and was so beloved there, comes out into the world and is spurned by her discriminating sex? My dear sir, there were no men at Miss Pinkerton's establishment except the old dancing-master; and you would not have had the girls fall out about him? When George, their handsome brother, ran off directly after breakfast, and dined from home half a dozen times a week, no wonder the neglected sisters felt a little vexation. When young Bullock (of the firm of Hulker, Bullock & Co., Bankers, Lombard Street), who had been making up to Miss Maria the last two seasons, actually asked Amelia to dance the cotillon, could you expect that the former young lady should be pleased? And yet she said she was, like an artless, forgiving .creature. "I'm so delighted you like dear Amelia," she said quite eagerly to Mr. Bullock after the dance. She's engaged to my brother George; there's not much in her, but she's the best-natured and most unaffected young creature; at home we're all so fond of her." Dear girl! who can calculate the depth of affection expressed in that enthusiastic so?

Miss Wirt and these two affectionate young women so earnestly and frequently impressed upon George Osborne's mind the enormity of the sacrifice he was making, and his romantic generosity in throwing himself away upon Amelia, that I'm not sure but that he really thought he was one of the most deserving characters in the British army, and gave himself up to be loved with a good deal of easy resignation.

Somehow, although he left home every morning, as was stated, and dined abroad six days in the week, when his sisters believed the infatuated youth to be at Miss Sedley's apron-strings, he was not always with Amelia, while the world supposed him at her feet. Certain it is that on more occasions than one, when captain Dobbin called to look for his friend, Miss Osborne (who was very attentive to the captain, and anxious to hear his military stories, and to know about the health of his dear mamma) would laughingly point to the opposite side of the square, and say, "Oh, you must go to the Sedleys' to ask for George; we never see him from morning till night." At which kind of speech the captain would laugh in rather an absurd, constrained manner, and turn off the conversation, like a consummate man of the world, to some topic of general interest, such as the opera, the Prince's last ball at Carlton House, or the weather-that blessing to society.

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'What an innocent it is, that pet of yours," Miss Maria would then say to Miss Jane, upon the captain's departure. "Did you see how he blushed at the mention of poor George on duty?"

"It's a pity Frederick Bullock hadn't some of his modesty, Maria," replies the elder sister, with a toss of her head.

"Modesty! Awkwardness you mean, Jane. I don't want Frederick to trample a hole in my muslin frock, as Captain Dobbin did in yours at Mrs. Perkins'."

"In your frock, he, he! How could he? Wasn't he dancing with Amelia ?''

The fact is, when Captain Dobbin blushed so, and looked so awkward, he remembered a circumstance of which he did not think it was necessary to inform the young

ladies, viz., that he had been calling at Mr. Sedley's house already, on the pretence of seeing George, of course, and George wasn't there, only poor little Amelia, with rather a sad, wistful face, seated near the drawing-room window, who, after some very trifling, stupid talk, ventured to ask, was there any truth in the report that the regiment was soon to be ordered abroad, and had Captain Dobbin seen Mr. Osborne that day?

The regiment was not ordered abroad as yet; and Captain Dobbin had not seen George. "He was with his sister, most likely," the captain said. "Should he go and fetch the truant?" So she gave him her hand kindly and gratefully, and he crossed the square; and she waited and waited, but George never came.

Poor little tender heart! and so it goes on hoping and beating, and longing and trusting. You see it is not much of a life to describe. There is not much of what you call incident in it. Only one feeling all day-when will he come? only one thought to sleep and wake upon. I believe George was playing billiards with Captain Cannon in Swallow Street at the time when Amelia was asking Captain Dobbin about him; for George was a jolly, sociable fellow, and excellent in all games of skil!.

Once, after three days of absence, Miss Amelia put on her bonnet, and actually invaded the Osborne house. "What! leave our.brother to come to us?" said the young ladies. "Have you had a quarrel, Amelia? Do tell us!" No, indeed, there had been no quarrel. "Who could quarrel with him?" says she, with her eyes filled with tears. She only came over to-to see her dear friends; they had not met for so long. And this day she was so perfectly stupid

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and awkward, that the Misses Osborne and their governess, who stared after her as she went sadly away, wondered more than ever what George could see in poor Amelia.

Of course they did. How was she to bare that timid little heart for the inspection of those young ladies with their bold black eyes? It was best that it should shrink and hide itself. I know the Misses Osborne were excellent critics of a Cashmere shawl, or a pink satin slip; and when Miss Turner had hers dyed purple and made into a spencer, and when Miss Pickford had her ermine tippet twisted into a muff and trimmings, I warrant you the changes did not escape the two intelligent young women before mentioned. But there are things, look you, of a finer texture than fur or satin, and all Solomon's glories, and all the wardrobe of the Queen of Sheba-things whereof the beauty escapes the eyes of many connoisseurs. And there are sweet, modest little souls on which you light, fragrant and blooming ten

derly in quiet, shady places: and there are garden ornaments, as big as brass warmingpans, that are fit to stare the sun itself out of countenance. Miss Sedley was not of the sunflower sort; and I say it is out of the rules of all proportion to draw a violet of the size of a double dahlia.

No, indeed; the life of a good young girl who is in the paternal nest as yet can't have many of those thrilling incidents to which the heroine of romance commonly lays claim. Snares or shot may take off the old birds foraging without-hawks may be abroad, from which they escape or by whom they suffer; but the young ones in the nest have a pretty comfortable, unromantic sort of existence in the down and the straw, till it comes to their turn, too, to get on the wing. While Becky Sharp was on her own wing in the country, hopping on all sorts of twigs, and amid a multiplicity of traps, and pecking up her food quite harmless and successful, Amelia lay snug in her home of Russell Square; if she went into the world, it was under the guidance of the elders; nor did it

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