And many ladies round about whispered and talked, and many gentlemen nodded and whispered, as they saw what marked attention the great nobleman was paying to the little adventuress.

What were the circumstances of the interview between Rebecca Crawley, née Sharp, and her imperial master, it does not become such a feeble and inexperienced pen as mine to attempt to relate. The dazzled eyes close before that magnificent idea. Loyal respect and decency tell even the imagination not to look too keenly and audaciously about the sacred audience-chamber, but to back away rapidly, silently, and respectfully, making profound bows, out of the august pres

ence.

This may be said, that in all London there was no more loyal heart than Becky's after this interview. The name of her king was always on her lips, and he was proclaimed by her to be the most charming of men. She went to Colnaghi's and ordered the finest portrait of him that art had produced, and credit would supply. She chose that famous one in which the best of monarchs is represented in a frock coat with a fur collar, and breeches and silk stockings, simpering on a sofa from under his curly brown wig. She had him painted in a brooch and wore it—indeed, she amused and somewhat pestered her acquaintance with her perpetual talk about his urbanity and beauty. Who knows? Perhaps the little woman thought she might play the part of a Maintenon or a Pompadour.

But the finest sport of all, after her presentation, was to hear her talk virtuously. She had a few female acquaintances, not, it must be owned, of the very highest reputation in Vanity Fair. But being made an honest woman of, so to speak, Becky would not consort any longer with these dubious ones, and cut Lady Crackenbury, when the latter nodded to her from her opera box; and gave Mrs. Washington White the go-by in the ring. "One must, my dear, show one is somebody," she said. "One musn't be seen with doubtful people. I pity Lady Crackenbury from my heart; and Mrs. Washington White may be a very good natured person. You may go and dine with them, as you like your rubber. But I musn't, and won't; and you will have the goodness to tell Smith to say I am not at home when either of them calls."

The particulars of Becky's costume were in the newspapers-feathers, lappets, superb diamonds, and all the rest. Mrs. Crackenbury read the paragraph in bitterness of spirit, and discoursed to her followers about the airs which that woman was giving herself. Mrs. Bute Crawley and her young ladies in the country had a copy of the Morning Post from town; and gave a vent to their honest indignation. "If you had

been sandy-haired, green-eyed, and a French rope-dancer's daughter," Mrs. Bute said to her eldest girl (who, on the contrary, was a very swarthy, short, and snub-nosed young lady), "you might have had superb diamonds, forsooth, and have been presented at court, by your cousin, the Lady Jane But you're only a gentlewoman, my poor, dear child. You have only some of the best blood in England in your veins, and good principles and piety for your portion. I, myself, the wife of a baronet's younger brother, too, never thought of such a thing as going to court-nor would other people, if good Queen Charlotte had been alive." In this way the worthy rectoress consoled herself; and her daughters sighed, and sate over the peerage all night.

A few days after the famous presentation, another great and exceeding honor was vouchsafed to the virtuous Becky. Lady Steyne's carriage drove up to Mr. Rawdon Crawley's door, and the footman, instead of driving down the front of the house, as by his tremendous knocking he appeared to be inclined to do, relented, and only delivered in a couple of cards, on which were engraven the names of the Marchioness of Steyne and the Countess of Gaunt. If these bits of pasteboard had been beautiful pictures, or had had a hundred yards of Malines lace rolled round them, worth twice the number of guineas, Becky could not have regarded them with more pleasure. You may be sure they occupied a conspicuous place in the china bowl on the drawing-room table, where Becky kept the cards of her visitors. Lord! lord! how poor Mrs. Washington White's card and Lady Crackenbury's card, which our little friend had been glad enough to get a few months back, and of which the silly little creature was rather proud onceLord! lord! I say, how soon, at the appearance of these grand court cards, did those poor little neglected deuces sink down to the bottom of the pack. Steyne! Bareacres, Johnes of Helvellyn and Caerly on of Camelot! we may be sure that Becky and Briggs looked out those august names in the peerage, and followed the noble races up through all the ramifications of the family tree.

My Lord Steyne, coming to call a couple of hours afterward, and looking about him, and observing every thing as was his wont, found his lady's cards already ranged as the trumps of Becky's hand, and grinned, as this old cynic always did at any naïve display of human weakness. Becky came down to him presently: whenever the dear girl expected his lordship, her toilet was prepared, her hair in perfect order, her mouchoirs, aprons, scarfs, little morocco slippers, and other female gimcracks arranged, and she seated in some artless and agreeable posture

ready to receive him-whenever she was surprised, of course, she had to fly to her apartment to take a rapid survey of matters in the glass, and to trip down again to wait upon the great peer.

women will bully you!" This was a very long speech for a man of few words, like my Lord Steyne; nor was it the first which he had uttered for Becky's benefit on that day.

Briggs looked up from the work-table at which she was seated, in the farther room, and gave a deep sigh as she heard the great marquis speak so lightly of her sex.

"I know you were; I saw you through the area-railings as I drove up,” replied the old gentleman.

66

"If you don't turn off that abominable

66

Is it a crime to try and look my best when you come here?" answered Mrs. Rawdon, plaintively, and she rubbed her cheek with her handkerchief, as if to show there was no rouge at all, only genuine blushes and modesty in her case. About this who can tell? I know there is some rouge that won't come off on a pocket-handkerchief; and some so good that even tears will not disturb it. "Well," said the old gentleman, twiddling round his wife's card, you are bent upon becoming a fine lady. You pester my poor old life out to get you into the world. You won't be able to hold your own there, you silly little fool. You've got no money."

You will get us a place," interposed Becky, as quick as possible.

"You've got no money, and you want to compete with those who have. You poor little earthenware pipkin, you want to swim down the stream along with the great copper kettles. All women are alike. Every body is striving for what is not worth the having! Gad! I dined with the king yesterday, and we had neck of mutton and turnips. A dinner of herbs is better than a stalled ox, very often. You will go to Gaunt House. You give an old fellow no rest until you get there. It's not half so nice as here. You'll be bored there. I am. My wife is as gay as Lady Macbeth, and my daughters as cheerful as Regan and Goneril. I daren't sleep in what they call my bed-room. The bed is like the baldaquin of St. Peter's, and the pictures frighten me. I have a little brass bed in a dressing room and a little hair mattress like an anchorite. I am an anchorite. Ho! ho! You'll be asked to dinner next week. And gare aux femmes, look out and hold your own! How the

66

"I can't send her away," Becky said presently, after a pause, and in a very sad voice. Her eyes filled with tears as she spoke, and she turned away her head.

"You owe her wages, I suppose?" said the peer.

"Worse than that," said Becky, still casting down her eyes; "I have ruined her."

"Ruined her? then why don't you turn her out?" the gentleman asked.

"Men do that," Becky answered, bitterly. "Women are not so bad as you. Last year when we were reduced to our last guinea, she gave us every thing. She shall never leave me, until we are ruined utterly ourselves, which does not seem far off, or until I can pay her the uttermost farthing."

66

it, how much is it?" said the peer, with an oath. And Becky, reflecting on the largeness of his means, mentioned not only the sum which she had borrowed from Miss Briggs, but one of nearly double the amount.

This caused Lord Steyne to break out in another brief and energetic expression of anger, at which Rebecca held down her head the more, and cried bitterly. "I could not help it. It was my only chance. I dare not tell my husband. He would kill me if I told him what I have done. I have kept it a secret from every body but you—and you forced it from me. Ah, what shall I do, Lord Steyne? for I am very, very unhappy!"

Lord Steyne made no reply except by beating the devil's tattoo, and biting his nails. At last he clapped his hat on his head, and flung out of the room. Rebecca did not rise from her attitude of misery until the door slammed upon him, and his carriage whirled away. Then she rose up with the queerest expression of victorious mischief glittering

CHAPTER XLIX.

That night, there came two notes from Gaunt House for the little woman, the one containing a card of invitation from Lord and Lady Steyne to a dinner at Gaunt House next Friday while the other inclosed a slip of gray paper bearing Lord Steyne's signature and the address of Messrs. Jones, Brown, and Robinson, Lombard-street.

Rawdon heard Becky laughing in the night once or twice. It was only her delight at going to Gaunt House and facing the ladies there, she said, which amused her so. But the truth was, that she was occupied with a great number of other thoughts. Should she pay off old Briggs and give her her congé? Should she astonish Raggles by settling his account? She turned over all these thoughts on her pillow, and on the next day, when Rawdon went out to pay his morning visit to the club, Mrs. Crawley (in a modest dress with a vail on) whipped off in a hackney-coach to the city: and being landed at Messrs. Jones and Robinson's bank, presented a document there to the authority at the desk, who, in reply, asked her "How she would take it?"

She gently said "she would take a hundred and fifty pounds in small notes and the remainder in one note:" and passing through St. Paul's Church Yard stopped there and bought the handsomest black silk gown for Briggs which money could buy; and which, with a kiss and the kindest speeches, she presented to the simple old spinster.

Then she walked to Mr. Raggles, inquired about his children affectionately, and gave him fifty pounds on account. Then she went to the livery-man from whom she jobbed her carriages and gratified him with a similar sum. "And I hope this will be a lesson to you, Spavin," she said, "and that on the next drawing-room day my brother, Sir Pitt, will not be inconvenienced by being obliged to take four of us in his carriage to wait upon his majesty, because my own carriage is not forthcoming." It appears there had been a difference on the last drawingroom day. Hence the degradation which the colonel had almost suffered, of being obliged to enter the presence of his sovereign in a hack cab.

These arrangements concluded, Becky paid a visit up-stairs to the before-mentioned desk, which Amelia Sedley had given her years and years ago, and which contained a number of useful and valuable little things in which private museum she placed the one note which Messrs. Jones and Robinson's cashier had given her.

A DESSERT.

WHEN the ladies of Gaunt House were at breakfast that morning, Lord Steyne (who took his chocolate in private, and seldom disturbed the females of his household, or saw them except upon public days, or when they crossed each other in the hall, or when from his pit-box at the opera he surveyed them in their box on the grand tier)—his lordship, we say, appeared among the ladies and the children who were assembled over the tea and toast, and a battle royal ensued apropos of Rebecca.

My Lady Steyne," he said, "I want to see the list for your dinner on Friday; and I want you, if you please, to write a card for Colonel and Mrs. Crawley."

"Blanche writes them," Lady Steyne said in a flutter. "Lady Gaunt writes them." "I will not write to that person," Lady Gaunt said, a tall and stately lady, who looked up for an instant and then down again after she had spoken. It was not good to meet Lord Steyne's eyes for those who had offended him.

"Send the children out of the room. Go!" said he, pulling at the bell-rope. The urchins, always frightened before him, retired: their mother would have followed too.

Not you," he said. You stop."

66

My Lady Steyne," he said, "once more, will you have the goodness to go to the desk, and write that card for your dinner on Friday?"

66

My lord, I will not be present at it,” Lady Gaunt said; "I will go home."

66

I wish you would, and stay there. You will find the bailiffs at Bareacres very pleasant company, and I shall be freed from lending money to your relations, and from your own damned tragedy airs. Who are you to give orders here? You have no money. You've got no brains. You were here to have children, and you have not had any. Gaunt's tired of you; and George's wife is the only person in the family who doesn't wish you were dead. Gaunt would marry again if you were."

"I wish I were," her ladyship answered, with tears and rage in her eyes.

66

You, forsooth, must give yourself airs of virtue; while my wife, who is an immaculate saint, as every body knows, and never did wrong in her life, has no objection to meet my young friend, Mrs. Crawley. My Lady Steyne knows that appearances are sometimes against the best of women; that lies are often told about the most innocent of them. Pray, madam, shall I tell you some little anecdotes about my Lady Bareacres, your mamma?"