It was one of the many causes for personal pride with which old Osbornechose to recreate himself that Sedley, his ancient rival, enemy, andbenefactor, was in his last days so utterly defeated and humiliated asto be forced to accept pecuniary obligations at the hands of the manwho had most injured and insulted him. The successful man of the worldcursed the old pauper and relieved him from time to time. As hefurnished George with money for his mother, he gave the boy tounderstand by hints, delivered in his brutal, coarse way, that George'smaternal grandfather was but a wretched old bankrupt and dependant, andthat John Sedley might thank the man to whom he already owed ever somuch money for the aid which his generosity now chose to administer.George carried the pompous supplies to his mother and the shattered oldwidower whom it was now the main business of her life to tend andcomfort. The little fellow patronized the feeble and disappointed oldman.

It may have shown a want of "proper pride" in Amelia that she chose toaccept these money benefits at the hands of her father's enemy. Butproper pride and this poor lady had never had much acquaintancetogether. A disposition naturally simple and demanding protection; along course of poverty and humility, of daily privations, and hardwords, of kind offices and no returns, had been her lot ever sincewomanhood almost, or since her luckless marriage with George Osborne.You who see your betters bearing up under this shame every day, meeklysuffering under the slights of fortune, gentle and unpitied, poor, andrather despised for their poverty, do you ever step down from yourprosperity and wash the feet of these poor wearied beggars? The verythought of them is odious and low. "There must be classes--there mustbe rich and poor," Dives says, smacking his claret (it is well if heeven sends the broken meat out to Lazarus sitting under the window).Very true; but think how mysterious and often unaccountable it is--thatlottery of life which gives to this man the purple and fine linen andsends to the other rags for garments and dogs for comforters.

So I must own that, without much repining, on the contrary withsomething akin to gratitude, Amelia took the crumbs that her father-in-lawlet drop now and then, and with them fed her own parent.Directly she understood it to be her duty, it was this young woman'snature (ladies, she is but thirty still, and we choose to call her ayoung woman even at that age) it was, I say, her nature to sacrificeherself and to fling all that she had at the feet of the belovedobject. During what long thankless nights had she worked out herfingers for little Georgy whilst at home with her; what buffets,scorns, privations, poverties had she endured for father and mother!And in the midst of all these solitary resignations and unseensacrifices, she did not respect herself any more than the worldrespected her, but I believe thought in her heart that she was apoor-spirited, despicable little creature, whose luck in life was onlytoo good for her merits. O you poor women! O you poor secret martyrsand victims, whose life is a torture, who are stretched on racks inyour bedrooms, and who lay your heads down on the block daily at thedrawing-room table; every man who watches your pains, or peers intothose dark places where the torture is administered to you, must pityyou--and--and thank God that he has a beard. I recollect seeing, yearsago, at the prisons for idiots and madmen at Bicetre, near Paris, apoor wretch bent down under the bondage of his imprisonment and hispersonal infirmity, to whom one of our party gave a halfpenny worth ofsnuff in a cornet or "screw" of paper. The kindness was too much forthe poor epileptic creature. He cried in an anguish of delight andgratitude: if anybody gave you and me a thousand a year, or saved ourlives, we could not be so affected. And so, if you properly tyrannizeover a woman, you will find a h'p'orth of kindness act upon her andbring tears into her eyes, as though you were an angel benefiting her.

Some such boons as these were the best which Fortune allotted to poorlittle Amelia. Her life, begun not unprosperously, had come down tothis--to a mean prison and a long, ignoble bondage. Little Georgevisited her captivity sometimes and consoled it with feeble gleams ofencouragement. Russell Square was the boundary of her prison: shemight walk thither occasionally, but was always back to sleep in hercell at night; to perform cheerless duties; to watch by thanklesssick-beds; to suffer the harassment and tyranny of querulousdisappointed old age. How many thousands of people are there, womenfor the most part, who are doomed to endure this long slavery?--who arehospital nurses without wages--sisters of Charity, if you like, withoutthe romance and the sentiment of sacrifice--who strive, fast, watch,and suffer, unpitied, and fade away ignobly and unknown.

The hidden and awful Wisdom which apportions the destinies of mankindis pleased so to humiliate and cast down the tender, good, and wise,and to set up the selfish, the foolish, or the wicked. Oh, be humble,my brother, in your prosperity! Be gentle with those who are lesslucky, if not more deserving. Think, what right have you to bescornful, whose virtue is a deficiency of temptation, whose success maybe a chance, whose rank may be an ancestor's accident, whose prosperityis very likely a satire.

They buried Amelia's mother in the churchyard at Brompton, upon justsuch a rainy, dark day as Amelia recollected when first she had beenthere to marry George. Her little boy sat by her side in pompous newsables. She remembered the old pew-woman and clerk. Her thoughts wereaway in other times as the parson read. But that she held George's handin her own, perhaps she would have liked to change places with....Then, as usual, she felt ashamed of her selfish thoughts and prayedinwardly to be strengthened to do her duty.

So she determined with all her might and strength to try and make herold father happy. She slaved, toiled, patched, and mended, sang andplayed backgammon, read out the newspaper, cooked dishes, for oldSedley, walked him out sedulously into Kensington Gardens or theBrompton Lanes, listened to his stories with untiring smiles andaffectionate hypocrisy, or sat musing by his side and communing withher own thoughts and reminiscences, as the old man, feeble andquerulous, sunned himself on the garden benches and prattled about hiswrongs or his sorrows. What sad, unsatisfactory thoughts those of thewidow were! The children running up and down the slopes and broadpaths in the gardens reminded her of George, who was taken from her;the first George was taken from her; her selfish, guilty love, in bothinstances, had been rebuked and bitterly chastised. She strove to thinkit was right that she should be so punished. She was such a miserablewicked sinner. She was quite alone in the world.

I know that the account of this kind of solitary imprisonment isinsufferably tedious, unless there is some cheerful or humorousincident to enliven it--a tender gaoler, for instance, or a waggishcommandant of the fortress, or a mouse to come out and play aboutLatude's beard and whiskers, or a subterranean passage under thecastle, dug by Trenck with his nails and a toothpick: the historianhas no such enlivening incident to relate in the narrative of Amelia'scaptivity. Fancy her, if you please, during this period, very sad, butalways ready to smile when spoken to; in a very mean, poor, not to sayvulgar position of life; singing songs, making puddings, playing cards,mending stockings, for her old father's benefit. So, never mind,whether she be a heroine or no; or you and I, however old, scolding,and bankrupt--may we have in our last days a kind soft shoulder onwhich to lean and a gentle hand to soothe our gouty old pillows.

Old Sedley grew very fond of his daughter after his wife's death, andAmelia had her consolation in doing her duty by the old man.

But we are not going to leave these two people long in such a low andungenteel station of life. Better days, as far as worldly prosperitywent, were in store for both. Perhaps the ingenious reader has guessedwho was the stout gentleman who called upon Georgy at his school incompany with our old friend Major Dobbin. It was another oldacquaintance returned to England, and at a time when his presence waslikely to be of great comfort to his relatives there.

Major Dobbin having easily succeeded in getting leave from hisgood-natured commandant to proceed to Madras, and thence probably toEurope, on urgent private affairs, never ceased travelling night and dayuntil he reached his journey's end, and had directed his march with suchcelerity that he arrived at Madras in a high fever. His servants whoaccompanied him brought him to the house of the friend with whom he hadresolved to stay until his departure for Europe in a state of delirium;and it was thought for many, many days that he would never travelfarther than the burying-ground of the church of St. George's, wherethe troops should fire a salvo over his grave, and where many a gallantofficer lies far away from his home.

Here, as the poor fellow lay tossing in his fever, the people whowatched him might have heard him raving about Amelia. The idea that heshould never see her again depressed him in his lucid hours. Hethought his last day was come, and he made his solemn preparations fordeparture, setting his affairs in this world in order and leaving thelittle property of which he was possessed to those whom he most desiredto benefit. The friend in whose house he was located witnessed histestament. He desired to be buried with a little brown hair-chainwhich he wore round his neck and which, if the truth must be known, hehad got from Amelia's maid at Brussels, when the young widow's hair wascut off, during the fever which prostrated her after the death ofGeorge Osborne on the plateau at Mount St. John.

He recovered, rallied, relapsed again, having undergone such a processof blood-letting and calomel as showed the strength of his originalconstitution. He was almost a skeleton when they put him on board theRamchunder East Indiaman, Captain Bragg, from Calcutta, touching atMadras, and so weak and prostrate that his friend who had tended himthrough his illness prophesied that the honest Major would neversurvive the voyage, and that he would pass some morning, shrouded inflag and hammock, over the ship's side, and carrying down to the seawith him the relic that he wore at his heart. But whether it was thesea air, or the hope which sprung up in him afresh, from the day thatthe ship spread her canvas and stood out of the roads towards home, ourfriend began to amend, and he was quite well (though as gaunt as agreyhound) before they reached the Cape. "Kirk will be disappointed ofhis majority this time," he said with a smile; "he will expect to findhimself gazetted by the time the regiment reaches home." For it must bepremised that while the Major was lying ill at Madras, having made suchprodigious haste to go thither, the gallant --th, which had passed manyyears abroad, which after its return from the West Indies had beenbaulked of its stay at home by the Waterloo campaign, and had beenordered from Flanders to India, had received orders home; and the Majormight have accompanied his comrades, had he chosen to wait for theirarrival at Madras.

Perhaps he was not inclined to put himself in his exhausted state againunder the guardianship of Glorvina. "I think Miss O'Dowd would havedone for me," he said laughingly to a fellow-passenger, "if we had hadher on board, and when she had sunk me, she would have fallen upon you,depend upon it, and carried you in as a prize to Southampton, Jos, myboy."

For indeed it was no other than our stout friend who was also apassenger on board the Ramchunder. He had passed ten years in Bengal.Constant dinners, tiffins, pale ale and claret, the prodigious labourof cutcherry, and the refreshment of brandy-pawnee which he was forcedto take there, had their effect upon Waterloo Sedley. A voyage toEurope was pronounced necessary for him--and having served his fulltime in India and had fine appointments which had enabled him to lay bya considerable sum of money, he was free to come home and stay with agood pension, or to return and resume that rank in the service to whichhis seniority and his vast talents entitled him.

He was rather thinner than when we last saw him, but had gained inmajesty and solemnity of demeanour. He had resumed the mustachios towhich his services at Waterloo entitled him, and swaggered about ondeck in a magnificent velvet cap with a gold band and a profuseornamentation of pins and jewellery about his person. He took breakfastin his cabin and dressed as solemnly to appear on the quarter-deck asif he were going to turn out for Bond Street, or the Course atCalcutta. He brought a native servant with him, who was his valet andpipe-bearer and who wore the Sedley crest in silver on his turban.That oriental menial had a wretched life under the tyranny of JosSedley. Jos was as vain of his person as a woman, and took as long atime at his toilette as any fading beauty. The youngsters among thepassengers, Young Chaffers of the 150th, and poor little Ricketts,coming home after his third fever, used to draw out Sedley at thecuddy-table and make him tell prodigious stories about himself and hisexploits against tigers and Napoleon. He was great when he visited theEmperor's tomb at Longwood, when to these gentlemen and the youngofficers of the ship, Major Dobbin not being by, he described the wholebattle of Waterloo and all but announced that Napoleon never would havegone to Saint Helena at all but for him, Jos Sedley.

After leaving St. Helena he became very generous, disposing of a greatquantity of ship stores, claret, preserved meats, and great caskspacked with soda-water, brought out for his private delectation. Therewere no ladies on board; the Major gave the pas of precedency to thecivilian, so that he was the first dignitary at table, and treated byCaptain Bragg and the officers of the Ramchunder with the respect whichhis rank warranted. He disappeared rather in a panic during atwo-days' gale, in which he had the portholes of his cabin batteneddown, and remained in his cot reading the Washerwoman of FinchleyCommon, left on board the Ramchunder by the Right Honourable the LadyEmily Hornblower, wife of the Rev. Silas Hornblower, when on theirpassage out to the Cape, where the Reverend gentleman was a missionary;but, for common reading, he had brought a stock of novels and playswhich he lent to the rest of the ship, and rendered himself agreeableto all by his kindness and condescension.

Many and many a night as the ship was cutting through the roaring darksea, the moon and stars shining overhead and the bell singing out thewatch, Mr. Sedley and the Major would sit on the quarter-deck of thevessel talking about home, as the Major smoked his cheroot and thecivilian puffed at the hookah which his servant prepared for him.

In these conversations it was wonderful with what perseverance andingenuity Major Dobbin would manage to bring the talk round to thesubject of Amelia and her little boy. Jos, a little testy about hisfather's misfortunes and unceremonious applications to him, was sootheddown by the Major, who pointed out the elder's ill fortunes and oldage. He would not perhaps like to live with the old couple, whose waysand hours might not agree with those of a younger man, accustomed todifferent society (Jos bowed at this compliment); but, the Majorpointed out, how advantageous it would be for Jos Sedley to have ahouse of his own in London, and not a mere bachelor's establishment asbefore; how his sister Amelia would be the very person to preside overit; how elegant, how gentle she was, and of what refined good manners.He recounted stories of the success which Mrs. George Osborne had hadin former days at Brussels, and in London, where she was much admiredby people of very great fashion; and he then hinted how becoming itwould be for Jos to send Georgy to a good school and make a man of him,for his mother and her parents would be sure to spoil him. In a word,this artful Major made the civilian promise to take charge of Ameliaand her unprotected child. He did not know as yet what events hadhappened in the little Sedley family, and how death had removed themother, and riches had carried off George from Amelia. But the fact isthat every day and always, this love-smitten and middle-aged gentlemanwas thinking about Mrs. Osborne, and his whole heart was bent upondoing her good. He coaxed, wheedled, cajoled, and complimented JosSedley with a perseverance and cordiality of which he was not awarehimself, very likely; but some men who have unmarried sisters ordaughters even, may remember how uncommonly agreeable gentlemen are tothe male relations when they are courting the females; and perhaps thisrogue of a Dobbin was urged by a similar hypocrisy.

The truth is, when Major Dobbin came on board the Ramchumder, verysick, and for the three days she lay in the Madras Roads, he did notbegin to rally, nor did even the appearance and recognition of his oldacquaintance, Mr. Sedley, on board much cheer him, until after aconversation which they had one day, as the Major was laid languidly onthe deck. He said then he thought he was doomed; he had left a littlesomething to his godson in his will, and he trusted Mrs. Osborne wouldremember him kindly and be happy in the marriage she was about to make."Married? not the least," Jos answered; "he had heard from her: shemade no mention of the marriage, and by the way, it was curious, shewrote to say that Major Dobbin was going to be married, and hoped thatHE would be happy." What were the dates of Sedley's letters fromEurope? The civilian fetched them. They were two months later than theMajor's; and the ship's surgeon congratulated himself upon thetreatment adopted by him towards his new patient, who had beenconsigned to shipboard by the Madras practitioner with very small hopesindeed; for, from that day, the very day that he changed the draught,Major Dobbin began to mend. And thus it was that deserving officer,Captain Kirk, was disappointed of his majority.

After they passed St. Helena, Major Dobbin's gaiety and strength wassuch as to astonish all his fellow passengers. He larked with themidshipmen, played single-stick with the mates, ran up the shrouds likea boy, sang a comic song one night to the amusement of the whole partyassembled over their grog after supper, and rendered himself so gay,lively, and amiable that even Captain Bragg, who thought there wasnothing in his passenger, and considered he was a poor-spirited fellerat first, was constrained to own that the Major was a reserved butwell-informed and meritorious officer. "He ain't got distangy manners,dammy," Bragg observed to his first mate; "he wouldn't do at GovernmentHouse, Roper, where his Lordship and Lady William was as kind to me,and shook hands with me before the whole company, and asking me atdinner to take beer with him, before the Commander-in-Chief himself; heain't got manners, but there's something about him--" And thus CaptainBragg showed that he possessed discrimination as a man, as well asability as a commander.

But a calm taking place when the Ramchunder was within ten days' sailof England, Dobbin became so impatient and ill-humoured as to surprisethose comrades who had before admired his vivacity and good temper. Hedid not recover until the breeze sprang up again, and was in a highlyexcited state when the pilot came on board. Good God, how his heartbeat as the two friendly spires of Southampton came in sight.