see his wife and daughter suffering always | admitted to one of which was a privilege, put his lordship into a good humor.

66

'My sweet Blanche," he said, "I am a gentleman, and never lay my hand upon a woman, save in the way of kindness. I only wish to correct little faults in your character. You women are too proud, and sadly lack humility, as Father Mole, I'm sure, would tell my Lady Steyne if he were here. You mustn't give yourself airs: you must be meek and humble, my blessings. For all Lady Steyne knows, this caluminated, simple, good-humored Mrs. Crawley, is quite innocent even more innocent than herself. Her husband's character is not good, but it is as good as Bareacres', who has played a little and not paid a great deal, who cheated you out of the only legacy you ever had, and left you a pauper on my hands. And Mrs. Crawley is not very well born; but she is not worse than Fanny's illustrious ancestor, the first de la Jones."

"The money which I brought into the family, sir," Lady George cried out

and an honor, and a blessing indeed.

Severe, spotless, and beautiful, Lady Gaunt held the very highest rank in Vanity Fair. The distinguished courtesy with which Lord Steyne treated her, charmed every body who witnessed his behavior, caused the severest critics to admit how perfect a gentleman he was, and to own that his lordship's heart, at least, was in the right place.

The ladies of Gaunt House called Lady Bareacres in to their aid, in order to repulse the common enemy. One of Lady Gaunt's carriages went to Hill-street for her ladyship's mother, all whose equipages were in the hands of the bailiffs, whose very jewels and wardrobe, it was said, had been seized by those inexorable Israelites. Bareacres Castle was theirs, too, with all its costly pictures, furniture, and articles of vertùthe magnificent Vandykes; the noble Reynolds pictures; the Lawrence portraits, tawdry and beautiful, and, thirty years ago, deemed as precious as works of real genius; the matchless Dancing Nymph of Canova, for which Lady Bareacres had sate in her youth-Lady Bareacres splendid then, and radiant in wealth, rank, and beauty-a toothless, bald, old woman now-a mere rag of a former robe of state. Her lord, painted at the same time by Lawrence, as waving his saber in front of Bareacres Castle, and clothed in his uniform of colonel of the Thistlewood Yeomanry, was a withered, old, lean man in a great coat and a Brutus wig: slinking about Gray's Inn of mornings chiefly, and dining alone at clubs. He did not like to dine with Steyne now. They had run races of pleasure together in youth when Bareacres was the winner. But Steyne had more bottom than he, and had lasted him out. The marquis was ten times After this vigorous allocution, to one of a greater man now than the young Lord which sort Lord Steyne treated his Ha- Gaunt of '85; and Bareacres nowhere in rem," whenever symptoms of insubordination the race-old, beaten, bankrupt, and broken appeared in his household, the crest-fallen down. He had borrowed too much money women had nothing for it but to obey. Lady of Steyne to find it pleasant to meet his old Gaunt wrote the invitation which his lord- comrade often. The latter, whenever he ship required, and she and her mother-in-wished to be merry, used jeeringly to ask law drove in person, and with bitter and humiliated hearts, to leave the cards on Mrs. Rawdon, the reception of which caused that innocent woman so much pleasure.

You purchased a contingent reversion with it," the marquis said, darkly. "If Gaunt dies, your husband may come to his honors your little boys may inherit them, and who knows what besides? In the mean while, ladies, be as proud and virtuous as you like abroad, but don't give me any airs. As for Mrs. Crawley's character, I shan't demean myself, or that most spotless and perfectly irreproachable lady, by even hinting that it requires a defense. You will be pleased to receive her with the utmost cordiality, as you will receive all persons whom I present in this house. This house?" He broke out with a laugh. "Who is the master of it? and what is it? This temple of virtue belongs to me. And if I invite all Newgate or all Bedlam here, by

they shall be welcome."

There were families in London who would have sacrificed a year's income to receive such an honor at the hands of those great ladies. Mrs. Frederic Bullock, for instance, would have gone on her knees from Mayfair to Lombard-street, if Lady Steyne and Lady Gaunt had been waiting in the city to raise her up, and say, "Come to us next Friday," not to one of the great crushes, and grand balls of Gaunt House, whither every body went, but to the sacred, unapproachable, mysterious, delicious entertainments, to be

Lady Gaunt, why her father had not come to see her? "He has not been here for four months," Lord Steyne would say. "I can always tell by my check-book afterward, when I get a visit from Bareacres. What a comfort it is, my ladies, I bank with one of my sons' father-in-law, and the other banks with me!"

Of the other illustrious persons whom Becky had the honor to encounter on this her first presentation to the grand world, it does not become the present historian to say much. There was his excellency the Prince of Peterwaradin, with his princess; a nobleman tightly girthed, with a large military chest, on which the plaque of his order

shone magnificently, and wearing the red Young Marlow in the comedy is represented collar of the Golden Fleece, round his neck. as having been familiar before he became He was the owner of countless flocks. abashed in the presence of Miss Hardcastle. "Look at his face. I think he must be de- The times are such that one scarcely dares scended from a sheep," Becky whispered to allude to that kind of company which to Lord Steyne. Indeed, his excellency's thousands of our young men in Vanity Fair countenance, long, solemn, and white, with are frequenting every day, which nightly the ornament round his neck, bore some re-fills casinos and dancing-rooms, which is semblance to that of a venerable bell-wether. known to exist as well as the Ring in Hyde There was Mr. John Paul Jefferson Jones, Park or the Congregation at St. James'stitularly attached to the American Embassy, but which the most squeamish if not the most and correspondent of the New York Dema- moral of societies is determined to ignore. gogue; who, by way of making himself agree- In a word, although Colonel Crawley was able to the company, asked Lady Steyne, now five-and-forty years of age, it had not during a pause in the conversation at dinner, been his lot in life to meet with a half-dozen how his dear friend, George Gaunt, liked good women, besides his paragon of a wife. the Brazils?—He and George had been most All except her and his kind sister Lady Jane, intimate at Naples, and had gone up Vesu- whose gentle nature had tamed and won vius together. Mr. Jones wrote a full and him, scared the worthy colonel: and on particular account of the dinner, which ap- occasion of his first dinner at Gaunt House peared duly in the Demagogue. He men- he was not heard to make a single remark tioned the names and titles of all the guests, except to state that the weather was very giving biographical sketches of the principal hot. Indeed Becky would have left him at people. He described the persons of the home, but that virtue ordained that her husladies with great eloquence; the service of band should be by her side to protect the the table the size and costume of the ser- timid and fluttering little creature on her vants: enumerated the dishes and wines first appearance in polite society. served the ornaments of the side-board, and the probable value of the plate. Such a dinner he calculated could not be dished up under fifteen or eighteen dollars per head. And he was in the habit, until very lately, of sending over protégés, with letters of recommendation to the present Marquis of Steyne, encouraged to do so by the intimate terms on which he had lived with his dear friend, the late lord. He was most indignant that a young and insignificant aristocrat, the Earl of Southdown, should have taken the pas of him in their procession to the dining room. "Just as I was stepping up to offer my hand to a very pleasing and witty fashionable, the brilliant and exclusive Mrs. Rawdon Crawley"-he wrote "the young patrician interposed between me and the lady, and whisked my Helen off without a word of apology. I was fain to bring up the rear with the colonel, the lady's husband, a stout red-faced warrior who distinguished himself at Waterloo, where he had better luck than befel some of his brother red-coats at New Orleans."

On her first appearance Lord Steyne stepped forward, taking her hand, and greeting her with great courtesy, and presenting her to Lady Steyne and their ladyships, her daughters. Their ladyships made three stately courtesies, and the elder lady, to be sure, gave her hand to the new comer, but it was as cold and lifeless as marble.

Becky took it, however, with grateful humility; and performing a reverence which would have done credit to the best dancing master, put herself at Lady Steyne's feet, as it were, by saying that his lordship had been her father's earliest friend and patron, and that she, Becky, had learned to honor and respect the Steyne family from the days of her childhood. The fact is, that Lord Steyne had once purchased a couple of pictures of the late Sharp, and the affectionate orphan could never forget her gratitude for that favor.

The Lady Bareacres then came under Becky's cognizance-to whom the colonel's lady made also a most respectful obeisance: it was returned with severe dignity by the exalted person in question.

"I had the pleasure of making your ladyship's acquaintance at Brussels, ten years ago," Becky said, in the most winning manner. “I had the good fortune to meet Lady Bareacres, at the Duchess of Richmond's ball, the night before the battle of Waterloo. And I recollect your ladyship, and my Lady Blanche, your daughter, sitting in the carriage in the porte-cochère at the Inn, waiting for horses. I hope your ladyship's diamonds are safe."

The colonel's countenance on coming into this polite society wore as many blushes as the face of a boy of sixteen assumes when he is confronted with his sister's school-fellows. It has been told before that honest Rawdon had not been much used at any period of his life to ladies' company. With the men at the club or the mess-room, he was well enough; and could ride, bet, smoke or play at billiards with the boldest of them. He had had his time for female friendships too but that was twenty years ago, and the Every body's eyes looked into their neighladies were of the rank of those with whom bors'. The famous diamonds had undergone

a famous seizure, it appears, about which to my Lord Steyne or to you," said RebecBecky, of course, knew nothing. Rawdon ca, sincerely grateful, and seating herself at Crawley retreated with Lord Southdown the piano, began to sing. into a window, where the latter was heard to laugh immoderately, as Rawdon told him the story of Lady Bareacres wanting horses, and " knuckling down, by Jove," to Mrs. Crawley. "I think I needn't he afraid of that woman," Becky thought. Indeed, Lady Bareacres exchanged terrified and angry looks with her daughter; and retreated to a table, where she began to look at pictures with great energy.

When the potentate from the Danube made his appearance, the conversation was carried on in the French language, and the Lady Bareacres and the younger ladies found, to their farther mortification, that Mrs. Crawley was much better acquainted with that tongue, and spoke it with a much better accent than they. Becky had met other Hungarian magnates with the army in France, in 1816-17. She asked after her friends with great interest. The foreign personages thought that she was a lady of great distinction; and the prince and the princess asked severally of Lord Steyne and the marchioness, whom they conducted to dinner, who was that petite dame who spoke

so well?

Finally, the procession being formed in the order described by the American diplomatist, they marched into the apartment where the banquet was served and which, as I have promised the reader he shall enjoy it, he shall have the liberty of ordering himself so as to suit his fancy.

She sang religious songs of Mozart, which had been early favorites of Lady Steyne, and with such sweetness and tenderness that the lady, lingering round the piano, sate down by its side, and listened until the tears rolled down her eyes. It is true that the opposition ladies at the other end of the room kept up a loud and ceaseless buzzing and talking: but the Lady Steyne did not hear those rumors. She was a child again-and had wandered back through a forty years' wilderness to her convent garden. The chapel organ had pealed the same tones, the organist, the sister whom she loved best of the community, had taught them to her in those early, happy days. She was a girl once more, and the brief period of her happiness bloomed out again for an hour-she started when the jarring doors were flung open, and with a loud laugh from Lord Steyne, the men of the party entered full of gayety.

He saw at a glance what had happened in his absence: and was grateful to his wife for once. He went and spoke to her, and called her by her Christian-name, so as again to bring blushes to her pale face-" My wife says you have been singing like an angel," he said to Becky. Now there are angels of two kinds, and both sorts, it is said, are charming in their way.

Whatever the previous portion of the evening had been, the rest of that night was a great triumph for Becky. She sang her very best, and it was so good that every one of the men came and crowded round the piano. The women, her enemies, were left quite alone. And Mr. Paul Jefferson Jones thought he had made a conquest of Lady Gaunt by going up to her ladyship, and praising her delightful friend's first-rate singing.

CHAPTER L.

CONTAINS A VULGAR INCIDENT.

But it was when the ladies were alone that Becky knew the tug of war would come. And then indeed the little woman found herself in such a situation, as made her acknowledge the correctness of Lord Steyne's caution to her to beware of the society of ladies above her own sphere. As they say the persons who hate Irishmen most are Irishmen so, assuredly, the greatest tyrants over women are women. When poor little Becky, alone with the ladies, went up to the fireplace whither the great ladies had reparied, the great ladies marched away and took possession of a table of drawings. When Becky followed them to the table of drawings, they dropped off one by one to the fire again. She tried to speak to one of the children (of whom she was commonly fond in public places), but master George Gaunt was called away by his mamma; and the stranger was treat-ble tenement, live care, and distrust, and ed with such cruelty, finally, that even Lady Steyne herself pitied her, and went up to speak to the friendless little woman.

THE Muse, whoever she be, who presides over this Comic History, must now descend from the genteel heights in which she has been soaring, and have the goodness to drop down upon the lowly roof of John Sedley, at Brompton, and describe what events are taking place there. Here, too, in this hum

dismay. Mrs. Clapp in the kitchen is grumbling in secret to her husband about the rent, and urging the good fellow to rebel "Lord Steyne," said her ladyship, as her against his old friend and patron and his wan cheeks glowed with a blush, " says you present lodger. Mrs. Sedley has ceased to sing and play very beautifully, Mrs. Craw-visit her landlady in the lower regions now, ley-I wish you would do me the kindness to sing to me."

"I will do any thing that may give pleasure

and indeed is in a position to patronize Mrs. Clapp no longer. How can one be condescending to a lady to whom one owes a

matter of forty pound, and who is perpetually | History, and in Music-address A.O., at throwing out hints for the money? The Mr. Brown's;" and she confides the card to Irish maid-servant has not altered in the the gentleman of the Fine Art Repository, least in her kind and respectful behavior; who consents to allow it to lie upon the but Mrs. Sedley fancies that she is growing counter, where it grows dingy and flyblown. insolent and ungrateful, and, as the guilty Amelia passes the door wistfully many a thief who fears each bush an officer, sees time, in hopes that Mr. Brown will have threatening inuendoes and hints of capture some news to give her; but he never beckin all the girl's speeches and answers. Miss ons her in. When she goes to make little Clapp, grown quite a young woman now, is purchases there is no news for her. Poor, declared by the soured old lady to be an un- simple lady, tender and weak-how are you bearable and impudent little minx. Why to battle with the struggling, violent world? Amelia can be so fond of her, or have her in her room so much, or walk out with her so constantly, Mrs. Sedley can not conceive. The bitterness of poverty has poisoned the life of the once cheerful and kindly woman. She is thankless for Amelia's constant and gentle bearing toward her; carps at her for her efforts at kindness or service; rails at her for her silly pride in her child, and her neglect of her parents. Georgy's house is not a very lively one since uncle Jos's anuuity has been withdrawn, and the little family are almost upon famine diet.

Amelia thinks, and thinks, and racks her brain, to find some means of increasing the small pittance upon which the household is starving. Can she give lessons in any thing? paint card-racks? do fine work? She finds that women are working hard, and better than she can, for twopence a day. She buys a couple of begilt Bristol boards at the fancy stationer's, and paints her very best upon them-a shepherd with a red waistcoat on one, and a pink face smiling in the midst of a pencil landscape-a shepherdess on the other, crossing a little bridge, with a little dog, nicely shaded. The man of the Fancy Repository and Brompton Emporium of Fine Arts (of whom she bought the screens, vainly hoping that he would re-purchase them when ornamented by her hand), can hardly hide the sneer with which he examines these feeble works of art. He looks askance at the lady who waits in the shop, and ties up the cards again in their envelop of whity-brown paper, and hands them to the poor widow and Miss Clapp, who had never seen such beautiful things in her life, and had been quite confident that the man must give two guineas at least for the screens. They try at other shops in the interior of London, with faint, sickening hopes. "Don't want 'em," says one. "Be off," says another, fiercely. Three and sixpence have been spent in vain-the screens retire to Miss Clapp's bed-room, who persists in thinking them lovely.

She writes out a little card in her neatest hand, and after long thought and labor of composition, in which the public is informed that A Lady who has some time at her disposal, wishes to undertake the education of some little girls, whom she would instruct in English, in French, in Geography, in

She grows daily more care-worn and sad; fixing upon her child alarmed eyes, whereof the little boy can not interpret the expres sion. She starts up of a night, and peeps into his room stealthily, to see that he is sleeping, and not stolen away. She sleeps but little now. A constant thought and terror is haunting her. How she weeps and prays in the long, silent nights-how she tries to hide from herself the thought which will return to her, that she ought to part with the boy—that she is the only barrier between him and prosperity. She can't, she can't! Not now, at least. Some other day. Oh! it is too hard to think of and to bear.

A thought comes over her which makes her blush and turn from herself-her parents might keep the annuity-the curate would marry her, and give a home to her and the boy. But George's picture and dearest memory are there to rebuke her. Shame and love say no to the sacrifice. She shrinks from it as from something unholy; and such thoughts never found a resting-place in that pure and gentle bosom.

The combat, which we describe in a sentence or two, lasted for many weeks in poor Amelia's heart; during which she had no confidante; indeed, she could have none, as she would not allow to herself the possibility of yielding; though she was giving way daily before the enemy with whom she had to battle. One truth after another was marshaling itself silently against her, and keeping its ground. Poverty and misery for all, want and degradation for her parents, injustice to the boy-one by one the outworks of the little citadel were taken, in which the poor soul passionately guarded her only love and treasure..

At the beginning of the struggle, she had written off a letter of tender supplication to her brother at Calcutta, imploring him not to withdraw the support which he had granted to their parents, and painting in terms of artless pathos their lonely and hapless condition. She did not know the truth of the matter. The payment of Jos's annuity was still regular: but it was a money-lender in the city who was receiving it: old Sedley had sold it for a sum of money wherewith to prosecute his bootless schemes. Emmy was calculating eagerly the time that would elapse before the letter would arrive and be

answered. She had written down the date | her arms were round him. No, it was imin her pocket-book of the day when she dis- possible. They could not be going to part. patched it. To her son's guardian, the good"What is the matter, mother?" said he, major at Madras, she had not communicated " you look very pale." any of her griefs and perplexities. She had not written to him since she wrote to congratulate him on his approaching marriage. She thought, with sickening despondency, that that friend-the only one, the one who had felt such a regard for her-was fallen away.

In simple terms, Amelia told her the reasons which had induced her to change her mind respecting her boy. Her father had met with fresh misfortunes, which had enShe put on her bonnet, scarcely knowing tirely ruined him. Her own pittance was what she did, and went out to walk in the so small that it would barely enable her to lanes by which George used to come back support her parents, and would not suffice from school, and where she was in the habit to give George the advantages which were of going on his return to meet the boy. It his due. Great as her sufferings would be was May, a half-holiday. The leaves were at parting with him, she would, by God's all coming out, the weather was brilliant; help, endure them for the boy's sake. She the boy came running to her, flushed with knew that those to whom he was going, health, singing, his bundle of school-books would do all in their power to make him hanging by a thong. There he was. Both happy. She described his disposition, such