soon to be a mother! To hear her speak of you, her protectress, her mother, would bring tears to the eyes of ogres. How she loves you! how we all love our admirable, our respectable Miss Crawley!"

It is to be feared that this letter of the Parisian great_lady did not by any means advance Mrs. Becky's interest with her admirable, her respectable, relative. On the contrary, the fury of the old spinster was beyond bounds, when she found what was Rebecca's situation, and how audaciously she had made use of Miss Crawley's name, to get an entrée into Parisian society. Too much shaken in mind and body to compose a letter in the French language in reply to that of her correspondent, she dictated to Briggs a furious answer in her own native tongue, repudiating Mrs. Rawdon Crawley altogether, and warning the public to beware of her as a most artful and dangerous person. But as Madame the Duchess of X- had only been twenty years in England, she did not understand a single word of the language, and contented herself by informing Mrs. Rawdon Crawley at their next meeting, that she had received a charming letter from that chère Mees, and that it was full of benevolent things for Mrs. Crawley, who began seriously to have hopes that the spinster would relent.

come together after Waterloo, and were | yes-of the dances, no; and yet how interpassing the winter of 1815 at Paris in great esting and pretty this fair creature looks, sursplendor and gayety. Rebecca was a good rounded by the homage of the men, and so economist, and the price poor Jos Osborne had paid for her two horses was in itself sufficient to keep their little establishment afloat for a year, at the least; there was no occasion to turn into money "my pistols, the same with which I shot Captain Marker," or the gold dressing-case, or the cloak lined with sable. Becky had it made into a pelisse for herself, in which she rode in the Bois de Boulogne to the admiration of all: and you should have seen the scene between her and her delighted husband, whom she rejoined after the army had entered Cambray, and when she unsewed herself, and let out of her dress all those watches, knick-knacks, bank-notes, checks, and valuables, which she had secreted in the wadding, previous to her meditated flight from Brussels! Tufto was charmed, and Rawdon roared with delightful laughter, and swore that she was better than any play he ever saw, by Jove. And the way in which she jockeyed Jos, and which she described with infinite fun, carried up his delight to a pitch of quite insane enthusiasm. He believed in his wife as much as the French soldiers in Napoleon. Her success in Paris was remarkable. All the French ladies voted her charming. She spoke their language admirably. She adopted at once their grace, their liveliness, their manner. Her husband was stupid, certainly -all English are stupid-and, besides, a dull husband at Paris is always a point in a lady's favor. He was the heir of the rich and spirituelle Miss Crawley, whose house had been open to so many of the French noblesse during the emigration. They received the colonel's wife in their own hotels. 66 Why," wrote a great lady to Miss Crawley, who had bought her lace and trinkets at the duchess's own price, and given her many a dinner during the pinching times after the Rev-There were no duns in Paris as yet there olution-" Why does not our dear Miss come to her nephew and niece, and her attached friends in Paris? All the world raffoles of the charming Mistress and her espiègle beauty. Yes, we see in her the grace, the charm, the wit of our dear friend Miss Crawley! The king took notice of her yesterday at the Tuileries, and we are all jealous of the attention which Monsieur pays her. If you could have seen the spite of a certain stupid Miladi Bareacres (whose eagle-beak and toque and feathers may be seen peering over the heads of all assemblies) when Madame, the Duchess of Angoulême, the august daughter and companion of kings, desired especially to be presented to Mrs. Crawley, as your dear daughter and protégée, and thanked her in the name of France, for all your benevolence toward our unfortunates during their exile! She is of all the societies, of all the balls-of the balls,

Meanwhile, she was the gayest and most admired of Englishwomen, and had a little European congress on her reception-nightPrussians and Cossacks, Spaniards and English-all the world was at Paris during this famous winter: to have seen the stars and cordons in Rebecca's humble saloon would have made all Baker-street pale with envy. Famous warriors rode by her carriage in the Bois, or crowded her modest little box at the Opera. Rawdon was in the highest spirits.

were parties every day at Véry's or Beauvilliers'; play was plentiful, and his luck good. Tufto, perhaps, was sulky. Mrs. Tufto had come over to Paris at her own invitation, and besides this contretemps, there were a score of generals now round Becky's chair, and she might take her choice of a dozen bouquets when she went to the play. Lady Bareacres and the chiefs of the English society, stupid and irreproachable females, writhed with anguish at the success of the little upstart Becky, whose poisoned jokes quivered and rankled in their chaste breasts. But she had all the men on her side. She fought the women with indomitable courage, and they could not talk scandal in any tongue but their own.

So in fetes, pleasures, and prosperity, the winter of 1815-16 passed away with Mrs. Rawdon Crawley, who accommodated herself to polite life as if her ancestors had been

people of fashion for centuries past, and who | same time. The Gazette first published the from her wit, talent, and energy, indeed result of the two battles; at which glorious merited a place of honor in Vanity Fair. In the early spring of 1816, Galignani's Journal contained the following announcement in an interesting corner of the paper: "On the 26th of March-the Lady of Lieutenantcolonel Crawley of — Life Guards Greenof a son and heir."

-

intelligence all England thrilled with triumph and fear. Particulars then followed; and after the announcement of the victories came the list of the wounded and the slain. Who can tell the dread with which that catalogue was opened and read! Fancy, at every village and homestead almost through the This event was copied into the London three kingdoms, the great news coming of papers, out of which Miss Briggs read the the battles of Flanders, and the feelings of statement to Miss Crawley, at breakfast, at exultation and gratitude, bereavement and Brighton. The intelligence, expected as it sickening dismay, when the lists of the regimight have been, caused a crisis in the affairs mental losses were gone through, and it of the Crawley family. The spinster's rage became known whether the dear friend and rose to its height, and sending instantly for relative had escaped or had fallen. Any Pitt, her nephew, and for Lady Southdown, body who will take the trouble of looking from Brunswick-square, she requested an back to a file of the newspapers of the time, immediate celebration of the marriage which must, even now, feel at second-hand this had been so long pending between the two breathless pause of expectation. The list of families. And she announced that it was casualities are carried on from day to day: her intention to allow the young couple a you stop in the midst as in a story which is thousand a year during her lifetime, at the to be continued in our next. Think what expiration of which the bulk of her property the feelings must have been as those papers would be settled upon her nephew and her followed each other fresh from the press; dear niece, Lady Jane Crawley. Waxy and if such an interest could be felt in our came down to ratify the deeds-Lord South-country, and about a battle where but twenty down gave away his sister-she was married thousand of our people were engaged, think by a bishop, and not by the Rev. Bartholomew Irons-to the disappointment of the irregular prelate.

of the condition of Europe twenty years before, where people were fighting, not by thousands, but by millions; each one of whom as he struck his enemy wounded horribly some other innocent heart far away.

When they were married-Pitt would have liked to take a hymeneal tour with his bride, as became people of their condition. The news which that famous Gazette But the affection of the old lady toward brought to the Osbornes gave a dreadful Lady Jane had grown so strong, that she shock to the family and its chief. The girls fairly owned she could not part with her indulged unrestrained in their grief. The favorite. Pitt and his wife came therefore, gloom-stricken old father was still more and lived with Miss Crawley: and (greatly borne down by his fate and sorrow. Не to the annoyance of poor Pitt, who conceived strove to think that a judgment was on the himself a most injured character-being sub-boy for his disobedience. He dared not own ject to the humors of his aunt on one side and of his mother-in-law on the other), Lady Southdown, from her neighboring house, reigned over the whole family-Pitt, Lady Jane, Miss Crawley, Briggs, Bowls, Firkin, and all. She pitilessly dosed them with her tracts and her medicine: she dismissed Creamer, she installed Rodgers, and soon stripped Miss Crawley of even the semblance of authority. The poor soul grew so timid that she actually left off bullying Briggs any more, and clung to her niece, more fond and more terrified every day. Peace to thee, kind and selfish, vain and generous old henthen! We shall see thee no more. Let us hope that Lady Jane supported her kindly, and led her with gentle hand out of the busy struggle of Vanity Fair.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

WIDOW AND MOTHER.

THE news of the great fight of Quatre Bras and Waterloo reached England at the

that the severity of the sentence frightened him, and that its fulfillment had come too soon upon his curses. Sometimes a shuddering terror struck him, as if he had been the author of the doom which he had called down on his son. There was a chance before of reconciliation. The boy's wife might have died; or he might have come back and said, Father I have sinned. But there was no hope now. He stood on the other side of the gulf impassable, haunting his parent with sad eyes. He remembered them once before so in a fever, when every one thought the lad was dying, and he lay on his bed speechless, and gazing with a dreadful gloom. Good God! how the father clung to the doctor then; and with what a sickening anxiety he followed him: what a weight of grief was off his mind when, after the crisis of the fever, the lad recovered, and looked at his father once more with eyes that recognized him. But now there was no help or cure, or chance of reconcilement: above all, there were no humble words to soothe vanity outraged and furious, or bring to its

natural flow the poisoned, angry blood. And it is hard to say which pang it was tore the proud father's heart most keenly-that his son should have gone out of the reach of his forgiveness, or that the apology which his own pride expected should have escaped

him.

dear friend? How his letters, written in the period of love and confidence, sicken and rebuke you! What a dreary mourning it is to dwell upon those vehement protests of dead affection! What lying epitaphs they make over the corpse of love! What dark, cruel comments upon life and vanities! Most of us have got or written drawers full of them. They are closet-skeletons which we keep and shun. Osborne trembled long before the letter from his dead son.

Whatever his sensations might have been, however, the stern old man would have no confidant. He never mentioned his son's name to his daughters; but ordered the elder to place all the females of the estab- The poor boy's letter did not say much. lishment in mourning; and desired that the He had been too proud to acknowledge the male servants should be similarly attired in tenderness which his heart felt. He only deep black. All parties and entertainments, said, that on the eve of a great battle, he of course, were to be put off. No commu- wished to bid his father farewell, and solnications were made to his future son-in-emnly to implore his good offices for the law, whose marriage-day had been fixed; wife-it might be for the child-whom he but there was enough in Mr. Osborne's appearance to prevent Mr. Bullock from making any inquiries, or in any way pressing forward that ceremony. He and the ladies whispered about it under their voices in the drawing-room sometimes, whither the father never came. He remained constantly in his own study; the whole front part of the house being closed until some time after the completion of the general mourning.

About three weeks after the 18th of June, Mr. Osborne's acquaintance, Sir William Dobbin, called at Mr. Osborne's house in Russell-square, with a very pale and agitated face, and insisted upon seeing that gentleman. Ushered into his room, and after a few words, which neither the speaker nor the host understood, the former produced from an inclosure a letter sealed with a large red seal. 66 My son, Major Dobbin," the alderman said, with some hesitation, "dispatched me a letter by an officer of the th, who arrived in town to-day. My son's letter contains one for you, Osborne." The alderman placed the letter on the table, and Osborne stared at him for a moment or two in silence. His looks frightened the embassador, who, after looking guiltily for a little time at the grief-stricken man, hurried away without a farther word.

The letter was in George's well-known bold hand-writing. It was that one which he had written before day-break on the 16th of June, and just before he took leave of Amelia. The great red seal was emblazoned with the sham coat of arms which Osborne had assumed from the peerage, with "Pax in bello" for a motto; that of the ducal house with which the vain old man tried to fancy himself connected. The hand that signed it would never hold pen or sword more. The very seal that sealed it had been robbed from George's dead body as it lay on the field of battle. The father knew nothing of this, but sat and looked at the letter in terrified vacancy. He almost fell when he went to open it. Have you ever had a difference with a

left behind him. He owned with contrition that his irregularities and extravagance had already wasted a large part of his mother's little fortune. He thanked his father for his former generous conduct; and he promised him, that if he fell on the field or survived it, he would act in a manner worthy of the name of George Osborne.

His English habit, pride, awkwardness perhaps, had prevented him from saying more. His father could not see the kiss George had placed on the superscription of his letter. Mr. Osborne dropped it with the bitterest, deadliest pang of balked affection and revenge. His son was still beloved and unforgiven.

About two months afterward, however, as the young ladies of the family went to church with their father, they remarked how he took a different seat from that which he usually occupied when he chose to attend divine worship; and that from his cushion opposite, he looked up at the wall over their heads. This caused the young women likewise to gaze in the direction toward which the father's gloomy eyes pointed: and they saw an elaborate monument upon the wall, where Britannia was represented weeping over an urn, and a broken sword, and a couchant lion, indicated that the piece of sculpture had been erected in honor of a deceased warrior. The sculptors of those days had stocks of such funeral emblems in hand; as you may see still on the walls of St. Paul's, which are covered with hundreds of these braggart heathen allegories. There was a constant demand for them during the first fifteen years of the present century.

Under the memorial in question were emblazoned the well known and pompous Osborne arms; and the inscription said, that the monument was “ Sacred to the memory of George Osborne, Junior, Esq., late a captain in his majesty's -th regiment of foot, who fell on the 18th of June, 1815, aged 28 years, while fighting for his king and country in the glorious victory of Waterloo. Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.”

The sight of that stone agitated the nerves who questioned him.

"The whole army

of the sisters so much, that Miss Maria was didn't contain a finer or a better officer," compelled to leave the church. The con- the soldier said. The sergeant of the gregation made way respectfully for those captain's company (Captain Raymond had it sobbing girls clothed in deep black, and pitied now) was in town though, and was just well the stern old father seated opposite the me- of a shot in the shoulder. His honor might morial of the dead soldier. "Will he for- see him if he liked, who could tell him any give Mrs. George?" the girls said to them- thing he wanted to know about—about the selves as soon as their ebullition of grief was -th's actions. But his honor had seen Much conversation passed too among Major Dobbin no doubt, the brave captain's the acquaintances of the Osborne family, who great friend; and Mrs. Osborne, who was knew of the rupture between the son and here too, and had been very bad, he heard father, caused by the former's marriage, as every body say. They say she was out of to the chance of a reconciliation with the her mind like for six weeks or more. But young widow. There were bets among your honor knows all about that-asking the gentlemen both about Russell-square and your pardon"-the man added. in the city.

over.

Osborne put a guinea into the soldier's hand, and told him he should have another if he would bring the sergeant to the Hotel du Parc; a promise which very soon brought the desired officer to Mr. Osborne's presence. And the first soldier went away; and, after telling a comrade or two how Captain Osborne's father was arrived, and what a free-handed, generous gentleman he was, they went and made good cheer with drink and feasting, as long as the guineas lasted which had come from the proud purse of the mourning old father.

If the sisters had any anxiety regarding the possible recognition of Amelia as a daughter of the family, it was increased presently, and toward the end of the autumn, by their father's announcement that he was going abroad. He did not say whither, but they knew at once that his steps would be turned toward Belgium, and were aware that George's widow was still in Brussels. They had pretty accurate news indeed of poor Amelia from Lady Dobbin and her daughters. Our honest captain had been promoted in consequence In the sergeant's company, who was also of the death of the second major of the just convalescent, Osborne made the journey regiment on the field; and the brave of Waterloo and Quatre Bras, a journey O'Dowd, who had distinguished himself which thousands of his countrymen were greatly here as upon all occasions where he then taking. He took the sergeant with had a chance to show his coolness and valor, him in his carriage, and went through both was a Colonel and Companion of the Bath. fields under his guidance. He saw the Very many of the brave-th, who had point of the road where the regiment suffered severely upon both days of action, marched into action on the 16th, and the were still at Brussels in the autuinn, re- slope down which they drove the French covering of their wounds. The city was a cavalry who were pressing on the retreating vast military hospital for months after the Belgians. There was the spot where the great battles; and as men and officers began noble captain cut down the French officer to rally from their hurts, the gardens and who was grappling with the young ensign places of public resort swarmed with maim- for the colors, the color-sergeants having ed warriors old and young, who, just res- been shot down. Along this road they recued out of death, fell to gambling and gay-treated on, the next day, and here was the ety, and love-making, as people of Vanity bank at which the regiment bivouacked unFair will do. Mr. Osborne found out some der the rain of the night of the 17th. of the th easily. He knew their uniform Further on was the position which they quite well, and had been used to follow all took and held during the day, forming time the promotions and exchanges in the regi- after time to receive the charge of the ment, and loved to talk about it and its enemy's horsemen, and lying down under officers as if he had been one of the num- shelter of the bank from the furious French ber. On the day after his arrival at Brus- cannonade. And it was at this declivity sels, and as he issued from his hotel, which when at evening the whole English line faced the park, he saw a soldier in the well-received the order to advance, as the enemy known facings, reposing on a stone-bench fell back after his last charge, that the captain in the garden, and went and sate down trembling by the wounded convalescent man. "Were you in Captain Osborne's company?" he said, and added, after a pause, he was my son, sir."

The man was not of the captain's company, but he lifted up his unwounded arm and touched his cap sadly and respectfully to the haggard, broken-spirited gentleman

hurraing and rushing down the hill waving his sword, received a shot and fell dead. "It was Major Dobbin who took back the captain's body to Brussels," the sergeant said in a low voice, "and had him buried, as your honor knows." The peasants and relichunters about the place were screaming round the pair, as the soldier told his story, offering for sale all sorts of mementoes of

with an oath, to the lackey on the box. A minute afterward, a horse came clattering over the pavement behind Osborne's carriage, and Dobbin rode up. His thoughts had been elsewhere as the carriages passed each other, and it was not until he had ridden some paces forward that he remembered it was Osborne who had just passed him. Then he turned to examine if the sight of her father-in-law had made any

the fight, crosses, and epaulets, and shattered | geant, with a curse and defiance in his eye, cuirasses, and eagles. cast at his companion, who could not help Osborne gave a sumptuous reward to the looking at him--as much as to say: How sergeant when he parted with him, after dare you look at me? Damn you: I do having visited the scenes of his son's last hate her. It is she who has tumbled my exploits. His burial place he had already hopes and all my pride down." "Tell the seen. Indeed he had driven thither im-scoundrel to drive on quick," he shouted mediately after his arrival at Brussels. George's body lay in the pretty burialground of Lacken, near the city; in which place, having once visited it on a party of pleasure, he had lightly expressed a wish to have his grave made. And there the young officer was laid by his friend, in the unconsecrated corner of the garden, separated by a little hedge from the temples and towns and plantations of flowers and shrubs, under which the Roman Catholic dead re-impression on Amelia, but the poor girl did pose. It seemed a humiliation to old Os- not know who had passed. Then William, borne to think that his son, an English who daily used to accompany her in his gentleman, a captain in the famous British drives, taking out his watch, made some army, should not be found worthy to lie in excuse about an engagement which he sudground where mere foreigners were buried. denly recollected, and so rode off. She did Which of us is there can tell how much not remark that either: but sate looking bevanity lurks in our warmest regard for oth-fore her, over the homely landscape toward ers, and how selfish our love is? Old Os- the woods in the distance, by which George borne did not speculate much upon the marched away. mingled nature of his feelings, and how his instinct and selfishness were combating together. He firmly believed that every thing he did was right, that he ought on all occasions to have his own way-and like the sting of a wasp or serpent his hatred rushed out armed and poisonous against any thing like opposition. He was proud of his hatred as of every thing else. Always to be right, always to trample forward, and never to doubt, are not these the great qualities with which dullness takes the lead in the world?

66

Mr. Osborne, Mr. Osborne !" cried Dobbin, as he rode up and held out his hand. Osborne made no motion to take it, but shouted out once more, and with another curse to his servant to drive on. Dobbin laid his hand on the carriage side. "I will see you, sir," he said. "I have a message for you."

"From that woman?" said Osborne, fiercely.

No," replied the other, from your son; at which Osborne fell back into the corner of his carriage, and Dobbin allowing it to pass on, rode close behind it, and so through the town until they reached Mr. Osborne's hotel, and without a word. There he followed Osborne up to his apartments. George had often been in the rooms; they were the lodgings which the Crawleys had occupied during their stay in Brussels.

Pray, have you any commands for me, Captain Dobbin, or, I beg your pardon, I should say Major Dobbin, since better men than you are dead, and you step into their shoes," said Mr. Osborne, in that sarcastic tone which he sometimes was pleased to assume.

As after the drive to Waterloo, Mr. Osborne's carriage was nearing the gates of the city at sunset, they met another open barouche, in which were a couple of ladies and a gentleman, and by the side of which an officer was riding. Osborne gave a start back, and the sergeant, seated with him, cast a look of surprise at his neighbor, as he touched his cap to the officer, who mechanically returned his salute. It was Amelia, with the lame young ensign by her side, and opposite to her her faithful friend Mrs. O'Dowd. It was Amelia, but how changed from the fresh and comely girl Osborne knew. Her face was white and thin. Her "Better men are dead," Dobbin replied. pretty brown hair was parted under a wid-"I want to speak to you about one." ow's cap-the poor child. Her eyes were "Make it short, sir," said the other with fixed, and looking nowhere. They stared blank in the face of Osborne, as the carriages crossed each other, but she did not know him; nor did he recognize her; until looking up, he saw Dobbin riding by her, and then he knew who it was. He hated her. He did not know how much until he saw her there. When her carriage had passed on, he turned and stared at the ser

an oath, scowling at his visitor.

"I am here as his closest friend," the major resumed, "and the executor of his will. He made it before we went into action. Are you aware how small his means are, and of the straitened circumstances of his widow?"

"I don't know his widow, sir," Osborne Let her go back to her father." But

said.