pay her respects to the protector of her friend.
"What a complexion, my dear! What a sweet voice!"
Miss Crawley said, as they drove away westward after
the little interview. "My dear Sharp, your young friend
is charming. Send for her to Park Lane, do you hear?"
Miss Crawley had a good taste. She liked natural
manners--a little timidity only set them off. She liked pretty
faces near her; as she liked pretty pictures and nice
china. She talked of Amelia with rapture half a dozen
times that day. She mentioned her to Rawdon Crawley,
who came dutifully to partake of his aunt's chicken.
Of course, on this Rebecca instantly stated that Amelia
was engaged to be married--to a Lieutenant Osborne--
a very old flame.
"Is he a man in a line-regiment?" Captain Crawley
asked, remembering after an effort, as became a
guardsman, the number of the regiment, the --th.
Rebecca thought that was the regiment. "The
Captain's name," she said, "was Captain Dobbin."
"A lanky gawky fellow," said Crawley, "tumbles over
everybody. I know him; and Osborne's a goodish-looking
fellow, with large black whiskers?"
"Enormous," Miss Rebecca Sharp said, "and
enormously proud of them, I assure you."
Captain Rawdon Crawley burst into a horse-laugh by
way of reply; and being pressed by the ladies to explain,
did so when the explosion of hilarity was over. "He
fancies he can play at billiards," said he. "I won two
hundred of him at the Cocoa-Tree. HE play, the young
flat! He'd have played for anything that day, but his friend
Captain Dobbin carried him off, hang him!"
"Rawdon, Rawdon, don't be so wicked," Miss Crawley
remarked, highly pleased.
"Why, ma'am, of all the young fellows I've seen out
of the line, I think this fellow's the greenest. Tarquin and
Deuceace get what money they like out of him. He'd go
to the deuce to be seen with a lord. He pays their
dinners at Greenwich, and they invite the company."
"And very pretty company too, I dare say."
"Quite right, Miss Sharp. Right, as usual, Miss Sharp.
Uncommon pretty company--haw, haw!" and the
Captain laughed more and more, thinking he had made a
good joke.
"Rawdon, don't be naughty!" his aunt exclaimed.
"Well, his father's a City man--immensely rich, they
say. Hang those City fellows, they must bleed; and I've
not done with him yet, I can tell you. Haw, haw!"
"Fie, Captain Crawley; I shall warn Amelia. A
gambling husband!"
"Horrid, ain't he, hey?" the Captain said with great
solemnity; and then added, a sudden thought having
struck him: "Gad, I say, ma'am, we'll have him here."
"Is he a presentable sort of a person?" the aunt
inquired.
"Presentable?--oh, very well. You wouldn't see any
difference," Captain Crawley answered. "Do let's have
him, when you begin to see a few people; and his
whatdyecallem--his inamorato--eh, Miss Sharp; that's what
you call it--comes. Gad, I'll write him a note, and have
him; and I'll try if he can play piquet as well as billiards.
Where does he live, Miss Sharp?"
Miss Sharp told Crawley the Lieutenant's town address;
and a few days after this conversation, Lieutenant
Osborne received a letter, in Captain Rawdon's
schoolboy hand, and enclosing a note of invitation from
Miss Crawley.
Rebecca despatched also an invitation to her darling
Amelia, who, you may be sure, was ready enough to
accept it when she heard that George was to be of the
party. It was arranged that Amelia was to spend the
morning with the ladies of Park Lane, where all were
very kind to her. Rebecca patronised her with calm
superiority: she was so much the cleverer of the two, and
her friend so gentle and unassuming, that she always
yielded when anybody chose to command, and so took
Rebecca's orders with perfect meekness and good humour.
Miss Crawley's graciousness was also remarkable. She
continued her raptures about little Amelia, talked about
her before her face as if she were a doll, or a servant,
or a picture, and admired her with the most benevolent
wonder possible. I admire that admiration which the
genteel world sometimes extends to the commonalty.
There is no more agreeable object in life than to see
Mayfair folks condescending. Miss Crawley's prodigious
benevolence rather fatigued poor little Amelia, and I am
not sure that of the three ladies in Park Lane she did
not find honest Miss Briggs the most agreeable. She
sympathised with Briggs as with all neglected or gentle
people: she wasn't what you call a woman of spirit.
George came to dinner--a repast en garcon with
Captain Crawley.
The great family coach of the Osbornes transported
him to Park Lane from Russell Square; where the young
ladies, who were not themselves invited, and professed
the greatest indifference at that slight, nevertheless looked
at Sir Pitt Crawley's name in the baronetage; and learned
everything which that work had to teach about the
Crawley family and their pedigree, and the Binkies, their
relatives, &c., &c. Rawdon Crawley received George Osborne
with great frankness and graciousness: praised his play at
billiards: asked him when he would have his revenge:
was interested about Osborne's regiment: and would have
proposed piquet to him that very evening, but Miss
Crawley absolutely forbade any gambling in her house;
so that the young Lieutenant's purse was not lightened
by his gallant patron, for that day at least. However, they
made an engagement for the next, somewhere: to look
at a horse that Crawley had to sell, and to try him in the
Park; and to dine together, and to pass the evening with
some jolly fellows. "That is, if you're not on duty to that
pretty Miss Sedley," Crawley said, with a knowing wink.
"Monstrous nice girl, 'pon my honour, though, Osborne,"
he was good enough to add. "Lots of tin, I suppose, eh?"
Osborne wasn't on duty; he would join Crawley with
pleasure: and the latter, when they met the next day,
praised his new friend's horsemanship--as he might with
perfect honesty--and introduced him to three or four
young men of the first fashion, whose acquaintance
immensely elated the simple young officer.
"How's little Miss Sharp, by-the-bye?" Osborne inquired
of his friend over their wine, with a dandified air.
"Good-natured little girl that. Does she suit you well at
Queen's Crawley? Miss Sedley liked her a good deal last
year."
Captain Crawley looked savagely at the Lieutenant out
of his little blue eyes, and watched him when he went up
to resume his acquaintance with the fair governess. Her
conduct must have relieved Crawley if there was any
jealousy in the bosom of that life-guardsman.
When the young men went upstairs, and after
Osborne's introduction to Miss Crawley, he walked up to
Rebecca with a patronising, easy swagger. He was going
to be kind to her and protect her. He would even shake
hands with her, as a friend of Amelia's; and saying, "Ah,
Miss Sharp! how-dy-doo?" held out his left hand towards
her, expecting that she would be quite confounded at
the honour.
Miss Sharp put out her right forefinger, and gave him
a little nod, so cool and killing, that Rawdon Crawley,
watching the operations from the other room, could
hardly restrain his laughter as he saw the Lieutenant's
entire discomfiture; the start he gave, the pause, and the
perfect clumsiness with which he at length condescended
to take the finger which was offered for his embrace.
"She'd beat the devil, by Jove!" the Captain said, in a
rapture; and the Lieutenant, by way of beginning the
conversation, agreeably asked Rebecca how she liked her
new place.
"My place?" said Miss Sharp, coolly, "how kind of you
to remind me of it! It's a tolerably good place: the wages
are pretty good--not so good as Miss Wirt's, I believe,
with your sisters in Russell Square. How are those young
ladies?--not that I ought to ask."
"Why not?" Mr. Osborne said, amazed.
"Why, they never condescended to speak to me, or to
ask me into their house, whilst I was staying with Amelia;
but we poor governesses, you know, are used to slights of
this sort."
"My dear Miss Sharp!" Osborne ejaculated.
"At least in some families," Rebecca continued. "You
can't think what a difference there is though. We are not
so wealthy in Hampshire as you lucky folks of the City.
But then I am in a gentleman's family--good old
English stock. I suppose you know Sir Pitt's father refused a
peerage. And you see how I am treated. I am pretty
comfortable. Indeed it is rather a good place. But how
very good of you to inquire!"
Osborne was quite savage. The little governess
patronised him and persiffled him until this young
British Lion felt quite uneasy; nor could he muster sufficient
presence of mind to find a pretext for backing out
of this most delectable conversation.
"I thought you liked the City families pretty well," he
said, haughtily.
"Last year you mean, when I was fresh from that
horrid vulgar school? Of course I did. Doesn't every girl like
to come home for the holidays? And how was I to know
any better? But oh, Mr. Osborne, what a difference
eighteen months' experience makes! eighteen months spent,
pardon me for saying so, with gentlemen. As for dear
Amelia, she, I grant you, is a pearl, and would be charming
anywhere. There now, I see you are beginning to be
in a good humour; but oh these queer odd City people!
And Mr. Jos--how is that wonderful Mr. Joseph?"
"It seems to me you didn't dislike that wonderful Mr.
Joseph last year," Osborne said kindly.
"How severe of you! Well, entre nous, I didn't break
my heart about him; yet if he had asked me to do what
you mean by your looks (and very expressive and kind
they are, too), I wouldn't have said no."
Mr. Osborne gave a look as much as to say, "Indeed,
how very obliging!"
"What an honour to have had you for a brother-in-law,
you are thinking? To be sister-in-law to George
Osborne, Esquire, son of John Osborne, Esquire, son of--
what was your grandpapa, Mr. Osborne? Well, don't be
angry. You can't help your pedigree, and I quite agree
with you that I would have married Mr. Joe Sedley; for
could a poor penniless girl do better? Now you know
the whole secret. I'm frank and open; considering all
things, it was very kind of you to allude to the
circumstance--very kind and polite. Amelia dear, Mr.
Osborne and I were talking about your poor brother Joseph.
How is he?"
Thus was George utterly routed. Not that Rebecca was
in the right; but she had managed most successfully to
put him in the wrong. And he now shamefully fled,
feeling, if he stayed another minute, that he would have
been made to look foolish in the presence of Amelia.
Though Rebecca had had the better of him, George was
above the meanness of talebearing or revenge upon a
lady--only he could not help cleverly confiding to
Captain Crawley, next day, some notions of his regarding
Miss Rebecca--that she was a sharp one, a dangerous
one, a desperate flirt, &c.; in all of which opinions
Crawley agreed laughingly, and with every one of which Miss
Rebecca was made acquainted before twenty-four hours
were over. They added to her original regard for Mr.
Osborne. Her woman's instinct had told her that it was
George who had interrupted the success of her first
love-passage, and she esteemed him accordingly.
"I only just warn you," he said to Rawdon Crawley,
with a knowing look--he had bought the horse, and lost
some score of guineas after dinner, "I just warn you--I
know women, and counsel you to be on the look-out."
"Thank you, my boy," said Crawley, with a look of
peculiar gratitude. "You're wide awake, I see." And
George went off, thinking Crawley was quite right.
He told Amelia of what he had done, and how he had
counselled Rawdon Crawley--a devilish good,
straightforward fellow--to be on his guard against that
little sly, scheming Rebecca.
"Against whom?" Amelia cried.
"Your friend the governess.--Don't look so astonished."
"O George, what have you done?" Amelia said. For her
woman's eyes, which Love had made sharp-sighted, had
in one instant discovered a secret which was invisible to
Miss Crawley, to poor virgin Briggs, and above all,
to the stupid peepers of that young whiskered prig,
Lieutenant Osborne.
For as Rebecca was shawling her in an upper apartment,
where these two friends had an opportunity for a
little of that secret talking and conspiring which form
the delight of female life, Amelia, coming up to Rebecca,
and taking her two little hands in hers, said, "Rebecca,
I see it all."
Rebecca kissed her.
And regarding this delightful secret, not one syllable
more was said by either of the young women. But it was
destined to come out before long.
Some short period after the above events, and Miss
Rebecca Sharp still remaining at her patroness's house
in Park Lane, one more hatchment might have been seen
in Great Gaunt Street, figuring amongst the many which
usually ornament that dismal quarter. It was over Sir
Pitt Crawley's house; but it did not indicate the worthy
baronet's demise. It was a feminine hatchment, and
indeed a few years back had served as a funeral compliment
