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 I used to call Flora; but now I calls her Aroarer, for she's too old to bite. Haw, haw!'

'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 fire-place, 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 stag's 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 are not rendered less gloomy, I promise you, by having the shutters always shut; and there is scarce one of the apartments, but when the light was let into it, I expected to see a ghost in the room. We have a school-room on the second floor, with my bedroom leading into it on one side, and that of the young ladies on the other. Then there are, Mr. Pitt's apartments-Mr. Crawley, he is called— the eldest son, and Mr. 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 Russell Square 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 meagre 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, hay-coloured whiskers, and straw-coloured 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.

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

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

"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.

"Sir Pitt was already in the room with a silver jug. He had just been to the cellar, and was in full dress too; that is, he had taken his gaiters off, and showed his little dumpy legs in black worsted stockings. The side-board was covered with glistening old plate-old cups, both gold and silver; old salvers and cruet stands, like Rundell and Bridge's shop. Everything on the table was in silver too, and two footmen, with red hair and canary-coloured liveries, stood on either side of the side-board.

"Mr. Crawley said a long grace, and Sir Pitt said amen, and the great silver dish-covers were removed.

"What have we for dinner, Betsy?' said the Baronet.

"Mutton broth, I believe, Sir Pitt,' answered Lady Crawley.

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"Mouton aux navets,' added the Butler gravely, (pronounce, if you please, moutongonavvy); and the soup is potage de mouton à l'Ecossaise. The side dishes contain pommes de terre au naturel, and choufleur à l'eau.' "Mutton's mutton,' said the Baronet, and a devilish good thing. What ship was it, Horrocks, and when did you kill?'

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'One of the black-faced Scotch, Sir Pitt: we killed on Thursday.' "Who took any?

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Steel, of Mudbury, took the saddle and two legs, Sir Pitt; but he says the last was too young and confounded woolly, Sir Pitt.'

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"Will you take some potage? Miss ah-Miss Blunt,' said Mr. Crawley. Capital Scotch broth, my dear,' said Sir Pitt, though they call it by a French name.'

"I believe it is the custom, sir, in decent society,' said Mr. Crawley, haughtily, to call the dish as I have called it ;' and it was served to us on silver soup-plates by the footmen in the canary coats, with the mouton aux navets. Then ale and water' were brought, and served to us young ladies in wine-glasses. I am not a judge of ale, but I can say with a clear conscience I prefer water.

"While we were enjoying our repast, Sir Pitt took occasion to ask what had become of the shoulders of the mutton?

"I believe they were eaten in the servants' hall,' said my lady, humbly.
"They was, my lady,' said Horrocks, and precious little else we get

there neither.'

"Sir Pitt burst into a hoarse laugh, and continued his conversation with Mr. Horrocks. That there little black pig of the Kent sow's breed must be uncommon fat now.'

"It's not quite busting, Sir Pitt,' said the Butler with the gravest air, at which Sir Pitt, and with him the young ladies, this time, began to laugh violently.

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'Miss Crawley, Miss Rose Crawley,' said Mr. Crawley, 'your laughter strikes me as being exceedingly out of place.'

"Never mind my Lord,' said the Baronet, 'we'll try the porker on Saturday. Kill 'un on Saturday morning, John Horrocks. Miss Sharp adores pork, don't you, Miss Sharp?'

"And I think this is all the conversation that I remember at dinner. When the repast was concluded a jug of hot water was placed before Sir Pitt, with a case-bottle containing, I believe, rum. Mr. Horrocks served myself and my pupils with three little glasses of wine, and a bumper was poured out for my lady. When we retired, she took from her workdrawer an enormous interminable piece of knitting; the young ladies began to play at cribbage with a dirty pack of cards. We had but one candle lighted, but it was in a magnificent old silver candlestick, and after a very few questions from my lady, I had my choice of amusement between a volume of sermons, and a pamphlet on the corn-laws, which Mr. Crawley had been reading before dinner.

"So we sat for an hour until steps were heard.

"Put away the cards, girls,' cried my lady, in a great tremor; 'put down Mr. Crawley's books, Miss Sharp' and these orders had been scarcely obeyed, when Mr. Crawley entered the room.

"We will resume yesterday's discourse, young ladies,' said he, and you shall each read a page by turns; so that Miss a-Miss Short may have an opportunity of hearing you;' and the poor girls began to spell a long dismal sermon delivered at Bethesda Chapel, Liverpool, in behalf of the mission for the Chickasaw Indians. Was it not a charming evening?

"At ten the servants were told to call Sir Pitt and the household to prayers. Sir Pitt came in first, very much flushed, and rather unsteady in his gait; and after him the butler, the canaries, Mr. Crawley's man, three other men, smelling very much of the stable, and four women, one of whom, I remarked, was very much over-dressed, and who flung me a look of great scorn as she plumped down on her knees.

After Mr. Crawley had done haranguing and expounding, we received our candles, and then we went to bed; and then I was disturbed in my writing, as I have described to my dearest sweetest Amelia.

"Good night. A thousand thousand thousand kisses!'"

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Saturday. This morning, at five, I heard the shrieking of the little black pig. Rose and Violet introduced me to it yesterday; and to the stables, and to the kennel, and to the gardener, who was picking fruit to send to market, and from whom they begged hard a bunch of hot-house grapes; but he said that Sir Pitt had numbered every 'Man Jack" of them, and it would be as much as his place was worth to give any away. The darling girls caught a colt in a paddock, and asked me if I would ride, and began to ride themselves, when the groom, coming with horrid oaths, drove them away.

Lady Crawley is always knitting the worsted. Sir Pitt is always tipsy, every night; and, I believe, sits with Horrocks, the butler. Mr. Crawley always reads sermons in the evening; and in the morning is locked up in his study, or else rides to Mudbury, on county business, or to Squashmore, where he preaches, on Wednesdays and Fridays, to the tenants there.

“A hundred thousand grateful loves to your dear papa and mamma. Is your poor brother recovered of his rack-punch? Oh, dear! Oh, dear! How men should beware of wicked punch!

"Ever and ever thine own,

"REBECCA."

Everything considered, I think it is quite as well for our dear Amelia Sedley, in Russell Square, that Miss Sharp and she are parted. Rebecca is a droll funny creature, to be sure: and those descriptions of the poor lady weeping for the loss of her beauty, and the gentleman "with haycoloured whiskers and straw-coloured hair," are very smart, doubtless, and show a great knowledge of the world. That she might, when on her knees, have been thinking of something better than Miss Horrocks's ribbons, has possibly struck both of us. But my kind reader will please to remember that these histories in their gaudy yellow covers have "Vanity Fair" for a title, and that Vanity Fair is a very vain, wicked, foolish place, full of all sorts of humbugs and falsenesses and pretensions. And while the moralist, who is holding forth on the cover (an accurate portrait of your humble servant), professes to wear neither gown nor

bands, but only the very same long-cared livery in which his congregation is arrayed yet, look you, one is bound to speak the truth as far as one knows it, whether one mounts a cap and bells or a shovel-hat; and a deal of disagreeable matter must come out in the course of such an undertaking.

I have heard a brother of the story-telling trade, at Naples, preaching to a pack of good-for-nothing honest lazy fellows by the sea-shore, work himself up into such a rage and passion with some of the villains whose wicked deeds he was describing and inventing, that the audience could not resist it; and they and the poet together would burst out into a roar of oaths and execrations against the fictitious monster of the tale, so that the hat went round, and the bajocchi tumbled into it, in the midst of a perfect storm of sympathy.

At the little Paris theatres, on the other hand, you will not only hear the people yelling out "Ah gredin! Ah monstre!" and cursing the tyrant of the play from the boxes; but the actors themselves positively refuse to play the wicked parts, such as those of infâmes Anglais, brutal Cossacks, and what not, and prefer to appear at a smaller salary, in their real characters as loyal Frenchmen. I set the two stories one against the other, so that you may see that it is not from mere mercenary motives that the present performer is desirous to show up and trounce his villains; but because he has a sincere hatred of them, which he cannot keep down, and which must find a vent in suitable abuse and bad language.

I warn my "kyind friends," then, that I am going to tell a story of harrowing villany and complicated-but, as I trust, intensely interesting-crime. My rascals are no milk-and-water rascals, I promise you. When we come

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to the proper places we won't spare fine language-No, no! But when we are going over the quiet country we must perforce be calm. tempest in a slop-basin is absurd. We will reserve that sort of thing for the mighty ocean and the lonely midnight. The present Number will be very mild. Others- -But we will not anticipate those.

And, as we bring our characters forward, I will ask leave, as a man and a brother, not only to introduce them, but occasionally to step down from the platform, and talk about them: if they are good and kindly, to love them and shake them by the hand: if they are silly, to laugh at them confidentially in the reader's sleeve: if they are wicked and heartless, to abuse them in the strongest terms which politeness admits of.

Otherwise you might fancy it was I who was sneering at the practice of devotion, which Miss Sharp finds so ridiculous; that it was I who laughed good humouredly at the reeling old Silenus of a baronet-whereas the laughter comes from one who has no reverence except for prosperity, and no eye for anything beyond success. Such people there are living and flourishing in the world-Faithless, Hopeless, Charity less: let us have at them, dear friends, with might and main. Some there are, and very successful too, mere quacks and fools and it was to combat and expose such as those, no doubt, that Laughter was made.

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