Good fortune now begins to smile upon Amelia. We are glad to get herout of that low sphere in which she has been creeping hitherto andintroduce her into a polite circle--not so grand and refined as that inwhich our other female friend, Mrs. Becky, has appeared, but stillhaving no small pretensions to gentility and fashion. Jos's friendswere all from the three presidencies, and his new house was in thecomfortable Anglo-Indian district of which Moira Place is the centre.Minto Square, Great Clive Street, Warren Street, Hastings Street,Ochterlony Place, Plassy Square, Assaye Terrace ("gardens" was afelicitous word not applied to stucco houses with asphalt terraces infront, so early as 1827)--who does not know these respectable abodes ofthe retired Indian aristocracy, and the quarter which Mr. Wenham callsthe Black Hole, in a word? Jos's position in life was not grand enoughto entitle him to a house in Moira Place, where none can live butretired Members of Council, and partners of Indian firms (who break,after having settled a hundred thousand pounds on their wives, andretire into comparative penury to a country place and four thousand ayear); he engaged a comfortable house of a second- or third-rate orderin Gillespie Street, purchasing the carpets, costly mirrors, andhandsome and appropriate planned furniture by Seddons from theassignees of Mr. Scape, lately admitted partner into the great CalcuttaHouse of Fogle, Fake, and Cracksman, in which poor Scape had embarkedseventy thousand pounds, the earnings of a long and honourable life,taking Fake's place, who retired to a princely park in Sussex (theFogles have been long out of the firm, and Sir Horace Fogle is about tobe raised to the peerage as Baron Bandanna)--admitted, I say, partnerinto the great agency house of Fogle and Fake two years before itfailed for a million and plunged half the Indian public into misery andruin.

Scape, ruined, honest, and broken-hearted at sixty-five years of age,went out to Calcutta to wind up the affairs of the house. Walter Scapewas withdrawn from Eton and put into a merchant's house. FlorenceScape, Fanny Scape, and their mother faded away to Boulogne, and willbe heard of no more. To be brief, Jos stepped in and bought theircarpets and sideboards and admired himself in the mirrors which hadreflected their kind handsome faces. The Scape tradesmen, allhonourably paid, left their cards, and were eager to supply the newhousehold. The large men in white waistcoats who waited at Scape'sdinners, greengrocers, bank-porters, and milkmen in their privatecapacity, left their addresses and ingratiated themselves with thebutler. Mr. Chummy, the chimney-purifier, who had swept the last threefamilies, tried to coax the butler and the boy under him, whose duty itwas to go out covered with buttons and with stripes down his trousers,for the protection of Mrs. Amelia whenever she chose to walk abroad.

It was a modest establishment. The butler was Jos's valet also, andnever was more drunk than a butler in a small family should be who hasa proper regard for his master's wine. Emmy was supplied with a maid,grown on Sir William Dobbin's suburban estate; a good girl, whosekindness and humility disarmed Mrs. Osborne, who was at first terrifiedat the idea of having a servant to wait upon herself, who did not inthe least know how to use one, and who always spoke to domestics withthe most reverential politeness. But this maid was very useful in thefamily, in dexterously tending old Mr. Sedley, who kept almost entirelyto his own quarter of the house and never mixed in any of the gaydoings which took place there.

Numbers of people came to see Mrs. Osborne. Lady Dobbin and daughterswere delighted at her change of fortune, and waited upon her. MissOsborne from Russell Square came in her grand chariot with the flaminghammer-cloth emblazoned with the Leeds arms. Jos was reported to beimmensely rich. Old Osborne had no objection that Georgy shouldinherit his uncle's property as well as his own. "Damn it, we will makea man of the feller," he said; "and I'll see him in Parliament before Idie. You may go and see his mother, Miss O., though I'll never seteyes on her": and Miss Osborne came. Emmy, you may be sure, was veryglad to see her, and so be brought nearer to George. That young fellowwas allowed to come much more frequently than before to visit hismother. He dined once or twice a week in Gillespie Street and bulliedthe servants and his relations there, just as he did in Russell Square.

He was always respectful to Major Dobbin, however, and more modest inhis demeanour when that gentleman was present. He was a clever lad andafraid of the Major. George could not help admiring his friend'ssimplicity, his good humour, his various learning quietly imparted, hisgeneral love of truth and justice. He had met no such man as yet inthe course of his experience, and he had an instinctive liking for agentleman. He hung fondly by his godfather's side, and it was hisdelight to walk in the parks and hear Dobbin talk. William told Georgeabout his father, about India and Waterloo, about everything buthimself. When George was more than usually pert and conceited, theMajor made jokes at him, which Mrs. Osborne thought very cruel. Oneday, taking him to the play, and the boy declining to go into the pitbecause it was vulgar, the Major took him to the boxes, left him there,and went down himself to the pit. He had not been seated there verylong before he felt an arm thrust under his and a dandy little hand ina kid glove squeezing his arm. George had seen the absurdity of hisways and come down from the upper region. A tender laugh ofbenevolence lighted up old Dobbin's face and eyes as he looked at therepentant little prodigal. He loved the boy, as he did everything thatbelonged to Amelia. How charmed she was when she heard of thisinstance of George's goodness! Her eyes looked more kindly on Dobbinthan they ever had done. She blushed, he thought, after looking at himso.

Georgy never tired of his praises of the Major to his mother. "I likehim, Mamma, because he knows such lots of things; and he ain't like oldVeal, who is always bragging and using such long words, don't you know?The chaps call him 'Longtail' at school. I gave him the name; ain't itcapital? But Dob reads Latin like English, and French and that; andwhen we go out together he tells me stories about my Papa, and neverabout himself; though I heard Colonel Buckler, at Grandpapa's, say thathe was one of the bravest officers in the army, and had distinguishedhimself ever so much. Grandpapa was quite surprised, and said, 'THATfeller! Why, I didn't think he could say Bo to a goose'--but I know hecould, couldn't he, Mamma?"

Emmy laughed: she thought it was very likely the Major could do thusmuch.

If there was a sincere liking between George and the Major, it must beconfessed that between the boy and his uncle no great love existed.George had got a way of blowing out his cheeks, and putting his handsin his waistcoat pockets, and saying, "God bless my soul, you don't sayso," so exactly after the fashion of old Jos that it was impossible torefrain from laughter. The servants would explode at dinner if thelad, asking for something which wasn't at table, put on thatcountenance and used that favourite phrase. Even Dobbin would shootout a sudden peal at the boy's mimicry. If George did not mimic hisuncle to his face, it was only by Dobbin's rebukes and Amelia'sterrified entreaties that the little scapegrace was induced to desist.And the worthy civilian being haunted by a dim consciousness that thelad thought him an ass, and was inclined to turn him into ridicule,used to be extremely timorous and, of course, doubly pompous anddignified in the presence of Master Georgy. When it was announced thatthe young gentleman was expected in Gillespie Street to dine with hismother, Mr. Jos commonly found that he had an engagement at the Club.Perhaps nobody was much grieved at his absence. On those days Mr.Sedley would commonly be induced to come out from his place of refugein the upper stories, and there would be a small family party, whereofMajor Dobbin pretty generally formed one. He was the ami de lamaison--old Sedley's friend, Emmy's friend, Georgy's friend, Jos'scounsel and adviser. "He might almost as well be at Madras for anythingWE see of him," Miss Ann Dobbin remarked at Camberwell. Ah! Miss Ann,did it not strike you that it was not YOU whom the Major wanted tomarry?

Joseph Sedley then led a life of dignified otiosity such as became aperson of his eminence. His very first point, of course, was to becomea member of the Oriental Club, where he spent his mornings in thecompany of his brother Indians, where he dined, or whence he broughthome men to dine.

Amelia had to receive and entertain these gentlemen and their ladies.From these she heard how soon Smith would be in Council; how many lacsJones had brought home with him, how Thomson's House in London hadrefused the bills drawn by Thomson, Kibobjee, and Co., the BombayHouse, and how it was thought the Calcutta House must go too; how veryimprudent, to say the least of it, Mrs. Brown's conduct (wife of Brownof the Ahmednuggur Irregulars) had been with young Swankey of the BodyGuard, sitting up with him on deck until all hours, and losingthemselves as they were riding out at the Cape; how Mrs. Hardyman hadhad out her thirteen sisters, daughters of a country curate, the Rev:Felix Rabbits, and married eleven of them, seven high up in theservice; how Hornby was wild because his wife would stay in Europe, andTrotter was appointed Collector at Ummerapoora. This and similar talktook place at the grand dinners all round. They had the sameconversation; the same silver dishes; the same saddles of mutton,boiled turkeys, and entrees. Politics set in a short time afterdessert, when the ladies retired upstairs and talked about theircomplaints and their children.

Mutato nomine, it is all the same. Don't the barristers' wives talkabout Circuit? Don't the soldiers' ladies gossip about the Regiment?Don't the clergymen's ladies discourse about Sunday-schools and whotakes whose duty? Don't the very greatest ladies of all talk about thatsmall clique of persons to whom they belong? And why should our Indianfriends not have their own conversation?--only I admit it is slow forthe laymen whose fate it sometimes is to sit by and listen.

Before long Emmy had a visiting-book, and was driving about regularlyin a carriage, calling upon Lady Bludyer (wife of Major-General SirRoger Bludyer, K.C.B., Bengal Army); Lady Huff, wife of Sir G. Huff,Bombay ditto; Mrs. Pice, the Lady of Pice the Director, &c. We are notlong in using ourselves to changes in life. That carriage came roundto Gillespie Street every day; that buttony boy sprang up and down fromthe box with Emmy's and Jos's visiting-cards; at stated hours Emmy andthe carriage went for Jos to the Club and took him an airing; or,putting old Sedley into the vehicle, she drove the old man round theRegent's Park. The lady's maid and the chariot, the visiting-book andthe buttony page, became soon as familiar to Amelia as the humbleroutine of Brompton. She accommodated herself to one as to the other.If Fate had ordained that she should be a Duchess, she would even havedone that duty too. She was voted, in Jos's female society, rather apleasing young person--not much in her, but pleasing, and that sort ofthing.

The men, as usual, liked her artless kindness and simple refineddemeanour. The gallant young Indian dandies at home on furlough--immensedandies these--chained and moustached--driving in tearing cabs,the pillars of the theatres, living at West End hotels--neverthelessadmired Mrs. Osborne, liked to bow to her carriage in the park, and tobe admitted to have the honour of paying her a morning visit. Swankeyof the Body Guard himself, that dangerous youth, and the greatest buckof all the Indian army now on leave, was one day discovered by MajorDobbin tete-a-tete with Amelia, and describing the sport ofpig-sticking to her with great humour and eloquence; and he spokeafterwards of a d--d king's officer that's always hanging about thehouse--a long, thin, queer-looking, oldish fellow--a dry fellow though,that took the shine out of a man in the talking line.

Had the Major possessed a little more personal vanity he would havebeen jealous of so dangerous a young buck as that fascinating BengalCaptain. But Dobbin was of too simple and generous a nature to haveany doubts about Amelia. He was glad that the young men should pay herrespect, and that others should admire her. Ever since her womanhoodalmost, had she not been persecuted and undervalued? It pleased him tosee how kindness bought out her good qualities and how her spiritsgently rose with her prosperity. Any person who appreciated her paid acompliment to the Major's good judgement--that is, if a man may besaid to have good judgement who is under the influence of Love'sdelusion.

After Jos went to Court, which we may be sure he did as a loyal subjectof his Sovereign (showing himself in his full court suit at the Club,whither Dobbin came to fetch him in a very shabby old uniform) he whohad always been a staunch Loyalist and admirer of George IV, becamesuch a tremendous Tory and pillar of the State that he was for havingAmelia to go to a Drawing-room, too. He somehow had worked himself upto believe that he was implicated in the maintenance of the publicwelfare and that the Sovereign would not be happy unless Jos Sedley andhis family appeared to rally round him at St. James's.

Emmy laughed. "Shall I wear the family diamonds, Jos?" she said.

"I wish you would let me buy you some," thought the Major. "I shouldlike to see any that were too good for you."