Vanity Fair - Page 184/573

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.