part with them. That effort was too much for her; she placed them back in her bosom again-as you have seen a woman nurse a child that is dead. Young Amelia felt that she would die or lose her senses outright if torn away from this last consolation. How she used to blush and lighten up when those letters came! How she used to trip away with a beating heart, so that she might read unseen! If they were cold, yet how perversely this fond little soul interpreted them into warmth! If they were short or selfish, what excuses she found for the writer !

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

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

A

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

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

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

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

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

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

others like to hear it."

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

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

had no opportunities of marrying or of jilting) according to their own notions of right and wrong.

44

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The

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

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

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

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

"Miss Emmy!" said the girl.

"I'm coming," Emmy said, not looking round. "There's a message, the maid went on.

"There's something-somebody-sure,
And she gave

here's a new letter for you-don't be reading them old ones any more.
her the letter, which Emmy took, and read.
"I must see you," the letter said.

come to me.

"Dearest Emmy-dearest love-dearest wife,

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

CHAPTER XIX.

MISS CRAWLEY AT NURSE.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"If that poor man of mine had a head on his shoulders," Mrs. Bute Crawley thought to herself, "how useful he might be, under present circumstances, to this