"Come as Lady Crawley, if you like," the baronet said, grasping his crape hat. "The feller has left you, has he!" the "There! will that zatusfy you? Come baronet said, beginning, as he fancied, to back and be my wife. Your vit vort. Birth comprehend. "Well, Becky-come back, be hanged. You're as good a lady as ever I see. You've got more brains in your little vinger than any baronet's wife in the county. Will you come? Yes or no?"

to go back to Queen's Crawley, and take coolness and good-humor which set Miss care of the children, and of you as formerly, Crawley almost mad with bewilderment. when you said you were pleased with the That an old gentleman of station should fall services of your little Rebecca. When I on his knees to a penniless governess, and think of what you have just offered me, my burst out laughing because she refused to heart fills with gratitude-indeed it does. I marry him-that a penniless governess can't be your wife, sir; let me let me be should refuse a baronet with four thousand your daughter!" a year-these were mysteries which Miss Crawley could never comprehend. It surpassed any complications of intrigue in her favorite Pigault le Brun.

Saying which, Rebecca went down on her knees in a most tragical way, and, taking Sir Pitt's horny, black hand between her own two (which were very pretty and white, and as soft as satin), looked up in his face with an expression of exquisite pathos and confidence, when-when the door opened, and Miss Crawley sailed in.

"I'm glad you think it good sport, brother," she continued, groping wildly through this amazement.

Vamous," said Sir Pitt. "Who'd ha' thought it! what a sly little devil! what a Mrs. Firkin and Miss Briggs, who hap-little fox it waws!" he muttered to himself, pened by chance to be at the parlor-door chuckling with pleasure.

soon after the baronet and Rebecca entered "Who'd have thought what?" cries Miss the apartment, had also seen, accidentally, Crawley, stamping with her foot. "Pray, through the key-hole, the old gentleman Miss Sharp, are you waiting for the Prince prostrate before the governess, and had Regent's divorce, that you don't think our heard the generous proposal which he family good enough for you?" made her. It was scarcely out of his mouth, My attitude," Rebecca said, "when you when Mrs. Firkin and Miss Briggs had came in, ma'am, did not look as if I despised streamed up the stairs, had rushed into the such an honor as this good-this noble man drawing-room where Miss Crawley was has deigned to offer me. Do you think I reading the French novel, and had given that have no heart? Have you all loved me, and old lady the astounding intelligence that Sir been so kind to the poor orphan-deserted Pitt was on his knees, proposing to Missgirl, and am I to feel nothing? O my Sharp. And if you calculate the time for friends! O my benefactors! may not my the above dialogue to take place-the time love, my life, my duty, try to repay the confor Briggs and Firkin to fly to the drawing-fidence you have shown me? Do you room-the time for Miss Crawley to be as- grudge me even gratitude, Miss Crawley? tonished, and to drop her volume of Pigault It is too much-my heart is too full ;" and le Brun-and the time for her to come down she sank down in a chair so pathetically, that stairs-you will see how exactly accurate most of the audience present were perfectly this history is, and how Miss Crawley must melted with her sadness. have appeared at the very instant when Rebecca had assumed the attitude of humility. "It is the lady on the ground, and not the gentleman," Miss Crawley said, with a look and voice of great scorn. They told me that you were on your knees, Sir Pitt: do kneel once more, and let me see this pretty couple!"

66

"I have thanked Sir Pitt Crawley, ma'am," Rebecca said, rising, and have told him that that I never can become Lady Crawley."

"Refused him!" Miss Crawley said, more bewildered than ever. Briggs and Firkin at the door opened the eyes of astonishment and the lips of wonder.

"Yes-refused," Rebecca continued, with a sad, tearful voice.

"And am I to credit my ears that you absolutely proposed to her, Sir Pitt ?" the old lady asked.

"Ees," said the baronet, "I did." “And she refused you as she says?" "Ees," Sir Pitt said, his features on a broad grin.

"It does not seem to break your heart, at any rate," Miss Crawley remarked.

Nawt a bit," answered Sir Pitt, with a

"Whether you marry me or not, you're a good little girl, Becky, and I'm your vriend, mind," said Sir Pitt, and putting on his crape-bound hat, he walked away-greatly to Rebecca's relief; for it was evident that her secret was unrevealed to Miss Crawley, and she had the advantage of a brief reprieve.

Putting her handkerchief to her eyes, and nodding away honest Briggs, who would have followed her up-stairs, she went up to her apartment; while Briggs and Miss Crawley, in a high state of excitement, remained to discuss the strange event, and Firkin, not less moved, dived down into the kitchen regions, and talked of it with all the male and female company there. And so impressed was Mrs. Firkin with the news, that she thought proper to write off by that very night's post, "with her humble duty to Mrs. Bute Crawley and the family at the Rectory, and Sir Pitt has been and proposed for to marry Miss Sharp, wherein she has refused him, to the wonder of all."

The two ladies in the dining-room (where worthy Miss Briggs was delighted to be admitted once more to a confidential conversation with her patroness) wondered to their hearts' content at Sir Pitt's offer, and Re

becca's refusal; Briggs very acutely suggesting that there must have been some obstacle in the shape of a previous attachment, otherwise no young woman in her senses would ever have refused so advantageous a proposal.

"You would have accepted it youself, wouldn't you, Briggs ?" Miss Crawley said, kindly.

"Would it not be a privilege to be Miss Crawley's sister?" Briggs replied, with meek evasion.

who was the gentleman that had the mastery of Miss Sharp's heart.

Rebecca was very kind, very affectionate and affected-responded to Briggs' offers of tenderness with grateful fervor-owned there was a secret attachment--a delicious mystery-what a pity Miss Briggs had not remained half a minute longer at the keyhole! Rebecca might, perhaps, have told more: but five minutes after Miss Briggs' arrival in Rebecca's apartment, Miss Crawley actually made her appearance there-an unheard of honor; her impatience had overcome her; she could not wait for the tardy operations of her embassadress: so she came in person, and ordered Briggs out of She the room. And expressing her approval of Rebecca's conduct, she asked particulars of the interview and the previous transactions which had brought about the astonishing offer of Sir Pitt.

"Well, Becky would have made a good Lady Crawley, after all," Miss Crawley remarked (who was mollified by the girl's refusal, and very liberal and generous, now there was no call for her sacrifices).

has brains in plenty (much more wit in her little finger than you have, my poor, dear Briggs, in all your head). Her manners are excellent, now I have formed her. She is a Montmorency, Briggs, and blood is something, though I despise it for my part; and she would have held her own among those pompous, stupid Hampshire people, much better than that unfortunate ironmonger's daughter."

Briggs coincided as usual, and the "previous attachment" was then discussed in conjectures. "You poor friendless creatures are always having some foolish tendre," Miss Crawley said. "You yourself, you know, were in love with a writing-master (don't cry, Briggs-you're always crying, and it won't bring him to life again), and I suppose this unfortunate Becky has been silly and sentimental too-some apothecary, or house-steward, or painter, or young curate, or something of that sort."

"Poor thing, poor thing!" says Briggs (who was thinking of twenty-four years back, and that hectic young writing-master whose lock of yellow hair, and whose letters, beautiful in their illegibility, she cherished in her old desk up-stairs). "Poor thing, poor thing!" says Briggs. Once more she was a fresh-cheeked lass of eighteen; she was at evening church, and the hectic writing-master and she were quavering out of the same psalm-book.

Rebecca said she had long had some notion of the partiality with which Sir Pitt honored her (for he was in the habit of making his feelings known in a very frank and unreserved manner) but, not to mention private reasons with which she would not for the present trouble Miss Crawley, Sir Pitt's age, station, and habits were such as to render a marriage quite impossible; and could a woman with any feelings of self-respect and any decency listen to proposals at such a moment, when the funeral of the lover's deceased wife had not actually taken place?

66

Nonsense, my dear, you would never have refused him had there not been some one else in the case," Miss Crawley said, coming to her point at once. "Tell me the private reasons; what are the private reasons? There is some one; who is it that has touched your heart?"

Rebecca cast down her eyes, and owned there was. "You have guessed right, dear lady," she said, with a sweet, simple, faltering voice. "You wonder at one so poor and friendless having an attachment, don't you? I have never heard that poverty was any safeguard against it. I wish it were."

"My poor, dear child," cried Miss Crawley, who was always quite ready to be sentimental, "Is our passion unrequited, then?" Are we pining in secret? Tell me all, and let me console you."

"After such conduct on Rebecca's part," Miss Crawley said enthusiastically, "our family should do something. Find out who is the objet, Briggs. I'll set him up in a shop; or order my portrait of him, you "I wish you could, dear madam," Rebecknow; or speak to my cousin the bishop-ca said in the same tearful tone. "Indeed, and I'll doter Becky, and we'll have a wed- indeed I need it." And she laid her head ding, Briggs, and you shall make the break- upon Miss Crawley's shoulder and wept fast, and be a bride's-maid."

Briggs declared that it would be delightful, | and vowed that her dear Miss Crawley was always kind and generous, and went up to Rebecca's bed-room to console her and prattle about the offer, and the refusal, and the cause thereof; and to hint at the generous intentions of Miss Crawley, and to find out

there so naturally that the old lady, surprised into sympathy, embraced her with an almost maternal kindness, uttered many soothing protests of regard and affection for her, vowed that she loved her as a daughter, and would do every thing in her power to serve her. "And now who is it, my dear? Is it that pretty Miss Sedley's brother?

You said something about an affair with "You know," she said, " Mrs. Briefless is him. I'll ask him here, my dear. And granddaughter of Sir John Redhand, who is you shall have him: indeed you shall."

"Don't ask me now," Rebecca said. "You shall know all soon. Indeed you shall. Dear, kind Miss Crawley-dear friend, may I say so?"

66

That you may, my child," the old lady replied, kissing her.

"I can't tell you now," sobbed out Rebecca, "I am very miserable. But O! love me always promise you will love me always." And in the midst of mutual tears— for the emotions of the younger woman had awakened the sympathies of the elder-this promise was solemnly given by Miss Crawley, who left her little protégée, blessing and admiring her as a dear, artless, tenderhearted, affectionate, incomprehensible crea

ture.

;

so ill at Cheltenham that he can't last six months. Mrs. Briefless's papa, succeeds: so you see she will be a baronet's daughter." And Toady asked Briefless and his wife to dinner the very next week.

If the mere chance of becoming a baronet's daughter can procure a lady such homage in the world, surely we may respect the agonies of a young woman who has lost the opportunity of becoming a baronet's wife. "Who would have dreamed of Lady Crawley dying so soon? She was one of those sickly women that might have lasted these ten years"-Rebecca thought to herself, in all the woes of repentance-"and I might have been my lady! I might have led that old man whither I would. I might have thanked Mrs. Bute for her patronage, and And now she was left alone to think over Mr. Pitt for his insufferable condescension. the sudden and wonderful events of the day, I would have had the town-house newly and of what had been and what might have furnished and decorated. I would have had been. What think you were the private the handsomest carriage in London, and a feelings of Miss, no (begging her pardon), box at the Opera; and I would have been of Mrs. Rebecca? If, a few pages back, presented next season. All this might have the present writer claimed the privilege of been; but now—now is all doubt and myspeeping into Miss Amelia Sedley's bed-tery." room, and understanding with the omniscience of the novelist all the gentle pains and passions which were tossing upon that innocent pillow, why should he not declare himself to be Rebecca's confidante too, master of her secrets, and seal-keeper of that young woman's conscience?

But Rebecca was a young lady of too much resolution and energy of character to permit herself much useless and unseemly sorrow for the irrevocable past; so, having devoted only the proper portion of regret to it, she wisely turned her whole attention toward the future, which was now vastly more important to her. And she surveyed her position, and its hopes, doubts, and chances.

Well then, in the first place, Rebecca gave way to some very sincere and touching regrets that a piece of marvelous good fortune should have been so near her, and In the first place, she was married; that she actually obliged to decline it. In this was a great fact. Sir Pitt knew it. She natural emotion every properly regulated was not so much surprised into the avowal, mind will certainly share. What good as induced to make it by a sudden calculamother is there that would not commiserate a penniless spinster, who might have been my lady, and have shared four thousand a year? What well-bred young person is there in all Vanity Fair, who will not feel for a hard-working, ingenious, meritorious girl, who gets such an honorable, advantageous, provoking offer, just at the very moment when it is out of her power to accept it? I am sure our friend Becky's disappointment deserves and will command every sympathy. I remember one night being in the Fair myself, at an evening party. I observed old Miss Toady there also present, single out for her special attentions and flattery little Mrs. Briefless, the barrister's wife, who is of a good family certainly, but, as we all know, is as poor as poor can be.

What, I asked in my own mind, can cause this obsequiousness on the part of Miss Toady; has Briefless got a county court, or has his wife had a fortune left her? Miss Toady explained presently, with that simplicity which distinguishes all her conduct.

tion. It must have come some day; and why not now as at a later period? He who would have married her himself must at least be silent with regard to her marriage. But how Miss Crawley would bear the news-was the great question. Misgivings Rebecca had; but she remembered all Miss Crawley had said; the old lady's avowed contempt for birth; her daring liberal opinions; her general romantic propensities; her almost doting attachment to her nephew, and her repeatedly-expressed fondness for Rebecca herself. "She is so fond of him," Rebecca thought, that she will forgive him any thing: she is so used to me that I don't think she could be comfortable without me: when the éclaircissement comes there will be a scene, and hysterics, and a great quarrel, and then a great reconciliation." At all events, what use was there in delaying the die was thrown, and now or to-morrow the issue must be the same. And so, resolved that Miss Crawley should have the news, the young person debated in her mind as to the

best means of conveying it to her; and is to hinder a captain who is a major, and a whether she should face the storm that must come, or fly and avoid it until its first fury was blown over. In this state of meditation she wrote the following letter:

"DEAREST FRIEND,

"The great crisis which we have debated about so often is come. Half of my secret is known, and I have thought and thought, until I am quite sure that now is the time to reveal the whole of the mystery. Sir Pitt came to me this morning, and made --what do you think? a declaration in form. Think of that! Poor little me. I might have been Lady Crawley. How pleased Mrs. Bute would have been; and ma tante if I had taken precedence of her! I might have been somebody's mamma, instead of O, I tremble, I tremble, when I think how soon we must tell all!

young lady who is of age, from purchasing a license, and uniting themselves at any church in this town? Who needs to be told, that if a woman has a will, she will assuredly find a way? My belief is, that one day, when Miss Sharp had gone to pass the forenoon with her dear friend Miss Amelia Sedley, in Russell-square, a lady ing a church in the city, in company with a very like her might have been seen entergentleman with dyed mustaches, who, after a quarter of an hour's interval, escorted her back to the hackney-coach in waiting, and that this was a quiet bridal party.

And who on earth, after the daily experience we have, can question the probability of a gentleman marrying any body? How many of the wise and learned have married their cooks? Did not Lord Eldon himself, the most prudent of men, make a run-away "Sir Pitt knows I am married, and not match? Were not Achilles and Ajax both knowing to whom, is not very much dis- in love with their servant maids? And are pleased as yet. Ma tante is actually angry we to expect a heavy dragoon with strong that I should have refused him. But she is desires and small brains, who had never conall kindness and graciousness. She con- trolled a passion in his life, to become prudescends to say I would have made him a dent all of a sudden, and to refuse to pay good wife; and vows that she will be a mother any price for an indulgence to which he had to your little Rebecca. She will be shaken a mind? If people only made prudent marwhen she first hears the news. But need riages, what a stop to population there would we fear any thing beyond a momentary be! anger? I think not: I am sure not. She It seems to me, for my part, that Mr. dotes upon you so (you naughty, good-for- Rawdon's marriage was one of the honestest nothing man), that she would pardon you actions which we shall have to record in any any thing and, indeed, I believe, the next portion of that gentleman's biography which place in her heart is mine: and that she has to do with the present history. No one would be miserable without me. Dearest! will say it is unmanly to be captivated by a something tells me we shall conquer. You shall leave that odious regiment: quit gaming, racing, and be a good boy; and we shall all live in Park-lane: and ma tante shall leave us all her money.

:

"I shall try and walk to-morrow at 3 in the usual place. If Miss B. accompanies me, you must come to dinner, and bring an answer, and put it in the third volume of Porteus's Sermons. But, at all events, come to your own,

"To Miss Eliza Styles,

R.

At Mr. Barnet's, Saddler, Knightbridge." And I trust there is no reader of this little story who has not discernment enough to perceive that Miss Eliza Styles (an old schoolfellow, Rebecca said, with whom she had resumed an active correspondence of late) and who used to fetch these letters from the saddler's, wore brass spurs, and large curling mustaches, and was indeed no other than Captain Rawdon Crawley.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE LETTER ON THE PINCUSHION.

How they were married is not of the slightest consequence to any body. What

woman, or, being captivated, to marry her;
and the admiration, the delight, the passion,
the wonder, the unbounded confidence, and
frantic adoration with which, by degrees,
this big warrior got to regard the little Re-
becca, were feelings which the ladies at least
will pronounce were not altogether discred-
itable to him. When she sang, every note
thrilled in his dull soul, and tingled through
his huge frame. When she spoke, he
brought all the force of his brains to listen
and wonder. If she was jocular, he used to
revolve her jokes in his mind, and explode
over them half an hour afterward in the
street, to the surprise of the groom in the
tilbury by his side, or the comrade riding
with him in Rotten Row. Her words were
oracles to him, her smallest actions marked
by an infallible grace and wisdom.
she sings-how she paints," thought he.
"How she rode that kicking mare at
Queen's Crawley!" And he would say to
her in confidential moments, "By Jove,
Beck, you're fit to be commander-in-chief,
or Archbishop of Canterbury, by Jove." Is
his case a rare one? and don't we see every
day in the world many an honest Hercules
at the apron-strings of Omphale, and great
whiskered Samsons prostrate in Dalilah's lap?

"How