as a positive truth. A woman with fair opportunities, and without an absolute hump, may marry WHOM SHE LIKES. Only let us be thankful that the darlings are like the beasts of the field, and don't know their own power. They would overcome us entirely if they did.
"Egad!" thought Joseph, entering the dining-room, "I exactly begin to feel as I did at Dumdum with Miss Cutler." Many sweet little appeals, half tender, half jocular, did Miss Sharp make to him about the dishes at dinner; for by this time she was on a footing of considerable familiarity with the family, and as for the girls, they loved each other like sisters. Young unmarried girls always do, if they are in a house together for ten days.
As if bent upon advancing Rebecca's plans in every way—what must Amelia do, but remind her brother of a promise made last Easter holidays—"When I was a girl at school," said she, laughing—a promise that he, Joseph, would take her to Vauxhall. "Now," she said, "that Rebecca is with us, will be the very time."
"O, delightful!" said Rebecca, going to clap her hands; but she recollected herself, and paused, like a modest creature, as she was.
"To-night is not the night," said Joe.
"Well, to-morrow."
"To-morrow your Papa and I dine out," said Mrs. Sedley.
"You don't suppose that I'm going, Mrs. Sed.?" said her husband, "and that a woman of your years and size is to catch cold, in such an abominable damp place?"
"The children must have some one with them," cried Mrs. Sedley.
"Let Joe go," said his father, laughing. "He's big enough." At which speech even Mr. Sambo at the sideboard burst out laughing, and poor fat Joe felt inclined to become a parricide almost.
"Undo his stays!" continued the pitiless old gentleman. "Fling some water in his face, Miss Sharp, or carry him up stairs: the dear creature's fainting. Poor victim! carry him up; he's as light as a feather!"
"If he stand this, Sir, I 'm d!" roared Joseph.
"Order Mr. Jos's elephant, Sambo!" cried the father. "Send to Exeter 'Change, Sambo;" but seeing Jos ready almost to cry with vexation, the old joker stopped his laughter, and said, holding out his hand to his son, "It's all fair on the Stock-Exchange, Jos,—and, Sambo, never mind the elephant, but give me and Mr. Jos a glass of Champagne. Boney himself hasn't got such in his cellar, my boy!"
A goblet of Champagne restored Joseph's equanimity, and before the bottle was emptied, of which as an invalid he took two-thirds, he had agreed to take the young ladies to Vauxhall.
"The girls must have a gentleman apiece," said the old gentleman. "Jos will be sure to leave Emmy in the crowd, he will be so taken up with Miss Sharp here. Send to 26, and ask George Osborne if he'll come."
At this, I don't know in the least for what reason, Mrs. Sedley looked at her husband and laughed. Mr. Sedley's eyes twinkled in a manner indescribably roguish; and he looked at Amelia, and Amelia hanging down her head, blushed as only young ladies of seventeen know how to blush, and as Miss Rebecca Sharp never blushed in her life—at least not
