strange of novel? Has he not been a hun- as a gentleman to the fact. If we had come dred times before in the same position? -and it was only one of Mrs. Wenham's Upon my honor and word as a gentleman" headaches which prevented us-she suffers (Mr. Wenham here put his hand on his waistcoat with a parliamentary air), "I declare I think that your suspicions are monstrous and utterly unfounded, and that they injure an honorable gentleman, who has proved his good will toward you by a thousand benefactions—and a most spotless and innocent lady."

"You don't mean to say that-that Crawley's mistaken?" said Mr. Macmurdo.

"I believe that Mrs. Crawley is as innocent as my wife, Mrs. Wenham," Mr. Wenham said, with great energy. "I believe that, misled by an infernal jealousy, my friend here strikes a blow against not only an infirm and old man of high station, his constant friend and benefactor, but against his wife, his own dearest honor, his son's future reputation, and his own prospects in life.

under them a good deal, especially in the spring if we had come, and you had returned home, there would have been no quarrel, no insult, no suspicion-and so it is positively because my poor wife has a headache that you are to bring death down upon two men of honor, and plunge two of the most 'excellent and ancient families in the kingdom into disgrace and sorrow."

Mr. Macmurdo looked at his principal with the air of a man profoundly puzzled: and Rawdon felt with a kind of rage that his prey was escaping him. He did not believe a word of the story, and yet, how discredit or disprove it?

Mr. Wenham continued with the same fluent oratory, which in his place in parliament he had so often practiced-"I sate for an hour or more by Lord Steyne's bedside, beseeching, imploring Lord Steyne to forego his intention of demanding a meeting. I pointed out to him that the circumstances were after all suspicious-they were suspicious. I acknowledge it, any man in your position might have been taken in—I said that a man furious with jealousy is to all intents and purposes a madman, and should be as such regarded-that a duel between you must lead to the disgrace of all parties concerned-that a man of his lordship's exalted station had no right in these days, when the most atrocious revolutionary principles, and the most dangerous leveling doctrines are preached among the vulgar, to create a public scandal; and that, however innocent, the common people would insist that he was guilty. In fine, I implored him not to send the challenge."

"I will tell you what happened," Mr. Wenham continued with great solemnity; "I was sent for this morning by my Lord Steyne, and found him in a pitiable state, as, I need hardly inform Colonel Crawley, any man of age and infirmity would be after a personal conflict with a man of your strength. I say to your face, it was a cruel advantage you took of that strength, Colonel Crawley. It was not only the body of my noble and excellent friend which was wounded-his heart, sir, was bleeding. A man whom he had loaded with benefits and regarded with affection, had subjected him to the foulest indignity. What was this very appointment, which appears in the journals of to-day, but a proof of his kindness to you? When I saw his lordship this morning, I found him in a state pitiable indeed to see; and as an- "I don't believe one word of the whole xious as you are to revenge the outrage story," said Rawdon, grinding his teeth. committed upon him, by blood. You know I believe it a damned lie, and that you're he has given his proofs, 1 presume, Colonel in it, Mr. Wenham. If the challenge don't Crawley!" come from him, by Jove it shall come from

"He has plenty of pluck," said the colonol. Nobody ever said he hadn't."

me.

Mr. Wenham turned deadly pale at this His first order to me was to write a let-savage interruption of the colonel, and looked ter of challenge, and to carry it to Colonel toward the door. Crawley. One or other of you, he said, must not survive the outrage of last night."

"You're coming to

Crawley nodded. the point, Wenham," he said.

"I tried my utmost to calm Lord Steyne. Good God! sir," I said, "how I regret that Mrs. Wenham and myself had not accepted Mrs. Crawley's invitation to sup with her!"

But he found a champion in Captain Macmurdo. That gentleman rose up with an oath, and rebuked Rawdon for his language. "You put the affair into my hands, and you shall act as I think fit, by Jove, and not as you do. You have no right to insult Mr. Wenham with this sort of language; and damme, Mr. Wenham, you deserve an apology. And as for a challenge to Lord. Steyne, you may get somebody else to carry it, I won't. If my lord, after being thrashed, chooses to sit still, damme, let him. And as "After the Opera. Here's the note of for the affair with-with Mrs. Crawley, my invitation-stop-no, this is another paper-belief is, there's nothing proved at all: that I thought I had it, but it's of no conse- your wife's innocent, as innocent as Mr. quence, and I pledge you my word of honor Wenham says she is: and at any rate, that

"She asked you to sup with her ?" Captain Macmurdo said.

you would be a

fool not to take the place

And after this preface, he tried with all and hold your tongue." his eloquence to effect a reconciliation beCaptain Macmurdo, you speak like a tween Rawdon and his wife. He recapituman of sense," Mr. Weuham cried out, im-lated the statements which Becky had made, mensely relieved-" I forget any words that pointed out the probabilities of their truth, Colonel Crawley has used in the irritation and asserted his own firm belief in her innoof the moment."

"I thought you would," Rawdon said, with a sneer.

too."

cence.

But Rawdon would not hear of it. "She has kept money concealed from me these "Shut your mouth, you old stoopid," the ten years," he said. "She swore, last night captain said, good-naturedly. "Mr. Wen-only, she had none from Steyne. She knew ham ain't a fighting man; and quite right, it was all up, directly I found it. If she's not guilty, Pitt, she's as bad as guilty; and I'll never see her again, never." His head sunk down on his chest as he spoke the words; and he looked quite broken and sad. "Poor old boy," Macmurdo said, shaking his head.

"This matter, in my belief." the Steyne emissary cried, "ought to be buried in the most profound oblivion. A word concerning it should never pass these doors. I speak in the interest of my friend, as well as of Colonel Crawley, who persists in considering me his enemy.'

"I suppose Lord Steyne won't talk about it very much," said Captain Macmurdo; "and I don't see why our side should. The affair ain't a very pretty one, any way you take it; and the less said about it the better. It's you are thrashed, and not us; and if you are satisfied, why, I think, we should be." Mr. Wenham took his hat, upon this, and Captain Macmurdo following him to the door, shut it upon himself and Lord Steyue's agent, leaving Rawdon chafing within. When the two were on the other side, Macmurdo looked hard at the other embassador, and with an expression of any thing but respect on his round jolly face.

"You don't stick at a trifle, Mr. Wenham," he said.

"You flatter me, Captain Macmurdo," answered the other, with a smile. "Upon my honor and conscience, now, Mrs. Crawley did ask us to sup after the Opera.”

"Of course; and Mrs. Wenham had one of her headaches. 1 say, I've got a thousand pound note here, which I will give you if you will give me a receipt, please; and I will put the note up in an envelope for Lord Steyne. My inan shan't fight him. But we had rather not take his money."

Rawdon Crawley resisted for some time the idea of taking the place which had been procured for him by so odious a patron: and was also for removing the boy from the school where Lord Steyne's interest had placed him. He was induced, however, to acquiesce in these benefits by the entreaties of his brother and Macmurdo: but mainly by the latter pointing out to him what a fury Steyne would be in, to think that his enemy's fortune was made through his means.

When the Marquis of Steyne came abroad after his accident, the colonial secretary bowed up to him and congratulated himself and the service upon having made so excellent an appointment. These congratulations were received with a degree of gratitude which may be imagined on the part of Lord Steyne.

The secret of the rencontre between him and Colonel Crawley was buried in the profoundest oblivion, as Wenham said; that is, by the seconds and the principals. But before that evening was over it was talked of at fifty dinner tables in Vanity Fair. Little Cackleby himself went to seven evening parties, and told the story with comments and emendations at each place. How Mrs. Washington White reveled in it! The It was all a mistake-all a mistake, my Bishopess of Ealing was shocked beyond exdear sir," the other sa d, with the utmost pression: the bishop went and wrote his innocence of manner; and was bowed down name down in the visiting-book at Gaunt the club steps by Captain Macmurdo, just House that very day. Little Southdown as Sir Pitt Crawley ascended them. There was sorry: so you may be sure was his siswas a slight acquaintance between these two ter Lady Jane, very sorry. Lady Macbeth gentlemen; and the captain, going back with wrote it off to her other daughter at the the baronet to the room where the latter's Cape of Good Hope. It was town talk for brother was, told Sir Pitt in confidence, that he had made the affair all right between Lord Steyne and the colonel.

Sir Pitt was well pleased, of course, at this intelligence; and congratulated his brother warmly upon the peaceful issue of the affair, making appropriate moral remarks upon the evils of dueling, and the unsatisfactory nature of that sort of settlement of disputes.

at least three days, and was only kept out of the newspapers by the exertions of Mr. Wagg, acting upon a hint from Mr. Wenham.

The bailiffs and brokers seized upon poor Raggles in Curzon-streeet, and the late fair tenant of that poor little mansion was in the mean while-where? Who cared? Who asked after a day or two? Was she guilty or not? We all know how charitable the world is, and how the verdict of Vanity

Fair goes when there is a doubt. Some | pects the old man looked much higher. He people said she had gone to Naples in pur- would make a gentleman of the little chap, suit of Lord Steyne: while others averred was Mr. Osborne's constant saying regardthat his lordship quitted that city, and fled ing little Georgy. He saw him in his mind's. to Palermo on hearing of Becky's arrival; eye, a collegian, a parliament-man, a baronet, some said she was living in Bierstadt, and had perhaps. The old man thought he would become a dame d'honneur to the Queen of die coutented if he could see his grandson in Bulgaria; some that she was at Boulogne: a fair way to such honors. He would have and others, at a boarding-house at Chelten-none but a tip-top college man to educate ham.

him-none of your quacks and pretenders— Rawdon made her a tolerable annuity; no, no. A few years before he used to and we may be sure that she was a woman be savage, and inveigh against all parsons, who could make a little money go a great scholars, and the like, declaring that they way, as the saying is. He would have paid were a pack of humbugs, and quacks, that his debts on leaving England, could he have weren't fit to get their living but by grinding got any insurance office to take his life; but Latin and Greek, and a set of supercilious the climate of Coventry Island was so bad dogs, that pretended to look down upon Britthat he could borrow no money on the ish merchants and gentlemen, who could buy strength of his annuity. He remitted, how-up half a hundred of 'em. He would mourn ever, to his brother punctually, and wrote to now, in a very solemn manner, that his own his little boy regularly every mail. He kept education had been neglected, and repeatMacmurdo in cigars and sent over quanti-edly point out in his pompous manner, to ties of shells, cayenne pepper, hot pickles, Georgy, the necessity and excellence of guava jelly, and colonial produce to Lady classical acquirements. Jane. He sent his brother home the Swamp When they met at dinner the grandsire Town Gazette, in which the new governor used to ask the lad what he had been readwas praised with immense enthusiasm; ing during the day, and was greatly interwhereas, the Swamp Town Sentinel, whose ested at the report the boy gave of his own wife was not asked to government-house, studies: pretending to understand little declared that his excellency was a tyrant, George when he spoke regarding them. He compared to whom Nero was an enlighten- made a hundred blunders, and showed his ed philanthropist. Little Rawdon used to ignorance many a time. It did not increase like to get the papers and read about his the respect which the child had for his excellency. senior. A quick brain and a better education elsewhere showed the boy very soon that his grandsire was a dullard: and he began accordingly to command him and to look down upon him; for his previous education, humble and contracted as it had been, had made a much better gentleman of Georgy than any plans of his grandfather could make him. He had been brought up by a kind, weak, and tender woman, who had no pride about any thing, but about him, and whose heart was so pure and whose bearing was so meek and humble, that she could not but needs be a true lady. She busied herself in gentle offices and quiet duties; if she never said brilliant things, she never spoke or thought unkind ones: guileless and artless, loving and pure, indeed how could our poor little Amelia be other than a real gentlewoman?

His mother never made any movement to see the child. He went home to his aunt for Sundays and holidays; he soon knew every bird's nest about Queen's Crawley, and rode out with Sir Huddleston's hounds, which he admired so on his first well-remembered visit to Hampshire.

CHAPTER LVI.

GEORGY IS MADE A GENTLEMAN.

GEORGY OSBORNE was now fairly established in his grandfather's mansion in Russell-square occupant of his father's room in the house, and heir apparent of all the splendors there. The good looks, gallant bearing, and gentlemanlike appearance of the boy won the grandsire's heart for him. Mr. Osborne was as proud of him as ever he had been of the elder George.

came in contact, made him lord over the latter too. If he had been a prince royal he could not have been better brought up to think well of himself.

Young Georgy lorded over this soft and yielding nature; and the contrast of its simplicity and delicacy with the coarse pomposThe child had many more luxuries and in-ity of the dull old man with whom he next dulgencies than had been awarded to his father. Osborne's commerce had prospered greatly of late years. His wealth and importance in the city had very much increased. He had been glad enough in former days to While his mother was yearning after him put the elder George to a good private at home, and I do believe every hour of the school; and a commission in the army for day, and during most hours of the sad, lonehis son had been a source of no small pride ly nights, thinking of him, this young gento him: for little George and his future pros-, tleman had a number of pleasures and con

master to oysters after the play, and to a glass of rum-shrub for a night-cap. We inay be pretty certain that Mr. Rowson profited, in his turn, by his young master's liberality and gratitude for the pleasures to which the footman inducted him.

with a twist of his elbow, he tilted a glass of port wine over her yellow satin, and laughed at the disaster; nor was she better pleased, although old Osborne was highly del ghted, when Georgy "wopped" her third boy (a young gentleman a year older than Georgy, and by chance home, for the holidays, from Dr. Tickleus's at Ealing school) in Russell-square. George's grandfather gave the boy a couple of sovereigns for that feat, and promised to reward him further for every boy above his own size and age whom he "wopped" in a similar manner. It is difficult to say what good the old man saw in these combats; he had a vague notion that quarreling made boys hardy, and that tyranny was a useful accomplishment for them to learn. English youth have been so educated time out of mind, and we have bundreds of thousands of apologists and admirers of in-ners, and a dear little darling shawl dressingjustice, misery, and brutality, as perpetrated among children.

Flushed with praise and victory over Master Toffy, George wished naturally to pursue his conquests further, and one day, as he was strutting about in prodigiously dandified new clothes, near St. Pancras, and a young baker's boy made sarcastic comments upon his appearance, the youthful patrician pulled off his dandy jacket with great spirit, and giving it in charge to the friend who accom panied him (Master Todd, of Great Coramstreet, Russell-square, son of the junior partner of the house of Osborne and Co.), George tried to wop the little baker. But the chances of war were unfavorable this time, and the little baker wopped Georgy; who came home with a rueful black eye and all his fine shirt frill dabbled with the claret drawn from his own little nose. He told his grandfather that he had been in combat with a giant; and frightened his poor mother at Brompton with long, and by no means authentic accounts of the battle.

A famous tailor from the West End of the town-Mr. Osborne would have none of your city or Holborn bunglers, he said, for the boy (though a city tailor was good enough for him)—w -was summoned to ornament little George's person, and was told to spare no expense in so doing. So Mr. Woolsey, of Conduit-street, gave a loose to his imagination, and sent the child home fancy trowsers, fancy waistcoats, and fancy jackets enough to furnish a school of little dandies. Georgy had little white waistcoats for evening parties, and little cut velvet waistcoats for din

gown, for all the world like a little man. He dressed for dinner every day, "like a regular West End swell," as his grandfather remarked: one of the domestics was appointed to his especial service, attended him at his toilet, answered his bell, and brought him his letters always on a silver tray.

66

Georgy, after breakfast, would sit in the arm-chair, in the dining-room, and read the Morning Post," just like a grown-up man. How he du damn and swear," the servants would cry, delighted at his precocity. Those who remembered the captain, his father,. declared Master George was his pa, every inch of him. He made the house lively by his activity, his imperiousness, his scolding, and his good-nature.

George's education was confided to a neighboring scholar and private pedagogue, who prepared young noblemen and gentlemen for the universities, the senate, and the learned professions: whose system did not embrace the degrading corporal severities, still practiced at the ancient places of educaThis young Todd, of Coram-street, Rus- tion, and in whose family the pupils would sell-square, was Master George's great find the elegancies of refined society, and the friend and admirer. They both had a taste confidence and affection of a home." It was for painting theatrical characters; for hard in this way that the Reverend Lawrence bake and raspberry tarts; for sliding and Veal, of Hart-street, Bloomsbury, and doskating in the Regent's Park and the Ser-mestic chaplain to the Earl of Bareacres, pentine, when the weather permitted; for strove, with Mrs. Veal, his wife, to entice going to the play, whither they were often pupils. conducted, by Mr. Osborne's orders, by By thus advertising and publishing seduRowson, Master George's appointed body-lously, the domestic chaplain and his lady servant; with whom they sate in great comfort in the pit.

In the company of this gentleman, they visited all the principal theaters in the metropolis-knew the names of all the actors from Drury Lane to Sadler's Wells; and performed, indeed, many of the plays to the Todd family and their youthful friends, with West's famous characters, on their pasteboard theater. Rowson, the footman, who was of a generous disposition, would not unfrequently, when in cash, treat his young

generally succeeded in having one or two scholars by them, who paid a high figure, and were thought to be in uncommonly comfortable quarters. There was a large West Indian, whom nobody came to see, with a mahogany complexion, a woolly head, and an exceedingly dandified appearance: there was another hulking boy of three-andtwenty, whose education had been neglected, and whom Mr. and Mrs. Veal were to introduce into the polite world: there were two sons of Colonel Bangles, of the East