Vanity Fair - Page 101/573

She lived upon the recollections of that happy evening for many days

afterwards, remembering his words; his looks; the song he sang; his

attitude, as he leant over her or looked at her from a distance. As it

seemed to her, no night ever passed so quickly at Mr. Osborne's house

before; and for once this young person was almost provoked to be angry

by the premature arrival of Mr. Sambo with her shawl.

George came and took a tender leave of her the next morning; and then

hurried off to the City, where he visited Mr. Chopper, his father's

head man, and received from that gentleman a document which he

exchanged at Hulker & Bullock's for a whole pocketful of money. As

George entered the house, old John Sedley was passing out of the

banker's parlour, looking very dismal. But his godson was much too

elated to mark the worthy stockbroker's depression, or the dreary eyes

which the kind old gentleman cast upon him. Young Bullock did not come

grinning out of the parlour with him as had been his wont in former

years.

And as the swinging doors of Hulker, Bullock & Co. closed upon Mr.

Sedley, Mr. Quill, the cashier (whose benevolent occupation it is to

hand out crisp bank-notes from a drawer and dispense sovereigns out of

a copper shovel), winked at Mr. Driver, the clerk at the desk on his

right. Mr. Driver winked again.

"No go," Mr. D. whispered.

"Not at no price," Mr. Q. said. "Mr. George Osborne, sir, how will

you take it?" George crammed eagerly a quantity of notes into his

pockets, and paid Dobbin fifty pounds that very evening at mess.

That very evening Amelia wrote him the tenderest of long letters. Her

heart was overflowing with tenderness, but it still foreboded evil.

What was the cause of Mr. Osborne's dark looks? she asked. Had any

difference arisen between him and her papa? Her poor papa returned so

melancholy from the City, that all were alarmed about him at home--in

fine, there were four pages of loves and fears and hopes and

forebodings.

"Poor little Emmy--dear little Emmy. How fond she is of me," George

said, as he perused the missive--"and Gad, what a headache that mixed

punch has given me!" Poor little Emmy, indeed.