18

the major, so cold and quiet ordinarily, at present so passionately moved and cast down. Would she have pitied him had she seen him ? He read over and over all the letters which he ever had from her-letters of business relative to the little property which he had made her believe her husband had left to her-brief notes of invitation -every scrap of writing that she had ever sent to him— how cold, how kind, how hopeless, how selfish they were! Had there been some kind gentle soul near at hand who could read and appreciate this silent generous heart, who knows but that the reign of Amelia might have been over, and that friend William's love might have flowed into a kinder channel? But there was only Glorvina of the jetty ringlets with whom his intercourse was familiar, and this dashing young woman was not bent upon loving the major, but rather on making the major admire her— a most vain and hopeless task, too, at least considering the means that the poor girl possessed to carry it out. She curled her hair and showed her shoulders at him, as much as to say, did ye ever see such jet ringlets and such a complexion? She grinned at him so that he might see that every tooth in her head was sound-and he never heeded all these charms. Very soon after the arrival of the box of millinery, and perhaps indeed in honour of it, Lady O'Dowd and the ladies of the King's Regiment gave a ball to the Company's Regiments and the civilians at the station. Glorvina sported the killing pink frock, and the major, who attended the party and walked very ruefully up and down the rooms, never so much as perceived the pink garment. Glorvina danced past him in a fury with all the young subalterns of the station, and the major was not in the least jealous of her performance, or angry because Captain Bangles of the Cavalry handed her to supper. It was not jealousy, or frocks or shoulders, that could move him, and Glorvina had nothing more.

So these two were each exemplifying the Vanity of this life, and each longing for what he or she could not get. Glorvina cried with rage at the failure. She had set her mind on the major more than on any of the others,' sho owned, sobbing. 'He'll break my heart, he will, Peggy,' she would whimper to her sister-in-law when they were good friends; sure every one of me frocks must be taken in-it's such a skeleton I'm growing.' Fat or thin, laughing

6

or melancholy, on horseback or the music-stool, it was all the same to the major. And the colonel, puffing his pipe and listening to these complaints, would suggest that Glory should have some black frocks out in the next box from London, and told a mysterious story of a lady in Ireland, who died of grief for the loss of her husband before she got e'er a one.

While the major was going on in this tantalizing way, not proposing, and declining to fall in love, there came another ship from Europe bringing letters on board, and amongst them some more for the heartless man. These were home letters bearing an earlier postmark than that of the former packets, and as Major Dobbin recognized among his, the handwriting of his sister, who always crossed and recrossed her letters to her brother-gathered together all the possible bad news which she could collect, abused him and read him lectures with sisterly frankness, and always left him miserable for the day after dearest William' had achieved the perusal of one of her epistles—the truth must be told that, dearest William did not hurry himself to break the seal of Miss Dobbin's letter, but waited for a particularly favourable day and mood for doing so. A fortnight before, moreover, he had written to scold her for telling those absurd stories to Mrs. Osborne, and had dispatched a letter in reply to that lady, undeceiving her with respect to the reports concerning him, and assuring her that he had no sort of present intention of altering his condition'.

Two or three nights after the arrival of the second package of letters, the major had passed the evening pretty cheerfully at Lady O'Dowd's house, where Glorvina thought that he listened with rather more attention than usual to the 'Meeting of the Wathers', the 'Minsthrel Boy', and one or two other specimens of song with which she favoured him (the truth is, he was no more listening to Glorvina than to the howling of the jackals in the moonlight outside, and the delusion was hers as usual), and having played his game at chess with her (cribbage with the surgeon was Lady O'Dowd's favourite evening pastime), Major Dobbin took leave of the colonel's family at his usual hour, and retired to his own house.

There on his table, his sister's letter lay reproaching him. He took it up, ashamed rather of his negligence regarding

it, and prepared himself for a disagreeable hour's communing with that crabbed-handed absent relative. . . . It may have been an hour after the major's departure from the colonel's house-Sir Michael was sleeping the sleep of < the just; Glorvina had arranged her black ringlets in the innumerable little bits of paper, in which it was her habit to confine them; Lady O'Dowd, too, had gone to her bed in the nuptial chamber, on the ground-floor, and had tucked her mosquito curtains round her fair form, when the guard at the gates of the commanding-officer's compound beheld Major Dobbin, in the moonlight, rushing towards the house with a swift step and a very agitated countenance, and he passed the sentinel and went up to the windows of the colonel's bedchamber.

'O'Dowd-colonel!' said Dobbin, and kept up a great

shouting.

'Heavens, meejor!' said Glorvina of the curl-papers, putting out her head too, from her window.

'What is it, Dob, me boy?' said the colonel, expecting there was a fire in the station, or that the route had come from head quarters.

'I-I must have leave of absence. I must go to England on the most urgent private affairs,' Dobbin said.

'Good heavens, what has happened!' thought Glorvina, trembling with all the papillotes.

'I want to be off-now-to-night,' Dobbin continued ; and the colonel getting up, came out to parley with him.

In the postscript of Miss Dobbin's cross-letter-the major had just come upon a paragraph, to the following effect :-'I drove yesterday to see your old acquaintance, Mrs. Osborne. The wretched place they live at, since they were bankrupts, you know-Mr. S., to judge from a brass plate on the door of his hut (it is little better) is a coalmerchant. The little boy, your godson, is certainly a fine child, though forward, and inclined to be saucy and selfwilled. But we have taken notice of him as you wish it, and have introduced him to his aunt, Miss O., who was rather pleased with him. Perhaps his grandpapa, not the bankrupt one, who is almost doting, but Mr. Osborne, of Russell Square, may be induced to relent towards the child of your friend, his erring and self-willed son. And Amelia will not be ill disposed to give him up. The widow is consoled, and is about to marry a reverend gentleman, the

Rev. Mr. Binney, one of the curates of Brompton. A poor match. But Mrs. O. is getting old, and I saw a great deal of grey in her hair-she was in very good spirits and your little godson over-ate himself at our house. Mamma sends her love with that of your affectionate ANN DOBBIN.'

CHAPTER XLIV

A ROUNDABOUT CHAPTER BETWEEN LONDON AND HAMPSHIRE

UR old friends the Crawleys' family house in Great Gaunt Street, still bore over its front the hatchment which had been placed there as a token of mourning for Sir Pitt Crawley's demise, yet this heraldic emblem was in itself a very splendid and gaudy piece of furniture, and all the rest of the mansion became more brilliant than it had ever been during the late baronet's reign. The black outer-coating of the bricks was removed, and they appeared with a cheerful, blushing face streaked with white: the old bronze lions of the knocker were gilt handsomely, the railings painted, and the dismallest house in Great Gaunt Street became the smartest in the whole quarter, before the green leaves in Hampshire had replaced those yellowing ones which were on the trees in Queen's Crawley avenue when old Sir Pitt Crawley passed under them for the last time.

A little woman, with a carriage to correspond, was perpetually seen about this mansion; an elderly spinster, accompanied by a little boy, also might be remarked coming thither daily. It was Miss Briggs and little Rawdon, whose business it was to see to the inward renovation of Sir Pitt's house, to superintend the female band engaged in stitching the blinds and hangings, to poke and rummage in the drawers and cupboards crammed with the dirty relics and congregated trumperies of a couple of generations of Lady Crawleys, and to take inventories of the china, the glass, and other properties in the closets and storerooms.

Mrs. Rawdon Crawley was general-in-chief over these

arrangements, with full orders from Sir Pitt to sell, barter. confiscate, or purchase furniture: and she enjoyed herself not a little in an occupation which gave full scope to her taste and ingenuity. The renovation of the house was determined upon when Sir Pitt came to town in November to see his lawyers, and when he passed nearly a week in Curzon Street, under the roof of his affectionate brother and sister.

He had put up at an hotel at first; but Becky, as soon as she heard of the baronet's arrival, went off alone to greet him, and returned in an hour to Curzon Street with Sir Pitt in the carriage by her side. It was impossible sometimes to resist this artless little creature's hospitalities, so kindly were they pressed, so frankly and amiably offered. Becky seized Pitt's hand in a transport of gratitude when he agreed to come. "Thank you,' she said, squeezing it, and looking into the baronet's eyes, who blushed a good deal; 'how happy this will make Rawdon.' She bustled up to Pitt's bedroom, leading on the servants, who were carrying his trunks thither. She came in herself laughing, with a coal-scuttle out of her own room.