much, and at once pained and pleased him, that it was out of William Dobbin's own pocket that a part of the fund had been supplied upon which the poor widow and the child had subsisted. Baker-street, with a handsome jointure, to my widow for her life; and my landed prop erty, besides money in the funds, and my cellar of well selected wine in Baker-street, to my son. I leave twenty pounds a year to my valet; and I defy any man, after I am When pressed upon the point, Dobbin, gone, to find any thing against my character." who could not tell lies, blushed and stamOr, suppose, on the other hand, your swan mered a' good deal, and finally confessed. sings quite a different sort of dirge, and you" The marriage,” he said (at which his insay, "I am a poor, blighted, disappointed terlocutor's face grew dark), was very old fellow, and have made an utter failure much my doing. I thought my poor friend through life. I was not endowed either had gone so far, that retreat from his engagewith brains or with good fortune, and confess ment would have been dishonor to him, and that I have committed a hundred mistakes death to Mrs. Osborne; and I could do no and blunders. I own to having forgotten my less, when she was left without resources, duty many a time. I can't pay what I owe. than give what money I could spare to mainOn my last bed I lie utterly helpless and hum- tain her." ble; and I pray forgiveness for my weak- Major D.," Mr. Osborne said, looking ness, and throw myself, with a contrite heart, hard at him, and turning very red, too, "you at the feet of the Divine Mercy." Which did me a great injury; but give me leave of these two speeches, think you, would to tell you, sir, you are an honest feller. be the best oration for your own funeral? There's my hand, sir, though I little thought Old Sedley made the last; and in that hum- that my flesh and blood was a living on you." ble frame of mind, and holding by the hand And the pair shook hands, with great confuof his daughter, life, and disappointment, and sion on Major Dobbin's part, thus found out vanity sank away from under him. in his act of charitable hypocrisy. "You see," said old Osborne to George, "what comes of merit and industry, and judicious speculations, and that. Look at me and my banker's account. Look at your poor grandfather, Sedley, and his failure. And yet he was a better man than I was, this day twenty years-a better man, 1 should say, by ten thousand pound." Beyond these people and Mr. Clapp's family, who came over from Brompton to pay a visit of condolence, not a single soul alive ever cared a penny piece about old John Sedley, or remembered the existence of such a person. "He He strove to soften the old man, and reconcile him toward his son's memory. was such a noble fellow," he said, "that all of us loved him, and would have done any thing for him. I, as a young man in those days, was flattered beyond measure by his preference for me, and was more pleased to be seen in his company than in that of the commander-in-chief. I never saw his equal for pluck and daring, and all the qualities of a soldier ;" and Dobbin told the old father as many stories as he could remember regarding the gallantry and achievements of his son. "And Georgy is so like him," the major added. "He's so like him that he makes me tremble sometimes," the grandfather said. When old Osborne first heard from his friend Colonel Buckler (as little Georgy has already informed us) how distinguished an On one or two evenings the major came to officer Major Dobbin was, he exhibited a dine with Mr. Osborne (it was during the great deal of scornful incredulity, and ex- time of the sickness of Mr. Sedley), and as pressed his surprise how ever such a feller the two sate together in the evening, after as that should possess either brains or repu- dinner, all their talk was about the departed tation. But he heard of the major's fame hero. The father boasted about him acfrom various members of his society. Sir cording to his wont, glorifying himself in reWilliam Dobbin had a great opinion of his counting his son's feats and gallantry; but son, and narrated many stories illustrative his mood was, at any rate, better and more of the major's learning, valor, and estimation charitable than that in which he had been in the world's opinion. Finally, his name disposed until now to regard the poor felappeared in the lists of one or two great par-low; and the Christian heart of the kind ties of the nobility, and this circumstance major was pleased at these symptoms had a prodigious effect upon the old aristo- of returning peace and good will. On the crat of Russell-square. The major's position, as guardian to Georgy, whose possession had been ceded to his grandfather, rendered some meetings between the two gentlemen inevitable; and it was in one of these that old Osborne, a keen man of business, looking into the major's accounts with his ward and the boy's mother, got a hint which staggered him very second evening, old Osborne called Dobbin William, just as he used to do at the time when Dobbin and George were boys together; and the honest gentleman was affected by that mark of reconciliation. On the next day, at breakfast, when Miss Osborne, with the asperity of her age and character, ventured to make some remark reflecting slightingly upon the major's ap pearance or behavior, tne master of the house | interrupted her. You'd have been glad enough to git him for yourself, Miss O. But them grapes are sour. Ha, ha! Major William is a fine feller!" “That he is, grandpapa," said Georgy, approvingly and going up close to the old gentleman, he took a hold of his large gray whiskers, and laughed in his face good-humoredly, and kissed him. And he told the story at night to his mother, who fully agreed with the boy. "Indeed he is," she said. "Your dear father always said so. He is one of the best and most upright of men." Dobbin happened to drop in very soon after this conversation, which made Amelia blush, perhaps; and the young scapegrace increased the confusion by telling Dobbin the other part of the story. I say, Dob," he said, "there's such an uncommon nice girl wants to marry you. She's plenty of tin; she wears a front; and she scolds the servants from morning till night." Who is it?" asked Dobbin. 64 "It's aunt O.," the boy answered."Grandpapa said so. And I say, Dob, how prime it would be to have you for my uncle." Old Sedley's quavering voice from the next room, at this moment, weakly called for Amelia, and the laughing ended. That old Osborne's mind was changing, was pretty clear. He asked George about his uncle sometimes, and laughed at the boy's imitation of the way in which Jos said "God-bless-my-soul," and gobbled his soup. Then he said, "It's not respectful, sir, of you younkers to be imitating of your relations. Miss O., when you go out a-driving to-day, leave my card upon Mr. Sedley, do you hear. There's no quarrel betwigst me and him, any how." The card was returned, and Jos and the major were asked to dinner-to a dinner, the most splendid and stupid, that, perhaps, ever Mr. Osborne gave; every inch of the family plate was exhibited, and the best company was asked. Mr. Sedley took down Miss O. to dinner, and she was very gracious to him; whereas she hardly spoke to the major, who sate apart from her, and by the side of Mr. Osborne, very timid. Jos said, with great solemnity, it was the best clear turtle soup he had ever tasted in his life, and asked Mr. Osborne where he got his Madeira. "It is some of Sedley's wine," whispered the butler to his master. "I've had it a long time, and paid a good figure for it, too," Mr. Osborne said aloud to his guest; and then whispered to his right-hand neighbor how he had got it "at the old chap's sale." More than once he asked the major about -about Mrs. George Osborne-a theme on which the major could be very eloquent when he chose. He told Mr. Osborne of her sufferings-of her passionate attachment to her husband, whose memory she wor shiped still-of the tender and dutiful manner in which she had supported her parents, and given up her boy when it seemed to her her duty to do so. You don't know what she endured, sir," said honest Dobbin, with a tremor in his voice; “ and I hope and trust you will be reconciled to her. If she took your son away from you, she gave hers to you; and, however much you loved your George, depend on it, she loved hers ten times more." By God, you are a good feller, sir," was all Mr. Osborne said. It had never struck him that the widow would feel any pain at parting with the boy, or that his having a fine fortune could grieve her. A reconciliation was announced as speedy and inevitable; and Amelia's heart already began to beat at the notion of the awful meeting with George's father. It was never, however, destined to take place. Old Sedley's lingering illness and death supervened, after which a meeting was for some time impossible. That catastrophe, and other events, may have worked upon Mr. Osborne. He was much shaken of late, and aged, and his mind was working inwardly. He had sent for his lawyers, and probably changed something in his will. The medical man who looked in pronounced him shaky, agitated, and talked of a little blood, and the sea-side; but he took neither of these remedies. One day when he should have come down to breakfast, his servant, missing him, went into his dressing-room, and found him lying at the foot of the dressing-table in a fit. Miss Osborne was apprized; the doctors were sent for; Georgy stopped away from school; the bleeders and cuppers came. Osborne partially regained cognizance, but never could speak again, though he tried dreadfully once or twice, and in four days he died. The doctors went down; the undertaker's men went up the stairs; and all the shutters were shut toward the garden in Russell-square. Bullock rushed from the city in a hurry. "How much money had he left to that boy-not half, surely? Surely share and share alike between the three!" It was an agitating moment. What was it that poor old man had tried once or twice in vain to say? I hope it was that he wanted to see Amelia, and be reconciled before he left the world to the dear and faithful wife of his son: it was most likely that; for his will showed that the hatred which he had so long cherished had gone out of his heart. They found in the pocket of his dressinggown the letter with the great red seal, which George had written him from Waterloo. He had looked at the other papers, too, relative to his son, for the key of the box in which he kept them was also in his pocket, and it was found the seals and envelopes had been broken-very likely on the night before the seizure-when the butler had taken him tea into his study, and found him reading in the great red family Bible. When the will was opened, it was found that half the property was left to George, and the remainder between the two sisters. Mr. Bullock to continue. for their joint benefit, the affairs of the commercial house, or to go out, as he thought fit. An annuity of five hundred pounds, chargeable on George's property, was left to his mother, "the widow of my beloved son, George Osborne," who was to resume the guardianship of the boy. 66 Major William Dobbin, my beloved son's friend," was appointed executor; "and as out of his kindness and bounty, and with his own private funds, he maintained my grandson, and my son's widow, when they were otherwise without means of support" (the testator went on to say), "I hereby thank him heartily for his love and regard for them, and beseech him to accept such a sum as may be sufficient to purchase his commission as a lieutenant-colonel, or to be disposed of in any way he may think fit.” When Amelia heard that her father-inlaw was reconciled to her, her heart melted, and she was grateful for the fortune left to her. But when she heard how Georgy was restored to her, and knew how and by whom, and how it was William's bounty that supported her in poverty, how it was William who gave her her husband and her son-O, then she sank on her knees, and prayed for blessings on that constant and kind heart; she bowed down and humbled herself, and kissed the feet, as it were, of that beautiful and generous affection. And gratitude was all that she had to pay back for such admirable devotion and benefits-only gratitude! If she thought of any other return, the image of George stood up out of the grave, and said, You are mine, and mine only, now and forever." William knew her feelings: had he not passed his whole life in divining them? 66 When the nature of Mr. Osborne's will became known to the world, it was edifying to remark how Mrs. George Osborne rose in the estimation of the people forming her circle of acquaintance. The servants of Jos's establishment, who used to question her humble orders, and say they would ask master," whether or not they could obey, never thought now of that sort of appeal. The cook forgot to sneer at her shabby old gowns (which, indeed, were quite eclipsed by that lady's finery when she was dressed to go to church of a Sunday evening), the others no longer grumbled at the sound of her bell, or delayed to answer that summons. The coachman, who grumbled that his osses should be brought out, and his carriage made into an ospital for that old feller and Mrs. O., drove her with the utmost alacrity now, and trembling lest he should be superseded by Mr. Osborne's coachman, asked what them there Russell-square coachmen knew about town, and whether they was fit to sit on a box before a lady?" Jos's friends, male and female, suddenly became interested about Emmy, and cards of condolence multiplied on her hall table. Jos himself, who had looked on her as a good-natured harmless pauper, to whom it was his duty to give victuals and shelter, paid her and the rich little boy, his nephew, the greatest respect-was anxious that she should have change and amusement after her troubles and trials, " poor, dear girl"-and began to appear at the breakfasttable, and most particularly to ask how she would like to dispose of the day. In her capacity of guardian to Georgy, she, with the consent of the major, her fellow-trustee, begged Miss Osborne to live in the Russell-square house as long as ever she chose to dwell there; but that lady, with thanks, declared that she never could think of remaining alone in that melancholy mansion, and departed in deep mourning, to Cheltenham, with a couple of her old domestics. The rest were liberally paid and dismissed; the faithful old butler, whom Mrs. Osborne proposed to retain, resigning, and preferring to invest his savings in a public-house, where, let us hope, he was not unprosperous. Miss Osborne not choosing to live in Russell-square, Mrs. Osborne also, after consultation, declined to occupy the gloomy old mansion there. The house was dismantled; the rich furniture and effects, the awful chandeliers, and dreary blank mirrors packed away and hidden, the rich rosewood drawing-room suite was muffled in straw, the carpets were rolled up and corded, the small, select library of wellbound books was stowed into two winechests, and the whole paraphernalia rolled away in several enormous vans to the Pantechnicon, where they were to lie until Georgy's majority. And the great, heavy dark plate-chests went off to Messrs. Stumpy and Rowdy, to lie in the cellars of those eminent bankers until the same period should arrive. One day Emmy, with George in her hand, and clad in deep sables, went to visit the deserted mansion, which she had not entered since she was a girl. The place in front was littered with straw where the vans had been laden and rolled off. They went into the great blank rooms, the walls of which bore the marks where the pictures and mirrors had hung. Then they went up the great, blank stone-staircases into the upper rooms, into that where grandpapa died, as George said in a whisper, and then higher still into George's own room. The boy was still clinging by her side, but she | that dear child, an unwholesome little miss thought of another besides him. She knew of seven years of age. that it had been his father's room as well as his own. She went up to one of the open windows (one of those at which she used to gaze with a sick heart when the child was first taken from her), and thence as she looked out she could see over the trees of Russellsquare, the old house in which she herself was born, and where she had passed so many happy days of sacred youth. They all came back to her, the pleasant holidays, the kind faces, the careless, joyful past times; and the long pains and trials that had since cast her down. She thought of these and of the man who had been her constant protector, her good genius, her sole benefactor, her tender, and generous friend. Look here, mother," said Georgy, "here's a G. O. scratched on the glass with a diamond; I never saw it before, I never did it." "It was your father's room long before you were born, George," she said, and she blushed as she kissed the boy. "Rosa, go and kiss your dear cousin," Mrs. Frederic said. "Don't you know me, George? 1 am your aunt." "I know you well enough," George said; "but I don't like kissing, please:" and he retreated from the obedient caresses of his cousin. 66 Take me to your dear mamma, you droll child," Mrs. Frederic said; and those ladies accordingly met, after an absence of more than fifteen years. During Emma's cares and poverty the other had never once thought about coming to see her; but now that she was decently prosperous in the world, her sister-in-law came to her, as a matter of course. So did numbers more. Our old friend, Miss Swartz, and her husband came thundering over from Hampton Court, with flaming yellow liveries, and was as impetuonsly fond of Amelia as ever. Swartz would have liked her always if she could have seen her. One must do her that justice. But, que voulez vous? in this vast town one has not the time to go and seek one's friends; if they drop out of the rank they disappear, and we march on without She was very silent as they drove back to Richmond, where they had taken a temporary house where the smiling lawyers them. : used to come bustling over to see her (and we may be sure noted the visit in the bill): and where, of course, there was a room for Major Dobbin, too, who rode over frequently, having much business to transact in behalf of his little ward. Georgy at this time was removed from Mr. Veal's on an unlimited holiday, and that gentleman was engaged to prepare an inscription for a fine marble slab, to be placed up in the Foundling under the monument of Captain George Osborne. The female Bullock, aunt of Georgy, although despoiled by that little monster of onehalf of the sun which she expected from her father, nevertheless showed her charitableness of spirit by being reconciled to the mother and the boy. Roehampton is not far from Richmond, and one day the chariot, with the golden bullocks emblazoned on the panels, and the flaccid children within, drove to Amelia's house at Richmond; and the Bullock family made an irruption into the garden, where Amelia was reading a book, Jos was in an arbor placidly dipping strawberries into wine, and the major in one of his Indian jackets was giving a back to Georgy, who chose to jump over him. He went over his head, and bounded into the little advance of Bullocks, with immense black bows in their hats, and huge black sashes, accompanying their mourning Who is ever missed in Vanity Fair! But so, in a word, and before the period of grief for Mr. Osborne's death had subsided, Emmy found herself in the center of a very genteel circle indeed; the members of which could not conceive that any body belonging to it was not very lucky. There was scarce one of the ladies that hadn't a relation a peer, though the husband might be a drysalter in the city. Some of the ladies were very blue and well informed; reading Mrs. Somerville, and frequenting the Royal Institution: others were severe and evangelical, and held by Exeter Hall. Emmy, it must be owned, found herself entirely at a loss in the midst of their clavers, and suffered woefully on the one or two.occasions in which she was compelled to accept Mrs. Frederic Bullock's hospitalities. The lady persisted in patronizing her, and determined most graciously to form her. She found Amelia's milliners for her, and regulated her household and her manners. She drove over constantly from Roehampton, and entertained her friend with faint, fashionable fiddle-faddle and feeble court slip-slop. Jos liked to hear it, but the major used to go off growling at the appearance of this woman, with her twopenny gentility. He went to sleep under Frederic Bullock's bald head, after dinner, at one of the banker's best parties (Fred was still anxious that the balance of the Osborne property should be transferred from Stumpy and Rowdy's to them), and while Amelia, who did not know Latin, or who wrote the last crack article in the Edinburgh, and did not in the least de plore, or otherwise, Mr. Peel's late extraorinary tergiversation in the fatal Catholic Relief Bill, sate dumb among the ladies in the grand drawing-room, looking out upon velvet lawns. trim gravel walks, and glistening hot houses. conclusion of the war, and carry the national God-dam into every city of the continent The congregation of hat-boxes, and Bramah desks, and dressing cases was prodigious There were jaunty young Cambridge-men traveling with their tutor, and going for a reading excursion to Nonnenwerth or Königswinter; there were Irish gentlemen, with the most dashing whiskers and jewelShe wants ton sadly," said Mr. Holly-ry, talking about horses incessantly, and proock. "My dear creature, you never will She seems good-natured, but insipid," said Mrs. Rowdy; "that major seems to be particularly épris." be able to form her." She is dreadfully ignorant or indifferent," said Mrs. Glowry, with a voice as if from the grave, and a sad shake of the head and turban. "I asked her if she thought that it was in 1836, according to Mr. Jowls, or in 1839, according to Mr. Wapshot, that the pope was to fall: and she said- Poor pope! I hope not. What has he done?'" She is my brother's widow, my dear friends," Mrs. Frederic replied, "and as such, I think we're all bound to give her every attention and instruction on entering into the world. You may fancy there can be no mercenary motives in those whose disappointments are well known." digiously polite to the young ladies on board, whom, on the contrary, the Cambridge lads and their pale-faced tutor avoided with maiden coyness: there were old Pall Mall loungers bound for Ems and Wiesbaden, and a course of waters to clear off the dinners of the season, and a little roulette and trente-etquarante to keep the excitement going: there was old Methuselah, who had married his young wife, with Captain Pappillon of the Guards holding her parasol and guide-books: there was young May who was carrying off his bride on a pleasure tour (Mrs. Winter that was, and who had been at school with May's grandmother); there was Sir John and my lady with a dozen children, and corresponding nursemaids; and the great grandee Bareacres family that sate by themselves near the wheel, stared at every body, and spoke to no one. Their carriages, emblazoned with coronets, and heaped with shin That poor dear Mrs. Bullock," said Rowdy to Hollyock, as they drove away together; she is always scheming and managing. She wants Mrs. Osborne's account to be taken from our house to hers—and the|ing imperials, were on the foredeck; locked way in which she coaxes that boy, and makes him sit by that blear-eyed little Rosa, is perfectly ridiculous." "I wish Glowry was choked with her man of sin and her battle of Armageddon," cried the other; and the carriage rolled away over Putney Bridge. But this sort of society was too cruelly genteel for Emmy: and all jumped for joy when a foreign tour was proposed. CHAPTER LXII. AM RHEIN. THE above every-day events had occurred, and a few weeks had passed, when, on one fine morning, Parliament being over, the summer advanced, and all the good company in London about to quit that city for their annual tour in search of pleasure or health, the Batavier steamboat left the Tower-stairs laden with a goodly company of English fugitives. The quarter-deck awnings were up, and the benches and gangways crowded with scores of rosy children, bustling nursemaids, ladies in the prettiest pink bonnets and summer dresses, gentlemen in traveling caps and linen jackets, whose mustaches had just begun to sprout for the ensuing tour; and stout trim old veterans with starched neckcloths and neat brushed hats, such as have invaded Europe any time since the in with a dozen more such vehicles: it was difficult to pass in and out among them: and the poor inmates of the fore-cabin had scarcely any space for locomotion. These consisted of a few magnificently attired gentlemen from Houndsditch, who brought their own provisions, and could have bought half the gay people in the grand saloon; a few honest fellows with mustaches and portfolios, who set to sketching before they had been halfan-hour on board; one or two French femmes de chambre who began to be dreadfully ill by the time the boat had passed Greenwich a groom or two who lounged in the neighborhood of the horse-boxes under their charge, or leaned over the side of the paddle-wheels, and talked about who was good for the Leger, and what they stood to win or lose for the Goodwood cup. All the couriers, when they had done plunging about the ship, and had settled their various masters in the cabins or on the deck, congregated together and began to chatter and smoke; the Hebrew gentlemen joining them and looking at the carriages. There was Sir John's great carriage that would hold thirteen people; my Lord Methuselah's carriage, my Lord Bareacres's chariot, britska, and fourgon, that any body might pay for who liked. It was a wonder how my lord got the ready money to pay for the expenses of the journey. The Hebrew gentlemen knew how he got it. They knew what money his lordship had in his |