said Mr. Sedley.
"Oh, excellent!" said Rebecca, who was suffering
tortures with the cayenne pepper.
"Try a chili with it, Miss Sharp," said Joseph, really
interested.
"A chili," said Rebecca, gasping. "Oh yes!" She thought
a chili was something cool, as its name imported,
and was served with some. "How fresh and green they
look," she said, and put one into her mouth. It was
hotter than the curry; flesh and blood could bear it no
longer. She laid down her fork. "Water, for Heaven's
sake, water!" she cried. Mr. Sedley burst out laughing
(he was a coarse man, from the Stock Exchange, where
they love all sorts of practical jokes). "They are real
Indian, I assure you," said he. "Sambo, give Miss Sharp
some water."
The paternal laugh was echoed by Joseph, who thought
the joke capital. The ladies only smiled a little. They
thought poor Rebecca suffered too much. She would have
liked to choke old Sedley, but she swallowed her
mortification as well as she had the abominable curry
before it, and as soon as she could speak, said, with a comical,
good-humoured air, "I ought to have remembered the
pepper which the Princess of Persia puts in the cream-
tarts in the Arabian Nights. Do you put cayenne into
your cream-tarts in India, sir?"
Old Sedley began to laugh, and thought Rebecca
was a good-humoured girl. Joseph simply said, "Cream-
tarts, Miss? Our cream is very bad in Bengal. We
generally use goats' milk; and, 'gad, do you know, I've got
to prefer it!"
"You won't like EVERYTHING from India now, Miss
Sharp," said the old gentleman; but when the ladies had
retired after dinner, the wily old fellow said to his son,
"Have a care, Joe; that girl is setting her cap at you."
"Pooh! nonsense!" said Joe, highly flattered. "I recollect,
sir, there was a girl at Dumdum, a daughter of
Cutler of the Artillery, and afterwards married to Lance,
the surgeon, who made a dead set at me in the year
'4--at me and Mulligatawney, whom I mentioned to you
before dinner--a devilish good fellow Mulligatawney--
he's a magistrate at Budgebudge, and sure to be in
council in five years. Well, sir, the Artillery gave a ball,
and Quintin, of the King's 14th, said to me, 'Sedley,' said
he, 'I bet you thirteen to ten that Sophy Cutler hooks
either you or Mulligatawney before the rains.' 'Done,'
says I; and egad, sir--this claret's very good. Adamson's
or Carbonell's?"
A slight snore was the only reply: the honest stockbroker
was asleep, and so the rest of Joseph's story was lost
for that day. But he was always exceedingly
communicative in a man's party, and has told this
delightful tale many scores of times to his apothecary,
Dr. Gollop, when he came to inquire about the liver and
the blue-pill.
Being an invalid, Joseph Sedley contented himself with
a bottle of claret besides his Madeira at dinner, and
he managed a couple of plates full of strawberries and
cream, and twenty-four little rout cakes that were lying
neglected in a plate near him, and certainly (for
novelists have the privilege of knowing everything)
he thought a great deal about the girl upstairs. "A nice,
gay, merry young creature," thought he to himself. "How
she looked at me when I picked up her handkerchief at
dinner! She dropped it twice. Who's that singing in the
drawing-room? 'Gad! shall I go up and see?"
But his modesty came rushing upon him with
uncontrollable force. His father was asleep: his hat
was in the hall: there was a hackney-coach standing
hard by in Southampton Row. "I'll go and see the Forty
Thieves," said he, "and Miss Decamp's dance"; and he
slipped away gently on the pointed toes of his boots, and
disappeared, without waking his worthy parent.
"There goes Joseph," said Amelia, who was looking
from the open windows of the drawing-room, while
Rebecca was singing at the piano.
"Miss Sharp has frightened him away," said Mrs.
Sedley. "Poor Joe, why WILL he be so shy?"
CHAPTER IV
The Green Silk Purse
Poor Joe's panic lasted for two or three days; during
which he did not visit the house, nor during that period
did Miss Rebecca ever mention his name. She was all
respectful gratitude to Mrs. Sedley; delighted beyond
measure at the Bazaars; and in a whirl of wonder at the
theatre, whither the good-natured lady took her. One
day, Amelia had a headache, and could not go upon some
party of pleasure to which the two young people were
invited: nothing could induce her friend to go without her.
"What! you who have shown the poor orphan what
happiness and love are for the first time in her life--quit
YOU? Never!" and the green eyes looked up to Heaven
and filled with tears; and Mrs. Sedley could not but own
that her daughter's friend had a charming kind heart
of her own.
As for Mr. Sedley's jokes, Rebecca laughed at them
with a cordiality and perseverance which not a little
pleased and softened that good-natured gentleman. Nor
was it with the chiefs of the family alone that Miss
Sharp found favour. She interested Mrs. Blenkinsop by
evincing the deepest sympathy in the raspberry-jam
preserving, which operation was then going on in the
Housekeeper's room; she persisted in calling Sambo "Sir,"
and "Mr. Sambo," to the delight of that attendant; and she
apologised to the lady's maid for giving her trouble in
venturing to ring the bell, with such sweetness and
humility, that the Servants' Hall was almost as charmed
with her as the Drawing Room.
Once, in looking over some drawings which Amelia
had sent from school, Rebecca suddenly came upon one
which caused her to burst into tears and leave the room.
It was on the day when Joe Sedley made his second
appearance.
Amelia hastened after her friend to know the cause
of this display of feeling, and the good-natured girl came
back without her companion, rather affected too. "You
know, her father was our drawing-master, Mamma, at
Chiswick, and used to do all the best parts of our drawings."
"My love! I'm sure I always heard Miss Pinkerton say
that he did not touch them--he only mounted them."
"It was called mounting, Mamma. Rebecca remembers
the drawing, and her father working at it, and the
thought of it came upon her rather suddenly--and so,
you know, she--"
"The poor child is all heart," said Mrs. Sedley.
"I wish she could stay with us another week," said
Amelia.
"She's devilish like Miss Cutler that I used to meet
at Dumdum, only fairer. She's married now to Lance,
the Artillery Surgeon. Do you know, Ma'am, that once
Quintin, of the 14th, bet me--"
"0 Joseph, we know that story," said Amelia, laughing.
Never mind about telling that; but persuade Mamma
to write to Sir Something Crawley for leave of absence
for poor dear Rebecca: here she comes, her eyes red
with weeping."
"I'm better, now," said the girl, with the sweetest smile
possible, taking good-natured Mrs. Sedley's extended hand
and kissing it respectfully. "How kind you all are to me!
All," she added, with a laugh, "except you, Mr. Joseph."
"Me!" said Joseph, meditating an instant departure
"Gracious Heavens! Good Gad! Miss Sharp!'
"Yes; how could you be so cruel as to make me eat
that horrid pepper-dish at dinner, the first day I ever
saw you? You are not so good to me as dear Amelia."
"He doesn't know you so well," cried Amelia.
"I defy anybody not to be good to you, my dear,"
said her mother.
"The curry was capital; indeed it was," said Joe, quite
gravely. "Perhaps there was NOT enough citron juice in
it--no, there was NOT."
"And the chilis?"
"By Jove, how they made you cry out!" said Joe,
caught by the ridicule of the circumstance, and
exploding in a fit of laughter which ended quite
suddenly, as usual.
"I shall take care how I let YOU choose for me
another time," said Rebecca, as they went down
again to dinner. "I didn't think men were fond of
putting poor harmless girls to pain."
"By Gad, Miss Rebecca, I wouldn't hurt you for the
world."
"No," said she, "I KNOW you wouldn't"; and then she
gave him ever so gentle a pressure with her little hand,
and drew it back quite frightened, and looked first for
one instant in his face, and then down at the carpet-
rods; and I am not prepared to say that Joe's heart did
not thump at this little involuntary, timid, gentle motion
of regard on the part of the simple girl.
It was an advance, and as such, perhaps, some ladies
of indisputable correctness and gentility will condemn the
action as immodest; but, you see, poor dear Rebecca
had all this work to do for herself. If a person is too
poor to keep a servant, though ever so elegant, he must
sweep his own rooms: if a dear girl has no dear Mamma
to settle matters with the young man, she must do it
for herself. And oh, what a mercy it is that these women
do not exercise their powers oftener! We can't resist
them, if they do. Let them show ever so little inclination,
and men go down on their knees at once: old or ugly,
it is all the same. And this I set down as a positive
truth. A woman with fair opportunities, and without an
absolute hump, may marry WHOM SHE LIKES. Only let us
be thankful that the darlings are like the beasts of the
field, and don't know their own power. They would
overcome us entirely if they did.
"Egad!" thought Joseph, entering the dining-room, "I
exactly begin to feel as I did at Dumdum with Miss
Cutler." Many sweet little appeals, half tender, half
jocular, did Miss Sharp make to him about the dishes
at dinner; for by this time she was on a footing of
considerable familiarity with the family, and as for the
girls, they loved each other like sisters. Young unmarried
girls always do, if they are in a house together for ten
days.
As if bent upon advancing Rebecca's plans in every
way--what must Amelia do, but remind her brother of
a promise made last Easter holidays--"When I was a
girl at school," said she, laughing--a promise that he,
Joseph, would take her to Vauxhall. "Now," she said,
"that Rebecca is with us, will be the very time."
"O, delightful!" said Rebecca, going to clap her hands;
but she recollected herself, and paused, like a modest
creature, as she was.
"To-night is not the night," said Joe.
"Well, to-morrow."
"To-morrow your Papa and I dine out," said Mrs.
Sedley.
"You don't suppose that I'm going, Mrs. Sed?" said
her husband, "and that a woman of your years and size
is to catch cold, in such an abominable damp place?"
'The children must have someone with them," cried
Mrs. Sedley.
"Let Joe go," said-his father, laughing. "He's big
enough." At which speech even Mr. Sambo at the
sideboard burst out laughing, and poor fat Joe felt
inclined to become a parricide almost.
"Undo his stays!" continued the pitiless old gentleman.
"Fling some water in his face, Miss Sharp, or carry him
upstairs: the dear creature's fainting. Poor victim! carry
him up; he's as light as a feather!"
"If I stand this, sir, I'm d--!" roared Joseph.
"Order Mr. Jos's elephant, Sambo!" cried the father.
"Send to Exeter 'Change, Sambo"; but seeing Jos ready
almost to cry with vexation, the old joker stopped his
laughter, and said, holding out his hand to his son, "It's
all fair on the Stock Exchange, Jos--and, Sambo, never
mind the elephant, but give me and Mr. Jos a glass of
Champagne. Boney himself hasn't got such in his cellar,
my boy!"
A goblet of Champagne restored Joseph's equanimity,
and before the bottle was emptied, of which as an invalid
he took two-thirds, he had agreed to take the young
ladies to Vauxhall.
"The girls must have a gentleman apiece," said the old
gentleman. "Jos will be sure to leave Emmy in the crowd,
he will be so taken up with Miss Sharp here. Send to 96,
and ask George Osborne if he'll come."
At this, I don't know in the least for what reason,
Mrs. Sedley looked at her husband and laughed. Mr.
Sedley's eyes twinkled in a manner indescribably
roguish, and he looked at Amelia; and Amelia, hanging
down her head, blushed as only young ladies of seventeen
know how to blush, and as Miss Rebecca Sharp never
blushed in her life--at least not since she was eight
years old, and when she was caught stealing jam out of
a cupboard by her godmother. "Amelia had better write
a note," said her father; "and let George Osborne see
what a beautiful handwriting we have brought back from
Miss Pinkerton's. Do you remember when you wrote to
him to come on Twelfth-night, Emmy, and spelt twelfth
without the f?"
"That was years ago," said Amelia.
"It seems like yesterday, don't it, John?" said Mrs.
Sedley to her husband; and that night in a conversation
which took place in a front room in the second floor,
in a sort of tent, hung round with chintz of a rich and
fantastic India pattern, and double with calico of a
tender rose-colour; in the interior of which species of
marquee was a featherbed, on which were two pillows,
on which were two round red faces, one in a laced
