Vanity Fair

ux

ckbroker'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

eed 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

e Gardens. There is barely room between Jos and Miss Sharp, who are on the fron

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

d 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 b

long and intimate conversations with Mrs. Blenkinsop, the housekeeper, who dropped some hints to the lady's-maid, who may have cursorily mentioned the matter to the cook, w

aculated 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 a

has no fortune; no more had Mrs. Sedley. She seems good-humoured and clever, and will keep him in o

e, serene, in state, driving his greys), 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

fairs as the carriage cr

he crowd gave a cheer for the fat gentleman, who blushed and looked very big and mighty, as he walked away with

paired off with Miss Sedley, and Jos squeezed through the gate into the gardens with Rebecca at his side, h

elfish 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 amidst jumping, thumping and laughter; the signal which annou

Battle of Borodino (a savage cantata against the Corsican upstart, who had lately met with his Russian reverses)-Mr. Dobbin tried

elf; for the truth is, he cou

emn promises to keep together during the evening, and separated in ten minutes afterwards. Parties at Vauxhall always di

-they were perfectly happy, and correct in their behaviour; and as they had been in the habit

er 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 w

ike to see Indi

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, provok

-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 fou

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

ng 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

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 influe

ess 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

"What a figure for the tight-rope!" exclaimed another wag, to the i

get up and go," cried that gen

a started, but she could not get away her hand. The laughter outside redoubled. Jos continued to drink, to make love, and to si

e, when by the greatest good luck a gentleman of the name of Dobbin, who had been walking about the gardens, stepped up to the box. "Be off, you fools!" said this gen

shmere shawl from his friend's arm, and huddling up Amelia in it.-"Make yoursel

d, 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 Canterbur

he walked across Russell Square, laughed so as to astonish the watchman. Amelia looked very rueful

e to-morrow." 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 shoul

th 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 g

ious 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 already in the room, good-naturedly tending his patient of the night before. The two officers, looking at the prostrate

ney-coachman, sir. The Capting was obliged to bring him upstairs in his harms like a babby." A momentary smile flickered over Mr. Brush's features a

ictim. "No bones broke? There's a hackney-coachman downstairs with

an-law?" Sedley

u hit out, sir, like Molyneux. The watchman says he

oachman," Captain Dobbin said, "

omen screamed! By Jove, sir, it did my heart good to see you. I thought you civil

d made a grimace so dreary and ludicrous, that the Captain's politeness could re

a member of a family into which he, George Osborne, of the -th, was going to marry, should make a mesalliance with a little nobody-a little upstart governess. "You hit, you poor old fellow!"

t?" Jo

-diddle-darling?" And this ruthless young fellow, seizing hold of Dobbin's hand, acted over the scene, to t

auxhall? Who's this little schoolgirl 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

rather dubiously. "You always were a Tory, and

ieutenant here interrupted his friend; but Captain Dobbin declined to

rn, he laughed as he saw, at the Sedley Mansion,

of the Square, where Mr. Osborne dwelt, on the watch for the lieutenant himself; and Miss Sharp, from her

dy coming"; and laughing and enjoying the joke hugely, he described in th

the more at her piteous and discomfited mien, persisted in thinking the joke a most diverting one, and when Miss Sh

ing in his flowered dressing-gown-writhing on his sofa; if you could

?" said M

course, to whom we were all so a

" Emmy said, blushing very m

," cried Osborne,

ng about Dobbin, you know,

said, with a haughty air and a toss of the head, "I never gave th

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

lked away-and Amelia looked reprovingly at him-felt some little manly compunction for having inflicted any unnecessary unkindness upon this helpless crea

u think J

oolish vain fellow, and put my dear little girl into a very painful and awkward position last night. My

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 tho

o write letters, or to read novels, Sambo came into the room with his usual engaging grin

rembled as s

it

f you can, to the amiable Miss Sharp, for my conduct at Vauxhall, and entreat her to pardon and forget every word I may have uttered when

ours, J

a's pale face and burning eyes, but she dropt the letter into her friend's la

"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

, I gave it he

them governesses, Pinner," she remarked to the maid. "They give themselves th

d 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 Rebec

as as free-handed a young fellow as any in the army), he went to Bo

Amelia, quite proud of the bandbox conveying these g

was thinking in her heart, "It was George Osborne who prev

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 behaviour was so affecting that he w

and the other a perfect performer-after the tenderest caresses, the most pathetic tears, the smelling-bottle, and some of the very best feeli