Vanity Fair - Page 123/573

Sir Pitt knows I am married, and not knowing to whom, is not very much

displeased as yet. Ma tante is ACTUALLY ANGRY that I should have

refused him. But she is all kindness and graciousness. She

condescends to say I would have made him a good wife; and vows that she

will be a mother to your little Rebecca. She will be shaken when she

first hears the news. But need we fear anything beyond a momentary

anger? I think not: I AM SURE not. She dotes upon you so (you

naughty, good-for-nothing man), that she would pardon you ANYTHING:

and, indeed, I believe, the next place in her heart is mine: and that

she would be miserable without me. Dearest! 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 R.

To Miss Eliza Styles, At Mr. Barnet's, Saddler, Knightsbridge.

And I trust there is no reader of this little story who has not

discernment enough to perceive that the 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 mustachios, and was

indeed no other than Captain Rawdon Crawley.