Thackeray W M. Vanity fair

which even made the boy smile. She told him that she
thought Major William was the best man in all the world
--the gentlest and the kindest, the bravest and the
humblest. Over and over again she told him how they owed
everything which they possessed in the world to that
kind friend's benevolent care of them; how he had
befriended them all through their poverty and misfortunes;
watched over them when nobody cared for them; how all
his comrades admired him though he never spoke of his
own gallant actions; how Georgy's father trusted him
beyond all other men, and had been constantly befriended
by the good William. "Why, when your papa was a little
boy," she said, "he often told me that it was William
who defended him against a tyrant at the school where
they were; and their friendship never ceased from that
day until the last, when your dear father fell."

"Did Dobbin kill the man who killed Papa?" Georgy
said. "I'm sure he did, or he would if he could have
caught him, wouldn't he, Mother? When I'm in the Army,
won't I hate the French?--that's all."

In such colloquies the mother and the child passed a
great deal of their time together. The artless woman had
made a confidant of the boy. He was as much William's
friend as everybody else who knew him well.

By the way, Mrs. Becky, not to be behind hand in
sentiment, had got a miniature too hanging up in her
room, to the surprise and amusement of most people,
and the delight of the original, who was no other than
our friend Jos. On her first coming to favour the Sedleys
with a visit, the little woman, who had arrived with a
remarkably small shabby kit, was perhaps ashamed of the
meanness of her trunks and bandboxes, and often spoke
with great respect about her baggage left behind at
Leipzig, which she must have from that city. When a traveller
talks to you perpetually about the splendour of his
luggage, which he does not happen to have with him, my
son, beware of that traveller! He is, ten to one, an
impostor.

Neither Jos nor Emmy knew this important maxim. It
seemed to them of no consequence whether Becky had a
quantity of very fine clothes in invisible trunks; but
as her present supply was exceedingly shabby, Emmy
supplied her out of her own stores, or took her to the
best milliner in the town and there fitted her out. It was
no more torn collars now, I promise you, and faded silks
trailing off at the shoulder. Becky changed her habits
with her situation in life--the rouge-pot was suspended
--another excitement to which she had accustomed
herself was also put aside, or at least only indulged in in
privacy, as when she was prevailed on by Jos of a
summer evening, Emmy and the boy being absent on their
walks, to take a little spirit-and-water. But if she did not
indulge--the courier did: that rascal Kirsch could not
be kept from the bottle, nor could he tell how much
he took when he applied to it. He was sometimes
surprised himself at the way in which Mr. Sedley's Cognac
diminished. Well, well, this is a painful subject. Becky
did not very likely indulge so much as she used before
she entered a decorous family.

At last the much-bragged-about boxes arrived from
Leipzig; three of them not by any means large or splendid;
nor did Becky appear to take out any sort of dresses
or ornaments from the boxes when they did arrive. But
out of one, which contained a mass of her papers (it
was that very box which Rawdon Crawley had
ransacked in his furious hunt for Becky's concealed money),
she took a picture with great glee, which she pinned up
in her room, and to which she introduced Jos. It was
the portrait of a gentleman in pencil, his face having the
advantage of being painted up in pink. He was riding
on an elephant away from some cocoa-nut trees and a
pagoda: it was an Eastern scene.

"God bless my soul, it is my portrait," Jos cried out.
It was he indeed, blooming in youth and beauty, in a
nankeen jacket of the cut of 1804. It was the old picture
that used to hang up in Russell Square.

"I bought it," said Becky in a voice trembling with
emotion; "I went to see if I could be of any use to my kind
friends. I have never parted with that picture--I never
will."

"Won't you?" Jos cried with a look of unutterable
rapture and satisfaction. "Did you really now value it
for my sake?"

"You know I did, well enough," said Becky; "but
why speak--why think--why look back! It is too late
now!"

That evening's conversation was delicious for Jos.
Emmy only came in to go to bed very tired and unwell.
Jos and his fair guest had a charming tete-a-tete, and
his sister could hear, as she lay awake in her adjoining
chamber, Rebecca singing over to Jos the old songs of
1815. He did not sleep, for a wonder, that night, any
more than Amelia.

It was June, and, by consequence, high season in
London; Jos, who read the incomparable Galignani (the
exile's best friend) through every day, used to favour the
ladies with extracts from his paper during their
breakfast. Every week in this paper there is a full account of
military movements, in which Jos, as a man who had
seen service, was especially interested. On one occasion
he read out--"Arrival of the --th regiment. Gravesend,
June 20.--The Ramchunder, East Indiaman, came into the
river this morning, having on board 14 officers, and 132
rank and file of this gallant corps. They have been
absent from England fourteen years, having been embarked
the year after Waterloo, in which glorious conflict they
took an active part, and having subsequently distinguished
themselves in the Burmese war. The veteran colonel, Sir
Michael O'Dowd, K.C.B., with his lady and sister, landed
here yesterday, with Captains Posky, Stubble, Macraw,
Malony; Lieutenants Smith, Jones, Thompson, F. Thomson;
Ensigns Hicks and Grady; the band on the pier
playing the national anthem, and the crowd loudly cheering
the gallant veterans as they went into Wayte's hotel,
where a sumptuous banquet was provided for the defenders
of Old England. During the repast, which we need not
say was served up in Wayte's best style, the cheering
continued so enthusiastically that Lady O'Dowd and the
Colonel came forward to the balcony and drank the
healths of their fellow-countrymen in a bumper of Wayte's
best claret."

On a second occasion Jos read a brief announcement
--Major Dobbin had joined the --th regiment at Chatham;
and subsequently he promulgated accounts of the
presentations at the Drawing-room of Colonel Sir
Michael O'Dowd, K.C.B., Lady O'Dowd (by Mrs. Malloy
Malony of Ballymalony), and Miss Glorvina O'Dowd (by
Lady O'Dowd). Almost directly after this, Dobbin's name
appeared among the Lieutenant-Colonels: for old Marshal
Tiptoff had died during the passage of the --th from
Madras, and the Sovereign was pleased to advance
Colonel Sir Michael O'Dowd to the rank of Major-General on
his return to England, with an intimation that he should
be Colonel of the distinguished regiment which he had so
long commanded.

Amelia had been made aware of some of these
movements. The correspondence between George and his
guardian had not ceased by any means: William had even
written once or twice to her since his departure, but in a
manner so unconstrainedly cold that the poor woman felt
now in her turn that she had lost her power over him
and that, as he had said, he was free. He had left her,
and she was wretched. The memory of his almost countless
services, and lofty and affectionate regard, now
presented itself to her and rebuked her day and night. She
brooded over those recollections according to her wont,
saw the purity and beauty of the affection with which she
had trifled, and reproached herself for having flung away
such a treasure.

It was gone indeed. William had spent it all out. He
loved her no more, he thought, as he had loved her.
He never could again. That sort of regard, which he had
proffered to her for so many faithful years, can't be flung
down and shattered and mended so as to show no scars.
The little heedless tyrant had so destroyed it. No, William
thought again and again, "It was myself I deluded
and persisted in cajoling; had she been worthy of the
love I gave her, she would have returned it long ago. It
was a fond mistake. Isn't the whole course of life made
up of such? And suppose I had won her, should I not
have been disenchanted the day after my victory? Why
pine, or be ashamed of my defeat?" The more he thought
of this long passage of his life, the more clearly he saw
his deception. "I'll go into harness again," he said, "and
do my duty in that state of life in which it has pleased
Heaven to place me. I will see that the buttons of the
recruits are properly bright and that the sergeants make
no mistakes in their accounts. I will dine at mess and
listen to the Scotch surgeon telling his stories. When I
am old and broken, I will go on half-pay, and my old
sisters shall scold me. I have geliebt und gelebet, as the
girl in 'Wallenstein' says. I am done. Pay the bills and get
me a cigar: find out what there is at the play to-night,
Francis; to-morrow we cross by the Batavier." He made
the above speech, whereof Francis only heard the last
two lines, pacing up and down the Boompjes at Rotterdam.
The Batavier was lying in the basin. He could see
the place on the quarter-deck where he and Emmy had
sat on the happy voyage out. What had that little Mrs.
Crawley to say to him? Psha; to-morrow we will put to
sea, and return to England, home, and duty!

After June all the little Court Society of Pumpernickel
used to separate, according to the German plan,
and make for a hundred watering-places, where they
drank at the wells, rode upon donkeys, gambled at the
redoutes if they had money and a mind, rushed with
hundreds of their kind to gourmandise at the tables
d'hote, and idled away the summer. The English
diplomatists went off to Teoplitz and Kissingen, their French
rivals shut up their chancellerie and whisked away to
their darling Boulevard de Gand. The Transparent reigning
family took too to the waters, or retired to their hunting
lodges. Everybody went away having any pretensions
to politeness, and of course, with them, Doctor von
Glauber, the Court Doctor, and his Baroness. The seasons
for the baths were the most productive periods of
the Doctor's practice--he united business with pleasure,
and his chief place of resort was Ostend, which is much
frequented by Germans, and where the Doctor treated
himself and his spouse to what he called a "dib" in the
sea.

His interesting patient, Jos, was a regular milch-cow
to the Doctor, and he easily persuaded the civilian, both
for his own health's sake and that of his charming
sister, which was really very much shattered, to pass the
summer at that hideous seaport town. Emmy did not
care where she went much. Georgy jumped at the idea
of a move. As for Becky, she came as a matter of course
in the fourth place inside of the fine barouche Mr. Jos
had bought, the two domestics being on the box in front.
She might have some misgivings about the friends whom
she should meet at Ostend, and who might be likely to tell
ugly stories--but bah! she was strong enough to hold
her own. She had cast such an anchor in Jos now as
would require a strong storm to shake. That incident
of the picture had finished him. Becky took down
her elephant and put it into the little box which she had
had from Amelia ever so many years ago. Emmy also
came off with her Lares--her two pictures--and the
party, finally, were, lodged in an exceedingly dear and
uncomfortable house at Ostend.

There Amelia began to take baths and get what good
she could from them, and though scores of people of
Becky's acquaintance passed her and cut her, yet Mrs.
Osborne, who walked about with her, and who knew
nobody, was not aware of the treatment experienced by the
friend whom she had chosen so judiciously as a
companion; indeed, Becky never thought fit to tell her what
was passing under her innocent eyes.

Some of Mrs. Rawdon Crawley's acquaintances, however, acknowledged her readily enough,--perhaps more
readily than she would have desired. Among those were
Major Loder (unattached), and Captain Rook (late of
the Rifles), who might be seen any day on the Dike,
smoking and staring at the women, and who speedily got
an introduction to the hospitable board and select circle
of Mr. Joseph Sedley. In fact they would take no denial;
they burst into the house whether Becky was at home
or not, walked into Mrs. Osborne's drawing-room, which
they perfumed with their coats and mustachios, called
Jos "Old buck," and invaded his dinner-table, and
laughed and drank for long hours there.

"What can they mean?" asked Georgy, who did not
like these gentlemen. "I heard the Major say to Mrs.
Crawley yesterday, 'No, no, Becky, you shan't keep the
old buck to yourself. We must have the bones in, or,
dammy, I'll split.' What could the Major mean, Mamma?"

"Major! don't call him Major!" Emmy said. "I'm sure
I can't tell what he meant." His presence and that of his
friend inspired the little lady with intolerable terror and
aversion. They paid her tipsy compliments; they leered
at her over the dinner-table. And the Captain made her
advances that filled her with sickening dismay, nor would
she ever see him unless she had George by her side.

Rebecca, to do her justice, never would let either of
these men remain alone with Amelia; the Major was
disengaged too, and swore he would be the winner of her.
A couple of ruffians were fighting for this innocent creature, gambling for her at her own table, and though she
was not aware of the rascals' designs upon her, yet she
felt a horror and uneasiness in their presence and longed
to fly.

She besought, she entreated Jos to go. Not he. He was
slow of movement, tied to his Doctor, and perhaps to
some other leading-strings. At least Becky was not
anxious to go to England.

At last she took a great resolution--made the great
plunge. She wrote off a letter to a friend whom she had
on the other side of the water, a letter about which she
did not speak a word to anybody, which she carried
herself to the post under her shawl; nor was any remark
made about it, only that she looked very much flushed
and agitated when Georgy met her, and she kissed him,
and hung over him a great deal that night. She did not
come out of her room after her return from her walk.
Becky thought it was Major Loder and the Captain who
frightened her.

"She mustn't stop here," Becky reasoned with herself.
"She must go away, the silly little fool. She is still
whimpering after that gaby of a husband--dead (and
served right!) these fifteen years. She shan't marry either
of these men. It's too bad of Loder. No; she shall marry
the bamboo cane, I'll settle it this very night."

So Becky took a cup of tea to Amelia in her private
apartment and found that lady in the company of her
miniatures, and in a most melancholy and nervous
condition. She laid down the cup of tea.

"Thank you," said Amelia.

"Listen to me, Amelia," said Becky, marching up and
down the room before the other and surveying her with
a sort of contemptuous kindness. "I want to talk to you.
You must go away from here and from the impertinences
of these men. I won't have you harassed by them: and
they will insult you if you stay. I tell you they are rascals:
men fit to send to the hulks. Never mind how I know
them. I know everybody. Jos can't protect you; he is too
weak and wants a protector himself. You are no more fit
to live in the world than a baby in arms. You must marry,
or you and your precious boy will go to ruin. You must
have a husband, you fool; and one of the best gentlemen
I ever saw has offered you a hundred times, and you have
rejected him, you silly, heartless, ungrateful little
creature!"

"I tried--I tried my best, indeed I did, Rebecca," said
Amelia deprecatingly, "but I couldn't forget--"; and she
finished the sentence by looking up at the portrait.

"Couldn't forget HIM!" cried out Becky, "that selfish
humbug, that low-bred cockney dandy, that padded
booby, who had neither wit, nor manners, nor heart, and
was no more to be compared to your friend with the
bamboo cane than you are to Queen Elizabeth. Why,
the man was weary of you, and would have jilted you, but
that Dobbin forced him to keep his word. He owned it
to me. He never cared for you. He used to sneer about
you to me, time after time, and made love to me the
week after he married you."

"It's false! It's false! Rebecca," cried out Amelia,
starting up.

"Look there, you fool," Becky said, still with provoking
good humour, and taking a little paper out of her
belt, she opened it and flung it into Emmy's lap. "You
know his handwriting. He wrote that to me--wanted me
to run away with him--gave it me under your nose, the
day before he was shot--and served him right!" Becky
repeated.

Emmy did not hear her; she was looking at the letter.
It was that which George had put into the bouquet and
given to Becky on the night of the Duchess of Richmond's
ball. It was as she said: the foolish young man
had asked her to fly.

Emmy's head sank down, and for almost the last time
in which she shall be called upon to weep in this history,
she commenced that work. Her head fell to her bosom, and
her hands went up to her eyes; and there for a while, she
gave way to her emotions, as Becky stood on and
regarded her. Who shall analyse those tears and say
whether they were sweet or bitter? Was she most grieved
because the idol of her life was tumbled down and
shivered at her feet, or indignant that her love had been so
despised, or glad because the barrier was removed which
modesty had placed between her and a new, a real affection?
"There is nothing to forbid me now," she thought.
"I may love him with all my heart now. Oh, I will, I will,
if he will but let me and forgive me." I believe it was this
feeling rushed over all the others which agitated that
gentle little bosom.

Indeed, she did not cry so much as Becky expected--
the other soothed and kissed her--a rare mark of
sympathy with Mrs. Becky. She treated Emmy like a child
and patted her head. "And now let us get pen and ink
and write to him to come this minute," she said.

"I--I wrote to him this morning," Emmy said, blushing
exceedingly. Becky screamed with laughter--"Un
biglietto," she sang out with Rosina, "eccolo qua!"--the
whole house echoed with her shrill singing.

Two mornings after this little scene, although the day
was rainy and gusty, and Amelia had had an exceedingly
wakeful night, listening to the wind roaring, and pitying
all travellers by land and by water, yet she got up early
and insisted upon taking a walk on the Dike with Georgy;
and there she paced as the rain beat into her face, and
she looked out westward across the dark sea line and
over the swollen billows which came tumbling and frothing
to the shore. Neither spoke much, except now and
then, when the boy said a few words to his timid
companion, indicative of sympathy and protection.

"I hope he won't cross in such weather," Emmy said.

"I bet ten to one he does," the boy answered. "Look,
Mother, there's the smoke of the steamer." It was that
signal, sure enough.

But though the steamer was under way, he might not
be on board; he might not have got the letter; he might
not choose to come. A hundred fears poured one over the
other into the little heart, as fast as the waves on to the
Dike.

The boat followed the smoke into sight. Georgy had a
dandy telescope and got the vessel under view in the most
skilful manner. And he made appropriate nautical
comments upon the manner of the approach of the steamer
as she came nearer and nearer, dipping and rising in the
water. The signal of an English steamer in sight went
fluttering up to the mast on the pier. I daresay Mrs.
Amelia's heart was in a similar flutter.

Emmy tried to look through the telescope over
George's shoulder, but she could make nothing of it.
She only saw a black eclipse bobbing up and down
before her eyes.

George took the glass again and raked the vessel.
"How she does pitch!" he said. "There goes a wave slap
over her bows. There's only two people on deck besides
the steersman. There's a man lying down, and a--chap
in a--cloak with a--Hooray!--it's Dob, by Jingo!"
He clapped to the telescope and flung his arms round
his mother. As for that lady, let us say what she did in
the words of a favourite poet--"Dakruoen gelasasa." She
was sure it was William. It could be no other. What she
had said about hoping that he would not come was all
hypocrisy. Of course he would come; what could he do
else but come? She knew he would come.

The ship came swiftly nearer and nearer. As they went
in to meet her at the landing-place at the quay, Emmy's
knees trembled so that she scarcely could run. She would
have liked to kneel down and say her prayers of thanks
there. Oh, she thought, she would be all her life saying
them!

It was such a bad day that as the vessel came alongside
of the quay there were no idlers abroad, scarcely
even a commissioner on the look out for the few
passengers in the steamer. That young scapegrace George
had fled too, and as the gentleman in the old cloak lined
with red stuff stepped on to the shore, there was scarcely
any one present to see what took place, which was briefly
this:

A lady in a dripping white bonnet and shawl, with her
two little hands out before her, went up to him, and in
the next minute she had altogether disappeared under the
folds of the old cloak, and was kissing one of his hands
with all her might; whilst the other, I suppose, was
engaged in holding her to his heart (which her head just
about reached) and in preventing her from tumbling
down. She was murmuring something about--forgive--
dear William--dear, dear, dearest friend--kiss, kiss, kiss,
and so forth--and in fact went on under the cloak in an
absurd manner.

When Emmy emerged from it, she still kept tight hold
of one of William's hands, and looked up in his face. It
was full of sadness and tender love and pity. She
understood its reproach and hung down her head.

"It was time you sent for me, dear Amelia," he said.

"You will never go again, William?"

"No, never," he answered, and pressed the dear little
soul once more to his heart.

As they issued out of the custom-house precincts,
Georgy broke out on them, with his telescope up to his
eye, and a loud laugh of welcome; he danced round the
couple and performed many facetious antics as he led
them up to the house. Jos wasn't up yet; Becky not
visible (though she looked at them through the blinds).
Georgy ran off to see about breakfast. Emmy, whose
shawl and bonnet were off in the passage in the hands of
Mrs. Payne, now went to undo the clasp of William's
cloak, and--we will, if you please, go with George, and
look after breakfast for the Colonel. The vessel is in port.
He has got the prize he has been trying for all his life.
The bird has come in at last. There it is with its head on
his shoulder, billing and cooing close up to his heart,
with soft outstretched fluttering wings. This is what he
has asked for every day and hour for eighteen years. This
is what he pined after. Here it is--the summit, the end--
the last page of the third volume. Good-bye, Colonel--
God bless you, honest William!--Farewell, dear Amelia
--Grow green again, tender little parasite, round the
rugged old oak to which you cling!

Perhaps it was compunction towards the kind and
simple creature, who had been the first in life to defend
her, perhaps it was a dislike to all such sentimental scenes
--but Rebecca, satisfied with her part in the transaction,
never presented herself before Colonel Dobbin and the
lady whom he married. "Particular business," she said,
took her to Bruges, whither she went, and only Georgy
and his uncle were present at the marriage ceremony.
When it was over, and Georgy had rejoined his parents,
Mrs. Becky returned (just for a few days) to comfort the
solitary bachelor, Joseph Sedley. He preferred a
continental life, he said, and declined to join in housekeeping
with his sister and her husband.

Emmy was very glad in her heart to think that she
had written to her husband before she read or knew of
that letter of George's. "I knew it all along," William
said; "but could I use that weapon against the poor
fellow's memory? It was that which made me suffer so
when you--"

"Never speak of that day again," Emmy cried out, so
contrite and humble that William turned off the
conversation by his account of Glorvina and dear old Peggy
O'Dowd, with whom he was sitting when the letter of
recall reached him. "If you hadn't sent for me," he added
with a laugh, "who knows what Glorvina's name might
be now?"

At present it is Glorvina Posky (now Mrs. Major
Posky); she took him on the death of his first wife,
having resolved never to marry out of the regiment. Lady
O'Dowd is also so attached to it that, she says, if anything
were to happen to Mick, bedad she'd come back
and marry some of 'em. But the Major-General is quite
well and lives in great splendour at O'Dowdstown, with
a pack of beagles, and (with the exception of perhaps
their neighbour, Hoggarty of Castle Hoggarty) he is the
first man of his county. Her Ladyship still dances jigs, and
insisted on standing up with the Master of the Horse at
the Lord Lieutenant's last ball. Both she and Glorvina
declared that Dobbin had used the latter SHEAMFULLY, but
Posky falling in, Glorvina was consoled, and a beautiful
turban from Paris appeased the wrath of Lady O'Dowd.

When Colonel Dobbin quitted the service, which he did
immediately after his marriage, he rented a pretty little
country place in Hampshire, not far from Queen's Crawley,
where, after the passing of the Reform Bill, Sir Pitt
and his family constantly resided now. All idea of a
Peerage was out of the question, the Baronet's two seats
in Parliament being lost. He was both out of pocket and
out of spirits by that catastrophe, failed in his health,
and prophesied the speedy ruin of the Empire.

Lady Jane and Mrs. Dobbin became great friends--
there was a perpetual crossing of pony-chaises between
the Hall and the Evergreens, the Colonel's place (rented
of his friend Major Ponto, who was abroad with his
family). Her Ladyship was godmother to Mrs. Dobbin's child,
which bore her name, and was christened by the Rev.
James Crawley, who succeeded his father in the living:
and a pretty close friendship subsisted between the two
lads, George and Rawdon, who hunted and shot together
in the vacations, were both entered of the same college
at Cambridge, and quarrelled with each other about Lady
Jane's daughter, with whom they were both, of course,
in love. A match between George and that young lady was
long a favourite scheme of both the matrons, though I
have heard that Miss Crawley herself inclined towards
her cousin.

Mrs. Rawdon Crawley's name was never mentioned by
either family. There were reasons why all should be silent
regarding her. For wherever Mr. Joseph Sedley went, she
travelled likewise, and that infatuated man seemed to be
entirely her slave. The Colonel's lawyers informed him
that his brother-in-law had effected a heavy insurance
upon his life, whence it was probable that he had been
raising money to discharge debts. He procured prolonged
leave of absence from the East India House, and indeed,
his infirmities were daily increasing.

On hearing the news about the insurance, Amelia, in
a good deal of alarm, entreated her husband to go to
Brussels, where Jos then was, and inquire into the state
of his affairs. The Colonel quitted home with reluctance
(for he was deeply immersed in his History of the
Punjaub which still occupies him, and much alarmed
about his little daughter, whom he idolizes, and who was
just recovering from the chicken-pox) and went to Brussels
and found Jos living at one of the enormous hotels
in that city. Mrs. Crawley, who had her carriage, gave
entertainments, and lived in a very genteel manner,
occupied another suite of apartments in the same hotel.

The Colonel, of course, did not desire to see that lady,
or even think proper to notify his arrival at Brussels,
except privately to Jos by a message through his valet. Jos
begged the Colonel to come and see him that night, when
Mrs. Crawley would be at a soiree, and when they could
meet alone. He found his brother-in-law in a condition of
pitiable infirmity--and dreadfully afraid of Rebecca,
though eager in his praises of her. She tended him through
a series of unheard-of illnesses with a fidelity most
admirable. She had been a daughter to him. "But--but--
oh, for God's sake, do come and live near me, and--and
--see me sometimes," whimpered out the unfortunate
man.

The Colonel's brow darkened at this. "We can't, Jos,"
he said. "Considering the circumstances, Amelia can't
visit you."

"I swear to you--I swear to you on the Bible," gasped
out Joseph, wanting to kiss the book, "that she is as
innocent as a child, as spotless as your own wife."

"It may be so," said the Colonel gloomily, "but Emmy
can't come to you. Be a man, Jos: break off this
disreputable connection. Come home to your family. We hear
your affairs are involved."

"Involved!" cried Jos. "Who has told such calumnies?
All my money is placed out most advantageously. Mrs.
Crawley--that is--I mean--it is laid out to the best
interest."

"You are not in debt, then? Why did you insure your
life?"

"I thought--a little present to her--in case anything
happened; and you know my health is so delicate--common
gratitude you know--and I intend to leave all my
money to you--and I can spare it out of my income,
indeed I can," cried out William's weak brother-in-law.

The Colonel besought Jos to fly at once--to go back to
India, whither Mrs. Crawley could not follow him; to
do anything to break off a connection which might have
the most fatal consequences to him.

Jos clasped his hands and cried, "He would go back to
India. He would do anything, only he must have time:
they mustn't say anything to Mrs. Crawley--she'd--she'd
kill me if she knew it. You don't know what a terrible
woman she is," the poor wretch said.

"Then, why not come away with me?" said Dobbin in
reply; but Jos had not the courage. "He would see
Dobbin again in the morning; he must on no account say that
he had been there. He must go now. Becky might come
in." And Dobbin quitted him, full of forebodings.

He never saw Jos more. Three months afterwards
Joseph Sedley died at Aix-la-Chapelle. It was found that
all his property had been muddled away in speculations,
and was represented by valueless shares in different
bubble companies. All his available assets were the two
thousand pounds for which his life was insured, and which
were left equally between his beloved "sister Amelia,
wife of, &c., and his friend and invaluable attendant
during sickness, Rebecca, wife of Lieutenant-Colonel
Rawdon Crawley, C.B.," who was appointed administratrix.

The solicitor of the insurance company swore it was
the blackest case that ever had come before him, talked
of sending a commission to Aix to examine into the death,
and the Company refused payment of the policy. But
Mrs., or Lady Crawley, as she styled herself, came to
town at once (attended with her solicitors, Messrs. Burke,
Thurtell, and Hayes, of Thavies Inn) and dared the
Company to refuse the payment. They invited examination,
they declared that she was the object of an infamous
conspiracy, which had been pursuing her all through life,
and triumphed finally. The money was paid, and her
character established, but Colonel Dobbin sent back his share
of the legacy to the insurance office and rigidly declined to
hold any communication with Rebecca

She never was Lady Crawley, though she continued so
to call herself. His Excellency Colonel Rawdon Crawley
died of yellow fever at Coventry Island, most deeply
beloved and deplored, and six weeks before the demise of
his brother, Sir Pitt. The estate consequently devolved
upon the present Sir Rawdon Crawley, Bart.

He, too, has declined to see his mother, to whom he
makes a liberal allowance, and who, besides, appears to
be very wealthy. The Baronet lives entirely at Queen's
Crawley, with Lady Jane and her daughter, whilst Rebecca,
Lady Crawley, chiefly hangs about Bath and Cheltenham,
where a very strong party of excellent people
consider her to be a most injured woman. She has her
enemies. Who has not? Her life is her answer to them.
She busies herself in works of piety. She goes to church,
and never without a footman. Her name is in all the
Charity Lists. The destitute orange-girl, the neglected
washerwoman, the distressed muffin-man find in her a
fast and generous friend. She is always having stalls at
Fancy Fairs for the benefit of these hapless beings. Emmy,
her children, and the Colonel, coming to London some
time back, found themselves suddenly before her at one
of these fairs. She cast down her eyes demurely and
smiled as they started away from her; Emmy scurrying
off on the arm of George (now grown a dashing young
gentleman) and the Colonel seizing up his little Janey,
of whom he is fonder than of anything in the world--
fonder even than of his History of the Punjaub.

"Fonder than he is of me," Emmy thinks with a sigh
But he never said a word to Amelia that was not kind and
gentle, or thought of a want of hers that he did not try to
gratify.

Ah! Vanitas Vanitatum! which of us is happy in this
world? Which of us has his desire? or, having it, is satisfied?
--come, children, let us shut up the box and the puppets,
for our play is played out.