We must pass over a part of Mrs. Rebecca Crawley's biography with thatlightness and delicacy which the world demands--the moral world, thathas, perhaps, no particular objection to vice, but an insuperablerepugnance to hearing vice called by its proper name. There are thingswe do and know perfectly well in Vanity Fair, though we never speak ofthem: as the Ahrimanians worship the devil, but don't mention him:and a polite public will no more bear to read an authentic descriptionof vice than a truly refined English or American female will permit theword breeches to be pronounced in her chaste hearing. And yet, madam,both are walking the world before our faces every day, without muchshocking us. If you were to blush every time they went by, whatcomplexions you would have! It is only when their naughty names arecalled out that your modesty has any occasion to show alarm or sense ofoutrage, and it has been the wish of the present writer, all throughthis story, deferentially to submit to the fashion at presentprevailing, and only to hint at the existence of wickedness in a light,easy, and agreeable manner, so that nobody's fine feelings may beoffended. I defy any one to say that our Becky, who has certainly somevices, has not been presented to the public in a perfectly genteel andinoffensive manner. In describing this Siren, singing and smiling,coaxing and cajoling, the author, with modest pride, asks his readersall round, has he once forgotten the laws of politeness, and showed themonster's hideous tail above water? No! Those who like may peep downunder waves that are pretty transparent and see it writhing andtwirling, diabolically hideous and slimy, flapping amongst bones, orcurling round corpses; but above the waterline, I ask, has noteverything been proper, agreeable, and decorous, and has any the mostsqueamish immoralist in Vanity Fair a right to cry fie? When, however,the Siren disappears and dives below, down among the dead men, thewater of course grows turbid over her, and it is labour lost to lookinto it ever so curiously. They look pretty enough when they sit upona rock, twanging their harps and combing their hair, and sing, andbeckon to you to come and hold the looking-glass; but when they sinkinto their native element, depend on it, those mermaids are about nogood, and we had best not examine the fiendish marine cannibals,revelling and feasting on their wretched pickled victims. And so, whenBecky is out of the way, be sure that she is not particularly wellemployed, and that the less that is said about her doings is in factthe better.

If we were to give a full account of her proceedings during a couple ofyears that followed after the Curzon Street catastrophe, there might besome reason for people to say this book was improper. The actions ofvery vain, heartless, pleasure-seeking people are very often improper(as are many of yours, my friend with the grave face and spotlessreputation--but that is merely by the way); and what are those of awoman without faith--or love--or character? And I am inclined to thinkthat there was a period in Mrs Becky's life when she was seized, not byremorse, but by a kind of despair, and absolutely neglected her personand did not even care for her reputation.

This abattement and degradation did not take place all at once; it wasbrought about by degrees, after her calamity, and after many strugglesto keep up--as a man who goes overboard hangs on to a spar whilst anyhope is left, and then flings it away and goes down, when he finds thatstruggling is in vain.

She lingered about London whilst her husband was making preparationsfor his departure to his seat of government, and it is believed mademore than one attempt to see her brother-in-law, Sir Pitt Crawley, andto work upon his feelings, which she had almost enlisted in her favour.As Sir Pitt and Mr. Wenham were walking down to the House of Commons,the latter spied Mrs. Rawdon in a black veil, and lurking near thepalace of the legislature. She sneaked away when her eyes met those ofWenham, and indeed never succeeded in her designs upon the Baronet.

Probably Lady Jane interposed. I have heard that she quite astonishedher husband by the spirit which she exhibited in this quarrel, and herdetermination to disown Mrs. Becky. Of her own movement, she invitedRawdon to come and stop in Gaunt Street until his departure forCoventry Island, knowing that with him for a guard Mrs. Becky would nottry to force her door; and she looked curiously at the superscriptionsof all the letters which arrived for Sir Pitt, lest he and hissister-in-law should be corresponding. Not but that Rebecca could havewritten had she a mind, but she did not try to see or to write to Pittat his own house, and after one or two attempts consented to his demandthat the correspondence regarding her conjugal differences should becarried on by lawyers only.

The fact was that Pitt's mind had been poisoned against her. A shorttime after Lord Steyne's accident Wenham had been with the Baronet andgiven him such a biography of Mrs. Becky as had astonished the memberfor Queen's Crawley. He knew everything regarding her: who her fatherwas; in what year her mother danced at the opera; what had been herprevious history; and what her conduct during her married life--as Ihave no doubt that the greater part of the story was false and dictatedby interested malevolence, it shall not be repeated here. But Beckywas left with a sad sad reputation in the esteem of a country gentlemanand relative who had been once rather partial to her.

The revenues of the Governor of Coventry Island are not large. A partof them were set aside by his Excellency for the payment of certainoutstanding debts and liabilities, the charges incident on his highsituation required considerable expense; finally, it was found that hecould not spare to his wife more than three hundred pounds a year,which he proposed to pay to her on an undertaking that she would nevertrouble him. Otherwise, scandal, separation, Doctors' Commons wouldensue. But it was Mr. Wenham's business, Lord Steyne's business,Rawdon's, everybody's--to get her out of the country, and hush up amost disagreeable affair.

She was probably so much occupied in arranging these affairs ofbusiness with her husband's lawyers that she forgot to take any stepwhatever about her son, the little Rawdon, and did not even oncepropose to go and see him. That young gentleman was consigned to theentire guardianship of his aunt and uncle, the former of whom hadalways possessed a great share of the child's affection. His mammawrote him a neat letter from Boulogne, when she quitted England, inwhich she requested him to mind his book, and said she was going totake a Continental tour, during which she would have the pleasure ofwriting to him again. But she never did for a year afterwards, andnot, indeed, until Sir Pitt's only boy, always sickly, died ofhooping-cough and measles--then Rawdon's mamma wrote the mostaffectionate composition to her darling son, who was made heir ofQueen's Crawley by this accident, and drawn more closely than ever tothe kind lady, whose tender heart had already adopted him. RawdonCrawley, then grown a tall, fine lad, blushed when he got the letter."Oh, Aunt Jane, you are my mother!" he said; "and not--and not thatone." But he wrote back a kind and respectful letter to Mrs. Rebecca,then living at a boarding-house at Florence. But we are advancingmatters.

Our darling Becky's first flight was not very far. She perched uponthe French coast at Boulogne, that refuge of so much exiled Englishinnocence, and there lived in rather a genteel, widowed manner, with afemme de chambre and a couple of rooms, at an hotel. She dined at thetable d'hote, where people thought her very pleasant, and where sheentertained her neighbours by stories of her brother, Sir Pitt, and hergreat London acquaintance, talking that easy, fashionable slip-slopwhich has so much effect upon certain folks of small breeding. Shepassed with many of them for a person of importance; she gave littletea-parties in her private room and shared in the innocent amusementsof the place in sea-bathing, and in jaunts in open carriages, instrolls on the sands, and in visits to the play. Mrs. Burjoice, theprinter's lady, who was boarding with her family at the hotel for thesummer, and to whom her Burjoice came of a Saturday and Sunday, votedher charming, until that little rogue of a Burjoice began to pay hertoo much attention. But there was nothing in the story, only thatBecky was always affable, easy, and good-natured--and with menespecially.

Numbers of people were going abroad as usual at the end of the season,and Becky had plenty of opportunities of finding out by the behaviourof her acquaintances of the great London world the opinion of "society"as regarded her conduct. One day it was Lady Partlet and her daughterswhom Becky confronted as she was walking modestly on Boulogne pier, thecliffs of Albion shining in the distance across the deep blue sea.Lady Partlet marshalled all her daughters round her with a sweep of herparasol and retreated from the pier, darting savage glances at poorlittle Becky who stood alone there.

On another day the packet came in. It had been blowing fresh, and italways suited Becky's humour to see the droll woe-begone faces of thepeople as they emerged from the boat. Lady Slingstone happened to beon board this day. Her ladyship had been exceedingly ill in hercarriage, and was greatly exhausted and scarcely fit to walk up theplank from the ship to the pier. But all her energies rallied theinstant she saw Becky smiling roguishly under a pink bonnet, and givingher a glance of scorn such as would have shrivelled up most women, shewalked into the Custom House quite unsupported. Becky only laughed:but I don't think she liked it. She felt she was alone, quite alone,and the far-off shining cliffs of England were impassable to her.

The behaviour of the men had undergone too I don't know what change.Grinstone showed his teeth and laughed in her face with a familiaritythat was not pleasant. Little Bob Suckling, who was cap in hand to herthree months before, and would walk a mile in the rain to see for hercarriage in the line at Gaunt House, was talking to Fitzoof of theGuards (Lord Heehaw's son) one day upon the jetty, as Becky took herwalk there. Little Bobby nodded to her over his shoulder, withoutmoving his hat, and continued his conversation with the heir of Heehaw.Tom Raikes tried to walk into her sitting-room at the inn with a cigarin his mouth, but she closed the door upon him, and would have lockedit, only that his fingers were inside. She began to feel that she wasvery lonely indeed. "If HE'D been here," she said, "those cowardswould never have dared to insult me." She thought about "him" withgreat sadness and perhaps longing--about his honest, stupid, constantkindness and fidelity; his never-ceasing obedience; his good humour;his bravery and courage. Very likely she cried, for she wasparticularly lively, and had put on a little extra rouge, when she camedown to dinner.

She rouged regularly now; and--and her maid got Cognac for her besidesthat which was charged in the hotel bill.

Perhaps the insults of the men were not, however, so intolerable to heras the sympathy of certain women. Mrs. Crackenbury and Mrs. WashingtonWhite passed through Boulogne on their way to Switzerland. The partywere protected by Colonel Horner, young Beaumoris, and of course oldCrackenbury, and Mrs. White's little girl. THEY did not avoid her.They giggled, cackled, tattled, condoled, consoled, and patronized heruntil they drove her almost wild with rage. To be patronized by THEM!she thought, as they went away simpering after kissing her. And sheheard Beaumoris's laugh ringing on the stair and knew quite well how tointerpret his hilarity.

It was after this visit that Becky, who had paid her weekly bills,Becky who had made herself agreeable to everybody in the house, whosmiled at the landlady, called the waiters "monsieur," and paid thechambermaids in politeness and apologies, what far more thancompensated for a little niggardliness in point of money (of whichBecky never was free), that Becky, we say, received a notice to quitfrom the landlord, who had been told by some one that she was quite anunfit person to have at his hotel, where English ladies would not sitdown with her. And she was forced to fly into lodgings of which thedulness and solitude were most wearisome to her.

Still she held up, in spite of these rebuffs, and tried to make acharacter for herself and conquer scandal. She went to church veryregularly and sang louder than anybody there. She took up the cause ofthe widows of the shipwrecked fishermen, and gave work and drawings forthe Quashyboo Mission; she subscribed to the Assembly and WOULDN'Twaltz. In a word, she did everything that was respectable, and that iswhy we dwell upon this part of her career with more fondness than uponsubsequent parts of her history, which are not so pleasant. She sawpeople avoiding her, and still laboriously smiled upon them; you nevercould suppose from her countenance what pangs of humiliation she mightbe enduring inwardly.

Her history was after all a mystery. Parties were divided about her.Some people who took the trouble to busy themselves in the matter saidthat she was the criminal, whilst others vowed that she was as innocentas a lamb and that her odious husband was in fault. She won over a goodmany by bursting into tears about her boy and exhibiting the mostfrantic grief when his name was mentioned, or she saw anybody like him.She gained good Mrs. Alderney's heart in that way, who was rather theQueen of British Boulogne and gave the most dinners and balls of allthe residents there, by weeping when Master Alderney came from Dr.Swishtail's academy to pass his holidays with his mother. "He and herRawdon were of the same age, and so like," Becky said in a voicechoking with agony; whereas there was five years' difference betweenthe boys' ages, and no more likeness between them than between myrespected reader and his humble servant. Wenham, when he was goingabroad, on his way to Kissingen to join Lord Steyne, enlightened Mrs.Alderney on this point and told her how he was much more able todescribe little Rawdon than his mamma, who notoriously hated him andnever saw him; how he was thirteen years old, while little Alderney wasbut nine, fair, while the other darling was dark--in a word, caused thelady in question to repent of her good humour.

Whenever Becky made a little circle for herself with incredible toilsand labour, somebody came and swept it down rudely, and she had all herwork to begin over again. It was very hard; very hard; lonely anddisheartening.

There was Mrs. Newbright, who took her up for some time, attracted bythe sweetness of her singing at church and by her proper views uponserious subjects, concerning which in former days, at Queen's Crawley,Mrs. Becky had had a good deal of instruction. Well, she not only tooktracts, but she read them. She worked flannel petticoats for theQuashyboos--cotton night-caps for the Cocoanut Indians--paintedhandscreens for the conversion of the Pope and the Jews--sat under Mr.Rowls on Wednesdays, Mr. Huggleton on Thursdays, attended two Sundayservices at church, besides Mr. Bawler, the Darbyite, in the evening,and all in vain. Mrs. Newbright had occasion to correspond with theCountess of Southdown about the Warmingpan Fund for the Fiji Islanders(for the management of which admirable charity both these ladies formedpart of a female committee), and having mentioned her "sweet friend,"Mrs. Rawdon Crawley, the Dowager Countess wrote back such a letterregarding Becky, with such particulars, hints, facts, falsehoods, andgeneral comminations, that intimacy between Mrs. Newbright and Mrs.Crawley ceased forthwith, and all the serious world of Tours, wherethis misfortune took place, immediately parted company with thereprobate. Those who know the English Colonies abroad know that wecarry with us us our pride, pills, prejudices, Harvey-sauces,cayenne-peppers, and other Lares, making a little Britain wherever wesettle down.

From one colony to another Becky fled uneasily. From Boulogne toDieppe, from Dieppe to Caen, from Caen to Tours--trying with all hermight to be respectable, and alas! always found out some day or otherand pecked out of the cage by the real daws.

Mrs. Hook Eagles took her up at one of these places--a woman without ablemish in her character and a house in Portman Square. She wasstaying at the hotel at Dieppe, whither Becky fled, and they made eachother's acquaintance first at sea, where they were swimming together,and subsequently at the table d'hote of the hotel. Mrs Eagles hadheard--who indeed had not?--some of the scandal of the Steyne affair;but after a conversation with Becky, she pronounced that Mrs. Crawleywas an angel, her husband a ruffian, Lord Steyne an unprincipledwretch, as everybody knew, and the whole case against Mrs. Crawley aninfamous and wicked conspiracy of that rascal Wenham. "If you were aman of any spirit, Mr. Eagles, you would box the wretch's ears the nexttime you see him at the Club," she said to her husband. But Eagles wasonly a quiet old gentleman, husband to Mrs. Eagles, with a taste forgeology, and not tall enough to reach anybody's ears.

The Eagles then patronized Mrs. Rawdon, took her to live with her ather own house at Paris, quarrelled with the ambassador's wife becauseshe would not receive her protegee, and did all that lay in woman'spower to keep Becky straight in the paths of virtue and good repute.

Becky was very respectable and orderly at first, but the life ofhumdrum virtue grew utterly tedious to her before long. It was thesame routine every day, the same dulness and comfort, the same driveover the same stupid Bois de Boulogne, the same company of an evening,the same Blair's Sermon of a Sunday night--the same opera always beingacted over and over again; Becky was dying of weariness, when, luckilyfor her, young Mr. Eagles came from Cambridge, and his mother, seeingthe impression which her little friend made upon him, straightway gaveBecky warning.

Then she tried keeping house with a female friend; then the doublemenage began to quarrel and get into debt. Then she determined upon aboarding-house existence and lived for some time at that famous mansionkept by Madame de Saint Amour, in the Rue Royale, at Paris, where shebegan exercising her graces and fascinations upon the shabby dandiesand fly-blown beauties who frequented her landlady's salons. Beckyloved society and, indeed, could no more exist without it than anopium-eater without his dram, and she was happy enough at the period ofher boarding-house life. "The women here are as amusing as those inMay Fair," she told an old London friend who met her, "only, theirdresses are not quite so fresh. The men wear cleaned gloves, and aresad rogues, certainly, but they are not worse than Jack This and TomThat. The mistress of the house is a little vulgar, but I don't thinkshe is so vulgar as Lady ------" and here she named the name of a greatleader of fashion that I would die rather than reveal. In fact, whenyou saw Madame de Saint Amour's rooms lighted up of a night, men withplaques and cordons at the ecarte tables, and the women at a littledistance, you might fancy yourself for a while in good society, andthat Madame was a real Countess. Many people did so fancy, and Beckywas for a while one of the most dashing ladies of the Countess's salons.

But it is probable that her old creditors of 1815 found her out andcaused her to leave Paris, for the poor little woman was forced to flyfrom the city rather suddenly, and went thence to Brussels.

How well she remembered the place! She grinned as she looked up at thelittle entresol which she had occupied, and thought of the Bareacresfamily, bawling for horses and flight, as their carriage stood in theporte-cochere of the hotel. She went to Waterloo and to Laeken, whereGeorge Osborne's monument much struck her. She made a little sketch ofit. "That poor Cupid!" she said; "how dreadfully he was in love withme, and what a fool he was! I wonder whether little Emmy is alive. Itwas a good little creature; and that fat brother of hers. I have hisfunny fat picture still among my papers. They were kind simple people."

At Brussels Becky arrived, recommended by Madame de Saint Amour to herfriend, Madame la Comtesse de Borodino, widow of Napoleon's General,the famous Count de Borodino, who was left with no resource by thedeceased hero but that of a table d'hote and an ecarte table.Second-rate dandies and roues, widow-ladies who always have a lawsuit,and very simple English folks, who fancy they see "Continental society"at these houses, put down their money, or ate their meals, at Madame deBorodino's tables. The gallant young fellows treated the company roundto champagne at the table d'hote, rode out with the women, or hiredhorses on country excursions, clubbed money to take boxes at the playor the opera, betted over the fair shoulders of the ladies at theecarte tables, and wrote home to their parents in Devonshire abouttheir felicitous introduction to foreign society.

Here, as at Paris, Becky was a boarding-house queen, and ruled inselect pensions. She never refused the champagne, or the bouquets, orthe drives into the country, or the private boxes; but what shepreferred was the ecarte at night,--and she played audaciously. Firstshe played only for a little, then for five-franc pieces, then forNapoleons, then for notes: then she would not be able to pay hermonth's pension: then she borrowed from the young gentlemen: then shegot into cash again and bullied Madame de Borodino, whom she had coaxedand wheedled before: then she was playing for ten sous at a time, andin a dire state of poverty: then her quarter's allowance would comein, and she would pay off Madame de Borodino's score and would oncemore take the cards against Monsieur de Rossignol, or the Chevalier deRaff.

When Becky left Brussels, the sad truth is that she owed three months'pension to Madame de Borodino, of which fact, and of the gambling, andof the drinking, and of the going down on her knees to the Reverend Mr.Muff, Ministre Anglican, and borrowing money of him, and of her coaxingand flirting with Milor Noodle, son of Sir Noodle, pupil of the Rev.Mr. Muff, whom she used to take into her private room, and of whom shewon large sums at ecarte--of which fact, I say, and of a hundred of herother knaveries, the Countess de Borodino informs every English personwho stops at her establishment, and announces that Madame Rawdon was nobetter than a vipere.

So our little wanderer went about setting up her tent in various citiesof Europe, as restless as Ulysses or Bampfylde Moore Carew. Her tastefor disrespectability grew more and more remarkable. She became aperfect Bohemian ere long, herding with people whom it would make yourhair stand on end to meet.

There is no town of any mark in Europe but it has its little colony ofEnglish raffs--men whose names Mr. Hemp the officer reads outperiodically at the Sheriffs' Court--young gentlemen of very goodfamily often, only that the latter disowns them; frequenters ofbilliard-rooms and estaminets, patrons of foreign races andgaming-tables. They people the debtors' prisons--they drink andswagger--they fight and brawl--they run away without paying--they haveduels with French and German officers--they cheat Mr. Spooney atecarte--they get the money and drive off to Baden in magnificentbritzkas--they try their infallible martingale and lurk about the tableswith empty pockets, shabby bullies, penniless bucks, until they canswindle a Jew banker with a sham bill of exchange, or find another Mr.Spooney to rob. The alternations of splendour and misery which thesepeople undergo are very queer to view. Their life must be one of greatexcitement. Becky--must it be owned?--took to this life, and took toit not unkindly. She went about from town to town among theseBohemians. The lucky Mrs. Rawdon was known at every play-table inGermany. She and Madame de Cruchecassee kept house at Florencetogether. It is said she was ordered out of Munich, and my friend Mr.Frederick Pigeon avers that it was at her house at Lausanne that he washocussed at supper and lost eight hundred pounds to Major Loder and theHonourable Mr. Deuceace. We are bound, you see, to give some accountof Becky's biography, but of this part, the less, perhaps, that is saidthe better.

They say that, when Mrs. Crawley was particularly down on her luck, shegave concerts and lessons in music here and there. There was a Madamede Raudon, who certainly had a matinee musicale at Wildbad, accompaniedby Herr Spoff, premier pianist to the Hospodar of Wallachia, and mylittle friend Mr. Eaves, who knew everybody and had travelledeverywhere, always used to declare that he was at Strasburg in the year1830, when a certain Madame Rebecque made her appearance in the operaof the Dame Blanche, giving occasion to a furious row in the theatrethere. She was hissed off the stage by the audience, partly from herown incompetency, but chiefly from the ill-advised sympathy of somepersons in the parquet, (where the officers of the garrison had theiradmissions); and Eaves was certain that the unfortunate debutante inquestion was no other than Mrs. Rawdon Crawley.

She was, in fact, no better than a vagabond upon this earth. When shegot her money she gambled; when she had gambled it she was put toshifts to live; who knows how or by what means she succeeded? It issaid that she was once seen at St. Petersburg, but was summarilydismissed from that capital by the police, so that there cannot be anypossibility of truth in the report that she was a Russian spy atToplitz and Vienna afterwards. I have even been informed that at Parisshe discovered a relation of her own, no less a person than hermaternal grandmother, who was not by any means a Montmorenci, but ahideous old box-opener at a theatre on the Boulevards. The meetingbetween them, of which other persons, as it is hinted elsewhere, seemto have been acquainted, must have been a very affecting interview.The present historian can give no certain details regarding the event.

It happened at Rome once that Mrs. de Rawdon's half-year's salary hadjust been paid into the principal banker's there, and, as everybody whohad a balance of above five hundred scudi was invited to the ballswhich this prince of merchants gave during the winter, Becky had thehonour of a card, and appeared at one of the Prince and PrincessPolonia's splendid evening entertainments. The Princess was of thefamily of Pompili, lineally descended from the second king of Rome, andEgeria of the house of Olympus, while the Prince's grandfather,Alessandro Polonia, sold wash-balls, essences, tobacco, andpocket-handkerchiefs, ran errands for gentlemen, and lent money in asmall way. All the great company in Rome thronged to hissaloons--Princes, Dukes, Ambassadors, artists, fiddlers, monsignori,young bears with their leaders--every rank and condition of man. Hishalls blazed with light and magnificence; were resplendent with giltframes (containing pictures), and dubious antiques; and the enormousgilt crown and arms of the princely owner, a gold mushroom on a crimsonfield (the colour of the pocket-handkerchiefs which he sold), and thesilver fountain of the Pompili family shone all over the roof, doors,and panels of the house, and over the grand velvet baldaquins preparedto receive Popes and Emperors.

So Becky, who had arrived in the diligence from Florence, and waslodged at an inn in a very modest way, got a card for Prince Polonia'sentertainment, and her maid dressed her with unusual care, and she wentto this fine ball leaning on the arm of Major Loder, with whom shehappened to be travelling at the time--(the same man who shot PrinceRavoli at Naples the next year, and was caned by Sir John Buckskin forcarrying four kings in his hat besides those which he used in playingat ecarte )--and this pair went into the rooms together, and Becky sawa number of old faces which she remembered in happier days, when shewas not innocent, but not found out. Major Loder knew a great number offoreigners, keen-looking whiskered men with dirty striped ribbons intheir buttonholes, and a very small display of linen; but his owncountrymen, it might be remarked, eschewed the Major. Becky, too, knewsome ladies here and there--French widows, dubious Italian countesses,whose husbands had treated them ill--faugh--what shall we say, we whohave moved among some of the finest company of Vanity Fair, of thisrefuse and sediment of rascals? If we play, let it be with clean cards,and not with this dirty pack. But every man who has formed one of theinnumerable army of travellers has seen these marauding irregularshanging on, like Nym and Pistol, to the main force, wearing the king'scolours and boasting of his commission, but pillaging for themselves,and occasionally gibbeted by the roadside.

Well, she was hanging on the arm of Major Loder, and they went throughthe rooms together, and drank a great quantity of champagne at thebuffet, where the people, and especially the Major's irregular corps,struggled furiously for refreshments, of which when the pair had hadenough, they pushed on until they reached the Duchess's own pink velvetsaloon, at the end of the suite of apartments (where the statue of theVenus is, and the great Venice looking-glasses, framed in silver), andwhere the princely family were entertaining their most distinguishedguests at a round table at supper. It was just such a little selectbanquet as that of which Becky recollected that she had partaken atLord Steyne's--and there he sat at Polonia's table, and she saw him.The scar cut by the diamond on his white, bald, shining forehead made aburning red mark; his red whiskers were dyed of a purple hue, whichmade his pale face look still paler. He wore his collar and orders,his blue ribbon and garter. He was a greater Prince than any there,though there was a reigning Duke and a Royal Highness, with theirprincesses, and near his Lordship was seated the beautiful Countess ofBelladonna, nee de Glandier, whose husband (the Count Paolo dellaBelladonna), so well known for his brilliant entomological collections,had been long absent on a mission to the Emperor of Morocco.

When Becky beheld that familiar and illustrious face, how vulgar all ofa sudden did Major Loder appear to her, and how that odious CaptainRook did smell of tobacco! In one instant she reassumed herfine-ladyship and tried to look and feel as if she were in May Faironce more. "That woman looks stupid and ill-humoured," she thought; "Iam sure she can't amuse him. No, he must be bored by her--he never wasby me." A hundred such touching hopes, fears, and memories palpitatedin her little heart, as she looked with her brightest eyes (the rougewhich she wore up to her eyelids made them twinkle) towards the greatnobleman. Of a Star and Garter night Lord Steyne used also to put onhis grandest manner and to look and speak like a great prince, as hewas. Becky admired him smiling sumptuously, easy, lofty, and stately.Ah, bon Dieu, what a pleasant companion he was, what a brilliant wit,what a rich fund of talk, what a grand manner!--and she had exchangedthis for Major Loder, reeking of cigars and brandy-and-water, andCaptain Rook with his horsejockey jokes and prize-ring slang, and theirlike. "I wonder whether he will know me," she thought. Lord Steynewas talking and laughing with a great and illustrious lady at his side,when he looked up and saw Becky.

She was all over in a flutter as their eyes met, and she put on thevery best smile she could muster, and dropped him a little, timid,imploring curtsey. He stared aghast at her for a minute, as Macbethmight on beholding Banquo's sudden appearance at his ball-supper, andremained looking at her with open mouth, when that horrid Major Loderpulled her away.

"Come away into the supper-room, Mrs. R.," was that gentleman's remark:"seeing these nobs grubbing away has made me peckish too. Let's go andtry the old governor's champagne." Becky thought the Major had had agreat deal too much already.

The day after she went to walk on the Pincian Hill--the Hyde Park ofthe Roman idlers--possibly in hopes to have another sight of LordSteyne. But she met another acquaintance there: it was Mr. Fiche, hislordship's confidential man, who came up nodding to her ratherfamiliarly and putting a finger to his hat. "I knew that Madame washere," he said; "I followed her from her hotel. I have some advice togive Madame."

"From the Marquis of Steyne?" Becky asked, resuming as much of herdignity as she could muster, and not a little agitated by hope andexpectation.

"No," said the valet; "it is from me. Rome is very unwholesome."

"Not at this season, Monsieur Fiche--not till after Easter."

"I tell Madame it is unwholesome now. There is always malaria for somepeople. That cursed marsh wind kills many at all seasons. Look, MadameCrawley, you were always bon enfant, and I have an interest in you,parole d'honneur. Be warned. Go away from Rome, I tell you--or youwill be ill and die."

Becky laughed, though in rage and fury. "What! assassinate poor littleme?" she said. "How romantic! Does my lord carry bravos for couriers,and stilettos in the fourgons? Bah! I will stay, if but to plague him.I have those who will defend me whilst I am here."

It was Monsieur Fiche's turn to laugh now. "Defend you," he said, "andwho? The Major, the Captain, any one of those gambling men whom Madamesees would take her life for a hundred louis. We know things aboutMajor Loder (he is no more a Major than I am my Lord the Marquis) whichwould send him to the galleys or worse. We know everything and havefriends everywhere. We know whom you saw at Paris, and what relationsyou found there. Yes, Madame may stare, but we do. How was it that nominister on the Continent would receive Madame? She has offendedsomebody: who never forgives--whose rage redoubled when he saw you.He was like a madman last night when he came home. Madame deBelladonna made him a scene about you and fired off in one of herfuries."

"Oh, it was Madame de Belladonna, was it?" Becky said, relieved alittle, for the information she had just got had scared her.

"No--she does not matter--she is always jealous. I tell you it wasMonseigneur. You did wrong to show yourself to him. And if you stayhere you will repent it. Mark my words. Go. Here is my lord'scarriage"--and seizing Becky's arm, he rushed down an alley of thegarden as Lord Steyne's barouche, blazing with heraldic devices, camewhirling along the avenue, borne by the almost priceless horses, andbearing Madame de Belladonna lolling on the cushions, dark, sulky, andblooming, a King Charles in her lap, a white parasol swaying over herhead, and old Steyne stretched at her side with a livid face andghastly eyes. Hate, or anger, or desire caused them to brighten nowand then still, but ordinarily, they gave no light, and seemed tired oflooking out on a world of which almost all the pleasure and all thebest beauty had palled upon the worn-out wicked old man.

"Monseigneur has never recovered the shock of that night, never,"Monsieur Fiche whispered to Mrs. Crawley as the carriage flashed by,and she peeped out at it from behind the shrubs that hid her. "Thatwas a consolation at any rate," Becky thought.

Whether my lord really had murderous intentions towards Mrs. Becky asMonsieur Fiche said (since Monseigneur's death he has returned to hisnative country, where he lives much respected, and has purchased fromhis Prince the title of Baron Ficci), and the factotum objected to haveto do with assassination; or whether he simply had a commission tofrighten Mrs. Crawley out of a city where his Lordship proposed to passthe winter, and the sight of her would be eminently disagreeable to thegreat nobleman, is a point which has never been ascertained: but thethreat had its effect upon the little woman, and she sought no more tointrude herself upon the presence of her old patron.

Everybody knows the melancholy end of that nobleman, which befell atNaples two months after the French Revolution of 1830; when the MostHonourable George Gustavus, Marquis of Steyne, Earl of Gaunt and ofGaunt Castle, in the Peerage of Ireland, Viscount Hellborough, BaronPitchley and Grillsby, a Knight of the Most Noble Order of the Garter,of the Golden Fleece of Spain, of the Russian Order of Saint Nicholasof the First Class, of the Turkish Order of the Crescent, First Lord ofthe Powder Closet and Groom of the Back Stairs, Colonel of the Gaunt orRegent's Own Regiment of Militia, a Trustee of the British Museum, anElder Brother of the Trinity House, a Governor of the White Friars, andD.C.L.--died after a series of fits brought on, as the papers said, bythe shock occasioned to his lordship's sensibilities by the downfall ofthe ancient French monarchy.

An eloquent catalogue appeared in a weekly print, describing hisvirtues, his magnificence, his talents, and his good actions. Hissensibility, his attachment to the illustrious House of Bourbon, withwhich he claimed an alliance, were such that he could not survive themisfortunes of his august kinsmen. His body was buried at Naples, andhis heart--that heart which always beat with every generous and nobleemotion was brought back to Castle Gaunt in a silver urn. "In him,"Mr. Wagg said, "the poor and the Fine Arts have lost a beneficentpatron, society one of its most brilliant ornaments, and England one ofher loftiest patriots and statesmen," &c., &c.

His will was a good deal disputed, and an attempt was made to forcefrom Madame de Belladonna the celebrated jewel called the "Jew's-eye"diamond, which his lordship always wore on his forefinger, and which itwas said that she removed from it after his lamented demise. But hisconfidential friend and attendant, Monsieur Fiche proved that the ringhad been presented to the said Madame de Belladonna two days before theMarquis's death, as were the bank-notes, jewels, Neapolitan and Frenchbonds, &c., found in his lordship's secretaire and claimed by his heirsfrom that injured woman.