we heard Mr. Hodson's whip clacking on of the young ladies on the other. Then the shoulders of the poor little blubbering there are Mr. Pitt's apartments-Mr. Crawwretches; and Sir Pitt, seeing that the mal-ley, he is called-the eldest son, and Mr. efactors were in custody, drove on to the

hall.

"All the servants were ready to meet us,

and

"Here, my dear, I was interrupted last night by a dreadful thumping at my door: and who do you think it was? Sir Pitt Crawley in his night-cap and dressing-gown, such a figure! As I shrank away from such a visitor, he came forward and seized my candle; No candles after eleven o'clock, Miss Becky,' said he. Go to bed in the dark, you pretty little hussy (that is what he called me), and unless you wish me to come for the candle every night, mind and be in bed at eleven.' And with this, he and Mr. Horrocks, the butler, went off laughing. You may be sure I shall not encourage any more of their visits. They let loose two immense blood-hounds at night, which all last night were yelling and howling at the moon. "I call the dog Gorer,' said Sir Pitt; he's killed a man that dog has, and is master of a bull, and the mother 1 used to call Flora; but now I calls her Aroarer, for she's too old to bite. Haw, haw!'

Rawdon Crawley's rooms-he is an officer like somebody, and away with his regiment. There is no want of room, I assure you. You might lodge all the people in Russellsquare in the house, I think, and have space to spare.

"Half an hour after our arrival, the great dinner bell was rung, and I came down with my two pupils (they are very thin, insignificant little chits, of ten and eight years old). I came down in your dear muslin gown (about which that odious Mrs. Pinner was so rude, because you gave it me); for I am to be treated as one of the family, except on company days, when the young ladies and I are to dine up-stairs.

"Well, the great dinner bell rang, and we all assembled in the little drawing-room where my Lady Crawley sits. She is the second Lady Crawley, and mother of the young ladies. She was an ironmonger's daughter, and her marriage was thought a great match. She looks as if she had been handsome once, and her eyes are always weeping for the loss of her beauty. She is pale and meager and high-shouldered, and has not a word to say for herself, evidently. Her step-son, Mr. Crawley, was likewise in the room. He was in full dress, as pompous as an undertaker. He is pale, thin, ugly, silent; he has thin legs, no chest, haycolored whiskers, and straw-colored hair. He is the very picture of his sainted mother over the mantel-piece-Griselda of the noble house of Binkie.

"This is the new governess, Mr. Crawley,' said Lady Crawley, coming forward and taking my hand; Miss Sharp.'

"O!' said Mr. Crawley, and pushed his head once forward and began again to read a great pamphlet with which he was busy.

66

I hope you will be kind to my girls,' said Lady Crawley; with her pink eyes always full of tears.

"Before the house of Queen's Crawley, which is an odious old-fashioned red brick mansion, with tall chimneys and gables of the style of Queen Bess, there is a terrace flanked by the family dove and serpent, and on which the great hall door opens. And oh, my dear, the great hall I am sure is as big and as glum as the great hall in the dear castle of Udolpho. It has a large fireplace, in which we might put half Miss Pinkerton's school, and the grate is big enough to roast an ox at the very least. Round the room hang I don't know how many generations of Crawleys, some with beards and ruffs, some with huge wigs and toes turned out; some dressed in long straight stays and gowns that look as stiff as towers, and some with long ringlets, and oh, my dear! scarcely any stays at all. At one end of the hall is the great staircase all in black oak, as dismal as may be, and on either side are tall doors with stags' heads over them, leading to the billiard-room and the library, and the great yellow saloon and the morning-rooms. I think there are at least twenty bed-rooms on the first floor; one of them has the bed in which Queen Elizabeth slept; and I have been taken by my new pupils through all these fine apartments this morning. They Sir Pitt was already in the room with are not rendered less gloomy, I promise a silver jug. He had just been to the celyou, by having the shutters always shut; lar, and was in full dress too; that is, he had and there is scarce one of the apartments, taken his gaiters off, and showed his little but when the light was let into it, I expect- dumpy legs in black worsted stockings. The ed to see a ghost in the room. We have a side-board was covered with glistening old school-room on the second floor, with my plate-old cups, both gold and silver; old bed-room leading into it on one side, and that salvers and cruet stands, like Rundell and

"Law Ma, of course she will,' said the eldest: and I saw at a glance that I need not be afraid of that woman.

666

My Lady is served,' says the butler, in black, in an immense white shirt-frill, that looked as if it had been one of the Queen Elizabeth ruffs depicted in the hall; and so taking Mr. Crawley's arm, she led the way to the dining-room, whither I followed with my little pupils in each hand.

|

Mouton aux navets,' added the butler gravely (pronounce, if you please, moutong-lighted, but it was in a magnificent old silver onavvy); and the soup is potage de mouton à l'Ecossaise. The side dishes contain pommes de terre au naturel, and choufleur à l'eau.

worsted. Sir Pitt is always tipsy, every | it is not from mere mercenary motives that night; and, I believe, sits with Horrocks, the present performer is desirous to show up the butler. Mr. Crawley always reads ser- and trounce his villains; but because he has mons in the evening; and in the morning is a sincere hatred of them, which he can not locked up in his study, or else rides to Mud- keep down, and which must find a vent in bury, on county business, or to Squashmore, suitable abuse and bad language. where he preaches, on Wednesdays and Fridays, to the tenants there.

ness.

In the first place, she gave up Peter coach and four are toys more precious than happiness in Vanity Fair: and if Harry the Eighth or Bluebeard were alive now, and wanted a tenth wife, do you suppose he could not get the prettiest girl that shall be presented this season?

Butt, a young man who kept company with her, and in consequence of his disappointment in love, took to smuggling, poaching, and a thousand other bad courses. Then she quarreled, as in duty bound, with all the friends and intimates of her youth, who, of course, could not be received by my Lady at Queen's Crawley-nor did she find in her new rank and abode any persons who were willing to welcome her. Who ever did? Sir Huddleston Fuddleston had three daughters who all hoped to be Lady Crawley. Sir Giles Wapshot's family were insulted that one of the Wapshot girls had not the preference in the marriage, and the remaining baronets of the county were indignant at their comrade's misalliance. Never mind the commoners, whom we will leave to grumble anonymously.

Sir Pitt did not care, as he said, a brass farden for any one of them. He had his pretty Rose, and what more need a man require than to please himself? So he used to get drunk every night: to beat his pretty Rose sometimes to leave her in Hampshire when he went to London for the parliamentary session, without a single friend in the wide world. Even Mrs. Bute Crawley, the rector's wife, refused to visit her, as she said she would never give the pas to a tradesman's daughter.

As the only endowments with which Nature had gifted Lady Crawley were those of pink cheeks and a white skin, and as she had no sort of character, nor talents, nor opinions, nor occupations, nor amusements, nor that vigor of soul and ferocity of temper which often falls to the lot of entirely foolish women, her hold upon Sir Pitt's affections was not very great. Her roses faded out of her cheeks, and the pretty freshness left her figure after the birth of a couple of children, and she became a mere machine in her husband's house, of no more use than the late Lady Crawley's grand piano. Being a light-complexioned woman, she wore light clothes, as most blondes will, and appeared, in preference, in draggled sea-green, or slatternly sky-blue. She worked that worsted day and night, or other pieces like it.

She had counterpanes in the course of a few years to all the beds in Crawley. She had a small flower-garden, for which she had rather an affection; but beyond this no other like or disliking. When her husband was rude to her she was apathetic: whenever he struck her she cried. She had not character enough to take to drinking, and moaned about slip-shod and in curl-papers all day. O, Vanity Fair-Vanity Fair! This might have been, but for you, a cheery lass-Peter Butt and Rose a happy man and wife, in a snug farm, with a hearty family; and an honest portion of pleasures, cares, hopes, and struggles. But a itle and a

The languid dullness of their mamma did not, as it may be supposed, awaken much affection in her little daughters, but they were very happy in the servants' hall and in the stables; and the Scotch gardener having luckily a good wife and some good children, they got a little wholesome society and instruction in his lodge, which was the only education bestowed upon them until Miss Sharp came.

Her engagement was owing to the remonstrances of Mr. Pitt Crawley, the only friend or protector Lady Crawley ever had, and the only person, besides her children, for whom she entertained a little feeble attachment. Mr. Pitt took after the noble Binkies, from whom he was descended, and was a very polite and proper gentleman. When he grew to man's estate, and came back from Christchurch, he began to reform the slackened discipline of the hall, in spite of his father, who stood in awe of him. He was a man of such rigid refinement, that he would have starved rather than have dined without a white neck-cloth. Once, when just from college, and when Horrocks the butler brought him a letter without placing it previously on a tray, he gave that domestic a look, and administered to him a speech so cutting, that Horrocks ever after trembled before him: the whole household bowed to him: Lady Crawley's curl-papers came off earlier when he was at home: Sir Pitt's muddy gaiters disappeared; and if that incorrigible old man still adhered to other old habits, he never fuddled himself with rum and water in his son's presence, and only talked to his servants in a very reserved and polite manner; and those persons remarked that Sir Pitt never swore at Lady Crawley while his son was in the room.

It was he who taught the butler to say My lady is served," and who insisted on handing her ladyship in to dinner. He seldom spoke to her, but when he did it was with the most powerful respect; and he never let her quit the apartment, without rising in the most stately manner to open the door, and making an elegant bow at her egress.

At Eton he was called Miss Crawley; and there, I am sorry to say, his younger brother Rawdon used to lick him violently. But though his parts were not brilliant, he made up for his lack of talent by meritorious industry, and was never known, during eight years at school, to be subject to that punishment, which it is generally thought none but a cherub can escape.

At college his career was of course highly

his place in parliament; but this the elder constantly refused to do. Both were of course too prudent to give up the fifteen hundred a year which was brought in by the second seat (at this period filled by Mr. Quadroon, with carte-blanche on the slave question); indeed the family estate was much embarrassed, and the income drawn from the borough was of great use to the house of Queen's Crawley.

creditable. And here he prepared himself [that the old gentleman should yield him up for public life, into which he was to be introduced by the patronage of his grandfather, Lord Binkie, by studying the ancient and modern orators with great assiduity, and by speaking unceasingly at the debating societies. But though he had a fine flux of words, and delivered his little voice with great pomposity and pleasure to himself, and never advanced any sentiment or opinion which was not perfectly trite and stale, and supported by a Latin quotation; yet he failed somehow, in spite of a mediocrity which ought to have insured any man a success. He did not even get the prize poem, which all his friends said he was sure of.

After leaving college he became private secretary to Lord Binkie, and was then appointed attaché to the legation at Pumpernickel, which post he filled with perfect honor, and brought home dispatches, consisting of Strasburg pie, to the foreign minister of the day. After remaining ten years attaché (several years after the lamented Lord Binkie's demise), and finding the advancement slow, he at length gave up the diplomatic service in some disgust, and began to turn country gentleman.

He wrote a pamphlet on Malt on returning to England (for he was an ambitious man, and always liked to be before the public), and took a strong part in the Negro Emancipation question. Then he became a friend of Mr. Wilberforce's, whose politics he admired, and had that famous correspondence with the Reverend Silas Hornblower, on the Ashantee Mission. He was in London, if not for the parliament session, at least in May, for the religious meetings. In the country he was a magistrate, and an active visitor and speaker among those destitute of religious instruction. He was said to be paying his addresses to Lady Jane Sheepshanks, Lord Muttondown's third daughter, and whose sister, Lady Emily, wrote those sweet tracts, The Sailor's True Binnacle," and "The Applewoman of Finchley Com

inon."

It had never recovered the heavy fine imposed upon Walpole Crawley, first baronet, for peculation in the Tape and Sealing Wax Office. Sir Walpole was a jolly fellow, eager to seize and to spend money (" alieni appetens, sui profusus," as Mr. Crawley would remark with a sigh), and in his day beloved by all the county for the constant drunkenness and hospitality which was maintained at Queen's Crawley. The cellars were filled with Burgundy then, the kennels with hounds, and the stables with gallant hunters; now, such horses as Queen's Crawley possessed went to plough, or ran in the Trafalgar coach; and it was with a team of these very horses, on an off-day, that Miss Sharp was brought to the hall; for, boor as he was, Sir Pitt was a stickler for his dignity while at home, and seldom drove out but with four horses, and, though he dined off boiled mutton, had always three footmen to serve it.

If mere parsimony would have made a man rich, Sir Pitt Crawley might have become very wealthy—if he had been an attorney in a country town, with no capital but his brains, it is very possible that he would have turned them to good account, and might have achieved for himself a very considerable influence and competency. But he was unluckily endowed with a good name and a large though encumbered estate, both of which went rather to injure than to advance him. He had a taste for law, which cost him many thousands yearly; and being a great deal too clever to be robbed, as he said, by any single agent, allowed his affairs Miss Sharp's accounts of his employment to be mismanaged by a dozen, whom he all at Queen's Crawley were not caricatures. equally mistrusted. He was such a sharp He subjected the servants there to the de- landlord, that he could hardly find any but votional exercises before mentioned, in which bankrupt tenants; and such a close farmer, (and so much the better) he brought his as to grudge almost the seed to the ground, father to join. He patronized an independ- whereupon revengeful Nature grudged him ent meeting-house in Crawley parish, much the crops which she granted to more liberal to the indignation of his uncle the rector, husbandmen. He speculated in every posand to the consequent delight of Sir Pitt, sible way; he worked mines; bought canalwho was induced to go himself once or twice, shares; horsed coaches; took government which occasioned some violent sermons at contracts, and was the busiest man and magCrawley parish church, directed point-blank|istrate of his county. As he would not pay at the baronet's old gothic pew there. Hon- honest agents at his granite-quarry, he had est Sir Pitt, however, did not feel the force the satisfaction of finding that four overseers of these discourses, as he always took his nap during sermon-time.

Mr. Crawley was very earnest, for the good of the nation and of the Christian world,

ran away, and took fortunes with them to America. For want of proper precautions. his coal-mines filled with water: the government flung his contract of damaged beef