fied with liquor, as talkative as might be. ridicule fit to have brought the old tower He was rather a favorite with the regiment, down. The place was full of English soltreating the young officers with sumptuosity, diery as they passed. English bugles woke and amusing them by his military airs. them in the morning: at nightfall they went And as there is one well-known regiment of to bed to the note of the British fife and the army which travels with a goat heading drum: all the country and Europe was in the column, while another is led by a deer, arms, and the greatest event of history pendGeorge said with respect to his brother-in- ing; and honest Peggy O'Dowd, whom it law, that his regiment marched with an concerned as well as another, went on pratelephant. tling about Ballinafad, and the horses in the stables at Glenmalony, and the clar't drunk there; and Jos Sedley interposed about curry and rice at Dumdum; and Amelia thought about her husband, and how best she should show her love for him; as if these were the great topics of the world. Since Amelia's introduction to the regiment, George began to be rather ashamed of some of the company to which he had been forced to present her; and determined, as he told Dobbin (with what satisfaction to the latter it need not be said), to exchange into some better regiment soon, and to get his wife away from these damned vulgar women. But this vulgarity of being ashamed of one's society is much more common among men than women (except very great ladies of fashion, who, to be sure, indulge in it); and Mrs. Amelia, a natural and unaffected person, had none of that artificial shamefacedness which her husband mistook for delicacy on his own part. Thus Mrs. O'Dowd had a cock's plume in her hat, and a very large "repayther" on her stomach, which she used to ring on all occasions, narrating how it had been presented to her by her fawther, as she stipt into the car'ge after her mar'ge; and these ornaments, with other outward peculiarities of the major's wife, gave excruciating agonies to Captain Osborne, when his wife and the major's came in contact; whereas Amelia was only amused by the honest lady's eccentricities, and not in the least ashamed of her company. As they made that well-known journey, which almost every Englishman of middle rank has traveled since, there might have been more instructive, but few more entertaining companions than Mrs. Major O'Dowd. "Talk about kenal boats, my dear. Ye should see the kenal boats between Dublin and Ballinasloe. It's there the rapid traveling is; and the beautiful cattle. Sure me fawther got a goold medal (and his excellency himself eat a slice of it, and said never was finer mate in his loif) for a four-year-old heifer, the like of which ye never saw in this country any day." And Jos owned with a sigh, "that for good streaky beef, really mingled with fat and lean, there was no country like England." Except Ireland, where all your best mate comes from," said the major's lady; proceeding, as is not unusual with patriots of her nation, to make comparisons greatly in favor of her own country. This idea of comparing the market at Bruges with those of Dublin, although she had suggested it herself, caused immense scorn and derision on her part. “I'll thank ye to tell me what they mean by that old gazabo on the top of the market-place," said she, in a burst of Those who like to lay down the historybook, and to speculate upon what might have happened in the world, but for the fatal occurrence of what actually did take place (a most puzzling, amusing, ingenious, and profitable kind of meditation), have no doubt often thought to themselves what a specially bad time Napoleon took to come back from Elba, and to let loose his eagle from Gulf San Juan to Nôtre Dame. The historians on our side tell us that the armies of the allied powers were all providentially on a war-footing, and ready to bear down at a moment's notice upon the Elban Emperor. The august jobbers assembled at Vienna, and carving out the kingdoms of Europe according to their wisdom, had such causes of quarrel among themselves as might have set the armies which had overcome Napoleon to fight against each other, but for the return of the object of unanimous hatred and fear. This monarch had an army in full force because he had jobbed to himself Poland, and was determined to keep it: another had robbed half Saxony, and was bent upon maintaining his acquisition: Italy was the object of a third's solicitude. Each was protesting against the rapacity of the other; and could the Corsican but have waited in his prison until all these parties were by the ears, he might have returned and reigned unmolested. But what would have become of our story and all our friends, then? If all the drops in it were dried up, what would become of the sea? In the mean while the business of life and living and the pursuits of pleasure, especially, went on as if no end were to be expected to them, and no enemy in front. When our travelers arrived at Brussels, in which their regiment was quartered, a great piece of good fortune, as all said, they found themselves in one of the gayest and most brilliant little capitals in Europe, and where all the Vanity Fair booths were laid out with the most tempting liveliness and splendor. Gambling was here in profusion, and dancing in plenty: feasting was there to fill with delight that great gourmand of a Jos: there was a theater where a miraculous Catalani was delighting all hearers; beautiful rides, all enlivened with martial splendor; a rare old city, with strange costumes and wonderful architecture, to delight the eyes of little Amelia, who had never before seen a foreign country, and fill her with charming surprises so that now and for a few weeks' space, in a fine handsome lodging, whereof the expenses were borne by Jos and Osborne, who was flush of money and full of kind attentions to his wife-for about a fortnight I say, during which her honeymoon ended, Mrs. Amelia was as pleased and happy as any little bride out of England. Every day during this happy time there was novelty and amusement for all parties. There was a church to see, or a picture gallery-there was a ride, or an opera. The bands of the regiments were making music at all hours. The greatest folks of England walked in the park-there was a perpetual military festival. George taking out his wife to a new jaunt or junket every night, was quite pleased with himself as usual, and swore he was becoming quite a domestic character. And a jaunt or a junket with him! Was it not enough to set this little heart beating with joy? Her letters home to her mother were filled with delight and gratitude at this season. Her husband bade her buy laces, millinery, jewels, and gimcracks of all sorts. Oh, he was the kindest, best, and most generous of men! "Wife, just married, dev'lish pretty woman, I hear," the old earl said. "Well, my dear Blanche," said the mother, "I suppose as papa wants to go, we must go but we needn't know them in England, you know." And so, determined. to cut their new acquaintance in Bond-street, these great folks went to eat his dinner at Brussels, and condescending to make him pay for their pleasure, showed their dignity by making his wife uncomfortable, and carefully excluding her from the conversation. This is a species of dignity in which the high-bred British female reigns supreme. To watch the behavior of a fine lady to other and humbler women is a very good sport for a philosophical frequenter of Vanity Fair. This festival, on which honest George spent a great deal of money, was the very dismalest of all the entertainments which Amelia had in her honey-moon. She wrote the most piteous accounts of the feast home to her mamma: how the Countess of Bareacres would not answer when spoken to; how Lady Blanche stared at her with her eye-glass; and what a rage Captain Dobbin was in at their behavior; and how my lord as they came away from the feast, asked to see the bill, and pronounced it a d- bad dinner, and d- dear. But though Amelia told all these stories, and wrote home regarding her guests' rudeness, and her own discomfiture; old Mrs. Sedley was mightily pleased nevertheless, and talked about Emmy's friend, the Countess of Bareacres, with such assiduity that the news how his son was entertaining peers and peeresses actually came to Osborne's ears in the city. The sight of the very great company of lords and ladies and fashionable persons who thronged the town and appeared in every public place, filled George's truly British soul with intense delight. They flung off that happy frigidity and insolence of demeanor which occasionally characterizes the great at home, and appearing in numberless public places, condescended to mingle with the rest of the company whom they met there. One night at a party given by the general of the division to which George's regiment belonged, he had the honor of dancing with Lady Blanche Thistlewood, Lord Bareacres' daughter; he bustled for ices and refreshments for the two noble ladies; he pushed and squeezed for Lady Bareacres' carriage; he bragged about the countess when he got home, in a way which his own father could not have surpassed. He called upon the ladies the next day; he rode by their side in the park; he asked their party to a great dinner at a restaura-thick curling brown hair and black eyebrows teur's, and was quite wild with exultation when they agreed to come. Old Bareacres, who had not much pride and a large appetite, would go for a dinner any where. Those who know the present Lieutenantgeneral Sir George Tufto, K.C.B., and have seen him, as they may on most days in the season, padded and in stays, strutting down Pall-Mall with a rickety swagger, on his high-heeled lacquered boots, leering under the bonnets of passers by, or riding a showy chestnut, and ogling Broughams in the parks those who know the present Sir George Tufto would hardly recognize the daring Peninsula and Waterloo officer. He has now, and his whiskers are of the deepest purple. He was light-haired and bald in 1815, and stouter in the person and in the limbs, which especially have shrunk very much of late. When he was about seventy years of age (he is now nearly eighty), his hair, which was very scarce and quite white, suddenly grew thick, and brown, and curly, and his whiskers and eyebrows took their present color. Ill-natured people say that his chest is all wool, and that his hair, because it never grows, is a wig. Tom Tufto, with whose father he quarreled ever so many years ago, declares that Mademoiselle de Jaisey, of the French theater, pulled his grandpapa's hair off in the green-room; but Tom is notoriously spiteful and jealous; and the general's wig has nothing to do with our story. One day, as some of our friends of the -th were sauntering in the flower-market of Brussels, having been to see the Hotel de Ville, which Mrs. Major O'Dowd declared was not near so large or handsome as her fawther's mansion of Glenmalony, an officer of rank with a soldier behind him, rode up to the market, and descending from his horse, came among the flowers, and selected the very finest bouquet which money could buy. The beautiful bundle being tied up in a paper, the officer remounted, giving the nosegay into the charge of his military groom, who carried it with a grin, following his chief who rode away in great state and selfsatisfaction. "You should see the flowers at Glenmaony," Mrs. O'Dowd was remarking. "Me fawther has three Scotch garners with nine helpers. We have an acre of hot-houses, and pines as common as pays in the sayson. Our greeps weighs six pounds every bunch of 'em, and upon me honor and conscience I think our magnolias is as big as taykettles." Dobbin, who never used to draw out' Mrs. O'Dowd as that wicked Osborne delighted in doing (much to Amelia's terror, who implored him to spare her), fell back in the crowd, crowing and sputtering until he reached a safe distance, when he exploded among the astonished market-people with shrieks of yelling laughter. "Hwhat's that gawky guggling about?" said Mrs. O'Dowd. "Is it his nose bleedn? He always used to say 'twas his nose bleedn, till he must have pumped all the blood out of um. An't the magnolias at Glenmalony as big as taykettles, O'Dowd?" "Deed then they are, and bigger, Peggy," the major said. When the conversation was interrupted in the manner stated, by the arrival of the officer who purchased the bouquet." 66 Devilish fine horse-who is it?" George with a laugh. "General Tufto! Then, my dear, the Crawleys are come." Amelia's heart fell-she knew not why. The sun did not seem to shine so bright. The tall old roofs and gables looked less picturesque all of a sudden, though it was a brilliant sunset, and one of the brightest and most beautiful days at the end of May. CHAPTER XXIX. BRUSSELS. MR. Jos had hired a pair of horses for his open carriage, with which cattle, and the smart London vehicle, he made a very tolerable figure in the drives about Brussels. George purchased a horse for his private riding, and he and Captain Dobbin would often accompany the carriage in which Jos and his sister took daily excursions of pleasure. They went out that day in the park for their accustomed diversion, and there, sure enough, George's remark with regard to the arrival of Rawdon Crawley and his wife proved to be correct. In the midst of a little troop of horsemen, consisting of some of the very greatest persons in Brussels, Rebecca was seen in the prettiest and tightest of riding-habits, mounted on a beautiful little Arab, which she rode to perfection (having acquired the art at Queen's Crawley, where the baronet, Mr. Pitt, and Rawdon himself had given her many lessons), and by the side of the gallant General Tufto. "Sure, it's the Juke himself," cried Mrs. Major O'Dowd to Jos, who began to blush violently; "and that's Lord Uxbridge on the bay. How elegant he looks! Me brother, Molloy Maloney, is as like him as two peas." Rebecca did not make for the carriage; but as soon as she perceived her old acquaintance Amelia seated in it, acknowledged her presence by a gracious word and smile, and by kissing and shaking her fingers playfully in the direction of the vehicle. Then she resumed her conversation with General Tufto, who asked "who the fat officer was in the gold-laced cap ?" on which Becky replied, "that he was an officer in the East Indian service." But Rawdon Crawley rode out of the ranks of his company, and came up and shook hands heartily with Amelia, and said to Jos, "Well, old boy, how are you?" and stared in Mrs. O'Dowd's face and black cock's feathers until she began to think she had made a conquest of him. George, who had been delayed behind, rode up almost immediately with Dobbin, and they touched their caps to the august personages, among whom Osborne at once perceived Mrs. Crawley. He was delighted to see Rawdon leaning over his carriage familiarly and talking to Amelia, and met |