"I suppose you know best," Dobbin said, though rather dubiously. "You
always were a Tory, and your family's one of the oldest in England.
But--"
"Come and see the girls, and make love to Miss Sharp yourself," the
lieutenant here interrupted his friend; but Captain Dobbin declined to
join Osborne in his daily visit to the young ladies in Russell Square.
As George walked down Southampton Row, from Holborn, he laughed as he
saw, at the Sedley Mansion, in two different stories two heads on the
look-out.
The fact is, Miss Amelia, in the drawing-room balcony, was looking very
eagerly towards the opposite side of the Square, where Mr. Osborne
dwelt, on the watch for the lieutenant himself; and Miss Sharp, from
her little bed-room on the second floor, was in observation until Mr.
Joseph's great form should heave in sight.
"Sister Anne is on the watch-tower," said he to Amelia, "but there's
nobody coming"; and laughing and enjoying the joke hugely, he described
in the most ludicrous terms to Miss Sedley, the dismal condition of her
brother.
"I think it's very cruel of you to laugh, George," she said, looking
particularly unhappy; but George only laughed the more at her piteous
and discomfited mien, persisted in thinking the joke a most diverting
one, and when Miss Sharp came downstairs, bantered her with a great
deal of liveliness upon the effect of her charms on the fat civilian.
"O Miss Sharp! if you could but see him this morning," he
said--"moaning in his flowered dressing-gown--writhing on his sofa; if
you could but have seen him lolling out his tongue to Gollop the
apothecary."
"See whom?" said Miss Sharp.
"Whom? O whom? Captain Dobbin, of course, to whom we were all so
attentive, by the way, last night."
"We were very unkind to him," Emmy said, blushing very much. "I--I
quite forgot him."
"Of course you did," cried Osborne, still on the laugh.
"One can't be ALWAYS thinking about Dobbin, you know, Amelia. Can one,
Miss Sharp?"
"Except when he overset the glass of wine at dinner," Miss Sharp said,
with a haughty air and a toss of the head, "I never gave the existence
of Captain Dobbin one single moment's consideration."
"Very good, Miss Sharp, I'll tell him," Osborne said; and as he spoke
Miss Sharp began to have a feeling of distrust and hatred towards this
young officer, which he was quite unconscious of having inspired. "He
is to make fun of me, is he?" thought Rebecca. "Has he been laughing
about me to Joseph? Has he frightened him? Perhaps he won't come."--A
film passed over her eyes, and her heart beat quite quick.
"You're always joking," said she, smiling as innocently as she could.
"Joke away, Mr. George; there's nobody to defend ME." And George
Osborne, as she walked away--and Amelia looked reprovingly at him--felt
some little manly compunction for having inflicted any unnecessary
unkindness upon this helpless creature. "My dearest Amelia," said he,
"you are too good--too kind. You don't know the world. I do. And
your little friend Miss Sharp must learn her station."