In the first place, and as a matter of the greatest necessity, we arebound to describe how a house may be got for nothing a year. Thesemansions are to be had either unfurnished, where, if you have creditwith Messrs. Gillows or Bantings, you can get them splendidly monteesand decorated entirely according to your own fancy; or they are to belet furnished, a less troublesome and complicated arrangement to mostparties. It was so that Crawley and his wife preferred to hire theirhouse.

Before Mr. Bowls came to preside over Miss Crawley's house and cellarin Park Lane, that lady had had for a butler a Mr. Raggles, who wasborn on the family estate of Queen's Crawley, and indeed was a youngerson of a gardener there. By good conduct, a handsome person andcalves, and a grave demeanour, Raggles rose from the knife-board to thefootboard of the carriage; from the footboard to the butler's pantry.When he had been a certain number of years at the head of MissCrawley's establishment, where he had had good wages, fat perquisites,and plenty of opportunities of saving, he announced that he was aboutto contract a matrimonial alliance with a late cook of Miss Crawley's,who had subsisted in an honourable manner by the exercise of a mangle,and the keeping of a small greengrocer's shop in the neighbourhood.The truth is, that the ceremony had been clandestinely performed someyears back; although the news of Mr. Raggles' marriage was firstbrought to Miss Crawley by a little boy and girl of seven and eightyears of age, whose continual presence in the kitchen had attracted theattention of Miss Briggs.

Mr. Raggles then retired and personally undertook the superintendenceof the small shop and the greens. He added milk and cream, eggs andcountry-fed pork to his stores, contenting himself whilst other retiredbutlers were vending spirits in public houses, by dealing in thesimplest country produce. And having a good connection amongst thebutlers in the neighbourhood, and a snug back parlour where he and Mrs.Raggles received them, his milk, cream, and eggs got to be adopted bymany of the fraternity, and his profits increased every year. Yearafter year he quietly and modestly amassed money, and when at lengththat snug and complete bachelor's residence at No. 201, Curzon Street,May Fair, lately the residence of the Honourable Frederick Deuceace,gone abroad, with its rich and appropriate furniture by the firstmakers, was brought to the hammer, who should go in and purchase thelease and furniture of the house but Charles Raggles? A part of themoney he borrowed, it is true, and at rather a high interest, from abrother butler, but the chief part he paid down, and it was with nosmall pride that Mrs. Raggles found herself sleeping in a bed of carvedmahogany, with silk curtains, with a prodigious cheval glass oppositeto her, and a wardrobe which would contain her, and Raggles, and allthe family.

Of course, they did not intend to occupy permanently an apartment sosplendid. It was in order to let the house again that Ragglespurchased it. As soon as a tenant was found, he subsided into thegreengrocer's shop once more; but a happy thing it was for him to walkout of that tenement and into Curzon Street, and there survey hishouse--his own house--with geraniums in the window and a carved bronzeknocker. The footman occasionally lounging at the area railing,treated him with respect; the cook took her green stuff at his houseand called him Mr. Landlord, and there was not one thing the tenantsdid, or one dish which they had for dinner, that Raggles might not knowof, if he liked.

He was a good man; good and happy. The house brought him in sohandsome a yearly income that he was determined to send his children togood schools, and accordingly, regardless of expense, Charles was sentto boarding at Dr. Swishtail's, Sugar-cane Lodge, and little Matilda toMiss Peckover's, Laurentinum House, Clapham.

Raggles loved and adored the Crawley family as the author of all hisprosperity in life. He had a silhouette of his mistress in his backshop, and a drawing of the Porter's Lodge at Queen's Crawley, done bythat spinster herself in India ink--and the only addition he made tothe decorations of the Curzon Street House was a print of Queen'sCrawley in Hampshire, the seat of Sir Walpole Crawley, Baronet, who wasrepresented in a gilded car drawn by six white horses, and passing by alake covered with swans, and barges containing ladies in hoops, andmusicians with flags and penwigs. Indeed Raggles thought there was nosuch palace in all the world, and no such august family.

As luck would have it, Raggles' house in Curzon Street was to let whenRawdon and his wife returned to London. The Colonel knew it and itsowner quite well; the latter's connection with the Crawley family hadbeen kept up constantly, for Raggles helped Mr. Bowls whenever MissCrawley received friends. And the old man not only let his house tothe Colonel but officiated as his butler whenever he had company; Mrs.Raggles operating in the kitchen below and sending up dinners of whichold Miss Crawley herself might have approved. This was the way, then,Crawley got his house for nothing; for though Raggles had to pay taxesand rates, and the interest of the mortgage to the brother butler; andthe insurance of his life; and the charges for his children at school;and the value of the meat and drink which his own family--and for atime that of Colonel Crawley too--consumed; and though the poor wretchwas utterly ruined by the transaction, his children being flung on thestreets, and himself driven into the Fleet Prison: yet somebody mustpay even for gentlemen who live for nothing a year--and so it was thisunlucky Raggles was made the representative of Colonel Crawley'sdefective capital.

I wonder how many families are driven to roguery and to ruin by greatpractitioners in Crawlers way?--how many great noblemen rob their pettytradesmen, condescend to swindle their poor retainers out of wretchedlittle sums and cheat for a few shillings? When we read that a noblenobleman has left for the Continent, or that another noble nobleman hasan execution in his house--and that one or other owes six or sevenmillions, the defeat seems glorious even, and we respect the victim inthe vastness of his ruin. But who pities a poor barber who can't gethis money for powdering the footmen's heads; or a poor carpenter whohas ruined himself by fixing up ornaments and pavilions for my lady'sdejeuner; or the poor devil of a tailor whom the steward patronizes,and who has pledged all he is worth, and more, to get the liveriesready, which my lord has done him the honour to bespeak? When the greathouse tumbles down, these miserable wretches fall under it unnoticed:as they say in the old legends, before a man goes to the devil himself,he sends plenty of other souls thither.

Rawdon and his wife generously gave their patronage to all such of MissCrawley's tradesmen and purveyors as chose to serve them. Some werewilling enough, especially the poor ones. It was wonderful to see thepertinacity with which the washerwoman from Tooting brought the cartevery Saturday, and her bills week after week. Mr. Raggles himself hadto supply the greengroceries. The bill for servants' porter at theFortune of War public house is a curiosity in the chronicles of beer.Every servant also was owed the greater part of his wages, and thuskept up perforce an interest in the house. Nobody in fact was paid.Not the blacksmith who opened the lock; nor the glazier who mended thepane; nor the jobber who let the carriage; nor the groom who drove it;nor the butcher who provided the leg of mutton; nor the coals whichroasted it; nor the cook who basted it; nor the servants who ate it:and this I am given to understand is not unfrequently the way in whichpeople live elegantly on nothing a year.

In a little town such things cannot be done without remark. We knowthere the quantity of milk our neighbour takes and espy the joint orthe fowls which are going in for his dinner. So, probably, 200 and 202in Curzon Street might know what was going on in the house betweenthem, the servants communicating through the area-railings; but Crawleyand his wife and his friends did not know 200 and 202. When you came to201 there was a hearty welcome, a kind smile, a good dinner, and ajolly shake of the hand from the host and hostess there, just for allthe world as if they had been undisputed masters of three or fourthousand a year--and so they were, not in money, but in produce andlabour--if they did not pay for the mutton, they had it: if they didnot give bullion in exchange for their wine, how should we know? Neverwas better claret at any man's table than at honest Rawdon's; dinnersmore gay and neatly served. His drawing-rooms were the prettiest,little, modest salons conceivable: they were decorated with thegreatest taste, and a thousand knick-knacks from Paris, by Rebecca:and when she sat at her piano trilling songs with a lightsome heart,the stranger voted himself in a little paradise of domestic comfort andagreed that, if the husband was rather stupid, the wife was charming,and the dinners the pleasantest in the world.

Rebecca's wit, cleverness, and flippancy made her speedily the vogue inLondon among a certain class. You saw demure chariots at her door, outof which stepped very great people. You beheld her carriage in thepark, surrounded by dandies of note. The little box in the third tierof the opera was crowded with heads constantly changing; but it must beconfessed that the ladies held aloof from her, and that their doorswere shut to our little adventurer.

With regard to the world of female fashion and its customs, the presentwriter of course can only speak at second hand. A man can no morepenetrate or under-stand those mysteries than he can know what theladies talk about when they go upstairs after dinner. It is only byinquiry and perseverance that one sometimes gets hints of thosesecrets; and by a similar diligence every person who treads the PallMall pavement and frequents the clubs of this metropolis knows, eitherthrough his own experience or through some acquaintance with whom heplays at billiards or shares the joint, something about the genteelworld of London, and how, as there are men (such as Rawdon Crawley,whose position we mentioned before) who cut a good figure to the eyesof the ignorant world and to the apprentices in the park, who beholdthem consorting with the most notorious dandies there, so there areladies, who may be called men's women, being welcomed entirely by allthe gentlemen and cut or slighted by all their wives. Mrs. Firebraceis of this sort; the lady with the beautiful fair ringlets whom you seeevery day in Hyde Park, surrounded by the greatest and most famousdandies of this empire. Mrs. Rockwood is another, whose parties areannounced laboriously in the fashionable newspapers and with whom yousee that all sorts of ambassadors and great noblemen dine; and manymore might be mentioned had they to do with the history at present inhand. But while simple folks who are out of the world, or countrypeople with a taste for the genteel, behold these ladies in theirseeming glory in public places, or envy them from afar off, persons whoare better instructed could inform them that these envied ladies haveno more chance of establishing themselves in "society," than thebenighted squire's wife in Somersetshire who reads of their doings inthe Morning Post. Men living about London are aware of these awfultruths. You hear how pitilessly many ladies of seeming rank and wealthare excluded from this "society." The frantic efforts which they maketo enter this circle, the meannesses to which they submit, the insultswhich they undergo, are matters of wonder to those who take human orwomankind for a study; and the pursuit of fashion under difficultieswould be a fine theme for any very great person who had the wit, theleisure, and the knowledge of the English language necessary for thecompiling of such a history.

Now the few female acquaintances whom Mrs. Crawley had known abroad notonly declined to visit her when she came to this side of the Channel,but cut her severely when they met in public places. It was curious tosee how the great ladies forgot her, and no doubt not altogether apleasant study to Rebecca. When Lady Bareacres met her in thewaiting-room at the opera, she gathered her daughters about her as ifthey would be contaminated by a touch of Becky, and retreating a stepor two, placed herself in front of them, and stared at her littleenemy. To stare Becky out of countenance required a severer glance thaneven the frigid old Bareacres could shoot out of her dismal eyes. WhenLady de la Mole, who had ridden a score of times by Becky's side atBrussels, met Mrs. Crawley's open carriage in Hyde Park, her Ladyshipwas quite blind, and could not in the least recognize her formerfriend. Even Mrs. Blenkinsop, the banker's wife, cut her at church.Becky went regularly to church now; it was edifying to see her enterthere with Rawdon by her side, carrying a couple of large giltprayer-books, and afterwards going through the ceremony with thegravest resignation.

Rawdon at first felt very acutely the slights which were passed uponhis wife, and was inclined to be gloomy and savage. He talked ofcalling out the husbands or brothers of every one of the insolent womenwho did not pay a proper respect to his wife; and it was only by thestrongest commands and entreaties on her part that he was brought intokeeping a decent behaviour. "You can't shoot me into society," shesaid good-naturedly. "Remember, my dear, that I was but a governess,and you, you poor silly old man, have the worst reputation for debt,and dice, and all sorts of wickedness. We shall get quite as manyfriends as we want by and by, and in the meanwhile you must be a goodboy and obey your schoolmistress in everything she tells you to do.When we heard that your aunt had left almost everything to Pitt and hiswife, do you remember what a rage you were in? You would have told allParis, if I had not made you keep your temper, and where would you havebeen now?--in prison at Ste. Pelagie for debt, and not established inLondon in a handsome house, with every comfort about you--you were insuch a fury you were ready to murder your brother, you wicked Cain you,and what good would have come of remaining angry? All the rage in theworld won't get us your aunt's money; and it is much better that weshould be friends with your brother's family than enemies, as thosefoolish Butes are. When your father dies, Queen's Crawley will be apleasant house for you and me to pass the winter in. If we are ruined,you can carve and take charge of the stable, and I can be a governessto Lady Jane's children. Ruined! fiddlede-dee! I will get you a goodplace before that; or Pitt and his little boy will die, and we will beSir Rawdon and my lady. While there is life, there is hope, my dear,and I intend to make a man of you yet. Who sold your horses for you?Who paid your debts for you?" Rawdon was obliged to confess that heowed all these benefits to his wife, and to trust himself to herguidance for the future.

Indeed, when Miss Crawley quitted the world, and that money for whichall her relatives had been fighting so eagerly was finally left toPitt, Bute Crawley, who found that only five thousand pounds had beenleft to him instead of the twenty upon which he calculated, was in sucha fury at his disappointment that he vented it in savage abuse upon hisnephew; and the quarrel always rankling between them ended in an utterbreach of intercourse. Rawdon Crawley's conduct, on the other hand,who got but a hundred pounds, was such as to astonish his brother anddelight his sister-in-law, who was disposed to look kindly upon all themembers of her husband's family. He wrote to his brother a very frank,manly, good-humoured letter from Paris. He was aware, he said, that byhis own marriage he had forfeited his aunt's favour; and though he didnot disguise his disappointment that she should have been so entirelyrelentless towards him, he was glad that the money was still kept intheir branch of the family, and heartily congratulated his brother onhis good fortune. He sent his affectionate remembrances to his sister,and hoped to have her good-will for Mrs. Rawdon; and the letterconcluded with a postscript to Pitt in the latter lady's ownhandwriting. She, too, begged to join in her husband'scongratulations. She should ever remember Mr. Crawley's kindness toher in early days when she was a friendless orphan, the instructress ofhis little sisters, in whose welfare she still took the tenderestinterest. She wished him every happiness in his married life, and,asking his permission to offer her remembrances to Lady Jane (of whosegoodness all the world informed her), she hoped that one day she mightbe allowed to present her little boy to his uncle and aunt, and beggedto bespeak for him their good-will and protection.

Pitt Crawley received this communication very graciously--moregraciously than Miss Crawley had received some of Rebecca's previouscompositions in Rawdon's handwriting; and as for Lady Jane, she was socharmed with the letter that she expected her husband would instantlydivide his aunt's legacy into two equal portions and send off one-halfto his brother at Paris.

To her Ladyship's surprise, however, Pitt declined to accommodate hisbrother with a cheque for thirty thousand pounds. But he made Rawdon ahandsome offer of his hand whenever the latter should come to Englandand choose to take it; and, thanking Mrs. Crawley for her good opinionof himself and Lady Jane, he graciously pronounced his willingness totake any opportunity to serve her little boy.

Thus an almost reconciliation was brought about between the brothers.When Rebecca came to town Pitt and his wife were not in London. Many atime she drove by the old door in Park Lane to see whether they hadtaken possession of Miss Crawley's house there. But the new family didnot make its appearance; it was only through Raggles that she heard oftheir movements--how Miss Crawley's domestics had been dismissed withdecent gratuities, and how Mr. Pitt had only once made his appearancein London, when he stopped for a few days at the house, did businesswith his lawyers there, and sold off all Miss Crawley's French novelsto a bookseller out of Bond Street. Becky had reasons of her own whichcaused her to long for the arrival of her new relation. "When Lady Janecomes," thought she, "she shall be my sponsor in London society; and asfor the women! bah! the women will ask me when they find the men wantto see me."

An article as necessary to a lady in this position as her brougham orher bouquet is her companion. I have always admired the way in whichthe tender creatures, who cannot exist without sympathy, hire anexceedingly plain friend of their own sex from whom they are almostinseparable. The sight of that inevitable woman in her faded gownseated behind her dear friend in the opera-box, or occupying the backseat of the barouche, is always a wholesome and moral one to me, asjolly a reminder as that of the Death's-head which figured in therepasts of Egyptian bon-vivants, a strange sardonic memorial of VanityFair. What? even battered, brazen, beautiful, conscienceless,heartless, Mrs. Firebrace, whose father died of her shame: evenlovely, daring Mrs. Mantrap, who will ride at any fence which any manin England will take, and who drives her greys in the park, while hermother keeps a huckster's stall in Bath still--even those who are sobold, one might fancy they could face anything dare not face the worldwithout a female friend. They must have somebody to cling to, theaffectionate creatures! And you will hardly see them in any publicplace without a shabby companion in a dyed silk, sitting somewhere inthe shade close behind them.

"Rawdon," said Becky, very late one night, as a party of gentlemen wereseated round her crackling drawing-room fire (for the men came to herhouse to finish the night; and she had ice and coffee for them, thebest in London): "I must have a sheep-dog."

"A what?" said Rawdon, looking up from an ecarte table.

"A sheep-dog!" said young Lord Southdown. "My dear Mrs. Crawley, whata fancy! Why not have a Danish dog? I know of one as big as acamel-leopard, by Jove. It would almost pull your brougham. Or aPersian greyhound, eh? (I propose, if you please); or a little pug thatwould go into one of Lord Steyne's snuff-boxes? There's a man atBayswater got one with such a nose that you might--I mark the king andplay--that you might hang your hat on it."

"I mark the trick," Rawdon gravely said. He attended to his gamecommonly and didn't much meddle with the conversation, except when itwas about horses and betting.

"What CAN you want with a shepherd's dog?" the lively little Southdowncontinued.

"I mean a MORAL shepherd's dog," said Becky, laughing and looking up atLord Steyne.

"What the devil's that?" said his Lordship.

"A dog to keep the wolves off me," Rebecca continued. "A companion."

"Dear little innocent lamb, you want one," said the marquis; and hisjaw thrust out, and he began to grin hideously, his little eyes leeringtowards Rebecca.

The great Lord of Steyne was standing by the fire sipping coffee. Thefire crackled and blazed pleasantly. There was a score of candlessparkling round the mantel piece, in all sorts of quaint sconces, ofgilt and bronze and porcelain. They lighted up Rebecca's figure toadmiration, as she sat on a sofa covered with a pattern of gaudyflowers. She was in a pink dress that looked as fresh as a rose; herdazzling white arms and shoulders were half-covered with a thin hazyscarf through which they sparkled; her hair hung in curls round herneck; one of her little feet peeped out from the fresh crisp folds ofthe silk: the prettiest little foot in the prettiest little sandal inthe finest silk stocking in the world.

The candles lighted up Lord Steyne's shining bald head, which wasfringed with red hair. He had thick bushy eyebrows, with littletwinkling bloodshot eyes, surrounded by a thousand wrinkles. His jawwas underhung, and when he laughed, two white buck-teeth protrudedthemselves and glistened savagely in the midst of the grin. He had beendining with royal personages, and wore his garter and ribbon. A shortman was his Lordship, broad-chested and bow-legged, but proud of thefineness of his foot and ankle, and always caressing his garter-knee.

"And so the shepherd is not enough," said he, "to defend his lambkin?"

"The shepherd is too fond of playing at cards and going to his clubs,"answered Becky, laughing.

"'Gad, what a debauched Corydon!" said my lord--"what a mouth for apipe!"

"I take your three to two," here said Rawdon, at the card-table.

"Hark at Meliboeus," snarled the noble marquis; "he's pastorallyoccupied too: he's shearing a Southdown. What an innocent mutton, hey?Damme, what a snowy fleece!"

Rebecca's eyes shot out gleams of scornful humour. "My lord," she said,"you are a knight of the Order." He had the collar round his neck,indeed--a gift of the restored princes of Spain.

Lord Steyne in early life had been notorious for his daring and hissuccess at play. He had sat up two days and two nights with Mr. Fox athazard. He had won money of the most august personages of the realm:he had won his marquisate, it was said, at the gaming-table; but he didnot like an allusion to those bygone fredaines. Rebecca saw the scowlgathering over his heavy brow.

She rose up from her sofa and went and took his coffee cup out of hishand with a little curtsey. "Yes," she said, "I must get a watchdog.But he won't bark at YOU." And, going into the other drawing-room, shesat down to the piano and began to sing little French songs in such acharming, thrilling voice that the mollified nobleman speedily followedher into that chamber, and might be seen nodding his head and bowingtime over her.

Rawdon and his friend meanwhile played ecarte until they had enough.The Colonel won; but, say that he won ever so much and often, nightslike these, which occurred many times in the week--his wife having allthe talk and all the admiration, and he sitting silent without thecircle, not comprehending a word of the jokes, the allusions, themystical language within--must have been rather wearisome to theex-dragoon.

"How is Mrs. Crawley's husband?" Lord Steyne used to say to him by wayof a good day when they met; and indeed that was now his avocation inlife. He was Colonel Crawley no more. He was Mrs. Crawley's husband.

About the little Rawdon, if nothing has been said all this while, it isbecause he is hidden upstairs in a garret somewhere, or has crawledbelow into the kitchen for companionship. His mother scarcely evertook notice of him. He passed the days with his French bonne as longas that domestic remained in Mr. Crawley's family, and when theFrenchwoman went away, the little fellow, howling in the loneliness ofthe night, had compassion taken on him by a housemaid, who took him outof his solitary nursery into her bed in the garret hard by andcomforted him.

Rebecca, my Lord Steyne, and one or two more were in the drawing-roomtaking tea after the opera, when this shouting was heard overhead."It's my cherub crying for his nurse," she said. She did not offer tomove to go and see the child. "Don't agitate your feelings by going tolook for him," said Lord Steyne sardonically. "Bah!" replied the other,with a sort of blush, "he'll cry himself to sleep"; and they fell totalking about the opera.

Rawdon had stolen off though, to look after his son and heir; and cameback to the company when he found that honest Dolly was consoling thechild. The Colonel's dressing-room was in those upper regions. Heused to see the boy there in private. They had interviews togetherevery morning when he shaved; Rawdon minor sitting on a box by hisfather's side and watching the operation with never-ceasing pleasure.He and the sire were great friends. The father would bring himsweetmeats from the dessert and hide them in a certain old epaulet box,where the child went to seek them, and laughed with joy on discoveringthe treasure; laughed, but not too loud: for mamma was below asleepand must not be disturbed. She did not go to rest till very late andseldom rose till after noon.

Rawdon bought the boy plenty of picture-books and crammed his nurserywith toys. Its walls were covered with pictures pasted up by thefather's own hand and purchased by him for ready money. When he wasoff duty with Mrs. Rawdon in the park, he would sit up here, passinghours with the boy; who rode on his chest, who pulled his greatmustachios as if they were driving-reins, and spent days with him inindefatigable gambols. The room was a low room, and once, when thechild was not five years old, his father, who was tossing him wildly upin his arms, hit the poor little chap's skull so violently against theceiling that he almost dropped the child, so terrified was he at thedisaster.

Rawdon minor had made up his face for a tremendous howl--the severityof the blow indeed authorized that indulgence; but just as he was goingto begin, the father interposed.

"For God's sake, Rawdy, don't wake Mamma," he cried. And the child,looking in a very hard and piteous way at his father, bit his lips,clenched his hands, and didn't cry a bit. Rawdon told that story atthe clubs, at the mess, to everybody in town. "By Gad, sir," heexplained to the public in general, "what a good plucked one that boyof mine is--what a trump he is! I half-sent his head through theceiling, by Gad, and he wouldn't cry for fear of disturbing his mother."

Sometimes--once or twice in a week--that lady visited the upper regionsin which the child lived. She came like a vivified figure out of theMagasin des Modes--blandly smiling in the most beautiful new clothesand little gloves and boots. Wonderful scarfs, laces, and jewelsglittered about her. She had always a new bonnet on, and flowersbloomed perpetually in it, or else magnificent curling ostrichfeathers, soft and snowy as camellias. She nodded twice or thricepatronizingly to the little boy, who looked up from his dinner or fromthe pictures of soldiers he was painting. When she left the room, anodour of rose, or some other magical fragrance, lingered about thenursery. She was an unearthly being in his eyes, superior to hisfather--to all the world: to be worshipped and admired at a distance.To drive with that lady in the carriage was an awful rite: he sat upin the back seat and did not dare to speak: he gazed with all his eyesat the beautifully dressed Princess opposite to him. Gentlemen onsplendid prancing horses came up and smiled and talked with her. Howher eyes beamed upon all of them! Her hand used to quiver and wavegracefully as they passed. When he went out with her he had his newred dress on. His old brown holland was good enough when he stayed athome. Sometimes, when she was away, and Dolly his maid was making hisbed, he came into his mother's room. It was as the abode of a fairy tohim--a mystic chamber of splendour and delights. There in the wardrobehung those wonderful robes--pink and blue and many-tinted. There wasthe jewel-case, silver-clasped, and the wondrous bronze hand on thedressing-table, glistening all over with a hundred rings. There wasthe cheval-glass, that miracle of art, in which he could just see hisown wondering head and the reflection of Dolly (queerly distorted, andas if up in the ceiling), plumping and patting the pillows of the bed.Oh, thou poor lonely little benighted boy! Mother is the name for Godin the lips and hearts of little children; and here was one who wasworshipping a stone!

Now Rawdon Crawley, rascal as the Colonel was, had certain manlytendencies of affection in his heart and could love a child and a womanstill. For Rawdon minor he had a great secret tenderness then, whichdid not escape Rebecca, though she did not talk about it to herhusband. It did not annoy her: she was too good-natured. It onlyincreased her scorn for him. He felt somehow ashamed of this paternalsoftness and hid it from his wife--only indulging in it when alone withthe boy.

He used to take him out of mornings when they would go to the stablestogether and to the park. Little Lord Southdown, the best-natured ofmen, who would make you a present of the hat from his head, and whosemain occupation in life was to buy knick-knacks that he might give themaway afterwards, bought the little chap a pony not much bigger than alarge rat, the donor said, and on this little black Shetland pygmyyoung Rawdon's great father was pleased to mount the boy, and to walkby his side in the park. It pleased him to see his old quarters, andhis old fellow-guardsmen at Knightsbridge: he had begun to think of hisbachelorhood with something like regret. The old troopers were glad torecognize their ancient officer and dandle the little colonel. ColonelCrawley found dining at mess and with his brother-officers verypleasant. "Hang it, I ain't clever enough for her--I know it. Shewon't miss me," he used to say: and he was right, his wife did notmiss him.

Rebecca was fond of her husband. She was always perfectly good-humouredand kind to him. She did not even show her scorn much forhim; perhaps she liked him the better for being a fool. He was herupper servant and maitre d'hotel. He went on her errands; obeyed herorders without question; drove in the carriage in the ring with herwithout repining; took her to the opera-box, solaced himself at hisclub during the performance, and came punctually back to fetch her whendue. He would have liked her to be a little fonder of the boy, buteven to that he reconciled himself. "Hang it, you know she's soclever," he said, "and I'm not literary and that, you know." For, as wehave said before, it requires no great wisdom to be able to win atcards and billiards, and Rawdon made no pretensions to any other sortof skill.

When the companion came, his domestic duties became very light. Hiswife encouraged him to dine abroad: she would let him off duty at theopera. "Don't stay and stupefy yourself at home to-night, my dear,"she would say. "Some men are coming who will only bore you. I wouldnot ask them, but you know it's for your good, and now I have asheep-dog, I need not be afraid to be alone."

"A sheep-dog--a companion! Becky Sharp with a companion! Isn't itgood fun?" thought Mrs. Crawley to herself. The notion tickled hugelyher sense of humour.

One Sunday morning, as Rawdon Crawley, his little son, and the ponywere taking their accustomed walk in the park, they passed by an oldacquaintance of the Colonel's, Corporal Clink, of the regiment, who wasin conversation with a friend, an old gentleman, who held a boy in hisarms about the age of little Rawdon. This other youngster had seizedhold of the Waterloo medal which the Corporal wore, and was examiningit with delight.

"Good morning, your Honour," said Clink, in reply to the "How do,Clink?" of the Colonel. "This ere young gentleman is about the littleColonel's age, sir," continued the corporal.

"His father was a Waterloo man, too," said the old gentleman, whocarried the boy. "Wasn't he, Georgy?"

"Yes," said Georgy. He and the little chap on the pony were looking ateach other with all their might--solemnly scanning each other aschildren do.

"In a line regiment," Clink said with a patronizing air.

"He was a Captain in the --th regiment," said the old gentleman ratherpompously. "Captain George Osborne, sir--perhaps you knew him. Hedied the death of a hero, sir, fighting against the Corsican tyrant."Colonel Crawley blushed quite red. "I knew him very well, sir," hesaid, "and his wife, his dear little wife, sir--how is she?"

"She is my daughter, sir," said the old gentleman, putting down the boyand taking out a card with great solemnity, which he handed to theColonel. On it written--

"Mr. Sedley, Sole Agent for the Black Diamond and Anti-Cinder CoalAssociation, Bunker's Wharf, Thames Street, and Anna-Maria Cottages,Fulham Road West."

Little Georgy went up and looked at the Shetland pony.

"Should you like to have a ride?" said Rawdon minor from the saddle.

"Yes," said Georgy. The Colonel, who had been looking at him with someinterest, took up the child and put him on the pony behind Rawdon minor.

"Take hold of him, Georgy," he said--"take my little boy round thewaist--his name is Rawdon." And both the children began to laugh.

"You won't see a prettier pair I think, THIS summer's day, sir," saidthe good-natured Corporal; and the Colonel, the Corporal, and old Mr.Sedley with his umbrella, walked by the side of the children.