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strange or novel? Has he not been a hun- as a gentleman to the fact. If we had come dred times before in the same position? -and it was only one of Mrs. Wenham's Upon my honor and word as a gentleman" headaches which prevented us-she suffers (Mr. Wenham here put his hand on his under them a good deal, especially in the waistcoat with a parlamentary air), "I de- spring-f we had come, and you had reclare I think that your suspicions are mon- turned home, there would have been no strous and utterly unfounded, and that they quarrel, no insult, no suspicion-and so it is injure an honorable gentleman, who has positively because my poor wife has a headproved his good will toward you by a thou- ache that you are to bring death down upon sand benefactions and a most spotless and two men of honor, and plunge two of the innocent lady." most excellent and ancient families in the

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You don't mean to say that—that Craw-kingdom into disgrace and sorrow." ley's mistaken?" said Mr. Macmurdo.

I believe that Mrs. Crawley is as innocent as my wife, Mrs. Wenham," Mr. Wenham said, with great energy. "I be lieve that, misled by an infernal jealousy, my friend here strikes a blow against not only an infirm aud old man of high station, his constant friend and benefactor, but against his wife, his own dearest honor, his son's future reputation, and his own prospects in life.

"I will tell you what happened," Mr. Wenhamn continued with great solemnity; "I was sent for this morning by my Lord Steyne, and found him in a pitiable state, as, I need hardly inform Colonel Crawley, any man of age and infirmity would be after a personal conflict with a man of your strength. say to your face, it was a cruel advantage you took of that strength, Colonel Crawley. It was not only the body of my noble and excellent friend which was wounded-his heart, sir, was bleeding. A man whom he had loaded with benefits and regarded with affection, had subjected him to the foulest ind guity. What was th's very appointment, which appears in the journals of to-day, but a proof of his kindness to you? When I saw his lordship this morning. I found him in a state pitiable indeed to see; and as anxious as you are to revenge the outrage committed upon him, by blood. You know he has given his proofs, 1 presume, Colonel Crawley?"

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Mr. Macmurdo looked at his principal with the air of a man profoundly puzzled: and Rawdon felt with a kind of rage that his prey was escaping him. He did not believe a word of the story, and yet, how discredit or disprove it?

Mr. Wenhamn continued with the same fluent oratory, which in his place in parlament he had so often practiced-"I sate for an hour or more by Lord Steyne's bedside, beseeching, imploring Lord Steyne to forego his intention of demanding a meeting. I pointed out to him that the circumstances were after all suspicious-they were suspicious. I acknowledge it, any man in your position might have been taken in—I said that a man furious with jealousy is to all intents and purposes a madman, and should be as such regarded-that a duel between you must lead to the disgrace of all parties concerned-that a man of his lordship's exalted station had no right in these days, when the most atrocious revolutionary principles, and the most dangerous leveling doctrines are preached among the vulgar, to create a public scandal; and that, however innocent, the common people would insist that he was guilty. In fine, I implored him not to send the challenge.'

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"I don't believe one word of the whole story," said Rawdon, grinding his teeth. I believe it a damned lie, and that you're in it, Mr. Wenham. If the challenge don't come from him, by Jove it shall come from me."

Mr. Wenham turned deadly pale at this savage interruption of the colonel, and looked toward the door.

But he found a champion in Captain Macmurdo. That gentleman rose up with an oath, and rebuked Rawdon for his lat guage. "You put the affair into my hands, and you shall act as I think fit, by Jove, and not as you do. You have no right to insult Mr. Wenham with this sort of language; and damme, Mr. Wenham, you deserve an apology. And as for a challenge to Lord Steyne, you may get somebody else to carry it, I won't. If my lord, after being thrashed, chooses to sit still, damme, let him. for the affair with-with Mrs. Crawley, my belef is, there's nothing proved at all: that your wife's innocent, as innocent as Mr. Wenham says she is: and at any rate, that

And as

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fool not to take the place

you would be a And after this preface, he tried with all and hold your tongue." his eloquence to effect a reconciliation beCaptain Macmurdo, you speak like a tween Rawdon and his wife. He recapitu man of sense," Mr. Wenham cried out, im-lated the statements which Becky had made, mensely relieved-" I forget any words that pointed out the probabilities of their truth, Colonel Crawley has used in the irritation and asserted his own firm belief in her inno of the moment."

"I thought you would," Rawdon said, with a sneer.

cence.

But Rawdon would not hear of it. "She has kept money concealed from me these "Shut your mouth, you old stoopid," the ten years," he said. She swore, last night captain sad, good-naturedly. "Mr. Wen-only, she had none from Steyne. She knew ham ain't a fighting man; and quite right, it was all up, directly I found it. If she's not guilty, Pitt, she's as bad as guilty; and I'll never see her again, never." His head sunk down on his chest as he spoke the words; and he looked quite broken and sad. "Poor old boy," Macmurdo said, shaking

too."

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This matter, in my belief." the Steyne emissary cried, "ought to be buried in the most profound oblivion. A word concerning it should never pass these doors. I speak | in the in erest of my friend, as well as of his head. Colonel Crawley, who persists in considering me his enemy."

"I suppose Lord Steyne won't talk about it very much,' said Captain Macmurdo; "and I don't see why our side should. The affair ain't a very pretty one, any way you take it; and the less said about it the better. It's you are thrashed, and not us; and if you are satisfied, why, I think, we should be." Mr. Wenham took his hat, upon this, and Captain Macmurdo following him to the door, shut it upon himself and Lord Steyue's agent, leaving Rawdon chafing within. When the two were on the other side, Macmurdo looked hard at the other embassador, and with an expression of any thing but respect on his round jolly face.

"You don't stick at a trifle, Mr. Wenham," he said.

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Rawdon Crawley resisted for some t'me the idea of taking the place which had been procured for him by so odious a patron : aud was also for removing the boy from the school where Lord Steyne's interest had placed him. He was induced, however, to acquiesce in these benefits by the entreaties of his brother and Macmurdo: but mainly by the latter pointing out to him what a funy Steyne would be in, to think that his euemy's fortune was made through his means.

When the Marquis of Steyne came abroad after his accident, the colonial secretary bowed up to him and congratulated himself and the service upon having made so excellent an appointment. These congratulations were received with a degree of gratitude which may be imagined on the part of Lord Steyne.

You flatter me, Captain Macmurdo," answered the other, with a smile. "Upon The secret of the rencontre between him my honor and conscience, now, Mrs. Craw-and Colonel Crawley was buried in the proley did ask us to sup after the Opera." foundest oblivion, as Wenham said; that is, "Of course; and Mrs. Wenham had one by the seconds and the principals. But beof her headaches. I say, I've got a thou-fore that evening was over it was talked of sand pound note here, which I will give you at fifty dinner tables in Vanity Fair. Little if you will give me a receipt, please; and I will put the note up in an envelope for Lord Steyne. My inan shan't fight him. But we had rather not take his money."

It was all a mistake-all a mistake, my dear sir," the other sad, with the utmost innocence of manner; and was bowed down the club steps by Captain Macmurdo, just as Sir Pitt Crawley ascended them. There was a slight acquaintance between these two gentlemen; and the captain, going back with the baronet to the room where the latter's brother was, told Sir Pitt in confidence, that he had made the affair all right between Lord Steyne and the colonel.

Sir Pitt was well pleased, of course, at this intelligence; and congratulated his brother warmly upon the peaceful issue of the affair, making appropriate moral remarks upon the evils of dueling, and the unsatisfactory nature of that sort of settlement of disputes.

Cackleby himself went to seven evening parties, and told the story with comments and emendations at each place. How Mrs. Washington White reveled in it! The Bishopess of Ealing was shocked beyond expression: the bishop went and wrote his name down in the visiting-book at Gaunt House that very day. Little Southdown was sorry: so you may be sure was his sister Lady Jane, very sorry. Lady Macbeth wrote it off to her other daughter at the Cape of Good Hope. It was town talk for at least three days, and was only kept out of the newspapers by the exert ons of Mr. Wagg acting upon a hint from Mr. Wenham.

The bailiffs and brokers seized upon poor Raggles in Curzon streeet, and the late fair tenant of that poor little mansion was in the mean while-where? Who cared? Who asked after a day or two? Was she guilty or not? We all know how charitable the world is, and how the verdict of Vanity

Fair goes when there is a doubt. Some|pects the old man looked much higher. He people said she had gone to Naples in pur- would make a gentleman of the little chap, suit of Lord Steyne: while others averred was Mr. Osborne's constant saying regardthat his lordship quitted that city, and fleding little Georgy. He saw him in his mind's to Palermo on hearing of Becky's arrival; eye, a collegian, a parliament-man, a baronet, some said she was living in Bierstadt, and had perhaps. The old man thought he would become a dame d'honneur to the Queen of die contented if he could see his grandson in Bulgaria; some that she was at Boulogne: a fair way to such honors. He would have and others, at a boarding-house at Chelten- none but a tip-top college man to educate ham. him-none of your quacks and pretendersRawdon made her a tolerable annuity; no, no. A few years before he used to and we may be sure that she was a woman he savage, and inveigh against all parsons, who could make a little money go a great scholars, and the like, declaring that they way, as the saying is. He would have paid were a pack of humbugs, and quacks, that his debts on leaving England, could he have weren't fit to get their Living but by grinding got any insurance office to take his life; but Latin and Greek, and a set of supercilious the climate of Coventry Island was so bad dogs, that pretended to look down upon Britthat he could borrow no money on the ish merchants and gentlemen, who could buy strength of his annuity. He remitted, how-up half a hundred of 'em. He would mourn ever, to his brother punctually, and wrote to now, in a very solemn manner, that his own his little boy regularly every mail. He kept education had been neglected, and repeatMucmurdo in cigars: and sent over quanti-edly point out in h's pompous manner, to ties of shells, cayenne pepper, hot pickles, Georgy, the necessity and excellence of guava jelly, and colonial produce to Lady classical acquirements. Jane. He sent his brother home the Swamp When they met at dinner the grandsire Town Gazette, in which the new governor used to ask the lad what he had been readwas praised with immense enthusiasm; ing during the day, and was greatly interwhereas, the Swamp Town Sentinel, whose wife was not asked to government-house. declared that his excellency was a tyrant, compared to whom Nero was an enlightened philanthropist. Little Rawdon used to like to get the papers and read about his excellency.

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ested at the report the boy gave of his own studies: pretending to understand Ittle George when he spoke regarding them. He made a hundred blunders, and showed his ignorance many a time. It did not increase the respect which the child had for his senior. A quick brain and a better education elsewhere showed the boy very scon that his grandsire was a dullard: and he began accordingly to command him and to look down upon him; for his previous education, humble and contracted as it had been, had made a much better gentleman of Georgy than any plans of his grandfather could make him. He had been brought up by a kind, weak, and tender woman, who had no pride about any thing, but about him, and whose heart was so pure and whose bearing was so meek and humble, that she could not but needs be a true lady. She busied herself in gentle offices and quiet duties; if she never said brilliant things, she never spoke or thought unkind ones: guileless and artless, loving and pure, indeed how could our poor Ettle Amelia be other than a real gentlewoman?

Young Georgy lorded over this soft and yielding nature; and the contrast of its simplicity and delicacy with the course pomposity of the dull old man with whom he next came in contact, made him lord over the latter too. If he had been a prince royal he could not have been better brought up to think well of himself.

While his mother was yearning after him at home, and I do believe every hour of the day, and during most hours of the sad, lonely nights, thinking of him, this young gentleman had a number of pleasures and con

solations administered to him, which made him, for his part, bear the separation from Amelia very easily. Little boys who cry when they are going to school, cry because they are going to a very uncomfortable place. It is only a very few who weep from sheer affection. When you think that the eyes of your childhood dried at the sight of a piece of gingerbread, and that a plum cake was a compensation for the agony of parting with your mamma and sisters—oh, my friend and brother, you need not be too confident of your own fine feelings.

She had had a little black profile of him done for a shilling; and this was hung up by the side of another portrait over her bed. One day the boy came on his accustomed visit, galloping down the little street at Brompton, and bringing, as usual, all the inhabitants to the windows to admire his splendor, and with great eagerness, and a look of triumph in his face, he pulled a case out of his great-coat-(it was a natty white great coat, with a cape and a velvet collar)— pulled out a red morocco case which he gave her.

I bought it with my own money, mamma," he said. "I thought you'd like it."

Amelia opened the case, and giving a Little cry of delighted affection, seized the boy and embraced him a hundred times. It was a miniature of himself, very pretti y done (though not half handsome enough, we may be sure, the widow thought). His grandfather had wished to have a picture of Lim by an artist whose works, exh bited in a shopwindow, in Southampton-Row, had caught the old gentleman's eyes; and George, who had plenty of money, bethought him of asking the painter how much a copy of the little portrait would cost, for his mother, saying he would pay for it out of his own money, and that he wanted to give it to her. The pleased painter executed the copy for a small price; and old Osborne himself, when he heard of the incident, growled out his satisfaction, and gave the boy twice as many sovereigns as he paid for the miniature.

Well, then, Master George Osborne had every comfort and luxury that a wealthy and lavish old grandfather thought fit to provide. The coachman was instructed to purchase for him the handsomest pony which could be bought for money; and on this George was taught to ride, first at a riding school, whence, after he had performed satisfactorily without stirrups, and over the leaping-bar, he was conducted through the new road to Regent's Park, and then to Hyde Park, where he rode in state, with Martin the coachman behind him. Old Osborne, who took matters more easily in the city now, where leaving his affairs to his junior partners, he would often ride out with Miss O. in the same fashionable direction. As little George came cautering up with his dandyfied air, and his heels down, his grandfather would nudge the lad's aunt, and say, "Look, Miss O." And he would laugh, and his face would grow red with pleasure, as he nodded out of the window to the boy, as But what was the grandfather's pleasure the groom saluted the carriage, and the foot- compared to Amela's ecstacy? The proof man saluted Master George. Here, too, his of the boy's affection charmed her so, that aunt, Mrs. Frederic Bullock (whose chariot she thought no child in the world was likə might daily be seen in the ring, with bull-hers for goodness. For long weeks after, ocks or emblazoned on the panels and harness, and three pasty-faced little Bullocks, covered with cockades and feathers, staring from the windows)-Mrs. Frederic Bullock. I say, flung glances of the bitterest hatred at the little upstart as he rode by with his hand on his side and his hat on one ear, as proud as a lord.

Though he was scarcely eleven years of age, Master George wore straps and the most beautiful little boots, like a man. He had gilt spurs, and a gold-headed whip, and a fine pin in his handkerchief; and the neatest little kid gloves which Lamb's Conduitstreet could furnish. His mother had given him a couple of neck-cloths, and carefully hemmed and made some little shirts for him; but when her Samuel came to see the widow, they were replaced by much finer linen. He had little jeweled buttons in the lawn shirt-fronts. Her humble presents had been put aside I believe Miss Osborne had given them to the coachman's boy. Amela tried to think she was pleased at the change. Indeed, she was happy and charmed to see the boy looking so beautiful.

the thought of his love made her happy. She slept better with the picture under her pillow; and how many times did she kiss it, and weep and pray over it! A small kindness from those she loved made that timid heart grateful. Since her parting with George she had had no such joy and consolation.

At his new home Master George ruled like a lord. At dinner he invited the ladies to drink wine with the utmost coolness, aud took off his champagne in a way which charmed his old grandfather. "Look at him," the old man would say, nudging his neighbor with a del ghted purple face, “d.d you ever see such a chap? Lord, Lord! be'll be ordering a dress ng-case next, and, razors to shave with; I'm blest if he won't."

The antics of the lad did not, however, delight Mr. Osborne's friends so much as they pleased the old gentleman. It g t gave Mr. Justice Coffin no pleasure to hear Georgy cut into the conversation and spoil his stories. Colonel Fogey was not interested in seeing the little boy half tipsy. Mr. Sergeant Toffy's lady felt no particular gratitude when,

A famous tailor from the West End of the town-Mr. Osborne would have none of your city or Hoiborn bunglers, he said, for the boy (though a city tailor was good enough for him)-was summoned to ornament little George's person, and was told to spare no expense in so doing. So Mr. Woolsey, of Conduit street, gave a loose to his imagination, and sent the child home fancy trowsers,

with a twist of his elbow, he tilted a glass master to oysters after the play, and to a of port wine over her yellow satin, and glass of rum-shrub for a night cap. We laughed at the disaster; nor was she better may be pretty certain that Mr. Rowson pleased, although old Osborne was highly profited, in his turn, by his young master's del ghted, when Georgy "wopped" her third | Lberality and gratitude for the pleasures to boy (a young gentleman a year older than which the footinan inducted him. Georgy, and by chance home, for the holidays, from Dr. Tickleus's at Ealing school) in Russell-square. George's grandfather gave the boy a couple of sovereigns for that feat, and promised to reward him further for every boy above his own size and age whom he wopped" in a similar manner. It is difficult to say what good the old man saw in these combats; he had a vague notion that quarreling made boys hardy, and that tyran-faucy waistcoats, and fancy jackets enough by was a useful accomplishment for them to to furnish a school of little dandies. Georgy learn. English youth have been so educated had little white waistcoats for evening par time out of mind, and we have hundreds of ties, and little cut velvet waistcoats for dinthousands of apologists and admirers of in-ners, and a dear little darling shawl dress.ugjustice, misery, aud brutality, as perpetrated among children.

Flushed with praise and victory over Master Tolly, George wished naturally to pursue his conquests further, and one day, as he was strutting about in prodig ously dandified new clothes, near St. Pancras, and a young baker's boy made sarcastic comments upon his appearance, the youthful patrician pulled off his dandy jacket with great spirit, and giving it in charge to the friend who accom panied him (Master Todd, of G. eat Co:amstreet, Russell square, son of the junior partner of the house of Osborne and Co.), George tried to wop the little baker. But the chances of war were unfavorable this time, and the little baker wopped Georgy; who came home with a rueful black eye and all his fine shirt frill dabbled with the claret drawn from his own little nose. He told his grandfather that he had been in combat with a giant and frightened his poor mother at Brompton with long, and by no means authentic accounts of the battle.

gown, for all the world like a little man. He dressed for dinner every day, "like a regular West End swell," as his grandfather remarked: one of the domestics was appointed to his especial service, attended him at his toilet, answered his bell, and brought him his letters always on a silver tray.

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Georgy, after breakfast, would sit in the arm-chair, in the dining-room, and read the Morning Post," just like a grown-up man. How he du dam and swear," the servants would cry, delighted at his precocity. Those who remembered the captain, his father, declared Master George was his pa, every inch of him. He made the house lively by his activity, his imperiousness, his scolding, and his good-nature.

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George's education was confided to a neighboring scholar and private pedagogue, who • prepared young noblemen and gentlemen for the universities, the senate, and the learned professions: whose system did not embrace the degrading corporal severities, still practiced at the ancient places of educaThis young Todd, of Coram-street, Rus- tion, and in whose family the pupils would sell-square, was Master George's great find the elegancies of refined society, and the friend and admirer. They both had a taste confidence and affection of a home." It was for painting theatrical characters; for hard in this way that the Reverend Lawrence bake and raspberry tarts; for sliding and Veal, of Hart-street, Bloomsbury, and doskating in the Regent's Park and the Ser-mestic chaplain to the Earl of Bareacres, pentiue, when the weather permitted; for strove, with Mrs. Veal, his wife, to entice going to the play, whither they were often pupils. conducted, by Mr. Osborne's orders, by By thus advertising and publishing seduRowson, Master George's appointed body-lously, the domestic chaplain and his lady servant; with whom they sate in great comfort in the pit.

In the company of this gentleman, they visited all the principal theaters in the metropol s-knew the names of all the actors from Drury Lane to Sadler's Wells; and performed, indeed, many of the plays to the Todd family and their youthful friends, with West's famous characters, on their pasteboard theater. Rowson, the footman, who was of a generous disposition, would not unfrequently, when in cash, treat his young

generally succeeded in having one or two Scholars by them, who paid a high figure, and were thought to be in uncommonly comfortable quarters. There was a large West Indian, whom nobody came to see, with a mahogany complexion, a woolly head, and an exceedingly dandified appearance: there was another hulking boy of three-andtwenty, whose education had been neglected, and whom Mr. and Mrs. Veal were to introduce into the polite world: there were two sons of Colonel Bangles, of the East

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