To death she looked with inexpressible longing. Then, she thought, I shall always be able to follow him. I am not praising her conduct or setting her up as a model for Miss Bullock to imitate. Miss B. knows how to regulate her feelings better than this poor little creature. Miss B. would never have committed herself as that imprudent Amelia had done; pledged her loved irretrievably; confessed her heart away, and got back nothing—only a brittle promise which was snapt and worthless in a moment. A long engagement is a partnership which one party is free to keep or to break, but which involves all the capital of the other.
Be cautious then, young ladies; be wary how you engage. Be shy of loving frankly; never, tell all you feel, or (a better way still) feel very little. See the consequences of being prematurely honest and confiding, and mistrust yourselves and everybody. Get yourselves, married as they do in France, where the lawyers are the bridesmaids and confidantes. At any rate, never have any feelings which may make you uncomfortable, or make any promises which you cannot at any required moment command and withdraw. That is the way to get on, and be respected, and have a virtuous character in Vanity Fair.
If Amelia could have heard the comments regarding her which were made in the circle from which her father's ruin had just driven her, she would have seen what her own crimes were, and how entirely her character was jeopardied. Such criminal imprudence Mrs. Smith never knew of; such horrid familiarities Mrs. Brown had always condemned, and the end might be a warning to her daughters. "Captain Osborne, of course, could not marry a bankrupt's daughter," the Miss Dobbins said. "It was quite enough to have been swindled by the father. As for that little Amelia, her folly had really passed all—"
"All what?" Captain Dobbin roared out. "Haven't they been engaged ever since they were children? "Wasn't it as good as a marriage? Dare any soul on earth breathe a word against the sweetest, the purest, the tenderest, the most angelical of young women?"
"La, William, don't be so highty tighty with us. We're not men. We can't fight you," Miss Jane said. "We've said nothing against Miss Sedley: but that her conduct throughout was most imprudent, not to call it by any worse name; and that her parents are people who certainly merit their misfortunes."
"Hadn't you better, now that Miss Sedley is free, propose for her yourself, William?" Miss A. asked sarcastically. "It would be a most eligible family connexion. He! he!"
"I marry her!" Dobbin said, blushing very much and talking quick. "If you are so ready, young ladies, to chop and change, do you suppose that she is? Laugh and sneer at that angel. She can't hear it; and she's miserable and unfortunate, and deserves to be laughed at. Go on joking, Ann. You're the wit of the family, and the others like to hear it."
"I must tell you again we're not in a barrack, William," Miss Ann remarked.
"In a barrack, by Jove—I wish anybody in a barrack would say what you do," cried out this improved British lion. "I should like to hear a
