the brothers. When Rebecca came to town Pitt and his wife were not in London. Many a time she drove by the old door in Park Lane to see whether they had taken possession of Miss Crawley's house there. But the new family did not make its appearance; it was only through Raggles that she heard of their movements-how Miss Crawley's domestics had been dismissed with decent gratuities, and how Mr. Pitt had only once made his appearance in London, when he stopped for a few days at the house, did business with his lawyers there, and sold off all Miss Crawley's French novels to a bookseller out of Bond Street. Becky had reasons of her own which caused her to long for the arrival of her new relation. 'When Lady Jane comes,' thought she, she shall be my sponsor in London society; and as for the women! bah! the women will ask me when they find the men want to see me.'

An article as necessary to a lady in this position as her brougham or her bouquet, is her companion. I have always admired the way in which the tender creatures, who cannot exist without sympathy, hire an exceedingly plain friend of their own sex from whom they are almost inseparable. The sight of that inevitable woman in her faded gown seated behind her dear friend in the opera-box, or occupying the back seat of the barouche, is always a wholesome and moral one to me, as jolly a reminder as that of the death's-head which figured in the repasts of Egyptian bon-vivants, a strange sardonic memorial of Vanity Fair. What?-even battered, brazen, beautiful, conscienceless, heartless Mrs. Firebrace, whose father died of her shame: even lovely, daring Mrs. Mantrap, who will ride at any fence which any man in England will take, and who drives her greys in the Park, while her mother keeps a huxter's stall in Bath still ;-even those who are so bold, one might fancy they could face anything, dare not face the world without a female friend. must have somebody to cling to, the affectionate creatures! And you will hardly see them in any public place without a shabby companion in a dyed silk, sitting somewhere in the shade close behind them.

They

Rawdon,' said Becky, very late one night, as a party of gentlemen were seated round her crackling drawingroom fire (for the men came to her house to finish the

night; and she had ice and coffee for them, the best in London): 'I must have a sheep-dog.'

'A what?' said Rawdon, looking up from an écarté table.

'A sheep-dog!' said young Lord Southdown. My dear Mrs. Crawley, what a fancy! Why not have a Danish dog? I know of one as big as a camelopard, by Jove. It would almost pull your brougham. Or a Persian greyhound, eh? (I propose, if you please); or a little pug that would go into one of Lord Steyne's snuff-boxes? There's a man at Bayswater got one with such a nose that you might, I mark the king and play, that you might hang your hat on it.'

'I mark the trick,' Rawdon gravely said. He attended to his game commonly, and didn't much meddle with the conversation except when it was about horses and betting. 'What can you want with a shepherd's dog?' the lively little Southdown continued.

'I mean a moral shepherd's dog,' said Becky, laughing, and looking up at Lord Steyne.

What the devil's that?' said his lordship.

A dog to keep the wolves off me,' Rebecca continued. 'A companion.'

'Dear little innocent lamb, you want one,' said the marquis; and his jaw thrust out, and he began to grin hideously, his little eyes leering towards Rebecca.

The great Lord of Steyne was standing by the fire sipping coffee. The fire crackled and blazed pleasantly. There was a score of candles sparkling round the mantelpiece, in all sorts of quaint sconces, of gilt and bronze and porcelain. They lighted up Rebecca's figure to admiration, as she sat on a sofa covered with a pattern of gaudy flowers. She was in a pink dress, that looked as fresh as a rose; her dazzling white arms and shoulders were half covered with a thin hazy scarf through which they sparkled; her hair hung in curls round her neck; one of her little feet peeped out from the fresh crisp folds of the silk: the prettiest little foot in the prettiest little sandal in the finest silk stocking in the world.

The candles lighted up Lord Steyne's shining bald head, which was fringed with red hair. He had thick bushy eyebrows, with little twinkling bloodshot eyes, surrounded by a thousand wrinkles. His jaw was underhung, and

when he laughed, two white buck-teeth protruded themselves and glistened savagely in the midst of the grin. He had been dining with royal personages, and wore his garter and ribbon. A short man was his lordship, broadchested, and bow-legged, but proud of the fineness of his foot and ankle, and always caressing his garter-knee.

'And so the Shepherd is not enough,' said he, 'to defend his lambkin?'

The Shepherd is too fond of playing at cards and going to his clubs, answered Becky, laughing.

'Gad, what a debauched Corydon!' said my lord'what a mouth for a pipe!'

'I take your three to two,' here said Rawdon, at the card-table.

What an innocent mutton, hey? Damme, what a snowy fleece !'

Rebecca's eyes shot out gleams of scornful humour. 'My lord,' she said, 'you are a knight of the Order.' He had the collar round his neck, indeed—a gift of the restored princes of Spain.

Lord Steyne in early life had been notorious for hist daring and his success at play. He had sat up two days and two nights with Mr. Fox at hazard. He had won money of the most august personages of the realm: he had won his marquisate, it was said, at the gamingtable; but he did not like an allusion to those bygone fredaines. Rebecca saw the scowl gathering over his heavy brow.

She rose up from her sofa, and went and took his coffeecup out of his hand with a little curtsy. 'Yes,' she said, 'I must get a watch-dog. But he won't bark at you.' And, going into the other drawing-room, she sat down to the piano, and began to sing little French songs in such a charming, thrilling voice, that the mollified nobleman speedily followed her into that chamber, and might be seen nodding his head and bowing time over her. Rawdon and his friend meanwhile played écarté until they had enough. The colonel won; but, say that he won ever so much and often, nights like these, which occurred many times in the week-his wife having all the talk and all the admiration, and he sitting silent without the circle, not comprehending a word of the jokes, the allusions, the mystical language within-must have been rather wearisome to the ex-dragoon.

'How is Mrs. Crawley's husband?' Lord Steyne used to say to him by way of a good day when they met and indeed that was now his avocation in life. He was Colonel Crawley no more. He was Mrs. Crawley's husband.

About the little Rawdon, if nothing has been said all this while, it is because he is hidden upstairs in a garret somewhere, or has crawled below into the kitchen for companionship. His mother scarcely ever took notice of him. He passed the days with his French bonne as long as that domestic remained in Mr. Crawley's family, and when the Frenchwoman went away, the little fellow, howling in the loneliness of the night, had compassion taken

on him by a housemaid, who took him out of his solitary nursery into her bed in the garret hard by, and comforted him.

Rebecca, my Lord Steyne, and one or two more were in the drawing-room taking tea after the Opera, when this shouting was heard overhead. It's my cherub crying for his nurse,' she said. She did not offer to move to go and see the child. Don't agitate your feelings by going to look for him,' said Lord Steyne, sardonically. Bah!" replied the other, with a sort of blush, he'll cry himself to sleep; and they fell to talking about the Opera.

Rawdon had stolen off though, to look after his son and heir; and came back to the company when he found that honest Dolly was consoling the child. The colonel's dressing-room was in those upper regions. He used to see the boy there in private. They had interviews together every morning when he shaved; Rawdon minor sitting on a box by his father's side and watching the operation with never-ceasing pleasure. He and the sire were great friends. The father would bring him sweetmeats from the dessert, and hide them in a certain old epaulet box, where the child went to seek them, and laughed with joy on discovering the treasure: laughed, but not too loud: for mamma was below asleep and must not be disturbed. She did not go to rest till very late, and seldom rose till after noon.

Rawdon bought the boy plenty of picture-books, and crammed his nursery with toys. Its walls were covered with pictures pasted up by the father's own hand, and purchased by him for ready money. When he was off duty with Mrs. Rawdon in the Park, he would sit up here, passing hours with the boy; who rode on his chest, who pulled his great moustachios as if they were driving-reins, and spent days with him in indefatigable gambols. The room was a low room, and once, when the child was not five years old his father, who was tossing him wildly up in his arms, hit the poor little chap's skull so violently against the ceiling, that he almost dropped the child, so terrified was he at the disaster.

Rawdon minor had made up his face for a tremendous howl-the severity of the blow indeed authorized that indulgence but just as he was going to begin, the father interposed.

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