On which, of course, Miss Sharp looked at her friend, and they both set off in a fit of laughter, highly agreeable to the old gentleman. 66 Did you ever see a pair of buckskins like those, at Miss Pinkerton's?" continued he, following up his advantage. 66 "Look at him, isn't he handsome enough imagination; she had, besides, read the to dine any where, Miss Sharp?" "Arabian Nights" and Guthrie's Geography," and it is a fact, that while she was dressing for dinner, and after she had asked Amelia whether her brother was very rich, she had built for herself a most magnificent castle in the air, of which she was mistress, with a husband somewhere in the background (she had not seen him as yet, and his figure would not therefore be very distinct); she had arrayed herself in an infinity of shawls, turbans, and diamond necklaces, and had mounted upon an elephant to the sound of the march in Bluebeard, in order to pay a visit of ceremony to the Grand Mogul. Charming Aluaschar visions! it is the happy privilege of youth to construct you, and many a fanciful young creature besides Rebecca Sharp, has indulged in these delightful day-dreams ere now! "Gracious heavens! Father," cried Joseph. 66 There now, I have hurt his feelings. Mrs. Sedley, my dear, I have hurt your son's feelings. I have alluded to his buckskins. Ask Miss Sharp if I haven't? Come, Joseph, be friends with Miss Sharp, and let us all go to dinner." "There's a pillau, Joseph, just as you like it, and papa has brought home the best turbot in Billingsgate." Come, come, sir, walk down stairs with Miss Sharp, and I will follow with these two young women," said the father, and he took an arm of wife and daughter and walked merrily off. If Miss Rebecca Sharp had determined in her heart upon making the conquest of this big beau, I don't think, ladies, we have any right to blame her; for though the task of husband-hunting is generally, and with becoming modesty, intrusted by young persons to their mammas, recollect that Miss Sharp had no kind parent to arrange these delicate matters for her, and that if she did not get a husband for herself, there was no one else in the wide world who would take the trouble off her hands. What causes young people to "come out," but the noble ambition of matrimony? What sends them trooping to watering-places? What keeps them dancing till five o'clock in the morning through a whole mortal season? What causes them to labor at piano-forte sonatas, and to learn four songs from a fashionable master at a guinea a lesson, and to play the harp if they have handsome arms and neat elbows, and to wear Lincoln Green toxopholite hats and feathers, but that they may bring down some "desirable" young man with those killing bows and arrows of theirs? What causes respectable parents to take up their carpets, set their houses topsy-turvy, and spend a fifth of their year's income in ball suppers and iced champagne? Is it sheer love of their species, and an unadulterated wish to see young people happy and dancing? Psha! they want to marry their daughters; and, as honest Mrs. Sedley has, in the depths of her kind heart, already arranged a score of little schemes for the settlement of her Amelia, so also had our beloved but unprotected Rebecca, determined to do her very best to secure the husband, who was even more necessary for her than for her friend. She had a vivid B Joseph Sedley was twelve years older than his sister Amelia. He was in the East India Company's Civil Service, and his name appeared, at the period of which we write, in the Bengal division of the East India Register, as collector of Boggley Wollah, an honorable and lucrative post, as every body knows: in order to know to what higher posts Joseph rose in the service, the reader is referred to the same periodical. Boggley Wollah is situated in a fine, lonely, marshy, jungly district, famous for snipeshooting, and where not unfrequently you may flush a tiger. Ramgunge, where there is a magistrate, is only forty miles off, and there is a cavalry station about thirty miles farther; so Joseph wrote home to his parents, when he took possession of his collectorship. He had lived for about eight years of his life, quite alone, at this charming place, scarcely seeing a Christian face, except twice a year, when the detachment arrived to carry off the revenues which he had collected, to Calcutta. Luckily, at this time he caught a liver complaint, for the cure of which he returned to Europe, and which was the source of great comfort and amusement to him in his native country. He did not live with his family while in London, but had lodgings of his own, like a gay young bachelor. Before he went to India he was too young to partake of the delightful pleasures of a man about town, and plunged into them, on his return, with considerable assiduity. drove his horses in the park; he dined at the fashionable taverns (for the Oriental Club was not as yet invented); he frequented the theaters, as the mode was in those days, or made his appearance at the opera, laboriously attired in tights and a cocked hat. He On returning to India, and ever after, he used to talk of the pleasure of this period of his existence with great enthusiasm, and give you to understand that he and Brum mel were the leading bucks of the day. I mind. "Does she really think I am handBut he was as lonely here as in his jungle at some?" thought he, "or is she only making Boggley Wollah. He scarcely knew a sin-game of me!" We have talked of Joseph gle soul in the metropolis: and were it not Sedley being as vain as a girl. Heaven help for his doctor, and the society of his blue- us! the girls have only to turn the tables, pill, and his liver complaint, he must have and say of one of their own sex, "She is as died of loneliness. He was lazy, peevish, vain as a man," and they will have perfect and a bon-vivant; the appearance of a lady reason. The bearded creatures are quite frightened him beyond measure; hence it as eager for praise, quite as finikin over their was but seldom that he joined the paternal toilets, quite as proud of their personal adcircle in Russell-square, where there was vantages, quite as conscious of their powplenty of gayety, and where the jokes of his ers of fascination, as any coquette in the good-natured old father frightened his amour- world. propre. His bulk caused Joseph much anxious thought and alarm; now and then he would make a desperate attempt to get rid of his superabundant fat; but his indolence and love of good living speedily got the better of these endeavors at reform, and he found himself again at his three meals a day. He never was well dressed; but he took the hugest pains to adorn his big person, and passed many hours daily in that occupation. His valet made a fortune out of his ward robe his toilet-table was covered with as many pomatums and essences as ever were employed by an old beauty: he had tried, in order to give himself a waist, every girth, stay, and waistband then invented. Like most fat men, he would have his clothes made too tight, and took care they should be of the most brilliant colors and youthful cut. When dressed at length, in the afternoon, he would issue forth to take a drive with nobody in the Park; and then would come back in order to dress again and go and dine with nobody at the Piazza CoffeeHouse. He was as vain as a girl; and perhaps his extreme shyness was one of the results of his extreme vanity. If Miss Rebecca can get the better of him, and at her first entrance into life, she is a young person of no ordinary cleverness. The first move showed considerable skill. When she called Sedley a very handsome man, she knew that Amelia would tell her mother, who would probably tell Joseph, or who, at any rate, would be pleased by the compliment paid to her son. All mothers are. If you had told Sycorax that her son Caliban was as handsome as Apollo, she would have been pleased, witch as she was. Perhaps, too, Joseph Sedley would overhear the compliment-Rebecca spoke loud enough-and he did hear, and (thinking in his heart that he was a very fine man) the praise thrilled through every fibre of his big body, and made it tingle with pleasure. Then, however, came a recoil. "Is the girl making fun of me?" he thought, and straightway he bounced toward the bell, and was for retreating, as we have seen, when his father's jokes and his mother's entreaties caused him to pause and stay where he He conducted the young lady down to dinner in a dubious and agitated frame of | was. Down stairs, then, they went, Joseph very red and blushing, Rebecca very modest, and holding her green eyes downward. She was dressed in white, with bare shoulders as white as snow-the picture of youth, unprotected innocence, and humble, virgin simplicity. "I must be very quiet," thought Rebecca, "and very much interested about India.” Now we have heard how Mrs. Sedley had prepared a fine curry for her son, just as he liked it, and in the course of dinner a portion of this dish was offered to Rebecca. What is it?" said she, turning an appealing look to Mr. Joseph. "Capital," said he. His mouth was full of it: his face quite red with the delightful exercise of gobbling. Mother, it's as good 66 66 as my own curries in India." "Give Miss Sharp some curry, my dear." said Mr. Sedley, laughing. Rebecca had never tasted the dish before. "Do you find it as good as every thing else from India ?" 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 "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. You won't like every thing from India POOR Joe's panic lasted for two or three now, Miss Sharp," said the old gentleman; days; during which he did not visit the but when the ladies had retired after dinner, house, nor during that period did Miss Rethe wily old fellow said to his son, "Have a becca ever mention his name. She was all care, Joe; that girl is setting her cap at you." respectful gratitude to Mrs. Sedley; de"Pooh! nonsense!" said Joe, highly flat-lighted beyond measure at the bazaars; and tered. "I recollect, sir, there was a girl at in a whirl of wonder at the theater, whither Dumdum, a daughter of Cutler of the Artil- the good-natured lady took her. One day, lery, and afterward married to Lance, the Amelia had a head-ache, and could not go surgeon, who made a dead set at me in the upon some party of pleasure to which the year '4-at me and Mulligatawney, whom two young people were invited nothing I mentioned to you before dinner-a devilish could induce her friend to go without her. good fellow Mulligatawney-he's a magis-"What! you who have shown the poor ortrate at Budgebudge, and sure to be in phan what happiness and love are for the council in five years. Well, sir, the Artil- first time in her life-quit you? never! and lery gave a ball, and Quintin, of the king's the green eyes looked up to Heaven and fill14th, said to me, Sedley,' said he, I bet ed with tears; and Mrs. Sedley could not you thirteen to ten that Sophy Cutler hooks but own that her daughter's friend had a either you or Mulligatawney before the charming, kind heart of her own. 'Done,' says I; and egad, sir-this As for Mr. Sedley's jokes, Rebecca laughclaret's very good. Adamson's or Carbo-ed at them with a cordiality and persever rains.' 6 nell's ?" A slight snore was the only reply: the honest stock-broker was asleep, and so the rest of Joseph's story was lost for that day. But he is 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 every thing) he thought a great deal about the girl up stairs. "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 drawingroom? '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 stand 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. ance which not a little pleased and softened the good-natured gentleman. Nor was it with the chiefs of the family alone that Miss Sharp found favor. 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 apologized 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." 66 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 fa 66 "O Joseph, we know that story," said Amelia, laughing. Never mind about telling that; but persuade mamma to write to Sir Something Crawley." "Had he a son in the King's Light Dragoons in India?" "Well, will you write to him 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." 66 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 any body not to be good to you, my dear," said her mother. 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." 66 est; 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 holydays-"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 The children must have some one with them," cried Mrs. Sedley. 66 Let Joe go," said his father, laughing. "He's big enough." At which speech even No," said she, "I know you wouldn't;" Mr. Sambo at the sideboard burst out laughand then she gave him ever so gentle a pres-ing, and poor fat Joe felt inclined to becoine sure with her little hand, and drew it back a parricide almost. quit 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 immod 66 "Undo his stays!" continued the pitiless old gentleman. Fling some water in his face, Miss Sharp, or carry him up stairs: 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. Jo's elephant, Sambo!” cried the father. "Send to Exeter 'Change, with him yet. Here is Emmy's little friend making love to him as hard as she can; that's quite clear; and if she does not catch him some other will. That man is destined to be a prey to woman, as I am to go on Sambo" but seeing Joe 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 cham-'Change every day. It's a mercy he did not pagne. 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 twothirds, he had agreed to take the young ladies to Vauxhall. "The girls must have a gentleman apiece," said the old gentleman. 66 Jos will be sure to leave Emmy in the crowd, he will be so taken up with Miss Sharp here. Send to 26, 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 lifeat 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 hand-writing we have brought back from Miss Pinkerton's. Do you remember when you wrote to him to come on Twelfthnight, Emmy, and spelt twelfth without the f!" bring us over a black daughter-in-law, my dear. But, mark my words, the first woman who fishes for him, hooks him." She shall go off to-morrow, the little artful creature," said Mrs. Sedley, with great energy. "Why not she as well as another, Mrs. Sedley? The girl's a white face at any rate. I don't care who marries him. Let Joe please himself.” And presently the voices of the two speakers were hushed, or were replaced by the gentle but unromantic music of the nose; and save when the church bells tolled the hour and the watchman called it, all was silent at the house of John Sedley, Esquire, of Russell-square, and the Stock Exchange. When morning came, the good-natured Mrs. Sedley no longer thought of executing her threats with regard to Miss Sharp; for though nothing is more keen, nor more common, nor more justifiable, than maternal jealousy, yet she could not bring herself to suppose that the little, humble, grateful, gentle governess, would dare to look up to such a magnificent personage as the collector of Boggley Wollah. The petition, too, for an extension of the young lady's leave of absence had already been dispatched, and it would be difficult to find a pretext for abruptly dismissing her. "It seems like yesterday, don't it, John?" said Mrs. Sedley to her husband; and that And as if all things conspired in favor of night, in a conversation which took place in the gentle Rebecca, the very elements (ala front room in the second-floor, in a sort of though she was not inclined at first to actent, hung round with chintz of a rich fan- knowledge their action in her behalf) intertastic India pattern, and doublé with calico posed to aid her. For on the evening apof a tender rose-color; in the interior of pointed for the Vauxhall party, George Oswhich species of marquee was a feather-borne having come to dinner, and the elders bed, on which were two pillows, on which were two round red faces, one in a laced night-cap, and one in a simple cotton one, ending in a tassel: in a curtain lecture, I say, Mrs. Sedley took her husband to task for his cruel conduct to poor Joe. It was quite wicked of you, Mr. Sedley," said she, "to torment the poor boy So. 66 of the house having departed, according to invitation, to dine with Alderman Balls, at Highbury Barn, there came on such a thunder-storm as only happens on Vauxhall nights, and as obliged the young people, perforce, to remain at home. Mr. Osborne did not seem in the least disappointed at this occurrence. He and Joseph Sedley drank a fitting quantity of port-wine, tête-à-tête, in My dear," said the cotton-tassel in de- the dining-room, during the drinking of fense of his conduct, "Jos is a great deal which Sedley told a number of his best Invainer than you ever were in your life, and dian stories; for he was extremely talkative that's saying a good deal. Though, some in man's society, and afterward Miss Amethirty years ago, in the year seventeen hun- lia Sedley did the honors of the drawingdred and eighty-what was it? perhaps you room; and these four young persons passed had a right to be vain. I don't say no. But such a comfortable evening together, that I've no patience with Jos and his dandified they declared they were rather glad of the modesty. It is out-Josephing Joseph, my thunder-storm than otherwise, which had dear, and all the while the boy is only think- caused them to put off their visit to Vauxing of himself, and what a fine fellow he is. hall. I doubt, Ma'am, we shall have some trouble Osborne was Sedley's godson, and had |