The news of the great fights of Quatre Bras and Waterloo reachedEngland at the same time. The Gazette first published the result ofthe two battles; at which glorious intelligence all England thrilledwith triumph and fear. Particulars then followed; and after theannouncement of the victories came the list of the wounded and theslain. Who can tell the dread with which that catalogue was opened andread! Fancy, at every village and homestead almost through the threekingdoms, the great news coming of the battles in Flanders, and thefeelings of exultation and gratitude, bereavement and sickening dismay,when the lists of the regimental losses were gone through, and itbecame known whether the dear friend and relative had escaped orfallen. Anybody who will take the trouble of looking back to a file ofthe newspapers of the time, must, even now, feel at second-hand thisbreathless pause of expectation. The lists of casualties are carriedon from day to day: you stop in the midst as in a story which is to becontinued in our next. Think what the feelings must have been as thosepapers followed each other fresh from the press; and if such aninterest could be felt in our country, and about a battle where buttwenty thousand of our people were engaged, think of the condition ofEurope for twenty years before, where people were fighting, not bythousands, but by millions; each one of whom as he struck his enemywounded horribly some other innocent heart far away.

The news which that famous Gazette brought to the Osbornes gave adreadful shock to the family and its chief. The girls indulgedunrestrained in their grief. The gloom-stricken old father was stillmore borne down by his fate and sorrow. He strove to think that ajudgment was on the boy for his disobedience. He dared not own thatthe severity of the sentence frightened him, and that its fulfilmenthad come too soon upon his curses. Sometimes a shuddering terrorstruck him, as if he had been the author of the doom which he hadcalled down on his son. There was a chance before of reconciliation.The boy's wife might have died; or he might have come back and said,Father I have sinned. But there was no hope now. He stood on theother side of the gulf impassable, haunting his parent with sad eyes.He remembered them once before so in a fever, when every one thoughtthe lad was dying, and he lay on his bed speechless, and gazing with adreadful gloom. Good God! how the father clung to the doctor then, andwith what a sickening anxiety he followed him: what a weight of griefwas off his mind when, after the crisis of the fever, the ladrecovered, and looked at his father once more with eyes that recognisedhim. But now there was no help or cure, or chance of reconcilement:above all, there were no humble words to soothe vanity outraged andfurious, or bring to its natural flow the poisoned, angry blood. Andit is hard to say which pang it was that tore the proud father's heartmost keenly--that his son should have gone out of the reach of hisforgiveness, or that the apology which his own pride expected shouldhave escaped him.

Whatever his sensations might have been, however, the stem old manwould have no confidant. He never mentioned his son's name to hisdaughters; but ordered the elder to place all the females of theestablishment in mourning; and desired that the male servants should besimilarly attired in deep black. All parties and entertainments, ofcourse, were to be put off. No communications were made to his futureson-in-law, whose marriage-day had been fixed: but there was enough inMr. Osborne's appearance to prevent Mr. Bullock from making anyinquiries, or in any way pressing forward that ceremony. He and theladies whispered about it under their voices in the drawing-roomsometimes, whither the father never came. He remained constantly inhis own study; the whole front part of the house being closed untilsome time after the completion of the general mourning.

About three weeks after the 18th of June, Mr. Osborne's acquaintance,Sir William Dobbin, called at Mr. Osborne's house in Russell Square,with a very pale and agitated face, and insisted upon seeing thatgentleman. Ushered into his room, and after a few words, which neitherthe speaker nor the host understood, the former produced from aninclosure a letter sealed with a large red seal. "My son, MajorDobbin," the Alderman said, with some hesitation, "despatched me aletter by an officer of the --th, who arrived in town to-day. My son'sletter contains one for you, Osborne." The Alderman placed the letteron the table, and Osborne stared at him for a moment or two in silence.His looks frightened the ambassador, who after looking guiltily for alittle time at the grief-stricken man, hurried away without anotherword.

The letter was in George's well-known bold handwriting. It was that onewhich he had written before daybreak on the 16th of June, and justbefore he took leave of Amelia. The great red seal was emblazoned withthe sham coat of arms which Osborne had assumed from the Peerage, with"Pax in bello" for a motto; that of the ducal house with which the vainold man tried to fancy himself connected. The hand that signed it wouldnever hold pen or sword more. The very seal that sealed it had beenrobbed from George's dead body as it lay on the field of battle. Thefather knew nothing of this, but sat and looked at the letter interrified vacancy. He almost fell when he went to open it.

Have you ever had a difference with a dear friend? How his letters,written in the period of love and confidence, sicken and rebuke you!What a dreary mourning it is to dwell upon those vehement protests ofdead affection! What lying epitaphs they make over the corpse of love!What dark, cruel comments upon Life and Vanities! Most of us have gotor written drawers full of them. They are closet-skeletons which wekeep and shun. Osborne trembled long before the letter from his deadson.

The poor boy's letter did not say much. He had been too proud toacknowledge the tenderness which his heart felt. He only said, that onthe eve of a great battle, he wished to bid his father farewell, andsolemnly to implore his good offices for the wife--it might be for thechild--whom he left behind him. He owned with contrition that hisirregularities and his extravagance had already wasted a large part ofhis mother's little fortune. He thanked his father for his formergenerous conduct; and he promised him that if he fell on the field orsurvived it, he would act in a manner worthy of the name of GeorgeOsborne.

His English habit, pride, awkwardness perhaps, had prevented him fromsaying more. His father could not see the kiss George had placed onthe superscription of his letter. Mr. Osborne dropped it with thebitterest, deadliest pang of balked affection and revenge. His son wasstill beloved and unforgiven.

About two months afterwards, however, as the young ladies of the familywent to church with their father, they remarked how he took a differentseat from that which he usually occupied when he chose to attend divineworship; and that from his cushion opposite, he looked up at the wallover their heads. This caused the young women likewise to gaze in thedirection towards which their father's gloomy eyes pointed: and theysaw an elaborate monument upon the wall, where Britannia wasrepresented weeping over an urn, and a broken sword and a couchant lionindicated that the piece of sculpture had been erected in honour of adeceased warrior. The sculptors of those days had stocks of suchfunereal emblems in hand; as you may see still on the walls of St.Paul's, which are covered with hundreds of these braggart heathenallegories. There was a constant demand for them during the firstfifteen years of the present century.

Under the memorial in question were emblazoned the well-known andpompous Osborne arms; and the inscription said, that the monument was"Sacred to the memory of George Osborne, Junior, Esq., late a Captainin his Majesty's --th regiment of foot, who fell on the 18th of June,1815, aged 28 years, while fighting for his king and country in theglorious victory of Waterloo. Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori."

The sight of that stone agitated the nerves of the sisters so much,that Miss Maria was compelled to leave the church. The congregationmade way respectfully for those sobbing girls clothed in deep black,and pitied the stern old father seated opposite the memorial of thedead soldier. "Will he forgive Mrs. George?" the girls said tothemselves as soon as their ebullition of grief was over. Muchconversation passed too among the acquaintances of the Osborne family,who knew of the rupture between the son and father caused by theformer's marriage, as to the chance of a reconciliation with the youngwidow. There were bets among the gentlemen both about Russell Squareand in the City.

If the sisters had any anxiety regarding the possible recognition ofAmelia as a daughter of the family, it was increased presently, andtowards the end of the autumn, by their father's announcement that hewas going abroad. He did not say whither, but they knew at once thathis steps would be turned towards Belgium, and were aware that George'swidow was still in Brussels. They had pretty accurate news indeed ofpoor Amelia from Lady Dobbin and her daughters. Our honest Captain hadbeen promoted in consequence of the death of the second Major of theregiment on the field; and the brave O'Dowd, who had distinguishedhimself greatly here as upon all occasions where he had a chance toshow his coolness and valour, was a Colonel and Companion of the Bath.

Very many of the brave --th, who had suffered severely upon both daysof action, were still at Brussels in the autumn, recovering of theirwounds. The city was a vast military hospital for months after thegreat battles; and as men and officers began to rally from their hurts,the gardens and places of public resort swarmed with maimed warriors,old and young, who, just rescued out of death, fell to gambling, andgaiety, and love-making, as people of Vanity Fair will do. Mr. Osbornefound out some of the --th easily. He knew their uniform quite well,and had been used to follow all the promotions and exchanges in theregiment, and loved to talk about it and its officers as if he had beenone of the number. On the day after his arrival at Brussels, and as heissued from his hotel, which faced the park, he saw a soldier in thewell-known facings, reposing on a stone bench in the garden, and wentand sate down trembling by the wounded convalescent man.

"Were you in Captain Osborne's company?" he said, and added, after apause, "he was my son, sir."

The man was not of the Captain's company, but he lifted up hisunwounded arm and touched-his cap sadly and respectfully to the haggardbroken-spirited gentleman who questioned him. "The whole army didn'tcontain a finer or a better officer," the soldier said. "The Sergeantof the Captain's company (Captain Raymond had it now), was in town,though, and was just well of a shot in the shoulder. His honour mightsee him if he liked, who could tell him anything he wanted to knowabout--about the --th's actions. But his honour had seen Major Dobbin,no doubt, the brave Captain's great friend; and Mrs. Osborne, who washere too, and had been very bad, he heard everybody say. They say shewas out of her mind like for six weeks or more. But your honour knowsall about that--and asking your pardon"--the man added.

Osborne put a guinea into the soldier's hand, and told him he shouldhave another if he would bring the Sergeant to the Hotel du Parc; apromise which very soon brought the desired officer to Mr. Osborne'spresence. And the first soldier went away; and after telling a comradeor two how Captain Osborne's father was arrived, and what a free-handedgenerous gentleman he was, they went and made good cheer with drink andfeasting, as long as the guineas lasted which had come from the proudpurse of the mourning old father.

In the Sergeant's company, who was also just convalescent, Osborne madethe journey of Waterloo and Quatre Bras, a journey which thousands ofhis countrymen were then taking. He took the Sergeant with him in hiscarriage, and went through both fields under his guidance. He saw thepoint of the road where the regiment marched into action on the 16th,and the slope down which they drove the French cavalry who werepressing on the retreating Belgians. There was the spot where thenoble Captain cut down the French officer who was grappling with theyoung Ensign for the colours, the Colour-Sergeants having been shotdown. Along this road they retreated on the next day, and here was thebank at which the regiment bivouacked under the rain of the night ofthe seventeenth. Further on was the position which they took and heldduring the day, forming time after time to receive the charge of theenemy's horsemen and lying down under the shelter of the bank from thefurious French cannonade. And it was at this declivity when at eveningthe whole English line received the order to advance, as the enemy fellback after his last charge, that the Captain, hurraying and rushingdown the hill waving his sword, received a shot and fell dead. "It wasMajor Dobbin who took back the Captain's body to Brussels," theSergeant said, in a low voice, "and had him buried, as your honourknows." The peasants and relic-hunters about the place were screaminground the pair, as the soldier told his story, offering for sale allsorts of mementoes of the fight, crosses, and epaulets, and shatteredcuirasses, and eagles.

Osborne gave a sumptuous reward to the Sergeant when he parted withhim, after having visited the scenes of his son's last exploits. Hisburial-place he had already seen. Indeed, he had driven thitherimmediately after his arrival at Brussels. George's body lay in thepretty burial-ground of Laeken, near the city; in which place, havingonce visited it on a party of pleasure, he had lightly expressed a wishto have his grave made. And there the young officer was laid by hisfriend, in the unconsecrated corner of the garden, separated by alittle hedge from the temples and towers and plantations of flowers andshrubs, under which the Roman Catholic dead repose. It seemed ahumiliation to old Osborne to think that his son, an English gentleman,a captain in the famous British army, should not be found worthy to liein ground where mere foreigners were buried. Which of us is there cantell how much vanity lurks in our warmest regard for others, and howselfish our love is? Old Osborne did not speculate much upon themingled nature of his feelings, and how his instinct and selfishnesswere combating together. He firmly believed that everything he did wasright, that he ought on all occasions to have his own way--and like thesting of a wasp or serpent his hatred rushed out armed and poisonousagainst anything like opposition. He was proud of his hatred as ofeverything else. Always to be right, always to trample forward, andnever to doubt, are not these the great qualities with which dullnesstakes the lead in the world?

As after the drive to Waterloo, Mr. Osborne's carriage was nearing thegates of the city at sunset, they met another open barouche, in whichwere a couple of ladies and a gentleman, and by the side of which anofficer was riding. Osborne gave a start back, and the Sergeant,seated with him, cast a look of surprise at his neighbour, as hetouched his cap to the officer, who mechanically returned his salute.It was Amelia, with the lame young Ensign by her side, and opposite toher her faithful friend Mrs. O'Dowd. It was Amelia, but how changedfrom the fresh and comely girl Osborne knew. Her face was white andthin. Her pretty brown hair was parted under a widow's cap--the poorchild. Her eyes were fixed, and looking nowhere. They stared blank inthe face of Osborne, as the carriages crossed each other, but she didnot know him; nor did he recognise her, until looking up, he saw Dobbinriding by her: and then he knew who it was. He hated her. He did notknow how much until he saw her there. When her carriage had passed on,he turned and stared at the Sergeant, with a curse and defiance in hiseye cast at his companion, who could not help looking at him--as muchas to say "How dare you look at me? Damn you! I do hate her. It isshe who has tumbled my hopes and all my pride down." "Tell thescoundrel to drive on quick," he shouted with an oath, to the lackey onthe box. A minute afterwards, a horse came clattering over the pavementbehind Osborne's carriage, and Dobbin rode up. His thoughts had beenelsewhere as the carriages passed each other, and it was not until hehad ridden some paces forward, that he remembered it was Osborne whohad just passed him. Then he turned to examine if the sight of herfather-in-law had made any impression on Amelia, but the poor girl didnot know who had passed. Then William, who daily used to accompany herin his drives, taking out his watch, made some excuse about anengagement which he suddenly recollected, and so rode off. She did notremark that either: but sate looking before her, over the homelylandscape towards the woods in the distance, by which George marchedaway.

"Mr. Osborne, Mr. Osborne!" cried Dobbin, as he rode up and held outhis hand. Osborne made no motion to take it, but shouted out once moreand with another curse to his servant to drive on.

Dobbin laid his hand on the carriage side. "I will see you, sir," hesaid. "I have a message for you."

"From that woman?" said Osborne, fiercely.

"No," replied the other, "from your son"; at which Osborne fell backinto the corner of his carriage, and Dobbin allowing it to pass on,rode close behind it, and so through the town until they reached Mr.Osborne's hotel, and without a word. There he followed Osborne up tohis apartments. George had often been in the rooms; they were thelodgings which the Crawleys had occupied during their stay in Brussels.

"Pray, have you any commands for me, Captain Dobbin, or, I beg yourpardon, I should say MAJOR Dobbin, since better men than you are dead,and you step into their SHOES?" said Mr. Osborne, in that sarcastictone which he sometimes was pleased to assume.

"Better men ARE dead," Dobbin replied. "I want to speak to you aboutone."

"Make it short, sir," said the other with an oath, scowling at hisvisitor.

"I am here as his closest friend," the Major resumed, "and the executorof his will. He made it before he went into action. Are you aware howsmall his means are, and of the straitened circumstances of his widow?"

"I don't know his widow, sir," Osborne said. "Let her go back to herfather." But the gentleman whom he addressed was determined to remainin good temper, and went on without heeding the interruption.

"Do you know, sir, Mrs. Osborne's condition? Her life and her reasonalmost have been shaken by the blow which has fallen on her. It isvery doubtful whether she will rally. There is a chance left for her,however, and it is about this I came to speak to you. She will be amother soon. Will you visit the parent's offence upon the child'shead? or will you forgive the child for poor George's sake?"

Osborne broke out into a rhapsody of self-praise and imprecations;--bythe first, excusing himself to his own conscience for his conduct; bythe second, exaggerating the undutifulness of George. No father in allEngland could have behaved more generously to a son, who had rebelledagainst him wickedly. He had died without even so much as confessinghe was wrong. Let him take the consequences of his undutifulness andfolly. As for himself, Mr. Osborne, he was a man of his word. He hadsworn never to speak to that woman, or to recognize her as his son'swife. "And that's what you may tell her," he concluded with an oath;"and that's what I will stick to to the last day of my life."

There was no hope from that quarter then. The widow must live on herslender pittance, or on such aid as Jos could give her. "I might tellher, and she would not heed it," thought Dobbin, sadly: for the poorgirl's thoughts were not here at all since her catastrophe, and,stupefied under the pressure of her sorrow, good and evil were alikeindifferent to her.

So, indeed, were even friendship and kindness. She received them bothuncomplainingly, and having accepted them, relapsed into her grief.

Suppose some twelve months after the above conversation took place tohave passed in the life of our poor Amelia. She has spent the firstportion of that time in a sorrow so profound and pitiable, that we whohave been watching and describing some of the emotions of that weak andtender heart, must draw back in the presence of the cruel grief underwhich it is bleeding. Tread silently round the hapless couch of thepoor prostrate soul. Shut gently the door of the dark chamber whereinshe suffers, as those kind people did who nursed her through the firstmonths of her pain, and never left her until heaven had sent herconsolation. A day came--of almost terrified delight and wonder--whenthe poor widowed girl pressed a child upon her breast--a child, withthe eyes of George who was gone--a little boy, as beautiful as acherub. What a miracle it was to hear its first cry! How she laughedand wept over it--how love, and hope, and prayer woke again in herbosom as the baby nestled there. She was safe. The doctors whoattended her, and had feared for her life or for her brain, had waitedanxiously for this crisis before they could pronounce that either wassecure. It was worth the long months of doubt and dread which thepersons who had constantly been with her had passed, to see her eyesonce more beaming tenderly upon them.

Our friend Dobbin was one of them. It was he who brought her back toEngland and to her mother's house; when Mrs. O'Dowd, receiving aperemptory summons from her Colonel, had been forced to quit herpatient. To see Dobbin holding the infant, and to hear Amelia's laughof triumph as she watched him, would have done any man good who had asense of humour. William was the godfather of the child, and exertedhis ingenuity in the purchase of cups, spoons, pap-boats, and coralsfor this little Christian.

How his mother nursed him, and dressed him, and lived upon him; how shedrove away all nurses, and would scarce allow any hand but her own totouch him; how she considered that the greatest favour she could conferupon his godfather, Major Dobbin, was to allow the Major occasionallyto dandle him, need not be told here. This child was her being. Herexistence was a maternal caress. She enveloped the feeble andunconscious creature with love and worship. It was her life which thebaby drank in from her bosom. Of nights, and when alone, she hadstealthy and intense raptures of motherly love, such as God'smarvellous care has awarded to the female instinct--joys how farhigher and lower than reason--blind beautiful devotions which onlywomen's hearts know. It was William Dobbin's task to muse upon thesemovements of Amelia's, and to watch her heart; and if his love made himdivine almost all the feelings which agitated it, alas! he could seewith a fatal perspicuity that there was no place there for him. Andso, gently, he bore his fate, knowing it, and content to bear it.

I suppose Amelia's father and mother saw through the intentions of theMajor, and were not ill-disposed to encourage him; for Dobbin visitedtheir house daily, and stayed for hours with them, or with Amelia, orwith the honest landlord, Mr. Clapp, and his family. He brought, onone pretext or another, presents to everybody, and almost every day;and went, with the landlord's little girl, who was rather a favouritewith Amelia, by the name of Major Sugarplums. It was this little childwho commonly acted as mistress of the ceremonies to introduce him toMrs. Osborne. She laughed one day when Major Sugarplums' cab drove upto Fulham, and he descended from it, bringing out a wooden horse, adrum, a trumpet, and other warlike toys, for little Georgy, who wasscarcely six months old, and for whom the articles in question wereentirely premature.

The child was asleep. "Hush," said Amelia, annoyed, perhaps, at thecreaking of the Major's boots; and she held out her hand; smilingbecause William could not take it until he had rid himself of his cargoof toys. "Go downstairs, little Mary," said he presently to the child,"I want to speak to Mrs. Osborne." She looked up rather astonished, andlaid down the infant on its bed.

"I am come to say good-bye, Amelia," said he, taking her slender littlewhite hand gently.

"Good-bye? and where are you going?" she said, with a smile.

"Send the letters to the agents," he said; "they will forward them; foryou will write to me, won't you? I shall be away a long time."

"I'll write to you about Georgy," she said. "Dear' William, how goodyou have been to him and to me. Look at him. Isn't he like an angel?"

The little pink hands of the child closed mechanically round the honestsoldier's finger, and Amelia looked up in his face with bright maternalpleasure. The cruellest looks could not have wounded him more thanthat glance of hopeless kindness. He bent over the child and mother.He could not speak for a moment. And it was only with all his strengththat he could force himself to say a God bless you. "God bless you,"said Amelia, and held up her face and kissed him.

"Hush! Don't wake Georgy!" she added, as William Dobbin went to thedoor with heavy steps. She did not hear the noise of his cab-wheels ashe drove away: she was looking at the child, who was laughing in hissleep.