Our old friends the Crawleys' family house, in Great Gaunt Street,still bore over its front the hatchment which had been placed there asa token of mourning for Sir Pitt Crawley's demise, yet this heraldicemblem was in itself a very splendid and gaudy piece of furniture, andall the rest of the mansion became more brilliant than it had ever beenduring the late baronet's reign. The black outer-coating of the brickswas removed, and they appeared with a cheerful, blushing face streakedwith white: the old bronze lions of the knocker were gilt handsomely,the railings painted, and the dismallest house in Great Gaunt Streetbecame the smartest in the whole quarter, before the green leaves inHampshire had replaced those yellowing ones which were on the trees inQueen's Crawley Avenue when old Sir Pitt Crawley passed under them forthe last time.

A little woman, with a carriage to correspond, was perpetually seenabout this mansion; an elderly spinster, accompanied by a little boy,also might be remarked coming thither daily. It was Miss Briggs andlittle Rawdon, whose business it was to see to the inward renovation ofSir Pitt's house, to superintend the female band engaged in stitchingthe blinds and hangings, to poke and rummage in the drawers andcupboards crammed with the dirty relics and congregated trumperies of acouple of generations of Lady Crawleys, and to take inventories of thechina, the glass, and other properties in the closets and store-rooms.

Mrs. Rawdon Crawley was general-in-chief over these arrangements, withfull orders from Sir Pitt to sell, barter, confiscate, or purchasefurniture, and she enjoyed herself not a little in an occupation whichgave full scope to her taste and ingenuity. The renovation of thehouse was determined upon when Sir Pitt came to town in November to seehis lawyers, and when he passed nearly a week in Curzon Street, underthe roof of his affectionate brother and sister.

He had put up at an hotel at first, but, Becky, as soon as she heard ofthe Baronet's arrival, went off alone to greet him, and returned in anhour to Curzon Street with Sir Pitt in the carriage by her side. Itwas impossible sometimes to resist this artless little creature'shospitalities, so kindly were they pressed, so frankly and amiablyoffered. Becky seized Pitt's hand in a transport of gratitude when heagreed to come. "Thank you," she said, squeezing it and looking intothe Baronet's eyes, who blushed a good deal; "how happy this will makeRawdon!" She bustled up to Pitt's bedroom, leading on the servants, whowere carrying his trunks thither. She came in herself laughing, with acoal-scuttle out of her own room.

A fire was blazing already in Sir Pitt's apartment (it was MissBriggs's room, by the way, who was sent upstairs to sleep with themaid). "I knew I should bring you," she said with pleasure beaming inher glance. Indeed, she was really sincerely happy at having him for aguest.

Becky made Rawdon dine out once or twice on business, while Pitt stayedwith them, and the Baronet passed the happy evening alone with her andBriggs. She went downstairs to the kitchen and actually cooked littledishes for him. "Isn't it a good salmi?" she said; "I made it for you.I can make you better dishes than that, and will when you come to seeme."

"Everything you do, you do well," said the Baronet gallantly. "Thesalmi is excellent indeed."

"A poor man's wife," Rebecca replied gaily, "must make herself useful,you know"; on which her brother-in-law vowed that "she was fit to bethe wife of an Emperor, and that to be skilful in domestic duties wassurely one of the most charming of woman's qualities." And Sir Pittthought, with something like mortification, of Lady Jane at home, andof a certain pie which she had insisted on making, and serving to himat dinner--a most abominable pie.

Besides the salmi, which was made of Lord Steyne's pheasants from hislordship's cottage of Stillbrook, Becky gave her brother-in-law abottle of white wine, some that Rawdon had brought with him fromFrance, and had picked up for nothing, the little story-teller said;whereas the liquor was, in truth, some White Hermitage from the Marquisof Steyne's famous cellars, which brought fire into the Baronet'spallid cheeks and a glow into his feeble frame.

Then when he had drunk up the bottle of petit vin blanc, she gave himher hand, and took him up to the drawing-room, and made him snug on thesofa by the fire, and let him talk as she listened with the tenderestkindly interest, sitting by him, and hemming a shirt for her dearlittle boy. Whenever Mrs. Rawdon wished to be particularly humble andvirtuous, this little shirt used to come out of her work-box. It hadgot to be too small for Rawdon long before it was finished.

Well, Rebecca listened to Pitt, she talked to him, she sang to him, shecoaxed him, and cuddled him, so that he found himself more and moreglad every day to get back from the lawyer's at Gray's Inn, to theblazing fire in Curzon Street--a gladness in which the men of lawlikewise participated, for Pitt's harangues were of the longest--and sothat when he went away he felt quite a pang at departing. How prettyshe looked kissing her hand to him from the carriage and waving herhandkerchief when he had taken his place in the mail! She put thehandkerchief to her eyes once. He pulled his sealskin cap over his, asthe coach drove away, and, sinking back, he thought to himself how sherespected him and how he deserved it, and how Rawdon was a foolish dullfellow who didn't half-appreciate his wife; and how mum and stupid hisown wife was compared to that brilliant little Becky. Becky had hintedevery one of these things herself, perhaps, but so delicately andgently that you hardly knew when or where. And, before they parted, itwas agreed that the house in London should be redecorated for the nextseason, and that the brothers' families should meet again in thecountry at Christmas.

"I wish you could have got a little money out of him," Rawdon said tohis wife moodily when the Baronet was gone. "I should like to givesomething to old Raggles, hanged if I shouldn't. It ain't right, youknow, that the old fellow should be kept out of all his money. It maybe inconvenient, and he might let to somebody else besides us, youknow."

"Tell him," said Becky, "that as soon as Sir Pitt's affairs aresettled, everybody will be paid, and give him a little something onaccount. Here's a cheque that Pitt left for the boy," and she tookfrom her bag and gave her husband a paper which his brother had handedover to her, on behalf of the little son and heir of the younger branchof the Crawleys.

The truth is, she had tried personally the ground on which her husbandexpressed a wish that she should venture--tried it ever so delicately,and found it unsafe. Even at a hint about embarrassments, Sir PittCrawley was off and alarmed. And he began a long speech, explaininghow straitened he himself was in money matters; how the tenants wouldnot pay; how his father's affairs, and the expenses attendant upon thedemise of the old gentleman, had involved him; how he wanted to pay offincumbrances; and how the bankers and agents were overdrawn; and PittCrawley ended by making a compromise with his sister-in-law and givingher a very small sum for the benefit of her little boy.

Pitt knew how poor his brother and his brother's family must be. Itcould not have escaped the notice of such a cool and experienced olddiplomatist that Rawdon's family had nothing to live upon, and thathouses and carriages are not to be kept for nothing. He knew very wellthat he was the proprietor or appropriator of the money, which,according to all proper calculation, ought to have fallen to hisyounger brother, and he had, we may be sure, some secret pangs ofremorse within him, which warned him that he ought to perform some actof justice, or, let us say, compensation, towards these disappointedrelations. A just, decent man, not without brains, who said hisprayers, and knew his catechism, and did his duty outwardly throughlife, he could not be otherwise than aware that something was due tohis brother at his hands, and that morally he was Rawdon's debtor.

But, as one reads in the columns of the Times newspaper every now andthen, queer announcements from the Chancellor of the Exchequer,acknowledging the receipt of 50 pounds from A. B., or 10 pounds fromW. T., as conscience-money, on account of taxes due by the said A. B.or W. T., which payments the penitents beg the Right Honourablegentleman to acknowledge through the medium of the public press--so isthe Chancellor no doubt, and the reader likewise, always perfectly surethat the above-named A. B. and W. T. are only paying a very smallinstalment of what they really owe, and that the man who sends up atwenty-pound note has very likely hundreds or thousands more for whichhe ought to account. Such, at least, are my feelings, when I seeA. B. or W. T.'s insufficient acts of repentance. And I have no doubtthat Pitt Crawley's contrition, or kindness if you will, towards hisyounger brother, by whom he had so much profited, was only a very smalldividend upon the capital sum in which he was indebted to Rawdon. Noteverybody is willing to pay even so much. To part with money is asacrifice beyond almost all men endowed with a sense of order. Thereis scarcely any man alive who does not think himself meritorious forgiving his neighbour five pounds. Thriftless gives, not from abeneficent pleasure in giving, but from a lazy delight in spending. Hewould not deny himself one enjoyment; not his opera-stall, not hishorse, not his dinner, not even the pleasure of giving Lazarus the fivepounds. Thrifty, who is good, wise, just, and owes no man a penny,turns from a beggar, haggles with a hackney-coachman, or denies a poorrelation, and I doubt which is the most selfish of the two. Money hasonly a different value in the eyes of each.

So, in a word, Pitt Crawley thought he would do something for hisbrother, and then thought that he would think about it some other time.

And with regard to Becky, she was not a woman who expected too muchfrom the generosity of her neighbours, and so was quite content withall that Pitt Crawley had done for her. She was acknowledged by thehead of the family. If Pitt would not give her anything, he would getsomething for her some day. If she got no money from herbrother-in-law, she got what was as good as money--credit. Raggles wasmade rather easy in his mind by the spectacle of the union between thebrothers, by a small payment on the spot, and by the promise of a muchlarger sum speedily to be assigned to him. And Rebecca told MissBriggs, whose Christmas dividend upon the little sum lent by her Beckypaid with an air of candid joy, and as if her exchequer was brimmingover with gold--Rebecca, we say, told Miss Briggs, in strict confidencethat she had conferred with Sir Pitt, who was famous as a financier, onBriggs's special behalf, as to the most profitable investment of MissB.'s remaining capital; that Sir Pitt, after much consideration, hadthought of a most safe and advantageous way in which Briggs could layout her money; that, being especially interested in her as an attachedfriend of the late Miss Crawley, and of the whole family, and that longbefore he left town, he had recommended that she should be ready withthe money at a moment's notice, so as to purchase at the mostfavourable opportunity the shares which Sir Pitt had in his eye. PoorMiss Briggs was very grateful for this mark of Sir Pitt's attention--itcame so unsolicited, she said, for she never should have thought ofremoving the money from the funds--and the delicacy enhanced thekindness of the office; and she promised to see her man of businessimmediately and be ready with her little cash at the proper hour.

And this worthy woman was so grateful for the kindness of Rebecca inthe matter, and for that of her generous benefactor, the Colonel, thatshe went out and spent a great part of her half-year's dividend in thepurchase of a black velvet coat for little Rawdon, who, by the way, wasgrown almost too big for black velvet now, and was of a size and agebefitting him for the assumption of the virile jacket and pantaloons.

He was a fine open-faced boy, with blue eyes and waving flaxen hair,sturdy in limb, but generous and soft in heart, fondly attachinghimself to all who were good to him--to the pony--to Lord Southdown,who gave him the horse (he used to blush and glow all over when he sawthat kind young nobleman)--to the groom who had charge of the pony--toMolly, the cook, who crammed him with ghost stories at night, and withgood things from the dinner--to Briggs, whom he plagued and laughedat--and to his father especially, whose attachment towards the lad wascurious too to witness. Here, as he grew to be about eight years old,his attachments may be said to have ended. The beautiful mother-visionhad faded away after a while. During near two years she had scarcelyspoken to the child. She disliked him. He had the measles and thehooping-cough. He bored her. One day when he was standing at thelanding-place, having crept down from the upper regions, attracted bythe sound of his mother's voice, who was singing to Lord Steyne, thedrawing room door opening suddenly, discovered the little spy, who buta moment before had been rapt in delight, and listening to the music.

His mother came out and struck him violently a couple of boxes on theear. He heard a laugh from the Marquis in the inner room (who wasamused by this free and artless exhibition of Becky's temper) and fleddown below to his friends of the kitchen, bursting in an agony of grief.

"It is not because it hurts me," little Rawdon gaspedout--"only--only"--sobs and tears wound up the sentence in a storm. Itwas the little boy's heart that was bleeding. "Why mayn't I hear hersinging? Why don't she ever sing to me--as she does to that baldheadedman with the large teeth?" He gasped out at various intervals theseexclamations of rage and grief. The cook looked at the housemaid, thehousemaid looked knowingly at the footman--the awful kitchen inquisitionwhich sits in judgement in every house and knows everything--sat onRebecca at that moment.

After this incident, the mother's dislike increased to hatred; theconsciousness that the child was in the house was a reproach and a painto her. His very sight annoyed her. Fear, doubt, and resistancesprang up, too, in the boy's own bosom. They were separated from thatday of the boxes on the ear.

Lord Steyne also heartily disliked the boy. When they met bymischance, he made sarcastic bows or remarks to the child, or glared athim with savage-looking eyes. Rawdon used to stare him in the face anddouble his little fists in return. He knew his enemy, and thisgentleman, of all who came to the house, was the one who angered himmost. One day the footman found him squaring his fists at LordSteyne's hat in the hall. The footman told the circumstance as a goodjoke to Lord Steyne's coachman; that officer imparted it to LordSteyne's gentleman, and to the servants' hall in general. And very soonafterwards, when Mrs. Rawdon Crawley made her appearance at GauntHouse, the porter who unbarred the gates, the servants of all uniformsin the hall, the functionaries in white waistcoats, who bawled out fromlanding to landing the names of Colonel and Mrs. Rawdon Crawley, knewabout her, or fancied they did. The man who brought her refreshment andstood behind her chair, had talked her character over with the largegentleman in motley-coloured clothes at his side. Bon Dieu! it isawful, that servants' inquisition! You see a woman in a great party ina splendid saloon, surrounded by faithful admirers, distributingsparkling glances, dressed to perfection, curled, rouged, smiling andhappy--Discovery walks respectfully up to her, in the shape of a hugepowdered man with large calves and a tray of ices--with Calumny (whichis as fatal as truth) behind him, in the shape of the hulking fellowcarrying the wafer-biscuits. Madam, your secret will be talked over bythose men at their club at the public-house to-night. Jeames will tellChawles his notions about you over their pipes and pewter beer-pots.Some people ought to have mutes for servants in Vanity Fair--mutes whocould not write. If you are guilty, tremble. That fellow behind yourchair may be a Janissary with a bow-string in his plush breechespocket. If you are not guilty, have a care of appearances, which areas ruinous as guilt.

"Was Rebecca guilty or not?" the Vehmgericht of tho servants' hall hadpronounced against her.

And, I shame to say, she would not have got credit had they notbelieved her to be guilty. It was the sight of the Marquis of Steyne'scarriage-lamps at her door, contemplated by Raggles, burning in theblackness of midnight, "that kep him up," as he afterwards said, thateven more than Rebecca's arts and coaxings.

And so--guiltless very likely--she was writhing and pushing onwardtowards what they call "a position in society," and the servants werepointing at her as lost and ruined. So you see Molly, the housemaid,of a morning, watching a spider in the doorpost lay his thread andlaboriously crawl up it, until, tired of the sport, she raises herbroom and sweeps away the thread and the artificer.

A day or two before Christmas, Becky, her husband and her son madeready and went to pass the holidays at the seat of their ancestors atQueen's Crawley. Becky would have liked to leave the little bratbehind, and would have done so but for Lady Jane's urgent invitationsto the youngster, and the symptoms of revolt and discontent whichRawdon manifested at her neglect of her son. "He's the finest boy inEngland," the father said in a tone of reproach to her, "and you don'tseem to care for him, Becky, as much as you do for your spaniel. Heshan't bother you much; at home he will be away from you in thenursery, and he shall go outside on the coach with me."

"Where you go yourself because you want to smoke those filthy cigars,"replied Mrs. Rawdon.

"I remember when you liked 'em though," answered the husband.

Becky laughed; she was almost always good-humoured. "That was when Iwas on my promotion, Goosey," she said. "Take Rawdon outside with youand give him a cigar too if you like."

Rawdon did not warm his little son for the winter's journey in thisway, but he and Briggs wrapped up the child in shawls and comforters,and he was hoisted respectfully onto the roof of the coach in the darkmorning, under the lamps of the White Horse Cellar; and with no smalldelight he watched the dawn rise and made his first journey to theplace which his father still called home. It was a journey of infinitepleasure to the boy, to whom the incidents of the road afforded endlessinterest, his father answering to him all questions connected with itand telling him who lived in the great white house to the right, andwhom the park belonged to. His mother, inside the vehicle, with hermaid and her furs, her wrappers, and her scent bottles, made such ato-do that you would have thought she never had been in a stage-coachbefore--much less, that she had been turned out of this very one tomake room for a paying passenger on a certain journey performed somehalf-score years ago.

It was dark again when little Rawdon was wakened up to enter hisuncle's carriage at Mudbury, and he sat and looked out of it wonderingas the great iron gates flew open, and at the white trunks of the limesas they swept by, until they stopped, at length, before the lightwindows of the Hall, which were blazing and comfortable with Christmaswelcome. The hall-door was flung open--a big fire was burning in thegreat old fire-place--a carpet was down over the chequered blackflags--"It's the old Turkey one that used to be in the Ladies'Gallery," thought Rebecca, and the next instant was kissing Lady Jane.

She and Sir Pitt performed the same salute with great gravity; butRawdon, having been smoking, hung back rather from his sister-in-law,whose two children came up to their cousin; and, while Matilda held outher hand and kissed him, Pitt Binkie Southdown, the son and heir, stoodaloof rather and examined him as a little dog does a big dog.

Then the kind hostess conducted her guests to the snug apartmentsblazing with cheerful fires. Then the young ladies came and knocked atMrs. Rawdon's door, under the pretence that they were desirous to beuseful, but in reality to have the pleasure of inspecting the contentsof her band and bonnet-boxes, and her dresses which, though black, wereof the newest London fashion. And they told her how much the Hall waschanged for the better, and how old Lady Southdown was gone, and howPitt was taking his station in the county, as became a Crawley in fact.Then the great dinner-bell having rung, the family assembled at dinner,at which meal Rawdon Junior was placed by his aunt, the good-naturedlady of the house, Sir Pitt being uncommonly attentive to hissister-in-law at his own right hand.

Little Rawdon exhibited a fine appetite and showed a gentlemanlikebehaviour.

"I like to dine here," he said to his aunt when he had completed hismeal, at the conclusion of which, and after a decent grace by Sir Pitt,the younger son and heir was introduced, and was perched on a highchair by the Baronet's side, while the daughter took possession of theplace and the little wine-glass prepared for her near her mother. "Ilike to dine here," said Rawdon Minor, looking up at his relation'skind face.

"Why?" said the good Lady Jane.

"I dine in the kitchen when I am at home," replied Rawdon Minor, "orelse with Briggs." But Becky was so engaged with the Baronet, her host,pouring out a flood of compliments and delights and raptures, andadmiring young Pitt Binkie, whom she declared to be the most beautiful,intelligent, noble-looking little creature, and so like his father,that she did not hear the remarks of her own flesh and blood at theother end of the broad shining table.

As a guest, and it being the first night of his arrival, Rawdon theSecond was allowed to sit up until the hour when tea being over, and agreat gilt book being laid on the table before Sir Pitt, all thedomestics of the family streamed in, and Sir Pitt read prayers. It wasthe first time the poor little boy had ever witnessed or heard of sucha ceremonial.

The house had been much improved even since the Baronet's brief reign,and was pronounced by Becky to be perfect, charming, delightful, whenshe surveyed it in his company. As for little Rawdon, who examined itwith the children for his guides, it seemed to him a perfect palace ofenchantment and wonder. There were long galleries, and ancient statebedrooms, there were pictures and old China, and armour. There werethe rooms in which Grandpapa died, and by which the children walkedwith terrified looks. "Who was Grandpapa?" he asked; and they told himhow he used to be very old, and used to be wheeled about in agarden-chair, and they showed him the garden-chair one day rotting inthe out-house in which it had lain since the old gentleman had beenwheeled away yonder to the church, of which the spire was glitteringover the park elms.

The brothers had good occupation for several mornings in examining theimprovements which had been effected by Sir Pitt's genius and economy.And as they walked or rode, and looked at them, they could talk withouttoo much boring each other. And Pitt took care to tell Rawdon what aheavy outlay of money these improvements had occasioned, and that a manof landed and funded property was often very hard pressed for twentypounds. "There is that new lodge-gate," said Pitt, pointing to ithumbly with the bamboo cane, "I can no more pay for it before thedividends in January than I can fly."

"I can lend you, Pitt, till then," Rawdon answered rather ruefully; andthey went in and looked at the restored lodge, where the family armswere just new scraped in stone, and where old Mrs. Lock, for the firsttime these many long years, had tight doors, sound roofs, and wholewindows.