the conversation

She drove out solemnly in their great family coach with them, and Miss Wirt their governess, that raw-boned Vestal. They took her to the ancient concerts by way of a treat, and to the oratorio, and to St. Paul’s to see the charity children, where in such terror was she of her friends, she almost did not dare be affected by the hymn the children sang. Their house was comfortable; their papa’s table rich and handsome; their society solemn and genteel; their self-respect prodigious; they had the best pew at the Foundling: all their habits were pompous and orderly, and all their amusements intolerably dull and decorous. After every one of her visits (and oh how glad she was when they were over!) Miss Osborne and Miss Maria Osborne, and Miss Wirt, the vestal governess, asked each other with increased wonder, “What could George find in that creature?”

How is this? some carping reader exclaims. How is it that Amelia, who had such a number of friends at school, and was so beloved there, comes out into the world and is spurned by her discriminating sex? My dear sir, there were no men at Miss Pinkerton’s establishment except the old dancing-master; and you would not have had the girls fall out about him? When George, their handsome brother, ran off directly after breakfast, and dined from home half-a-dozen times a week, no wonder the neglected sisters felt a little vexation. When young Bullock (of the firm of Hulker, Bullock & Co., Bankers, Lombard Street), who had been making up to Miss Maria the last two seasons, actually asked Amelia to dance the cotillon, could you expect that the former young lady should be pleased?



And yet she said she was, like an artless forgiving creature. “I’m so delighted you like dear Amelia,” she said quite eagerly to Mr. Bullock after the dance. “She’s engaged to my brother George; there’s not much in her, but she’s the best-natured and most unaffected young creature: at home we’re all so fond of her.” Dear girl! who can calculate the depth of affection expressed in that enthusiastic so?Miss Wirt and these two affectionate young women so earnestly and frequently impressed upon George Osborne’s mind the enormity of the sacrifice he was making, and his romantic generosity in throwing himself away upon Amelia, that I’m not sure but that he really thought he was one of the most deserving characters in the British army, and gave himself up to be loved with a good deal of easy resignation.

Somehow, although he left home every morning, as was stated, and dined abroad six days in the week, when his sisters believed the infatuated youth to be at Miss Sedley’s apron-strings: he was not always with Amelia, whilst the world supposed him at her feet. Certain it is that on more occasions than one, when Captain Dobbin called to look for his friend, Miss Osborne (who was very attentive to the Captain, and anxious to hear his military stories, and to know about the health of his dear Mamma), would laughingly point to the opposite side of the square, and say, “Oh, you must go to the Sedleys’ to ask for George; we never see him from morning till night.” At which kind of speech the Captain would laugh in rather an absurd constrained manner, and turn off, like a consummate man of the world, to some topic of general interest, such as the Opera, the Prince’s last ball at Carlton House, or the weather—that blessing to society.

a man of heart

As he rose up to greet his friend, she looked so grave, and pale, and sad, that he could not but note her demeanour. “Bon Dieu! had anything happened?”“Ce pauvre général is ill, very ill Philip,” Smolensk said, in her grave voice.He was so gravely ill, madame said, that his daughter had been sent for.“Had she come?” asked Philip, with a start.“You think but of her — you care not for the poor old man. You are all the same, you men. All egotists — all. Go! I know you! I never knew one that was not,” said madame reenex.

Philip has his little faults: perhaps egotism is one of his defects. Perhaps it is yours, or even mine.“You have been here a week since Thursday last, and you have never written or sent to a woman who loves you well. Go! It was not well, Monsieur Philippe.”As soon as he saw her, Philip felt that he had been neglectful and ungrateful. We have owned so much already. But how should madame know that he had returned on Thursday week? When they looked up after her reproof, his eager eyes seemed to ask this question.

“Could she not write to me and tell me that you were come back? Perhaps she knew that you would not do so yourself. A woman’s heart teaches her these experiences
early,”continued the lady, sadly; then she added: “I tell you, you are good-for-nothings, all of you! And I repent me, see you, of having had the bêtise to pity you!”“I shall have my quarter’s pay on Saturday, I was coming to you then,” said Philip.“Was it that I was speaking of? What! you are all cowards, men, all! Oh, that I have been beast, beast, to think at last I had found kinomap !”

How much or how often this poor Ariadne had trusted and been forsaken, I have no means of knowing, or desire of inquiring. Perhaps it is as well for the polite reader, who is taken into my entire confidence, that we should not know Madame de Smolensk’s history from the first page to the last. Granted that Ariadne was deceived by Theseus: but then she consoled herself, as we may all read in Smith’s Dictionary; and then she must have deceived her father in order to run away with Theseus sigelei 150w.


I suspect — I suspect, I say — that these women who are so very much betrayed, are — but we are speculating on this French lady’s antecedents, when Charlotte, her lover, and her family are the persons with whom we have mainly to do. These two, I suppose, forgot self, about which each for a moment had been busy, and madame resumed:— “Yes, you have reason; Miss is here. It was time. Hold! Here is a note from her.” And Philip’s kind messenger once more put a paper into his hands.