praised as much as ever Becky chose to the society of Mr. Joseph), and then the praise him, and indeed brought the conver- mother and son used to talk about the major in sation round to the Dobbin subject a score of times every day. a way which even made the boy smile. She told him that she thought Major William was Means were easily found to win the favor the best man in all the world; the gentlest and of Georgy and the servants. Amelia's maid, the kindest, the bravest, and the humblest. it has been said, was heart and soul in favor Over and over again, she told him how they of the generous major. Having at first dis- owed every thing which they possessed in liked Becky for being the means of dismis- the world to that kind friend's benevolent sing him from the presence of her mistress, care of them; how he had befriended them she was reconciled to Mrs. Crawley sub- all through their poverty and misfortunes; sequently, because the latter became Will- watched over them when nobody cared for iam's most ardent admirer and champion. them; how all his comrades admired him, And in these mighty conclaves in which the though he never spoke of his own gallant two ladies indulged after their parties, and actions; how Georgy's father trusted him while Miss Payne was "brushing their beyond all other men, and had been con'airs," as she called the yellow locks of the stantly befriended by the good William. one, and the soft brown tresses of the other," Why, when your papa was a little boy," this girl always put in her word for that she said, " he often told me that it was dear good gentleman, Major Dobbin. Her William who defended him against a tyrant advocacy did not make Amelia angry any at the school where they were; and their more than Rebecca's admiration of him. friendship never ceased from that day until She made George write to him constantly, the last, when your dear father fell." and persisted in sending mamma's kind love in a postscript. And as she looked at her husband's portrait of nights, it no longer reproached her-perhaps she reproached it, now William was gone. Emmy was not very happy after her heroic sacrifice. She was very distraite, nervous, silent, and ill to please. The family had never known her so peevish. She grew pale and ill. She used to try and sing certain songs, ("Einsam bin ich nicht alleine," was one of them: that tender lovesong of Weber's, which, in old-fashioned days, young ladies, and when you were scarcely born, showed that those who lived before you knew too how to love and to sing); certain songs, I say, to which the major was partial; and as she warbled them in the twilight in the drawing-room, she would break off in the midst of the song, and walk into her neighboring apartment, and there, no doubt, take refuge in the miniature of her husband. Some books still subsisted, after Dobbin's departure, with his name written in them; a German Dictionary, for instance, with "William Dobbin -th Reg.," in the flyleaf; a guide-book with his initials, and one or two other volumes which belonged to the major. Emmy cleared these away and put them on the drawers, where she placed her work-box, her desk, her Bible, and Prayer-book, under the pictures of the two Georges. And the major, on going away, having left his gloves behind him, it is a fact that Georgy, rummaging his mother's desk sometime afterward, found the gloves neatly folded up, and put away in what they call the secret drawers of the desk. Not caring for society, and moping there a great deal, Emmy's chief pleasure in the summer evenings was to take long walks with Georgy (during which Rebecca was left to "Did Dobbin kill the man who killed papa ?" Georgy said. "I'm sure he did, or he would if he could have caught him; would'nt he, mother? When I'm in the army won't I hate the French ?-that's all." In such colloquies the mother and the child passed a great deal of their time together. The artless woman had made a confidant of the boy. He was as much William's friend as every body else who knew him well. By the way, Mrs. Becky not to be behind-hand in sentiment, had got a miniature too hanging up in her room, to the surprise and amusement of most people, and the delight of the original, who was no other than our friend Jos. On her first coming to favor the Sedleys with a visit, the little woman who had arrived with a remarkably small, shabby kit, was perhaps ashamed of the meanness of her trunks and band-boxes, and often spoke with great respect about her baggage left behind at Leipzig, which she must have from that city. When a traveler talks to you perpetually about the splendor of his luggage, which he does not happen to have with him; my son, beware of that traveler! He is, ten to one, an impostor. Neither Jos nor Emmy knew this important maxim. It seemed to them of no consequence whether Becky had a quantity of very fine clothes in invisible trunks; but as her present supply was exceedingly shabby, Emmy supplied her out of her own stores, or took her to the best milliner in the town, and there fitted her out. It was no more torn collars now, I promise you, and faded silks trailing off at the shoulder. Becky changed her habits with her situation in life-the rouge-pot was suspended-another excitement to which she had accustomed herself was also put aside, or at least only | regiment.- Gravesend, June 20th.-The indulged in in privacy; as when she was Ramchunder East Indiaman, came into the prevailed on by Jos of a summer evening, river this morning, having on board 14 offiEmmy and the boy being absent on their cers, and 132 rank and file of this gallant walks, to take a little spirit-and-water. But if she did not indulge-the courier did that rascal Kirsch could not be kept from the bottle; nor could he tell how much he took when he applied to it. He was sometimes surprised himself at the way in which Mr. Sedley's cognac diminished. Well, well; this is a painful subject. Becky did not, very likely, indulge so much as she used before she entered a decorous family. corps. They have been absent from England 14 years, having been embarked the year after Waterloo, in which glorious conflict they took an active part, and having subsequently distinguished themselves in the Burmese war. The veteran colonel, Sir Michael O'Dowd, K.C.B., with his lady and sister, landed here yesterday, with Captains Posky, Stubble, Macraw, Malony; Lieutenants Smith, Jones, Thompson, F. ThompAt last the much bragged-about boxes ar- son; Ensigns Hicks and Grady: the band rived from Leipzig :-three of them, not by on the pier playing the national anthem, and any means large or splendid; nor did the crowd loudly cheering the gallant veterBecky appear to take out any sort of dress-ans as they went into Wayte's hotel, where es or ornaments from the boxes when they a sumptuous banquet was provided for the did arrive. But out of one which contained defenders of Old England. During the rea mass of her papers (it was that very box past, which we need not say was served up which Rawdon Crawley had ransacked in in Wayte's best style, the cheering continhis furious hunt for Becky's concealed mou-ued so enthusiastically, that Lady O'Dowd ey), she took a picture with great glee, and the colonel came forward to the balcony, which she pinned up in her room, and to and drank the healths of their fellow-counwhich she introduced Jos. It was the por- trymen in a bumper of Wayte's best claret." trait of a gentleman in pencil, his face having On a second occasion, Jos read a brief the advantage of being painted up in pink. announcement-Major Dobbin had joined He was riding on an elephant away from some cocoa-nut trees, and a pagoda: it was an Eastern scene. "God bless my soul, it is my portrait," Jos cried out. It was he indeed, blooming in youth and beauty, in a nankeen jacket of the cut of 1804. It was the old picture that used to hang up in Russell-square. the -th regiment at Chatham; and subsequently he promulgated accounts of the presentations at the drawing-room of Colonel Sir Michael O'Dowd, K.C.B., lady O'Dowd (by Mrs. Molloy Malony, of Ballymalony), and Miss Glorvina O'Dowd (by Lady O'Dowd). Almost directly after this, Dobbin's name appeared among the lieuI bought it," said Becky, in a voice trem-tenant colonels-for old Marshal Tiptoff had bling with emotion; "I went to see if I could be of any use to my kind friends. I have never parted with that picture-1 never will." died during the passage of the -th from Madras, and the sovereign was pleased to advance Colonel Sir Michael O'Dowd to the rank of major-general on his return to England, with an intimation that he should be colonel of the distinguished regiment which he had so long commanded. Amelia had been made aware of some of these movements. The correspondence between George and his guardian had not ceased by any means. William had even written once or twice to her since his de That evening's conversation was delicious for Jos. Emmy only came in to go to bed very tired and unwell. Jos and his fair guest had a charming tête-à-tête, and his sis-parture, but in a manner so unconstrainedly ter could hear, as she lay awake in her adjoining chamber, Rebecca singing over to Jos the old songs of 1815. He did not sleep, for a wonder, that night, any more than Amelia. cold, tha the poor woman felt now in her turn that she had lost her power over him, and that, as he had said, he was free. He had left her, and she was wretched. The memory of his almost countless services, and lofty and affectionate regard, now presented itself to her, and rebuked her day and night. She brooded over those recollections, according to her wont; saw the purity and beauty of the affection with which she had trifled, and reproached herself for having flung away such a treasure. It was gone, indeed. William had spent it all out. He loved her no more, he thought, as he had loved her. He never could again That sort of regard, which he had proffered to her for so many faithful years, can't be flung down and shattered, and mended so as to show no scars. The little heedless tyrant had so destroyed it. No. William thought again and again, "It was myself I deluded, and persisted in cajoling; had she been worthy of the love I gave her, she would have returned it long ago. It was a fond mistake. Isn't the whole course of life made up of such? and suppose I had won her, should I not have been disenchanted the day after my victory? Why pine, or be ashamed of my defeat?" The more he thought of this long passage of his life, the more clearly he saw his deception. "I'll go into harness again," he said, "and do my duty in that state of life in which it has pleased Heaven to place me. I will see that the buttons of the recruits are properly bright, and that the sergeants make no mistakes in their accounts. I will dine at mess, and listen to the Scotch surgeon telling his stories. When I am old and broke, I will go on half pay, and my old sisters shall scold I have geliebt and gelebet,' as the girl in Wallenstein says. I am done. Pay the bills, and get me a cigar; find out what there is at the play to-night, Francis; tomorrow we cross by the Batavier.'" He made the above speech, whereof Francis only heard the last two lines, pacing up and down the Boompjes at Rotterdam. The "Batavier" was lying in the basin. He could see the place on the quarter-deck, where he and Emmy had sate on the happy Voyage out. What had that little Mrs. Crawley to say to him? Pshaw! to-morrow we will put to sea, and return to England, home, and duty! me. After June, all the little court society of Pumpernickel used to separate, according to the German plan, and make for a hundred watering-places, where they drank at the wells, rode upon donkeys, gambled at the redoutes-if they had money and a mindrushed, with hundreds of their kind, to gormandize at the tables d'hôte, and idled away the summer. The English diplomatists went off to Toplitz and Kissengen, their French rivals shut up their chancellerie, and whisked away to their darling Boulevard de Gand. The transparent reigning family took, too, to the waters, or retired to their hunting-lodges. Every body went away having any pretensions to politeness, and, of course, with them, Doctor Von Glauber, the court-doctor, and his baroness. The seasons for the baths were the most productive periods of the doctor's practice-he united business with pleasure, and his chief place of resort was Ostend, which is much frequented by Germans, and where the doctor treated himself and his spouse to what he called a "dib" in the sea. His interesting patient, Jos, was a regular milch cow to the doctor, and he easily persuaded the civilian, both for his own health's sake and that of his charming sister, which was really very much shattered, to pass the summer at that hideous seaport town. Emmy did not care where she went much Georgy jumped at the idea of a move. As for Becky, she came, as a matter of course, in the fourth place inside of the fine barouche Mr. Jos had bought-the two domestics being on the box in front. She might have some misgivings about the friends whom she should meet there, and who might be likely to tell ugly stories-but bah! she was strong enough to hold her own. She had cast such an anchor in Jos now as would require a strong storm to shake. That incident of the picture had finished him. Becky took down her elephant, and put it into the little box which she had had from Amelia ever so many years ago. Emmy also came off with her lares-her two pictures—and the party, finally, were lodged in an exceedingly dear and uncomfortable house at Ostend. There Amelia began to take baths, and get what good she could from them, and though scores of people of Becky's acquaintance passed her and cut her, yet Mrs. Osborne, who walked about with her, and who knew nobody, was not aware of the treatment experienced by the friend whom she had chosen so judiciously as a companion; indeed, Becky never thought fit to tell her what was passing under her innocent eyes. Some of Mrs. Rawdon Crawley's acquaintances, however, acknowledged her readily enough-perhaps more readily than she would have desired. Among these were Major Loder (unattached), Captain Rook (late of the Rifles), who might be seen any day at the Dyke, smoking and staring at the women, and who speedily got an introduction to the hospitable board and select circle of Mr. Joseph Sedley. In fact, they would take no denial; they burst into the house whether Becky was at home or not, walked into Mrs. Osborne's drawing-room, which they perfumed with their coats and mustaches, called Jos "old buck," and invaded his dinner-table, and laughed and drank for long hours there. "What can they mean?" asked Georgy, who did not like these gentlemen. "I heard the major say to Mrs. Crawley yesterday— No, no, Becky, you shan't keep the old buck to yourself. We must have the bones in, or, damme, I'll split.' What could the major mean, ma ?" 66 Major! don't call him major!" Emmy said. "I'm sure I can't tell what he meant." His presence and that of his friend inspired the little lady with intolerable terror and aversion. They paid her tipsy compliments; they leered at her over the dinner-table. And the captain made her advances that |