Vanity Fair - Page 143/573

If Amelia could have heard the comments regarding her which were made

in the circle from which her father's ruin had just driven her, she

would have seen what her own crimes were, and how entirely her

character was jeopardised. Such criminal imprudence Mrs. Smith never

knew of; such horrid familiarities Mrs. Brown had always condemned, and

the end might be a warning to HER daughters. "Captain Osborne, of

course, could not marry a bankrupt's daughter," the Misses Dobbin said.

"It was quite enough to have been swindled by the father. As for that

little Amelia, her folly had really passed all--"

"All what?" Captain Dobbin roared out. "Haven't they been engaged ever

since they were children? Wasn't it as good as a marriage? Dare any

soul on earth breathe a word against the sweetest, the purest, the

tenderest, the most angelical of young women?"

"La, William, don't be so highty-tighty with US. We're not men. We

can't fight you," Miss Jane said. "We've said nothing against Miss

Sedley: but that her conduct throughout was MOST IMPRUDENT, not to call

it by any worse name; and that her parents are people who certainly

merit their misfortunes."

"Hadn't you better, now that Miss Sedley is free, propose for her

yourself, William?" Miss Ann asked sarcastically. "It would be a most

eligible family connection. He! he!"

"I marry her!" Dobbin said, blushing very much, and talking quick. "If

you are so ready, young ladies, to chop and change, do you suppose that

she is? Laugh and sneer at that angel. She can't hear it; and she's

miserable and unfortunate, and deserves to be laughed at. Go on

joking, Ann. You're the wit of the family, and the others like to hear

it."

"I must tell you again we're not in a barrack, William," Miss Ann

remarked.

"In a barrack, by Jove--I wish anybody in a barrack would say what you

do," cried out this uproused British lion. "I should like to hear a

man breathe a word against her, by Jupiter. But men don't talk in this

way, Ann: it's only women, who get together and hiss, and shriek, and

cackle. There, get away--don't begin to cry. I only said you were a

couple of geese," Will Dobbin said, perceiving Miss Ann's pink eyes

were beginning to moisten as usual. "Well, you're not geese, you're

swans--anything you like, only do, do leave Miss Sedley alone."

Anything like William's infatuation about that silly little flirting,

ogling thing was never known, the mamma and sisters agreed together in

thinking: and they trembled lest, her engagement being off with

Osborne, she should take up immediately her other admirer and Captain.

In which forebodings these worthy young women no doubt judged according

to the best of their experience; or rather (for as yet they had had no

opportunities of marrying or of jilting) according to their own notions

of right and wrong.