Georgy Osborne was now fairly established in his grandfather's mansionin Russell Square, occupant of his father's room in the house and heirapparent of all the splendours there. The good looks, gallant bearing,and gentlemanlike appearance of the boy won the grandsire's heart forhim. Mr. Osborne was as proud of him as ever he had been of the elderGeorge.

The child had many more luxuries and indulgences than had been awardedhis father. Osborne's commerce had prospered greatly of late years.His wealth and importance in the City had very much increased. He hadbeen glad enough in former days to put the elder George to a goodprivate school; and a commission in the army for his son had been asource of no small pride to him; for little George and his futureprospects the old man looked much higher. He would make a gentleman ofthe little chap, was Mr. Osborne's constant saying regarding littleGeorgy. He saw him in his mind's eye, a collegian, a Parliament man, aBaronet, perhaps. The old man thought he would die contented if hecould see his grandson in a fair way to such honours. He would havenone but a tip-top college man to educate him--none of your quacks andpretenders--no, no. A few years before, he used to be savage, andinveigh against all parsons, scholars, and the like declaring that theywere a pack of humbugs, and quacks that weren't fit to get their livingbut by grinding Latin and Greek, and a set of supercilious dogs thatpretended to look down upon British merchants and gentlemen, who couldbuy up half a hundred of 'em. He would mourn now, in a very solemnmanner, that his own education had been neglected, and repeatedly pointout, in pompous orations to Georgy, the necessity and excellence ofclassical acquirements.

When they met at dinner the grandsire used to ask the lad what he hadbeen reading during the day, and was greatly interested at the reportthe boy gave of his own studies, pretending to understand little Georgewhen he spoke regarding them. He made a hundred blunders and showedhis ignorance many a time. It did not increase the respect which thechild had for his senior. A quick brain and a better educationelsewhere showed the boy very soon that his grandsire was a dullard,and he began accordingly to command him and to look down upon him; forhis previous education, humble and contracted as it had been, had madea much better gentleman of Georgy than any plans of his grandfathercould make him. He had been brought up by a kind, weak, and tenderwoman, who had no pride about anything but about him, and whose heartwas so pure and whose bearing was so meek and humble that she could notbut needs be a true lady. She busied herself in gentle offices andquiet duties; if she never said brilliant things, she never spoke orthought unkind ones; guileless and artless, loving and pure, indeed howcould our poor little Amelia be other than a real gentlewoman!

Young Georgy lorded over this soft and yielding nature; and thecontrast of its simplicity and delicacy with the coarse pomposity ofthe dull old man with whom he next came in contact made him lord overthe latter too. If he had been a Prince Royal he could not have beenbetter brought up to think well of himself.

Whilst his mother was yearning after him at home, and I do believeevery hour of the day, and during most hours of the sad lonely nights,thinking of him, this young gentleman had a number of pleasures andconsolations administered to him, which made him for his part bear theseparation from Amelia very easily. Little boys who cry when they aregoing to school cry because they are going to a very uncomfortableplace. It is only a few who weep from sheer affection. When you thinkthat the eyes of your childhood dried at the sight of a piece ofgingerbread, and that a plum cake was a compensation for the agony ofparting with your mamma and sisters, oh my friend and brother, you neednot be too confident of your own fine feelings.

Well, then, Master George Osborne had every comfort and luxury that awealthy and lavish old grandfather thought fit to provide. Thecoachman was instructed to purchase for him the handsomest pony whichcould be bought for money, and on this George was taught to ride, firstat a riding-school, whence, after having performed satisfactorilywithout stirrups, and over the leaping-bar, he was conducted throughthe New Road to Regent's Park, and then to Hyde Park, where he rode instate with Martin the coachman behind him. Old Osborne, who tookmatters more easily in the City now, where he left his affairs to hisjunior partners, would often ride out with Miss O. in the samefashionable direction. As little Georgy came cantering up with hisdandified air and his heels down, his grandfather would nudge the lad'saunt and say, "Look, Miss O." And he would laugh, and his face wouldgrow red with pleasure, as he nodded out of the window to the boy, asthe groom saluted the carriage, and the footman saluted Master George.Here too his aunt, Mrs. Frederick Bullock (whose chariot might daily beseen in the Ring, with bullocks or emblazoned on the panels andharness, and three pasty-faced little Bullocks, covered with cockadesand feathers, staring from the windows) Mrs. Frederick Bullock, I say,flung glances of the bitterest hatred at the little upstart as he rodeby with his hand on his side and his hat on one ear, as proud as a lord.

Though he was scarcely eleven years of age, Master George wore strapsand the most beautiful little boots like a man. He had gilt spurs, anda gold-headed whip, and a fine pin in his handkerchief, and the neatestlittle kid gloves which Lamb's Conduit Street could furnish. His motherhad given him a couple of neckcloths, and carefully hemmed and madesome little shirts for him; but when her Eli came to see the widow,they were replaced by much finer linen. He had little jewelled buttonsin the lawn shirt fronts. Her humble presents had been put aside--Ibelieve Miss Osborne had given them to the coachman's boy. Ameliatried to think she was pleased at the change. Indeed, she was happyand charmed to see the boy looking so beautiful.

She had had a little black profile of him done for a shilling, and thiswas hung up by the side of another portrait over her bed. One day theboy came on his accustomed visit, galloping down the little street atBrompton, and bringing, as usual, all the inhabitants to the windows toadmire his splendour, and with great eagerness and a look of triumph inhis face, he pulled a case out of his great-coat--it was a natty whitegreat-coat, with a cape and a velvet collar--pulled out a red moroccocase, which he gave her.

"I bought it with my own money, Mamma," he said. "I thought you'd likeit."

Amelia opened the case, and giving a little cry of delighted affection,seized the boy and embraced him a hundred times. It was a miniature-ofhimself, very prettily done (though not half handsome enough, we may besure, the widow thought). His grandfather had wished to have a pictureof him by an artist whose works, exhibited in a shop-window, inSouthampton Row, had caught the old gentleman's eye; and George, whohad plenty of money, bethought him of asking the painter how much acopy of the little portrait would cost, saying that he would pay for itout of his own money and that he wanted to give it to his mother. Thepleased painter executed it for a small price, and old Osborne himself,when he heard of the incident, growled out his satisfaction and gavethe boy twice as many sovereigns as he paid for the miniature.

But what was the grandfather's pleasure compared to Amelia's ecstacy?That proof of the boy's affection charmed her so that she thought nochild in the world was like hers for goodness. For long weeks after,the thought of his love made her happy. She slept better with thepicture under her pillow, and how many many times did she kiss it andweep and pray over it! A small kindness from those she loved made thattimid heart grateful. Since her parting with George she had had nosuch joy and consolation.

At his new home Master George ruled like a lord; at dinner he invitedthe ladies to drink wine with the utmost coolness, and took off hischampagne in a way which charmed his old grandfather. "Look at him,"the old man would say, nudging his neighbour with a delighted purpleface, "did you ever see such a chap? Lord, Lord! he'll be ordering adressing-case next, and razors to shave with; I'm blessed if he won't."

The antics of the lad did not, however, delight Mr. Osborne's friendsso much as they pleased the old gentleman. It gave Mr. Justice Coffinno pleasure to hear Georgy cut into the conversation and spoil hisstories. Colonel Fogey was not interested in seeing the little boy halftipsy. Mr. Sergeant Toffy's lady felt no particular gratitude, when,with a twist of his elbow, he tilted a glass of port-wine over heryellow satin and laughed at the disaster; nor was she better pleased,although old Osborne was highly delighted, when Georgy "whopped" herthird boy (a young gentleman a year older than Georgy, and by chancehome for the holidays from Dr. Tickleus's at Ealing School) in RussellSquare. George's grandfather gave the boy a couple of sovereigns forthat feat and promised to reward him further for every boy above hisown size and age whom he whopped in a similar manner. It is difficultto say what good the old man saw in these combats; he had a vaguenotion that quarrelling made boys hardy, and that tyranny was a usefulaccomplishment for them to learn. English youth have been so educatedtime out of mind, and we have hundreds of thousands of apologists andadmirers of injustice, misery, and brutality, as perpetrated amongchildren. Flushed with praise and victory over Master Toffy, Georgewished naturally to pursue his conquests further, and one day as he wasstrutting about in prodigiously dandified new clothes, near St.Pancras, and a young baker's boy made sarcastic comments upon hisappearance, the youthful patrician pulled off his dandy jacket withgreat spirit, and giving it in charge to the friend who accompanied him(Master Todd, of Great Coram Street, Russell Square, son of the juniorpartner of the house of Osborne and Co.), George tried to whop thelittle baker. But the chances of war were unfavourable this time, andthe little baker whopped Georgy, who came home with a rueful black eyeand all his fine shirt frill dabbled with the claret drawn from his ownlittle nose. He told his grandfather that he had been in combat with agiant, and frightened his poor mother at Brompton with long, and by nomeans authentic, accounts of the battle.

This young Todd, of Coram Street, Russell Square, was Master George'sgreat friend and admirer. They both had a taste for paintingtheatrical characters; for hardbake and raspberry tarts; for slidingand skating in the Regent's Park and the Serpentine, when the weatherpermitted; for going to the play, whither they were often conducted, byMr. Osborne's orders, by Rowson, Master George's appointedbody-servant, with whom they sat in great comfort in the pit.

In the company of this gentleman they visited all the principaltheatres of the metropolis; knew the names of all the actors from DruryLane to Sadler's Wells; and performed, indeed, many of the plays to theTodd family and their youthful friends, with West's famous characters,on their pasteboard theatre. Rowson, the footman, who was of agenerous disposition, would not unfrequently, when in cash, treat hisyoung master to oysters after the play, and to a glass of rum-shrub fora night-cap. We may be pretty certain that Mr. Rowson profited in histurn by his young master's liberality and gratitude for the pleasuresto which the footman inducted him.

A famous tailor from the West End of the town--Mr. Osborne would havenone of your City or Holborn bunglers, he said, for the boy (though aCity tailor was good enough for HIM)--was summoned to ornament littleGeorge's person, and was told to spare no expense in so doing. So, Mr.Woolsey, of Conduit Street, gave a loose to his imagination and sentthe child home fancy trousers, fancy waistcoats, and fancy jacketsenough to furnish a school of little dandies. Georgy had little whitewaistcoats for evening parties, and little cut velvet waistcoats fordinners, and a dear little darling shawl dressing-gown, for all theworld like a little man. He dressed for dinner every day, "like aregular West End swell," as his grandfather remarked; one of thedomestics was affected to his special service, attended him at histoilette, answered his bell, and brought him his letters always on asilver tray.

Georgy, after breakfast, would sit in the arm-chair in the dining-roomand read the Morning Post, just like a grown-up man. "How he DU damand swear," the servants would cry, delighted at his precocity. Thosewho remembered the Captain his father, declared Master George was hisPa, every inch of him. He made the house lively by his activity, hisimperiousness, his scolding, and his good-nature.

George's education was confided to a neighbouring scholar and privatepedagogue who "prepared young noblemen and gentlemen for theUniversities, the senate, and the learned professions: whose systemdid not embrace the degrading corporal severities still practised atthe ancient places of education, and in whose family the pupils wouldfind the elegances of refined society and the confidence and affectionof a home." It was in this way that the Reverend Lawrence Veal of HartStreet, Bloomsbury, and domestic Chaplain to the Earl of Bareacres,strove with Mrs. Veal his wife to entice pupils.

By thus advertising and pushing sedulously, the domestic Chaplain andhis Lady generally succeeded in having one or two scholars by them--whopaid a high figure and were thought to be in uncommonly comfortablequarters. There was a large West Indian, whom nobody came to see, witha mahogany complexion, a woolly head, and an exceedingly dandyfiedappearance; there was another hulking boy of three-and-twenty whoseeducation had been neglected and whom Mr. and Mrs. Veal were tointroduce into the polite world; there were two sons of Colonel Banglesof the East India Company's Service: these four sat down to dinner atMrs. Veal's genteel board, when Georgy was introduced to herestablishment.

Georgy was, like some dozen other pupils, only a day boy; he arrived inthe morning under the guardianship of his friend Mr. Rowson, and if itwas fine, would ride away in the afternoon on his pony, followed by thegroom. The wealth of his grandfather was reported in the school to beprodigious. The Rev. Mr. Veal used to compliment Georgy upon itpersonally, warning him that he was destined for a high station; thatit became him to prepare, by sedulity and docility in youth, for thelofty duties to which he would be called in mature age; that obediencein the child was the best preparation for command in the man; and thathe therefore begged George would not bring toffee into the school andruin the health of the Masters Bangles, who had everything they wantedat the elegant and abundant table of Mrs. Veal.

With respect to learning, "the Curriculum," as Mr. Veal loved to callit, was of prodigious extent, and the young gentlemen in Hart Streetmight learn a something of every known science. The Rev. Mr. Veal hadan orrery, an electrifying machine, a turning lathe, a theatre (in thewash-house), a chemical apparatus, and what he called a select libraryof all the works of the best authors of ancient and modern times andlanguages. He took the boys to the British Museum and descanted uponthe antiquities and the specimens of natural history there, so thataudiences would gather round him as he spoke, and all Bloomsbury highlyadmired him as a prodigiously well-informed man. And whenever he spoke(which he did almost always), he took care to produce the very finestand longest words of which the vocabulary gave him the use, rightlyjudging that it was as cheap to employ a handsome, large, and sonorousepithet, as to use a little stingy one.

Thus he would say to George in school, "I observed on my return homefrom taking the indulgence of an evening's scientific conversation withmy excellent friend Doctor Bulders--a true archaeologian, gentlemen, atrue archaeologian--that the windows of your venerated grandfather'salmost princely mansion in Russell Square were illuminated as if forthe purposes of festivity. Am I right in my conjecture that Mr.Osborne entertained a society of chosen spirits round his sumptuousboard last night?"

Little Georgy, who had considerable humour, and used to mimic Mr. Vealto his face with great spirit and dexterity, would reply that Mr. V.was quite correct in his surmise.

"Then those friends who had the honour of partaking of Mr. Osborne'shospitality, gentlemen, had no reason, I will lay any wager, tocomplain of their repast. I myself have been more than once sofavoured. (By the way, Master Osborne, you came a little late thismorning, and have been a defaulter in this respect more than once.) Imyself, I say, gentlemen, humble as I am, have been found not unworthyto share Mr. Osborne's elegant hospitality. And though I have feastedwith the great and noble of the world--for I presume that I may call myexcellent friend and patron, the Right Honourable George Earl ofBareacres, one of the number--yet I assure you that the board of theBritish merchant was to the full as richly served, and his reception asgratifying and noble. Mr. Bluck, sir, we will resume, if you please,that passage of Eutropis, which was interrupted by the late arrival ofMaster Osborne."

To this great man George's education was for some time entrusted.Amelia was bewildered by his phrases, but thought him a prodigy oflearning. That poor widow made friends of Mrs. Veal, for reasons ofher own. She liked to be in the house and see Georgy coming to schoolthere. She liked to be asked to Mrs. Veal's conversazioni, which tookplace once a month (as you were informed on pink cards, with AOHNHengraved on them), and where the professor welcomed his pupils andtheir friends to weak tea and scientific conversation. Poor littleAmelia never missed one of these entertainments and thought themdelicious so long as she might have Georgy sitting by her. And shewould walk from Brompton in any weather, and embrace Mrs. Veal withtearful gratitude for the delightful evening she had passed, when, thecompany having retired and Georgy gone off with Mr. Rowson, hisattendant, poor Mrs. Osborne put on her cloaks and her shawlspreparatory to walking home.

As for the learning which Georgy imbibed under this valuable master ofa hundred sciences, to judge from the weekly reports which the lad tookhome to his grandfather, his progress was remarkable. The names of ascore or more of desirable branches of knowledge were printed in atable, and the pupil's progress in each was marked by the professor.In Greek Georgy was pronounced aristos, in Latin optimus, in Frenchtres bien, and so forth; and everybody had prizes for everything at theend of the year. Even Mr. Swartz, the wooly-headed young gentleman,and half-brother to the Honourable Mrs. Mac Mull, and Mr. Bluck, theneglected young pupil of three-and-twenty from the agriculturaldistrict, and that idle young scapegrace of a Master Todd beforementioned, received little eighteen-penny books, with "Athene" engravedon them, and a pompous Latin inscription from the professor to hisyoung friends.

The family of this Master Todd were hangers-on of the house of Osborne.The old gentleman had advanced Todd from being a clerk to be a juniorpartner in his establishment.

Mr. Osborne was the godfather of young Master Todd (who in subsequentlife wrote Mr. Osborne Todd on his cards and became a man of decidedfashion), while Miss Osborne had accompanied Miss Maria Todd to thefont, and gave her protegee a prayer-book, a collection of tracts, avolume of very low church poetry, or some such memento of her goodnessevery year. Miss O. drove the Todds out in her carriage now and then;when they were ill, her footman, in large plush smalls and waistcoat,brought jellies and delicacies from Russell Square to Coram Street.Coram Street trembled and looked up to Russell Square indeed, and Mrs.Todd, who had a pretty hand at cutting out paper trimmings for haunchesof mutton, and could make flowers, ducks, &c., out of turnips andcarrots in a very creditable manner, would go to "the Square," as itwas called, and assist in the preparations incident to a great dinner,without even so much as thinking of sitting down to the banquet. Ifany guest failed at the eleventh hour, Todd was asked to dine. Mrs.Todd and Maria came across in the evening, slipped in with a muffledknock, and were in the drawing-room by the time Miss Osborne and theladies under her convoy reached that apartment--and ready to fire offduets and sing until the gentlemen came up. Poor Maria Todd; pooryoung lady! How she had to work and thrum at these duets and sonatasin the Street, before they appeared in public in the Square!

Thus it seemed to be decreed by fate that Georgy was to domineer overeverybody with whom he came in contact, and that friends, relatives,and domestics were all to bow the knee before the little fellow. Itmust be owned that he accommodated himself very willingly to thisarrangement. Most people do so. And Georgy liked to play the part ofmaster and perhaps had a natural aptitude for it.

In Russell Square everybody was afraid of Mr. Osborne, and Mr. Osbornewas afraid of Georgy. The boy's dashing manners, and offhand rattleabout books and learning, his likeness to his father (dead unreconciledin Brussels yonder) awed the old gentleman and gave the young boy themastery. The old man would start at some hereditary feature or toneunconsciously used by the little lad, and fancy that George's fatherwas again before him. He tried by indulgence to the grandson to makeup for harshness to the elder George. People were surprised at hisgentleness to the boy. He growled and swore at Miss Osborne as usual,and would smile when George came down late for breakfast.

Miss Osborne, George's aunt, was a faded old spinster, broken down bymore than forty years of dulness and coarse usage. It was easy for alad of spirit to master her. And whenever George wanted anything fromher, from the jam-pots in her cupboards to the cracked and dry oldcolours in her paint-box (the old paint-box which she had had when shewas a pupil of Mr. Smee and was still almost young and blooming),Georgy took possession of the object of his desire, which obtained, hetook no further notice of his aunt.

For his friends and cronies, he had a pompous old schoolmaster, whoflattered him, and a toady, his senior, whom he could thrash. It wasdear Mrs. Todd's delight to leave him with her youngest daughter, RosaJemima, a darling child of eight years old. The little pair looked sowell together, she would say (but not to the folks in "the Square," wemay be sure) "who knows what might happen? Don't they make a prettylittle couple?" the fond mother thought.

The broken-spirited, old, maternal grandfather was likewise subject tothe little tyrant. He could not help respecting a lad who had suchfine clothes and rode with a groom behind him. Georgy, on his side,was in the constant habit of hearing coarse abuse and vulgar satirelevelled at John Sedley by his pitiless old enemy, Mr. Osborne.Osborne used to call the other the old pauper, the old coal-man, theold bankrupt, and by many other such names of brutal contumely. Howwas little George to respect a man so prostrate? A few months after hewas with his paternal grandfather, Mrs. Sedley died. There had beenlittle love between her and the child. He did not care to show muchgrief. He came down to visit his mother in a fine new suit ofmourning, and was very angry that he could not go to a play upon whichhe had set his heart.

The illness of that old lady had been the occupation and perhaps thesafeguard of Amelia. What do men know about women's martyrdoms? Weshould go mad had we to endure the hundredth part of those daily painswhich are meekly borne by many women. Ceaseless slavery meeting withno reward; constant gentleness and kindness met by cruelty as constant;love, labour, patience, watchfulness, without even so much as theacknowledgement of a good word; all this, how many of them have to bearin quiet, and appear abroad with cheerful faces as if they feltnothing. Tender slaves that they are, they must needs be hypocritesand weak.

From her chair Amelia's mother had taken to her bed, which she hadnever left, and from which Mrs. Osborne herself was never absent exceptwhen she ran to see George. The old lady grudged her even those rarevisits; she, who had been a kind, smiling, good-natured mother once, inthe days of her prosperity, but whom poverty and infirmities had brokendown. Her illness or estrangement did not affect Amelia. They ratherenabled her to support the other calamity under which she wassuffering, and from the thoughts of which she was kept by the ceaselesscalls of the invalid. Amelia bore her harshness quite gently; smoothedthe uneasy pillow; was always ready with a soft answer to the watchful,querulous voice; soothed the sufferer with words of hope, such as herpious simple heart could best feel and utter, and closed the eyes thathad once looked so tenderly upon her.

Then all her time and tenderness were devoted to the consolation andcomfort of the bereaved old father, who was stunned by the blow whichhad befallen him, and stood utterly alone in the world. His wife, hishonour, his fortune, everything he loved best had fallen away from him.There was only Amelia to stand by and support with her gentle arms thetottering, heart-broken old man. We are not going to write the history:it would be too dreary and stupid. I can see Vanity Fair yawning overit d'avance.

One day as the young gentlemen were assembled in the study at the Rev.Mr. Veal's, and the domestic chaplain to the Right Honourable the Earlof Bareacres was spouting away as usual, a smart carriage drove up tothe door decorated with the statue of Athene, and two gentlemen steppedout. The young Masters Bangles rushed to the window with a vaguenotion that their father might have arrived from Bombay. The greathulking scholar of three-and-twenty, who was crying secretly over apassage of Eutropius, flattened his neglected nose against the panesand looked at the drag, as the laquais de place sprang from the box andlet out the persons in the carriage.

"It's a fat one and a thin one," Mr. Bluck said as a thundering knockcame to the door.

Everybody was interested, from the domestic chaplain himself, who hopedhe saw the fathers of some future pupils, down to Master Georgy, gladof any pretext for laying his book down.

The boy in the shabby livery with the faded copper buttons, who alwaysthrust himself into the tight coat to open the door, came into thestudy and said, "Two gentlemen want to see Master Osborne." Theprofessor had had a trifling altercation in the morning with that younggentleman, owing to a difference about the introduction of crackers inschool-time; but his face resumed its habitual expression of blandcourtesy as he said, "Master Osborne, I give you full permission to goand see your carriage friends--to whom I beg you to convey therespectful compliments of myself and Mrs. Veal."

Georgy went into the reception-room and saw two strangers, whom helooked at with his head up, in his usual haughty manner. One was fat,with mustachios, and the other was lean and long, in a blue frock-coat,with a brown face and a grizzled head.

"My God, how like he is!" said the long gentleman with a start. "Canyou guess who we are, George?"

The boy's face flushed up, as it did usually when he was moved, and hiseyes brightened. "I don't know the other," he said, "but I shouldthink you must be Major Dobbin."

Indeed it was our old friend. His voice trembled with pleasure as hegreeted the boy, and taking both the other's hands in his own, drew thelad to him.

"Your mother has talked to you about me--has she?" he said.

"That she has," Georgy answered, "hundreds and hundreds of times."