Vanity Fair - Page 214/573

Have we a right to repeat or to overhear her prayers? These, brother,

are secrets, and out of the domain of Vanity Fair, in which our story

lies.

But this may be said, that when the tea was finally announced, our

young lady came downstairs a great deal more cheerful; that she did not

despond, or deplore her fate, or think about George's coldness, or

Rebecca's eyes, as she had been wont to do of late. She went

downstairs, and kissed her father and mother, and talked to the old

gentleman, and made him more merry than he had been for many a day. She

sate down at the piano which Dobbin had bought for her, and sang over

all her father's favourite old songs. She pronounced the tea to be

excellent, and praised the exquisite taste in which the marmalade was

arranged in the saucers. And in determining to make everybody else

happy, she found herself so; and was sound asleep in the great funereal

pavilion, and only woke up with a smile when George arrived from the

theatre.

For the next day, George had more important "business" to transact than

that which took him to see Mr. Kean in Shylock. Immediately on his

arrival in London he had written off to his father's solicitors,

signifying his royal pleasure that an interview should take place

between them on the morrow. His hotel bill, losses at billiards and

cards to Captain Crawley had almost drained the young man's purse,

which wanted replenishing before he set out on his travels, and he had

no resource but to infringe upon the two thousand pounds which the

attorneys were commissioned to pay over to him. He had a perfect

belief in his own mind that his father would relent before very long.

How could any parent be obdurate for a length of time against such a

paragon as he was? If his mere past and personal merits did not

succeed in mollifying his father, George determined that he would

distinguish himself so prodigiously in the ensuing campaign that the

old gentleman must give in to him. And if not? Bah! the world was

before him. His luck might change at cards, and there was a deal of

spending in two thousand pounds.

So he sent off Amelia once more in a carriage to her mamma, with strict

orders and carte blanche to the two ladies to purchase everything

requisite for a lady of Mrs. George Osborne's fashion, who was going on

a foreign tour. They had but one day to complete the outfit, and it

may be imagined that their business therefore occupied them pretty

fully. In a carriage once more, bustling about from milliner to

linen-draper, escorted back to the carriage by obsequious shopmen or

polite owners, Mrs. Sedley was herself again almost, and sincerely

happy for the first time since their misfortunes. Nor was Mrs. Amelia

at all above the pleasure of shopping, and bargaining, and seeing and

buying pretty things. (Would any man, the most philosophic, give

twopence for a woman who was?) She gave herself a little treat,

obedient to her husband's orders, and purchased a quantity of lady's

gear, showing a great deal of taste and elegant discernment, as all the

shopfolks said.