At length when, by the help of farther polite speeches, he deemed that
Miss Osborne was sufficiently prepared to receive the whole news, he
poured it into her ear. "George could not give up Amelia--George was
married to her"--and then he related the circumstances of the marriage
as we know them already: how the poor girl would have died had not her
lover kept his faith: how Old Sedley had refused all consent to the
match, and a licence had been got: and Jos Sedley had come from
Cheltenham to give away the bride: how they had gone to Brighton in
Jos's chariot-and-four to pass the honeymoon: and how George counted on
his dear kind sisters to befriend him with their father, as women--so
true and tender as they were--assuredly would do. And so, asking
permission (readily granted) to see her again, and rightly conjecturing
that the news he had brought would be told in the next five minutes to
the other ladies, Captain Dobbin made his bow and took his leave.
He was scarcely out of the house, when Miss Maria and Miss Wirt rushed
in to Miss Osborne, and the whole wonderful secret was imparted to them
by that lady. To do them justice, neither of the sisters was very much
displeased. There is something about a runaway match with which few
ladies can be seriously angry, and Amelia rather rose in their
estimation, from the spirit which she had displayed in consenting to
the union. As they debated the story, and prattled about it, and
wondered what Papa would do and say, came a loud knock, as of an
avenging thunder-clap, at the door, which made these conspirators
start. It must be Papa, they thought. But it was not he. It was only
Mr. Frederick Bullock, who had come from the City according to
appointment, to conduct the ladies to a flower-show.
This gentleman, as may be imagined, was not kept long in ignorance of
the secret. But his face, when he heard it, showed an amazement which
was very different to that look of sentimental wonder which the
countenances of the sisters wore. Mr. Bullock was a man of the world,
and a junior partner of a wealthy firm. He knew what money was, and
the value of it: and a delightful throb of expectation lighted up his
little eyes, and caused him to smile on his Maria, as he thought that
by this piece of folly of Mr. George's she might be worth thirty
thousand pounds more than he had ever hoped to get with her.
"Gad! Jane," said he, surveying even the elder sister with some
interest, "Eels will be sorry he cried off. You may be a fifty
thousand pounder yet."
The sisters had never thought of the money question up to that moment,
but Fred Bullock bantered them with graceful gaiety about it during
their forenoon's excursion; and they had risen not a little in their
own esteem by the time when, the morning amusement over, they drove
back to dinner. And do not let my respected reader exclaim against
this selfishness as unnatural. It was but this present morning, as he
rode on the omnibus from Richmond; while it changed horses, this
present chronicler, being on the roof, marked three little children
playing in a puddle below, very dirty, and friendly, and happy. To
these three presently came another little one. "POLLY," says she, "YOUR
SISTER'S GOT A PENNY." At which the children got up from the puddle
instantly, and ran off to pay their court to Peggy. And as the omnibus
drove off I saw Peggy with the infantine procession at her tail,
marching with great dignity towards the stall of a neighbouring
lollipop-woman.