On quitting Brighton, our friend George, as became a person of rank andfashion travelling in a barouche with four horses, drove in state to afine hotel in Cavendish Square, where a suite of splendid rooms, and atable magnificently furnished with plate and surrounded by a half-dozenof black and silent waiters, was ready to receive the young gentlemanand his bride. George did the honours of the place with a princely airto Jos and Dobbin; and Amelia, for the first time, and with exceedingshyness and timidity, presided at what George called her own table.

George pooh-poohed the wine and bullied the waiters royally, and Josgobbled the turtle with immense satisfaction. Dobbin helped him to it;for the lady of the house, before whom the tureen was placed, was soignorant of the contents, that she was going to help Mr. Sedley withoutbestowing upon him either calipash or calipee.

The splendour of the entertainment, and the apartments in which it wasgiven, alarmed Mr. Dobbin, who remonstrated after dinner, when Jos wasasleep in the great chair. But in vain he cried out against theenormity of turtle and champagne that was fit for an archbishop. "I'vealways been accustomed to travel like a gentleman," George said, "and,damme, my wife shall travel like a lady. As long as there's a shot inthe locker, she shall want for nothing," said the generous fellow,quite pleased with himself for his magnificence of spirit. Nor didDobbin try and convince him that Amelia's happiness was not centred inturtle-soup.

A while after dinner, Amelia timidly expressed a wish to go and see hermamma, at Fulham: which permission George granted her with somegrumbling. And she tripped away to her enormous bedroom, in the centreof which stood the enormous funereal bed, "that the EmperorHalixander's sister slep in when the allied sufferings was here," andput on her little bonnet and shawl with the utmost eagerness andpleasure. George was still drinking claret when she returned to thedining-room, and made no signs of moving. "Ar'n't you coming with me,dearest?" she asked him. No; the "dearest" had "business" that night.His man should get her a coach and go with her. And the coach being atthe door of the hotel, Amelia made George a little disappointed curtseyafter looking vainly into his face once or twice, and went sadly downthe great staircase, Captain Dobbin after, who handed her into thevehicle, and saw it drive away to its destination. The very valet wasashamed of mentioning the address to the hackney-coachman before thehotel waiters, and promised to instruct him when they got further on.

Dobbin walked home to his old quarters and the Slaughters', thinkingvery likely that it would be delightful to be in that hackney-coach,along with Mrs. Osborne. George was evidently of quite a differenttaste; for when he had taken wine enough, he went off to half-price atthe play, to see Mr. Kean perform in Shylock. Captain Osborne was agreat lover of the drama, and had himself performed high-comedycharacters with great distinction in several garrison theatricalentertainments. Jos slept on until long after dark, when he woke upwith a start at the motions of his servant, who was removing andemptying the decanters on the table; and the hackney-coach stand wasagain put into requisition for a carriage to convey this stout hero tohis lodgings and bed.

Mrs. Sedley, you may be sure, clasped her daughter to her heart withall maternal eagerness and affection, running out of the door as thecarriage drew up before the little garden-gate, to welcome the weeping,trembling, young bride. Old Mr. Clapp, who was in his shirt-sleeves,trimming the garden-plot, shrank back alarmed. The Irish servant-lassrushed up from the kitchen and smiled a "God bless you." Amelia couldhardly walk along the flags and up the steps into the parlour.

How the floodgates were opened, and mother and daughter wept, when theywere together embracing each other in this sanctuary, may readily beimagined by every reader who possesses the least sentimental turn.When don't ladies weep? At what occasion of joy, sorrow, or otherbusiness of life, and, after such an event as a marriage, mother anddaughter were surely at liberty to give way to a sensibility which isas tender as it is refreshing. About a question of marriage I have seenwomen who hate each other kiss and cry together quite fondly. How muchmore do they feel when they love! Good mothers are married over againat their daughters' weddings: and as for subsequent events, who doesnot know how ultra-maternal grandmothers are?--in fact a woman, untilshe is a grandmother, does not often really know what to be a motheris. Let us respect Amelia and her mamma whispering and whimpering andlaughing and crying in the parlour and the twilight. Old Mr. Sedleydid. HE had not divined who was in the carriage when it drove up. Hehad not flown out to meet his daughter, though he kissed her verywarmly when she entered the room (where he was occupied, as usual, withhis papers and tapes and statements of accounts), and after sittingwith the mother and daughter for a short time, he very wisely left thelittle apartment in their possession.

George's valet was looking on in a very supercilious manner at Mr.Clapp in his shirt-sleeves, watering his rose-bushes. He took off hishat, however, with much condescension to Mr. Sedley, who asked newsabout his son-in-law, and about Jos's carriage, and whether his horseshad been down to Brighton, and about that infernal traitor Bonaparty,and the war; until the Irish maid-servant came with a plate and abottle of wine, from which the old gentleman insisted upon helping thevalet. He gave him a half-guinea too, which the servant pocketed witha mixture of wonder and contempt. "To the health of your master andmistress, Trotter," Mr. Sedley said, "and here's something to drinkyour health when you get home, Trotter."

There were but nine days past since Amelia had left that little cottageand home--and yet how far off the time seemed since she had bidden itfarewell. What a gulf lay between her and that past life. She couldlook back to it from her present standing-place, and contemplate,almost as another being, the young unmarried girl absorbed in her love,having no eyes but for one special object, receiving parental affectionif not ungratefully, at least indifferently, and as if it were herdue--her whole heart and thoughts bent on the accomplishment of onedesire. The review of those days, so lately gone yet so far away,touched her with shame; and the aspect of the kind parents filled herwith tender remorse. Was the prize gained--the heaven of life--and thewinner still doubtful and unsatisfied? As his hero and heroine passthe matrimonial barrier, the novelist generally drops the curtain, asif the drama were over then: the doubts and struggles of life ended:as if, once landed in the marriage country, all were green and pleasantthere: and wife and husband had nothing to do but to link each other'sarms together, and wander gently downwards towards old age in happy andperfect fruition. But our little Amelia was just on the bank of hernew country, and was already looking anxiously back towards the sadfriendly figures waving farewell to her across the stream, from theother distant shore.

In honour of the young bride's arrival, her mother thought it necessaryto prepare I don't know what festive entertainment, and after the firstebullition of talk, took leave of Mrs. George Osborne for a while, anddived down to the lower regions of the house to a sort ofkitchen-parlour (occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Clapp, and in the evening,when her dishes were washed and her curl-papers removed, by MissFlannigan, the Irish servant), there to take measures for the preparingof a magnificent ornamented tea. All people have their ways ofexpressing kindness, and it seemed to Mrs. Sedley that a muffin and aquantity of orange marmalade spread out in a little cut-glass saucerwould be peculiarly agreeable refreshments to Amelia in her mostinteresting situation.

While these delicacies were being transacted below, Amelia, leaving thedrawing-room, walked upstairs and found herself, she scarce knew how,in the little room which she had occupied before her marriage, and inthat very chair in which she had passed so many bitter hours. She sankback in its arms as if it were an old friend; and fell to thinking overthe past week, and the life beyond it. Already to be looking sadly andvaguely back: always to be pining for something which, when obtained,brought doubt and sadness rather than pleasure; here was the lot of ourpoor little creature and harmless lost wanderer in the great strugglingcrowds of Vanity Fair.

Here she sate, and recalled to herself fondly that image of George towhich she had knelt before marriage. Did she own to herself howdifferent the real man was from that superb young hero whom she hadworshipped? It requires many, many years--and a man must be very badindeed--before a woman's pride and vanity will let her own to such aconfession. Then Rebecca's twinkling green eyes and baleful smilelighted upon her, and filled her with dismay. And so she sate forawhile indulging in her usual mood of selfish brooding, in that verylistless melancholy attitude in which the honest maid-servant had foundher, on the day when she brought up the letter in which George renewedhis offer of marriage.

She looked at the little white bed, which had been hers a few daysbefore, and thought she would like to sleep in it that night, and wake,as formerly, with her mother smiling over her in the morning: Then shethought with terror of the great funereal damask pavilion in the vastand dingy state bedroom, which was awaiting her at the grand hotel inCavendish Square. Dear little white bed! how many a long night had shewept on its pillow! How she had despaired and hoped to die there; andnow were not all her wishes accomplished, and the lover of whom she haddespaired her own for ever? Kind mother! how patiently and tenderlyshe had watched round that bed! She went and knelt down by the bedside;and there this wounded and timorous, but gentle and loving soul, soughtfor consolation, where as yet, it must be owned, our little girl hadbut seldom looked for it. Love had been her faith hitherto; and thesad, bleeding disappointed heart began to feel the want of anotherconsoler.

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 storylies.

But this may be said, that when the tea was finally announced, ouryoung lady came downstairs a great deal more cheerful; that she did notdespond, or deplore her fate, or think about George's coldness, orRebecca's eyes, as she had been wont to do of late. She wentdownstairs, and kissed her father and mother, and talked to the oldgentleman, and made him more merry than he had been for many a day. Shesate down at the piano which Dobbin had bought for her, and sang overall her father's favourite old songs. She pronounced the tea to beexcellent, and praised the exquisite taste in which the marmalade wasarranged in the saucers. And in determining to make everybody elsehappy, she found herself so; and was sound asleep in the great funerealpavilion, and only woke up with a smile when George arrived from thetheatre.

For the next day, George had more important "business" to transact thanthat which took him to see Mr. Kean in Shylock. Immediately on hisarrival in London he had written off to his father's solicitors,signifying his royal pleasure that an interview should take placebetween them on the morrow. His hotel bill, losses at billiards andcards to Captain Crawley had almost drained the young man's purse,which wanted replenishing before he set out on his travels, and he hadno resource but to infringe upon the two thousand pounds which theattorneys were commissioned to pay over to him. He had a perfectbelief 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 aparagon as he was? If his mere past and personal merits did notsucceed in mollifying his father, George determined that he woulddistinguish himself so prodigiously in the ensuing campaign that theold gentleman must give in to him. And if not? Bah! the world wasbefore him. His luck might change at cards, and there was a deal ofspending in two thousand pounds.

So he sent off Amelia once more in a carriage to her mamma, with strictorders and carte blanche to the two ladies to purchase everythingrequisite for a lady of Mrs. George Osborne's fashion, who was going ona foreign tour. They had but one day to complete the outfit, and itmay be imagined that their business therefore occupied them prettyfully. In a carriage once more, bustling about from milliner tolinen-draper, escorted back to the carriage by obsequious shopmen orpolite owners, Mrs. Sedley was herself again almost, and sincerelyhappy for the first time since their misfortunes. Nor was Mrs. Ameliaat all above the pleasure of shopping, and bargaining, and seeing andbuying pretty things. (Would any man, the most philosophic, givetwopence for a woman who was?) She gave herself a little treat,obedient to her husband's orders, and purchased a quantity of lady'sgear, showing a great deal of taste and elegant discernment, as all theshopfolks said.

And about the war that was ensuing, Mrs. Osborne was not much alarmed;Bonaparty was to be crushed almost without a struggle. Margate packetswere sailing every day, filled with men of fashion and ladies of note,on their way to Brussels and Ghent. People were going not so much to awar as to a fashionable tour. The newspapers laughed the wretchedupstart and swindler to scorn. Such a Corsican wretch as thatwithstand the armies of Europe and the genius of the immortalWellington! Amelia held him in utter contempt; for it needs not to besaid that this soft and gentle creature took her opinions from thosepeople who surrounded her, such fidelity being much too humble-mindedto think for itself. Well, in a word, she and her mother performed agreat day's shopping, and she acquitted herself with considerableliveliness and credit on this her first appearance in the genteel worldof London.

George meanwhile, with his hat on one side, his elbows squared, and hisswaggering martial air, made for Bedford Row, and stalked into theattorney's offices as if he was lord of every pale-faced clerk who wasscribbling there. He ordered somebody to inform Mr. Higgs that CaptainOsborne was waiting, in a fierce and patronizing way, as if the pekinof an attorney, who had thrice his brains, fifty times his money, and athousand times his experience, was a wretched underling who shouldinstantly leave all his business in life to attend on the Captain'spleasure. He did not see the sneer of contempt which passed all roundthe room, from the first clerk to the articled gents, from the articledgents to the ragged writers and white-faced runners, in clothes tootight for them, as he sate there tapping his boot with his cane, andthinking what a parcel of miserable poor devils these were. Themiserable poor devils knew all about his affairs. They talked aboutthem over their pints of beer at their public-house clubs to otherclerks of a night. Ye gods, what do not attorneys and attorneys' clerksknow in London! Nothing is hidden from their inquisition, and theirfamilies mutely rule our city.

Perhaps George expected, when he entered Mr. Higgs's apartment, to findthat gentleman commissioned to give him some message of compromise orconciliation from his father; perhaps his haughty and cold demeanourwas adopted as a sign of his spirit and resolution: but if so, hisfierceness was met by a chilling coolness and indifference on theattorney's part, that rendered swaggering absurd. He pretended to bewriting at a paper, when the Captain entered. "Pray, sit down, sir,"said he, "and I will attend to your little affair in a moment. Mr.Poe, get the release papers, if you please"; and then he fell towriting again.

Poe having produced those papers, his chief calculated the amount oftwo thousand pounds stock at the rate of the day; and asked CaptainOsborne whether he would take the sum in a cheque upon the bankers, orwhether he should direct the latter to purchase stock to that amount."One of the late Mrs. Osborne's trustees is out of town," he saidindifferently, "but my client wishes to meet your wishes, and have donewith the business as quick as possible."

"Give me a cheque, sir," said the Captain very surlily. "Damn theshillings and halfpence, sir," he added, as the lawyer was making outthe amount of the draft; and, flattering himself that by this stroke ofmagnanimity he had put the old quiz to the blush, he stalked out of theoffice with the paper in his pocket.

"That chap will be in gaol in two years," Mr. Higgs said to Mr. Poe.

"Won't O. come round, sir, don't you think?"

"Won't the monument come round," Mr. Higgs replied.

"He's going it pretty fast," said the clerk. "He's only married aweek, and I saw him and some other military chaps handing Mrs.Highflyer to her carriage after the play." And then another case wascalled, and Mr. George Osborne thenceforth dismissed from these worthygentlemen's memory.

The draft was upon our friends Hulker and Bullock of Lombard Street, towhose house, still thinking he was doing business, George bent his way,and from whom he received his money. Frederick Bullock, Esq., whoseyellow face was over a ledger, at which sate a demure clerk, happenedto be in the banking-room when George entered. His yellow face turnedto a more deadly colour when he saw the Captain, and he slunk backguiltily into the inmost parlour. George was too busy gloating overthe money (for he had never had such a sum before), to mark thecountenance or flight of the cadaverous suitor of his sister.

Fred Bullock told old Osborne of his son's appearance and conduct. "Hecame in as bold as brass," said Frederick. "He has drawn out everyshilling. How long will a few hundred pounds last such a chap asthat?" Osborne swore with a great oath that he little cared when or howsoon he spent it. Fred dined every day in Russell Square now. Butaltogether, George was highly pleased with his day's business. All hisown baggage and outfit was put into a state of speedy preparation, andhe paid Amelia's purchases with cheques on his agents, and with thesplendour of a lord.