up to the box. Be off, you fools!' said this gentlemanshouldering off a great number of the crowd, who vanished presently before his cocked-hat and fierce appearance-and he entered the box in a most agitated state.

'Good Heavens! Dobbin, where have you been?' Osborne said, seizing the white Cashmere shawl from his friend's arm, and huddling up Amelia in it. Make yourself useful, and take charge of Jos here, whilst I take the ladies to the carriage.'

Jos was for rising to interfere-but a single push from Osborne's finger sent him puffing back into his seat again, and the lieutenant was enabled to remove the ladies in safety. Jos kissed his hand to them as they retreated, and hiccupped out, Bless you! Bless you! Then seizing Captain Dobbin's hand, and weeping in the most pitiful way, he confided to that gentleman the secret of his loves. He adored that girl who had just gone out; he had broken her heart, he knew he had, by his conduct; he would marry her next morning at St. George's, Hanover Square; he'd knock up the Archbishop of Canterbury at Lambeth he would, by Jove! and have him in readiness; and, acting on this hint, Captain Dobbin shrewdly induced him to leave the Gardens and hasten to Lambeth Palace, and, when once out of the gates, easily conveyed Mr. Jos Sedley into a hackney-coach, which deposited him safely at his lodgings.

George Osborne conducted the girls home in safety, and when the door was closed upon them, and as he walked across Russell Square, laughed so as to astonish the watchman. Amelia looked very ruefully at her friend, as they went upstairs, and kissed her, and went to bed without any more talking.

'He must propose to-morrow,' thought Rebecca. 'He called me his soul's darling four times; he squeezed my hand in Amelia's presence. He must propose to-morrow.' And so thought Amelia, too. And I dare say she thought of the dress she was to wear as bride's-maid, and of the presents which she should make to her nice little sister-inlaw, and of a subsequent ceremony in which she herself might play a principal part, &c., and &c., and &c., and &c. O, ignorant young creatures! How little do you know the effect of rack punch! What is the rack in the punch, at

night, to the rack in the head of a morning! To this truth. I can vouch as a man; there is no headache in the world. like that caused by Vauxhall punch. Through the lapse. of twenty years, I can remember the consequence of two glasses!-two wine-glasses !-but two, upon the honour of a gentleman; and Joseph Sedley, who had a liver complaint, had swallowed at least a quart of the abominable mixture. That next morning, which Rebecca thought was to dawn upon her fortune, found Sedley groaning in agonies which the pen refuses to describe. Soda-water was not invented yet. Small beer-will it be believed !-was the only drink with which unhappy gentlemen soothed the fever of their

previous night's potation. With this mild beverage before him, George: Osborne found the ex-collector of Boggley Wollah groaning on the sofa at his lodgings. Dobbin was already in the room, good-naturedly tending his patient of the night before. The twoofficers, looking at the prostrate Bac-chanalian, and askance at each other, exchanged the most frightful sympathetic grins. Even Sedley's valet, the most solemn and correct of gentlemen, with the muteness and gravity of an undertaker, could hardly keep his countenance in order, as he looked at his unfortunate master.

'Mr. Sedley was uncommon wild last night, sir,' he whispered in confidence to Osborne, as the latter mounted the stair. He wanted to fight the 'ackney-coachman, sir. The capting was obliged to bring him upstairs in his harms like a babby.' A momentary smile flickered over Mr. Brush's features as he spoke; instantly, however, they relapsed into their usual unfathomable calm, as he flung open the drawing-room door, and announced 'Mr. Hosbin".

How are you, Sedley?' that young wag began, after surveying his victim. No bones broke? There's a hackney-coachman downstairs with a black eye, and a tied up head, vowing he'll have the law of you.'

'What do you mean,-law?' Sedley faintly asked.

'For thrashing him last night-didn't he, Dobbin ? You hit out, sir, like Molyneux. The watchman says he never saw a fellow go down so straight. Ask Dobbin.'

'You did have a round with the coachman,' Captain Dobbin said, and showed plenty of fight too.'

6

'And that fellow with the white coat at Vauxhall! How Jos drove at him! How the women screamed! By Jove, sir, it did my heart good to see you. I thought you civilians had no pluck; but I'll never get in your way when you are your cups, Jos.'

in

I believe I'm very terrible, when I'm roused,' ejaculated Jos from the sofa, and made a grimace so dreary and ludierous, that the captain's politeness could restrain him no longer, and he and Osborne fired off a ringing volley of laughter.

Osborne pursued his advantage pitilessly. He thought Jos a milksop. He had been revolving in his mind the marriage-question pending between Jos and Rebecca, and was not over-well pleased that a member of a family into which he, George Osborne, of the -th, was going to marry, should make a mésalliance with a little nobody—a little upstart governess. You hit, you poor old fellow?' said Osborne. You terrible? Why, man, you couldn't standyou made everybody laugh in the Gardens, though you were crying yourself. You were maudlin, Jos. Don't you remember singing a song?'

A what?' Jos asked.

A sentimental song, and calling Rosa, Rebecca, what's her name, Amelia's little friend-your dearest diddle-diddledarling? And this ruthless young fellow, seizing hold of Dobbin's hand, acted over the scene, to the horror of the original performer, and in spite of Dobbin's good-natured entreaties to him to have mercy.

6

'Why should I spare him? Osborne said to his friend's remonstrances, when they quitted the invalid, leaving him under the hands of Dr. Gollop. What the deuce right has he to give himself his patronizing airs, and make fools of us at Vauxhall? Who's this little schoolgirl that is ogling and making love to him? Hang it, the family's low enough already, without her. A governess is all very well, but I'd rather have a lady for my sister-in-law. I'm a liberal man ; but I've proper pride, and know my own station: let her know hers. And I'll take down that great hectoring nabob, and prevent him from being made a greater fool than he is. That's why I told him to look out, lest she brought an action against him.'

'I suppose you know best,' Dobbin said, though rather dubiously. You always were a Tory, and your family's one of the oldest in England. But,

Come and see the girls, and make love to Miss Sharp yourself,' the lieutenant here interrupted his friend; but Captain Dobbin declined to join Osborne in his daily visit to the young ladies in Russell Square.

As George walked down Southampton Row, from Holborn, he laughed as he saw, at the Sedley mansion, in two different stories, two heads on the look-out.

The fact is, Miss Amelia, in the drawing-room balcony, was looking very eagerly towards the opposite side of the Square, where. Mr. Osborne dwelt, on the watch for the lieutenant himself; and Miss Sharp, from her little bedroom on the second floor, was in observation until Mr. Joseph's great form should heave in sight.

6

Sister Anne is on the watch-tower,' said he to Amelia, but there's nobody coming;' and laughing and enjoying the joke hugely, he described in the most ludicrous terms to Miss Sedley the dismal condition of her brother.

'I think it's very cruel of you to laugh, George,' she said, looking particularly unhappy; but George only laughed the more at her piteous and discomfited mien, persisted in thinking the joke a most diverting one, and when Miss Sharp came downstairs, bantered her with a great deal of liveliness upon the effect of her charms on the fat civilian.

'Oh Miss Sharp! if you could but see him this morning,' he said, moaning in his flowered dressing-gown-writhing on his sofa; if you could but have seen him lolling out his tongue to Gollop the apothecary.'

See whom?' said Miss Sharp.

'Whom? Oh whom? Captain Dobbin, of course, to whom we were all so attentive, by the way, last night.'

'We were very unkind to him,' Emmy said, blushing very much. 'I-I quite forgot him.'

6

Of course you did,' cried Osborne, still on the laugh. 'One can't be always thinking about Dobbin, you know, Amelia. Can one, Miss Sharp ??

'Except when he overset the glass of wine at dinner,' Miss Sharp said, with a haughty air and a toss of the head, I never gave the existence of Captain Dobbin one single moment's consideration.'

'Very good, Miss Sharp, I'll tell him,' Osborne said; and