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    Vanity Fair
    Vanity Fair
    Vanity Fair
    Ebook1,055 pages18 hours

    Vanity Fair

    By William Makepeace Thackeray

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    "Vanity Fair" is William Makepeace Thackeray's 19th century novel which satirizes the English society of the time. It is the story of Becky Sharp and Amelia Sedley, who have just completed their studies at Miss Pinkerton's Academy for Young Ladies and are beginning to embark upon the world. The simple-minded nature of Amelia is contrasted with the strong-willed nature of Becky, who has affections for Amelia's brother Joseph Sedley. Set against the backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars, "Vanity Fair" is Thackeray's most popular work which brilliantly characterizes and satirizes the societal trappings of Victorian England.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDigireads.com Publishing
    Release dateJan 1, 2010
    ISBN9781596256163
    Author

    William Makepeace Thackeray

    William Makepeace Thackeray was a nineteenth century English novelist who was most famous for his classic novel, Vanity Fair, a satirical portrait of English society. With an early career as a satirist and parodist, Thackeray shared a fondness for roguish characters that is evident in his early works such as Vanity Fair, The Luck of Barry Lyndon, and Catherine, and was ranked second only to Charles Dickens during the height of his career. In his later work, Thackeray transitioned from the satirical tone for which he was known to a more traditional Victorian narrative, the most notable of which is The History of Henry Esmond. Thackeray died in 1863.

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    Reviews for Vanity Fair

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    • 4/5
      I wonder if anyone who works for the magazine Vanity Fair has ever read the book. I would think that if they had, they wouldn't call it Vanity Fair because Thackeray was (very effectively in my opinion) making fun of the kind of people who live that type of life style.

      (Maybe someday I'll write more of a review but wanted to get that idea down.)
    • 2/5
      When I was in junior high school (The Age of the Dinosaurs), I read “Gone with the Wind” for the first time, and was raving about Scarlett O’Hara to an English teacher I greatly admired. She said Scarlett was but a poor imitation of The Original Anti-Heroine, Becky Sharp, and if I wanted the real thing, I should read “Vanity Fair”.

      I believe I may have attempted to do so, and gave up fairly quickly. Five decades have now passed, and I actually read Mr. Thackeray’s classic this month.

      Well, I read about 75% of it. Toward the end there, when Thackeray’s wordiness overwhelmed me and all I wanted to do was to finish the d*d thing, I admit to skimming his incredibly wordy, repetitive, and dull lists of who was at which party and what their ancestry was and how their great-grandfather cheated somebody else’s great-grandfather out of the ancestral manse, etc etc etc…… (The work originally appeared in serialization, and Thackeray may have been paid by the word. That would certainly explain much of his meandering.)

      Mark Twain said that a classic is “something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read.” He may well have been talking about “Vanity Fair”.

      Lord love a duck, it’s dreary. Though sometimes considered the "principal founder" of the Victorian domestic novel, it is terribly dated. And it’s very much a novel of its time, repeatedly reminding the reader of the delicacy of womankind, bless her kind little heart and dull little intellect. Amelia Sedley, the literary foremother of Melanie Hamilton is so sappy that the modern reader really, really wants to smack her upside the head. Her frenemy Becky Sharp is certainly manipulative, avaricious, duplicitous, and all the negative things Scarlett O’Hara also represented, but without Scarlett’s stubborn resourcefulness or passionate tango with the dashing Rhett Butler.

      "Vanity Fair" also presents itself as a biting indictment of the falseness of British society in the 19th century, with its emphasis on titles, elaborate social codes, and fascination with wealth and status. Unfortunately, the humor doesn’t age well, either, as much of it (as with any satirical work) depends on the reader’s familiarity with the milieu it skewers.

      Sprinkled with phrases in French, German, Latin, and Greek, and full of now-archaic language, the modern reader will need a very comprehensive dictionary at hand, as well as a phrase book of the common non-English terms with which the text is ornamented. Thackeray’s tendency to step back and address the reader directly is yet another stylistic choice which (fortunately) largely disappeared along about the middle of the 20th century.

      All in all, reading "Vanity Fair" may itself be an exercise in vanity for the modern reader, who can now say “I’ve read it.” The same reader would probably be stretching the boundaries of truth to say “I enjoyed it.”

      The convoluted plot involves the interplay among Rebecca (Becky) Sharp, Amelia (Emmy) Sedley, and begins as the girls leave finishing school. Becky, the orphaned daughter of an itinerant portrait-painter and a French dancing girl, is in line to begin a position as governess in a baronet's household, but plans a brief visit with her school friend Emmy, first. Emmy’s family is well-off, her father doing something that apparently involves stocks or banking or somesuch. (He makes money. ‘Nuff said.) Becky hopes to leverage this visit into a marriage with Emmy’s elder brother Joseph, a sadly ridiculous figure, pompous, self-important, and dim, but nevertheless the heir to Sedley’s estate. Emmy’s marriage prospects are fixed on George Osborne, the son of her father’s business partner and a foppish young man without much moral character, though he looks quite dashing in his military uniform. Emmy is too dim (and well-bred) to see the emptiness behind George’s pretty face. (Apparently, dimness runs rampant in the Sedley genes.)

      The Becky/Joseph pairing never gets off the ground and Becky goes off to her governess position at roughly the same time Emma’s father is cheated out of his business share by George’s father. The young sweethearts, in defiance of the elder Osborne’s command, run off and are married, laughing gaily at the old man’s obdurate insistence that he will disown George, which he does. Becky, meantime, has now set her lacy cap at one Rawdon Crawley, the second son of her baronet employer. Rawdon is also a military man, and while the title will never be his, he is the favorite of a wealthy spinster aunt, thus making him prime marriage material in Becky’s eyes. It’s all very gay (except that George is already beginning to letch for Becky) and the two newlywed couples, accompanied by Osborne’s good buddy William Dobbins, are having a gay old time until Napoleon Bonaparte escapes his exile and once again begins ravaging across Europe and – dash it all – the young soldiers are actually expected to take up arms, leaving their pregnant brides after a bare six weeks of marital bliss.

      George is inconsiderate enough to die at Waterloo, leaving Emma the bereaved widow, doting on the son born after his father’s death, and eking out a living by moving in with her also-impoverished parents. Dobbins, who has loved her all along, does The Honorable Thing, and she spurns him, preferring the untarnished (and highly embroidered) memory of George, so William is forced to sneakily provide a small living for Emma and the baby. Becky’s husband fares better, but the avaricious little imp, attempting to worm her way into the graces of the Rich Old Spinster Aunt, manages to piss off the old broad so thoroughly that she leaves all her money elsewhere. This is highly inconvenient to Becky, whose husband has left the military and supports them with his gambling skills which, alas, are not consistent, and the young couple learns how to Live Well on Nothing, mostly by sponging off friends and stiffing the various landlords, grocers, and milliners who provide them with their surface prosperity.

      This state of affairs goes on for about 600 pages, with Emma being poor but gracious and Becky being sinful and scheming until she is caught en flagrante (or as close to en flagrante as the literary conventions of the day will allow) with one of her wealthy “sponsors”, and her husband kicks her out and goes off to be the governor of some miserable tropical locale. Emma feels sorry for her and believes Becky's edited version of events in which she is the totally innocent victim. It seems that Becky may yet rise from the ashes, but – worse luck! – Emma discovers what a rotter George really was and how close he came to running off with her friend. Eventually, the faithful devotion of Dobbin makes an impression on her, and they are married to live happily ever after while Becky sinks irretrievably into sin. Not to worry, though – her husband eventually dies and leaves her a small pension. We assume she toddles off into old age with a dashing young buck on each arm, and the exhausted reader finally shuts the cover of this massive and overwrought tome.

      If you’re really interested in more, there’s a movie. Reese Witherspoon is in it. It’s three bucks (used) on eBay.

    • 5/5
      Droll, satirical take on human nature and just as relevant today as it was in the Victorian Age.
    • 4/5
      Long and sprawling, witty and satirical, this is quite a character study. I think I recognized someone I know in real life in each and every one of the main characters. A novel without a hero, you say, Mr. Thackeray? Then please explain Dobbin! :)
    • 4/5
      In discussing the origins of The Bonfire of the Vanities, his brilliant satire of the social and economic mores of New York City in the 1980s, Tom Wolfe was always quick to cite Thackeray’s Vanity Fair as his inspiration. Wolfe seemed particularly taken with that earlier work’s subtitle--A Novel Without a Hero--which he took to be a perfect characterization for the story that he himself wanted to tell. He even went so far as to arrange to have his work published in serial form in a magazine (Rolling Stone in Wolfe’s case), just as Thackeray did with his magnum opus a century and a half before. There can hardly be higher praise than that for one author to give to another.Vanity Fair itself owes a considerable debt to a classic work that preceded it by 150 years, John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress. In that religious allegory, a person on the path to Heaven first had to pass through the town of Vanity in which there was a fair that appealed to all the basest traits of humanity: greed, infidelity, deceit, avarice, envy, duplicity, and so on. Thackeray saw this as an apt metaphor for his story of the state of English society at the time of the Napoleonic Wars and the dawn of the Victorian Age. In fact, the frame that begins and ends Vanity Fair has two young girls putting on a puppet show during which all of the action in the book takes place. Toward the end of the novel, the author even reveals himself to be the narrator of the tale, and a most unreliable one at that.If that level of historical detail is not absolutely necessary to summarize Vanity Fair, it is perhaps useful context for a prospective reader to understand what taking on this tome will entail. Because, make no mistake, this book requires a significant investment of time and attention to get through it to the end. It is indeed a meandering and occasionally sprawling tale, written in the style of a time far removed from what the modern audience is used to. But, it is also remarkably observant about the human condition as well as wickedly funny; those two things alone make reading it today well worthwhile. Further, in the character of Becky Sharp, Thackeray has created an anti-heroine for the ages—with her resilient and scheming nature, she could hold her own now just as well as she did back then.How the specific events in the story transpire is not the most important thing about the novel, serving as they do as the backdrop for the societal skewering that was the author’s true purpose. In short, Becky comes from an impoverished background in a culture where that is a serious impediment to advancement. Her school friend Amelia Sedley is from a well-to-do family, but she herself is a rather simple and unambitious girl. Both of these friends enter into disappointing marriages, Becky to a rich but rough-hewn fellow whose family disapproves of her while Amelia devotes herself to a philandering cad and ignores the less-dashing colleague who truly loves her. When Amelia’s family falls on hard economic times, it sets off chain of events that takes several hundred pages to unfold. In those pages, though, there is some real literary gold as Thackeray uses his razor-honed wit and gentle word play to expose a multitude of vanities and foibles as he saw them. I certainly can recommend this book, but only for those who understand what they are getting into first!
    • 4/5
      Thackeray's novel without a hero, a story of the manners and morality of society in the years around the Battle of Waterloo, is a respected and admired classic, and also - perhaps more importantly - a document of the time. Like the other writers of his period, Thackeray is more than happy to digress, to follow a tangent away from his story to describe a time or place, and like Hugo's 'Les Miserables' it is in these digressions that the most interesting details emerge.
    • 4/5
      This novel is for the committed: committed to its 800 pages, committed to referencing endnotes and looking things up, and committed to piecing together the plot arcs and disparate characters of this tour de force.This tome is heavy on the vernacular: I advise reading an edition with copious foot- or end-notes. Translation is necessary for many contemporary references. Who knew there were so many hundreds of kinds of carriages? Some of the elements are timeless: jealousy, vanity, gallantry, pining love. These ride under an unremitting setting of high English fashion and society that seems not quaint and historical but monstrous and disorienting. At times this book is a blatant page-turner, in a soap opera titillating way. At other times it's a chore to push through pages of intricate detail about the fabric of mid-19th-century life.For every literary or satirical reference you get, there are bound to be a dozen you miss (unless your area of expertise is the Victorian novel, perhaps). In retrospect, I feel like I would have needed a full lecture series or course to understand the full breadth of this work.
    • 5/5
      After nearly three weeks, I have finished this mammoth satirical novel of late Georgian life, after watching the excellent ITV adaptation. Despite some rambling chapters, especially in the middle, this is a brilliant satire of life in that era, covering a whole range of human emotions and weaknesses, with some great characters. Becky Sharp is one of the most manipulative characters in 19th century fiction, but it is easy to see why she fools so many people. Amelia Sedley is much more of a stereotypical passive Victorian young lady, but still has interesting facets that lift her above similar characters in other 19th century novels. George Osborne is fairly shallow, but dies half way through the novel, so it is his memory that is a character, at least for Amelia, for the remainder of the story. Rawdon Crawley, who marries Becky, is also fairly shallow, but elicits more sympathy, not least due to his genuine affection for their son, a trait that Becky entirely, and cruelly, lacks. There are many interesting minor characters (though I do get rather confused by the various generations of the Crawley family - a family tree would be useful). My edition contained the wonderful original illustrations by the author, which were often very amusing, especially the supercilious expression on Becky's face each time she is depicted. Each of the 67 chapters was also headed by an illustration around the initial capital in the style of a Medieval manuscript - these often seemed to have little or no connection to the story, but were a nice and amusing addition. Overall a brilliant novel.
    • 5/5
      Brilliant, snarky, hilarious.
    • 4/5
      Thackeray schildert am Beispiel einiger Personen des viktorianischen Englands die Abgründe und Eitelkeiten jener Zeit. Es geht um mehr Schein als Sein. Dargestellt werden vor allem Personen, die den eigenen Vorteil suchen. Das Buch ist witzig und ausgesprochen gut beobachtet, ein tolles Zeitdokument. Es liest sich leichter als Dickens, finde ich. Allerdings ist das Buch etwa sehr lang, es könnte etwas gestraffter werden. Es empfiehlt sich aber nicht das Ende auszulassen, da es doch noch einige Überraschungen bietet. Und wirklich böse sein kann man niemandem auf dem Jahrmarkt der Eitelkeiten.
    • 5/5
      Although this novel is coralled into the category of "classic" that desuades so many from reading a book it is well worth the time. It exposes the effects of manipulation and greediness, and it shows that people will ultimately get what they deserve. Although the characters inhabit a time apart from ours, they may as well be living in current times. Readers should be able to relate easily to this book.
    • 3/5
      I didn't love Thackeray's chattiness and tendency to harangue the reader about "Vanity Fair--Vanity Fair!" And I didn't love how the characters' signature traits grew more and more extreme until it was difficult to like or sympathize with them. And it was way too long. Despite these quibbles, I did enjoy it.
    • 4/5
      Vanity Fair is sometimes called the best British novel ever written, but it's totally not. Middlemarch is way better. Honestly, VF's not even in the top ten. So why do people love it so much? Because of Becky Sharp. Which is funny, because she's not what it was supposed to be about.

      Becky Sharp is to Thackeray as Satan is to Milton. The argument has been made in both cases that the author secretly intended us to love their most memorable characters, but that's not true - or at least it's not that easy. While both dominate their stories, both authors are clearly uncomfortable with the fact that that's happened.

      Vanity Fair didn't really take shape until Thackeray turned it into an autobiography: the Amelia / Dobbins story, which he thought of after he'd submitted the first few chapters and which caused an eight-month delay while he reconfigured the story, mirrors his own one-sided love affair with his friend's wife. Dobbins is based on himself. And certainly their story turns out to be an important counterweight to Becky's; without it, the novel would be a slighter work about a femme fatale, arguably more fun but less important. With them it turns into a sprawling landmark in realist literature, one that unarguably influenced War & Peace.

      But Amelia and Dobbins are such milquetoasts that Becky insists on running away with the book. They're nice people, and you root for them, but during their chapters...you wish it would get back to Amelia's frenemy.

      And Thackeray attacks Becky, again and again, viciously. His most telling attack is in her constantly reiterated failure to love her son, which is a mortal sin in Victorian novels as it is in the rest of them. A father can occasionally be forgiven for not loving his children; never a mother. But there's also this deadly passage toward the end of the novel, in which he defensively compares her to the old-school, evil mermaid:"Has [the author] once forgotten the rules of politeness, and showed the monster's hideous tail above water? No! Those who like may peep down under waves that are pretty transparent and see it writhing and twirling, diabolically hideous and slimy, flapping amongst bones, or curling around corpses, but above the waterline, I ask, has not everything been proper?"It frankly feels like Thackeray is punishing Becky for taking over the book that he'd tried to take over himself. He sounds confused: like he wishes the whole novel was a moral one, and realizes only now that it's failed to be that. (Remember, this book couldn't be retooled; it was released in installments, and everyone had already read the rest of them.)

      Consider also the ending. Becky has a moment of magnanimity and reconciles Dobbins and Amelia. Then she turns around and murders Jos. (Don't try to argue that she didn't murder him. Thackeray may not say it, but he leaves little doubt.) Which feels more honest to you? Which feels like something Becky would do? She's a calculating, immoral woman who may have been (but probably wasn't) involved in countless affairs by this time, but did you get the sense that she's a murderess? Thackeray's book has gotten away from him, and he's betraying her in an attempt to snatch it back.

      Compare this with Middlemarch, also a landmark realist novel, and also one released in installments, but one in which it's perfectly clear that Eliot had the entire plot, thread by thread, perfectly planned from the beginning. Eliot never lets her book get away from her. And when I say that, and when you consider the fact that Middlemarch includes no character as compelling as Becky Sharp - she would have despised Dorothea - it sounds like Vanity Fair might be more fun than Middlemarch, but it's not. Thackeray's sense of human nature isn't as strong as Eliot's (or as Tolstoy's), and the novel isn't as satisfying.

      It's good, because Becky Sharp escaped from somewhere in Thackeray's brain and took it from him. What doesn't belong to her is just okay.
    • 5/5
      This lengthy novel at times tries the reader's patience, but the firey Becky Sharp commands attention to the end.School chums Amanda Sedley and Becky Sharp come from two different backgrounds: the former from privelege, the latter from poverty thanks to a starving artist father. Amanda is meek while Becky is cunning, and the novel depicts how these two different personalities make their way through life. Amanda falls in love with Osbourne, a handsome scoundrel whose father ruined the Sedleys financially. Becky takes her place befitting her station as a servant in the Crawley household, but is determined to make it to the top any way she can. Her main weapon is flirtation and deceit, and many men are ruined in her wake. Even Osbourne, who sees through Becky, eventually makes himself a fool over her. Amanda remains blindly devoted to her husband while she, meanwhile, is blindly devoted to by Osbourne's fellow soldier Dobbin, a man who is strong when it comes to the military, but an absolute pushover when it comes to Amanda. Becky Sharp remains one of the most dynamic characters in English literature. Even if her fellow characters were not so weak-willed and wishy-washy, she still would be a force to be reckoned with. Little shames her except the sting of poverty. She's unfaithful, deceitful, and cruel to those who love her, even her own son. She's played the survivor's game for so long that, to the end, Becky Sharp remains her first priority. She's been thrown off the top of the world so many times that you know she always has a trick up her sleeve, a new plan to regain wealth and position. She does not need love because she will always love herself. This makes her a terrifying force among the other, weaker characters. Sounds awful, right? How can readers like her? Perhaps because Thackeray gives us no other hero, we cling to Becky for her never-say-die attitude. She's the catalyst that finally pushes milquetoast Dobbin and Amanda together, albeit in her usual cruel way. But it's a relief after reading hundreds of pages of Amanda pining for undeserving Osbourne while Dobbin shoots her the puppy-dog eyes. In the end, no character is left with respect for Becky, but she comes out just fine. She was never out for people's respect; she just wanted their money. On the whole, it's a biting satire of society life, and the things one does to "make it" among its confines.
    • 5/5
      Thackeray's Victorian novel is above all a satire. A journalist turned author, he cast his eyes around him and did not like what he saw. He has been labelled a realist and a searcher after truth and he uses wit, irony and biting satire to expose the corrupt and stagnant society that appeared all around him.Thackeray's society is Vanity Fair. It is a place where individuals are driven by the worship of wealth, rank, power and class and are corrupted by it. Greed and lust predominate. The satire is at times savage and grotesque, but like much great fiction it resonates with modern readers. Today the Wall Street Occupation immediately springs to mind as well as earlier protest movements in the late 1960's. Thackeray's many allusions to Vanity Fair reminded me of Bob Dylan's Desolation Row, however it was some snatches of lyrics from "Its alright Ma, I'm only Bleeding" that seemed particularly relevant:"gargles in the rat race choirbent out of shape by society's pliersOld lady judges watch people in pairsLimited in sex they dareTo push fake morals, insult and stareWhile money doesn't talk it swears......" The novel was published in monthly installments from January 1847 to July 1848 and had an immediate impact. Charlotte Bronte (writing under her pseudonym Currer Bell) in her preface to the second edition of Jane Eyre said: "I regard him (Thackeray) as the first social regenerator of this day - as the very master of that working corps who would restore to rectitude the warped system of things...... His wit is bright, his humour attractive, but both bear the same relation to his serious genius, that the mere lambent sheet-lightning playing under the edge of the summer cloud, does to the electric death spark hid in its womb. Finally, I have alluded to Mr Thackeray, because to him - if he will accept the tribute of a total stranger I have dedicated the second edition of Jane EyreCurrer BellDec 21st 1847 "Why did this mocking misanthropic book that has overtones of misogyny create such an impact at the time and has been regarded as a classic of English Literature ever since? Apart from the social commentary it has a story to tell. Two young women emerge from Mrs Pinkerton's academy for young ladies to take their place in society in the early years of the 19th century. Amelia Sedley was a paying border and coming from a rich merchant family her marriage prospects are good. Her friend Becky Sharpe was kept on at the Academy because of her teaching abilities and the best that she can look forward to is a place as a governess. The two girls could not be more different. Becky is clever and resourceful and an adroit manipulator of other people, she realises she must use her wits and her sex to get ahead. Amelia on the other hand while possessing both beauty and excellent manners is a weak character, unworldly, easily moved to tears and selfishly insular in her outlook. Their stories are told in parallel in the first part of the book, but intersect in the city of Brussels on the eve of the battles of Quatre Bras and Waterloo. This is the midpoint and backbone of the book. Following these climactic events the story moves back to London where Amelia and Becky suffer different fortunes. Amelia having lost her husband at Waterloo sinks into poverty as a result of her fathers failed business ventures. Becky builds on her success in Brussells and reaches for the highest echelons of society. Her marriage to Rawdon Crawley the brother of a barronet and a gambler and swindler to boot does not hold her back. Fortunes change again as the women who both now have a son meet towards the end of the book and enact a rather dispiriting denouement.If this all sounds like a Bildungsroman where the characters moral and psychological development is the focus, then you would be mistaken for thinking so. Few of the characters develop in this way, they remain static and perhaps this is the point of the novel. Society or Vanity Fair allows for no character development. They keep on doing what they do as the all consuming rush for money power and position is the real focus for Thackeray's novel. Amelia remains the childish women she always was. Becky continues to live by her cleverness, her wit and her sex, until she is no longer able to do so. The male characters are too busy making money or seeking glory or like the faithful Dobbin: following a false dream, which when this fades there is nothing left but to do his duty.Thackeray prefaces his novel with the idea of the Manager of the performance. It is this manager who will constantly interrupt the story to speak directly to the reader, telling him his views on the characters and their actions. At one point towards the end of the novel the manager tells his readers that he sat down with some of the characters outside a cafe and the story they told him is the one he is now relating to us. The question that is difficult to answer then is; who is this manager/narrator, is it the author Thackeray himself speaking to us. Are there two voices here. The book is written in a omniscient narrative style with these authorial interludes directed straight at the reader. This allows Thackeray to interpret events, give hints to future events, to recap on previous events, to fill in details and play with the time line. Sometimes it feels as though he is just playing with his readers. A typical example is when Amelia is praying for the safe return of her husband George Osborne:"Have we the right to repeat or overhear her prayers? These brother are secrets, and out of the domain of vanity Fair in which our story lies."This is fascinating because Thackeray is both a satirist/social analyst and a moralist and these points of view do not always sit together comfortably. There is some confusion as to which hat the author is wearing or what voice he is speaking with. This results however in the characters having a sort of life of their own as we are constantly seeing them from different sides. Becky is subject to many of these authorial reviews, which culminate in this wonderful passage towards the end of the novel:"I defy anyone to say that our Becky, who has certainly some vices, has not been presented to the public in a perfectly genteel and inoffensive manner. In describing this syren, singing and smiling, coaxing and cajoling, the author with modest pride, asks his readers all around, has he once forgotten the laws of politeness, and showed the monster's hideous tail above water? No! Those who like may peep down under waves that are pretty transparent, and see it writhing and twirling, diabolically hideous and slimy, flapping amongst bones, or curling round corpses; but above the water line, I ask, has not everything been proper, agreeable and decorous, and has any the most squeamish immoralist in Vanity Fair right to cry fie? When however the syren disappears and dives below, down among the dead men, the water of course grows turbid over her, and it is labour lost to look into it ever so curiously. They look pretty enough when they sit upon a rock, twanging their harps and combing their hair, and sing, and beckon to you to come and hold the looking glass; but when they sink into their native element depend on it those mermaids are about no good, and we had best not examine the fiendish marine cannibals, revelling and feasting on their wretched pickled victims. And so, when Becky is out of the way, be sure she is not particularly well employed, and that the less said about her doings the better"This passage highlights Thackeray's ambivalence towards his heroine. Thackeray's masterstroke is to compare her with the saintly but inept Amelia as their lives run parallel. Becky has battled against the odds to become a player in vanity Fair and has had fun doing it. Nobody has as much fun in this novel as Becky Sharpe. (apart from her admiring husband Rawdon Crawley perhaps)This is a must read for lovers of the Victorian novel and for those who wish to chart the development of the novel in the English language. There are some issues for the modern reader. Thackeray was a journalist with a wide knowledge of current events. His text is sprinkled with personalities, politicians, artists who were well known at the time, but have since faded into obscurity. A thoroughly annotated text is recommended for the reader who wished to pick up on all the references. It is not essential though to enjoy the book, although it will be easier for readers native to England. It is a long novel nearly 700 pages and there is some obvious padding. Thackeray had to produce 32 pages of script for his monthly deadlines and some passages feel like add ons in order to fulfill his contract. Having said that I found the book fairly well structured and some of the recaps were helpful.This is a book to be savoured and enjoyed and for those people unfamiliar with the genre, may find it quite astonishing. A well written biting satire of a corrupt and moribund society is enough to hold my interest. This together with some wonderful characters (who can forget Jos "Waterloo" Sedley or Sir Pitt Crawley) and some purple patches of prose make this a classic in every sense of the word. And don't forget Thackeray's marvellous illustrations; well over a hundred of them.
    • 4/5
      I loved this book. Being immersed in 19th century society in and around London was a real treat. Of course there were some tedious parts - the naming of all the people at an event, etc., but the story was wonderful and the characters rich and fulfilling. A wonderful summer read
    • 5/5
      Becky Sharpe is one of my all time favourite literary characters. I've read this book twice now, with different book clubs, 14 years apart, but the joy has not diminished. Those who finished the book were in thrall to Thackeray's mastery of the genre. A definite classic and a treat!
    • 5/5
      I read this ages ago. First in my Victorian novel class, and a few years later at a more leisurely pace. It is a real treat. Very pointed satire made even funnier with the sly illustrations. This is certainly one for the ages; pure entertainment
    • 5/5
      The sad thing about earning a BA in English Literature is that most of the books you have to read and think about won't actually be enjoyable. This is an exception. It's funny.
    • 3/5
      This was a really really good story, I just wish it hadn't been so long winded. The bit where Amelia has to choose whether to part with her child is absolutely heartbreaking, really really well written. In contrast there were some bits (particularly in Belgium) which were so tedious I practically lost the will to live.
    • 4/5
      William Makepeace Thackeray was the 19th century equivalent to Jackie Collins but with the inside scoop on the decadent English and French nobility instead of the Hollywood elite. His tale about the overly ambitious but lovely Becky is both a piercing stab at English society and a guilty pleasure to read. I think he meant it to be a morality tale, but I, for one, wanted Becky to rule the world.
    • 4/5
      Such a wonderful book. Becky Sharp is so wicked ! Her friend Amelia is such a wimp I want to hit her every time I read it. It is so funny!!!!
    • 3/5
      Mini Book Review: This was a truly fascinating but at time extremely boring piece of literature. At times I was laughing aloud at the biting and witty commentary about early 19th century Britain and the absurdity of the upper class society. But I found that as soon as I was enjoying it Thackery would go off on some side story that really could have been left out and quite frankly bored this simple girl to tears. I struggled less with the language in this classic as it wasn't as flowery or overly descriptive as in many pieces of literature during this period in history. I did have to put it down quite frequently as Thackery gives a very dark portrayal of human nature and I have a more hopeful positive nature and it was making me sorta depressed. The characters are very richly drawn, but they are extremely flawed and I felt no real attachment to them. I know that this is the point of the book, but I have to feel something for the characters in the story to truly enjoy. I was either disgusted with how horrific the characters were (Becky & Jos) or disgusted by how wussy other characters were (Amelia & Dobbin). As a social commentary this is brilliant and for those obviously more intellectual than I am you will enjoy. However, I am a far more simple girl and I prefer a good story that I can lose myself in.3 Dewey's (as usual this is based on my enjoyment and not on the quality of the writing)I read this as part of the BBC Top 100 Books Challenge & it came preloaded onto my Kobo
    • 3/5
      The story opens with two graduating students leaving Miss Pickerton's academy for young ladies. One graduate, Amelia Sedley, is well loved and receives an enormous send off while her companion, Rebecca Sharp, barely garners a glance. Becky is an orphaned governess, traveling with Amelia as her guest. Once at the Sedley home Rebecca sets out to become betrothed to Amelia's brother, Joseph. Jos serves as Collector of Boggley Wollah in the East India Company's Civil Service. Once that attempt fails Rebecca becomes even more amoral and shameless. In today's terms she would be classified as a psychopath because of her lack of conscience and her inability to feel anything for her fellow man. Amelia is disgustingly sweet and Rebecca is shamelessly indifferent. Neither one makes a satisfying hero in Thackeray's eyes. I found the story to be plotless and pointless. What made the reading more difficult was Thackeray getting confused and mixing up the characters.
    • 4/5
      I was assigned this book my junior year of high school by Sr. Irene Mary at Grand Rapids Catholic Central. For our project that year, we had to select an art discipline. That would be the basis for our paper. From there, Sr. Irene Mary selected the specific topic. For some reason, I got assigned this tome when others who chose literature got much skinnier selections like The Portrait of Dorian Grey. Still, Sr. Irene Mary gave us our own copy of the book she selected for us. I was excited about that. That's when I learned that getting a book for free doesn't mean that it doesn't come at a cost.I don't remember much about this book other than I worked so hard on my paper. I wanted an A more than I wanted anything else in this world. I spent nearly 6 weeks on it and was positive I had done the best I could. When I got my paper back, I got a B+. Sister found a misplaced comma or something. I was devastated. My parents spoke to her at the time, but I didn't find out later that Sister's explanation for my grade was that I wasn't an A student. This was my best work to date, but a B+ was my top grade. Yes, I still hold this against this novel. LOL!So, despite the fact that I can't really remember the storyline, this book brings back a lot of memories. It was the last project that I spent any amount of time on. From there on out, I wrote all of my papers the night before they were due - all the way through grad school. For some reason, I always got As after that.
    • 5/5
      A biting and witty satire on English social life and customs during the first part of the nineteenth century, its subtitle is “a novel without a hero,” and it could also be added without heroines. Yet the book’s two central characters, the virtuous but dim and naive Amelia Sedley and the amoral, clever, congenial Becky Sharp both display admirable and distressing qualities as they rise, fall, and rise again in society. One of the great virtues of Vanity Fair is that while it is told in hilarious prose, with short burst of genuine pathos, it was praised by its contemporaries as a thoroughly realistic account of the society that it portrays.
    • 5/5
      Very enjoyable romp through the Regency period, in both London, Hampshire, Belgium and Germany. The book is mainly about two characters, Becky Sharp, a rather brash young woman who will stop at nothing to get what she wants, and Amelia Sedley, a young woman from a rich family, who starts life with all that she wants and needs, but falls upon unhappy times in both love and money. The writing is humorous at times, and the descriptions of the times and the people very entertaining. There is sadness too with lots of love and loss going on. All in all a long book, which you need to invest some time and devotion to, but well worth it.
    • 4/5
      Where I got the book: audiobook downloaded from Audible.Well, I finally read Vanity Fair, and it took an audiobook to do it. This was written in an era when a novelist could truly indulge himself with long backstories, explanations, scene-setting and bunny trails, and Thackeray makes full use of that power. As a story, the tale of Becky Sharpe and her moral opposite, the rather nauseatingly devoted Amelia, it's good stuff; although, of course, I ended up far preferring wicked Becky. As a portrait of an era it's great, and it has Waterloo in it which is a plus. Now that I've listened to the audiobook I might one day be able to wade through the printed novel with a bit more determination; but Thackeray writes in great solid blocks of text, which is offputting. And a shame, because there are many laughs to be had within these pages; Thackeray plants his barbs with the waspish glee of a maiden lady gossip, or, to bring the analogy up to date, a gay radio host.This would NOT be my recommended version to listen to, and indeed Audible has withdrawn it. The audio quality is very uneven, the narrator's voice grated on me, and she was completely incapable of pronouncing the many foreign words.
    • 4/5
      Wonderful story. A Great Book. This is the story of human beings period. You have probably known a person like each character in this novel. I read it as a youngster, so am not "close" to it now, but I will never forget the feeling of Becky Sharp and her husband having to keep moving because of their debts. It left me with such a cold, dank, impression of that life. Amelia Sedley will forever be the good, true friend who is wronged. And I can't remember that Captain's name, but I adored him. Also the obnoxious brother of Amelia I seem to remember.Vanity Fair is much more realistic in the way that life hits these people over and over and over. Just like life does seem to kick you when you are down.
    • 4/5
      Yet another long, presumably serialized, early Victorian soap opera about a young girl and others, clawing up the social ladder. Great characters and character development. The author's short essays and sarcastic observations are very amusing.

    Book preview

    Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray

    cover.jpg

    VANITY FAIR

    By WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY

    Vanity Fair

    By William Makepeace Thackeray

    Print ISBN 13: 978-1-4209-3187-7

    eBook ISBN 13: 978-1-59625-616-3

    This edition copyright © 2018. Digireads.com Publishing.

    All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

    Please visit www.digireads.com

    CONTENTS

    Biographical Introduction

    Before the Curtain

    Chapter I.

    Chapter II.

    Chapter III.

    Chapter IV.

    Chapter V.

    Chapter VI.

    Chapter VII.

    Chapter VIII.

    Chapter IX.

    Chapter X.

    Chapter XI.

    Chapter XII.

    Chapter XIII.

    Chapter XIV.

    Chapter XV.

    Chapter XVI.

    Chapter XVII.

    Chapter XVIII.

    Chapter XIX.

    Chapter XX.

    Chapter XXI.

    Chapter XXII.

    Chapter XXIII.

    Chapter XXIV.

    Chapter XXV.

    Chapter XXVI.

    Chapter XXVII.

    Chapter XXVIII.

    Chapter XXIX.

    Chapter XXX.

    Chapter XXXI.

    Chapter XXXII.

    Chapter XXXIII.

    Chapter XXXIV.

    Chapter XXXV.

    Chapter XXXVI.

    Chapter XXXVII.

    Chapter XXXVIII.

    Chapter XXXIX.

    Chapter XL.

    Chapter XLI.

    Chapter XLII.

    Chapter XLIII.

    Chapter XLIV.

    Chapter XLV.

    Chapter XLVI.

    Chapter XLVII.

    Chapter XLVIII.

    Chapter XLIX.

    Chapter L.

    Chapter LI.

    Chapter LII.

    Chapter LIII.

    Chapter LIV.

    Chapter LV.

    Chapter LVI.

    Chapter LVII.

    Chapter LVIII.

    Chapter LIX.

    Chapter LX.

    Chapter LXI.

    Chapter LXII.

    Chapter LXIII.

    Chapter LXIV.

    Chapter LXV.

    Chapter LXVI.

    Chapter LXVII.

    Biographical Introduction

    WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY

    English novelist William Makepeace Thackeray was born on July 18, 1811 in Calcutta, India. He was the only child to parents Richmond Thackeray and Anne Becher. His father was an influential figure within the British East India Company, and held the post of secretary to the board of revenue. Thackeray’s mother also had connections to the East India Company through her father, John Harman Becher, who was a writer for the company.

    When Thackeray’s father died in 1815, he left an estate worth £17,000. Richmond’s will left annuities to Anne, William Makepeace, and even £100 to the illegitimate daughter he had with his native mistress. A fatherless Thackeray was sent to England at the age of five, while his mother remained in Calcutta. She joined her son in England after her second marriage to Henry Carmichael-Smyth in 1817.

    In 1817 Thackeray began his education at a school in Southampton. He transferred to Chiswick the following year, where he stayed until 1821. Thackeray then enrolled at the Charterhouse School, an institution that caused him so much anguish that he nicknamed it Slaughterhouse. Indeed, his biographer Peter L. Shillingsburg notes that, [Thackeray’s] recollections of school tyrannies and the terrors of school boyhood show up repeatedly in his fiction. Further, while Thackeray’s relatives strived to make him comfortable in his new English surroundings, England represented a drastic transition from his childhood in India. He no longer had the luxury of servants or attendants and longed to return to his earlier life in Calcutta.

    Thackeray did not fare well academically. Although he had many natural talents, especially in the areas of language and literature, he was never quite successful in mathematics or the classics. To make matters worse, Thackeray became ill during his last year at Charterhouse. He was not able to begin his matriculation at Trinity College, Cambridge, until February 1829. His stepfather, Major Carmichael-Smyth, tutored him privately, hoping that Thackeray would be prepared for academic success once he was well. When Thackeray finally entered Trinity College, familial pressure from his parents inspired him to become fiercely dedicated to his studies.

    Despite his steadfast determination to become a scholar and please his mother, Thackeray was easily distracted by his personal literary pursuits. He spent the majority of his time reading novels, poems, and histories, and also began to take an active interest in writing. He submitted poetry to the Western Luminary and articles to The Snob–and later its replacement, The Gownsman. He particularly enjoyed writing satires and humorous parodies, and his submission of Timbuctoo to The Snob earned him some early recognition as a writer.

    Thackeray and The Snob’s editor, William Williams, developed a close working relationship as Thackeray became a regular contributor to the publication. When Williams later became his tutor, the two traveled to Paris under the guise of learning French. Upon their arrival in the city, Williams ultimately abandoned Thackeray for his own personal pursuits. Thackeray spent the rest of his stay visiting museums and accruing gambling debts from his days playing cards and dice. By the time he returned to Cambridge for his second year of university, he had acquired £1500 in debt.

    Thackeray’s next year at Cambridge brought about more distractions of both the literary and gambling variety. Following a particularly poor showing on his year-end examinations, Thackeray decided to forgo his honors degree in mathematics and the classics. He left Cambridge in 1830 without a degree and without a career plan. He ultimately decided to return to Paris, this time with his friend Edward Fitzgerald. Evidence suggests that at some point while in Paris, Thackeray contracted a venereal disease, which may or may not have been connected to his relationship with a woman twelve years his senior.

    By the age of nineteen, Thackeray still did not have independence from his mother. He was forced to ask for her permission in order to extend his educational journey abroad. When his mother agreed, Thackeray traveled to Germany, where he stayed at Weimar for six months and met Goethe, learned German, and began reading and translating poetry by Schiller. His stay in Germany was a successful one, as he gained some much-needed clarity about his future path. He returned to England in 1831, where he enrolled in law school at the Middle Temple. However, his passion for reading and the theater once again interfered with his ability to dedicate himself fully to his studies. After only a few months, Thackeray withdrew from law school and gave in to old temptations of drinking, gambling, and womanizing.

    Upon turning twenty-one, Thackeray finally came into his inheritance. With the considerable sum, he was able to pay off his multiple gambling debts and still had almost £20,000 remaining. Thackeray enjoyed the relative financial freedom that his inheritance afforded him, and became even less inclined to find a suitable career. Around this time, Thackeray made several questionable investments. He first purchased the National Standard in 1833, for which he wrote the majority of the newspaper’s articles. The publication went under after just ten months. Thackeray was plagued by further financial strain after the failure of two Indian banks that held his inheritance. He lost the bulk of his savings, and was left virtually penniless. Astoundingly, Thackeray considered his poverty to be a great privilege, and used the opportunity to pursue his interest in art. He began studying painting in Paris in 1833, only to decide after just a year that his talents would never earn him the fame he so desperately craved.

    Thackeray’s multiple failures left him feeling ashamed and depressed. He was soon saved from despair when he met Isabella Gethin Shawe, daughter of Colonel Matthew Shawe and his wife, Isabella Creagh. Thackeray was not an appropriate suitor by any means–his inability to hold a career combined with his penchant for gambling led to disapproval from Isabella’s mother. However, Thackeray took his role as Isabella’s potential husband very seriously, and was determined to go to any means necessary in order to earn her hand in marriage. In a desperate search for income, Thackeray published his first book, Flore et Zéphyr. Although the book failed financially, the timing of Thackeray’s return to writing was fortuitous. His stepfather became an underwriter for the political journal the Constitutional and Public Ledger in 1836, and Thackeray became the journal’s Paris correspondent. His modest income of 8 guineas a week enabled him to pursue Isabella in a more appropriate manner. The two were married on August 20, 1836.

    Together the couple had three daughters: Anne Isabella (1837-1919), Jane (who died when she was eight months old), and Harriet Marian (1840-1875). Isabella and Thackeray were, for the most part, content in their marriage, although Isabella’s mother became a constant source of stress. She never overcame her anger at losing her daughter to a man she perceived to be worthless. Correspondingly, Thackeray’s fiction would eventually feature a catalogue of horrid mothers-in-law (Shillingsburg)–characters that were unmistakably inspired by his wife’s mother.

    The Thackerays were soon afflicted by poverty when the Constitutional and Public Ledger failed. In order to alleviate financial pressure, Thackeray began writing for Fraser’s Magazine. Between 1837-1840 he wrote ninety pieces and published a book entitled The Paris Sketch Book (1840). The fast pace of Thackeray’s writing meant that he was unable to spend much time with his family, and Isabella became increasingly depressed. The loss of her second child had produced an overwhelming sense of worthlessness within her, which was only intensified by her husband’s absence. In 1840 Thackeray took Isabella to Ireland, hoping that the change of scenery would benefit her mental state. However, Isabella attempted suicide when she threw herself from a water closet and into the sea. She was ultimately rescued and sought professional help. When she finally came under the care of the reputable Dr Puzin in 1842, Isabella fell into a stable, detached condition, unaware of the world around her (Shillingsburg). She would never fully recover. Thackeray returned to London in 1842, leaving his children under the care of his mother for the next four years.

    Thackeray used this period of familial instability to focus on his writing career. Between 1840-1847, Thackeray published 286 magazine pieces and three books, all of which were published under pseudonyms (George Savage Fitzboodle, Michael Angelo Titmarsh, and Major Gahagan, to name a few). He also wrote a travel book entitled The Irish Sketch Book (1843) after spending five weeks in Ireland, which was publicly praised in the Dublin Review. His next project, The Book of Snobs, delighted readers and popularized the modern-day meaning of the word.

    In 1844 Thackeray began a serialization of his novel Barry Lyndon in Fraser’s Magazine. While the publication drew attention to Thackeray’s impressive growth as a writer in terms of both content and technique, the novel was in constant danger of being discontinued (Shillingsburg). Readers were often unable to discern the satiric overtones present within the work, and mistook the subtly teasing narrative voice for blatant egoism. Despite these minor criticisms and the fact that Fraser’s asked Thackeray to end the story after ten installments, Barry Lyndon was considered to be an impressive debut novel.

    Thackeray’s continual aspirations to become a famous novelist sparked his most well known work, Vanity Fair. The novel satirizes nineteenth-century British society through its portrayal of protagonists Becky Sharp and Amelia Sedley and their attachment to various self-obsessed and materialistic men. While many believed that Vanity Fair was simply a harsh denunciation of English society, the novel was an instant success among critics and readers alike. Originally serialized in 1847, Vanity Fair was the work that led to the Thackeray’s long-awaited fame. Tellingly, it was the first piece that featured the name William Makepeace Thackeray on its title page. Critics dubbed him the next Dickens, and publishers sought out his next novel commitment.

    While contributing regularly to Fraser’s Magazine and working for the magazine Punch, Thackeray’s third publisher, George Smith, offered him £1000 for his next book. Because Thackeray already had a novel deal with another publisher, he offered Smith a Christmas novel entitled The Kickleburys on the Rhine (1851). This period in Thackeray’s career was defined by financial as well as personal success, as he no longer had to live hand to mouth. Financial freedom provided Thackeray with the time to focus on his next three major novels: Pendennis (1850), The History of Henry Esmond (1852), and The Newcomes (1855). The History of Henry Esmond was especially successful, rivaling Vanity Fair in its popularity. The historical novel features both fictional and non-fictional characters in its exploration of Henry Esmond, a colonel in the service of Queen Anne of England. Thackeray later wrote a sequel to the novel entitled The Virginians: A Tale of the Last Century in 1859.

    In 1860 Thackeray took on his last major project when he became the editor of Cornhill Magazine. He ultimately discovered that he was much more comfortable as a columnist, however, and began contributing regular articles to the publication. His most famous submission included his Roundabout Papers in 1863.

    After a long battle with relatively minor health problems, Thackeray suffered a stroke and died on December 23, 1863 at the age of fifty-two. His death came as a shock to his family and his followers. Approximately 7000 guests–including friends, family, and readers of fiction–attended his funeral, held at Kensington Gardens in London. Thackeray was one of the most popular writers in the Victorian era, second only to Charles Dickens. The novel for which he is most famous, Vanity Fair, has been adapted for several film and television productions, and remains an integral part of worldwide university curricula.

    ERICA KNAPP

    2011.

    Before the Curtain

    As the manager of the Performance sits before the curtain on the boards and looks into the Fair, a feeling of profound melancholy comes over him in his survey of the bustling place. There is a great quantity of eating and drinking, making love and jilting, laughing and the contrary, smoking, cheating, fighting, dancing and fiddling; there are bullies pushing about, bucks ogling the women, knaves picking pockets, policemen on the look-out, quacks (other quacks, plague take them!) bawling in front of their booths, and yokels looking up at the tinselled dancers and poor old rouged tumblers, while the light-fingered folk are operating upon their pockets behind. Yes, this is VANITY FAIR; not a moral place certainly; nor a merry one, though very noisy. Look at the faces of the actors and buffoons when they come off from their business; and Tom Fool washing the paint off his cheeks before he sits down to dinner with his wife and the little Jack Puddings behind the canvas. The curtain will be up presently, and he will be turning over head and heels, and crying, How are you?

    A man with a reflective turn of mind, walking through an exhibition of this sort, will not be oppressed, I take it, by his own or other people’s hilarity. An episode of humour or kindness touches and amuses him here and there—a pretty child looking at a gingerbread stall; a pretty girl blushing whilst her lover talks to her and chooses her fairing; poor Tom Fool, yonder behind the waggon, mumbling his bone with the honest family which lives by his tumbling; but the general impression is one more melancholy than mirthful. When you come home you sit down in a sober, contemplative, not uncharitable frame of mind, and apply yourself to your books or your business.

    I have no other moral than this to tag to the present story of Vanity Fair. Some people consider Fairs immoral altogether, and eschew such, with their servants and families: very likely they are right. But persons who think otherwise, and are of a lazy, or a benevolent, or a sarcastic mood, may perhaps like to step in for half an hour, and look at the performances. There are scenes of all sorts; some dreadful combats, some grand and lofty horse-riding, some scenes of high life, and some of very middling indeed; some love-making for the sentimental, and some light comic business; the whole accompanied by appropriate scenery and brilliantly illuminated with the Author’s own candles.

    What more has the Manager of the Performance to say?—To acknowledge the kindness with which it has been received in all the principal towns of England through which the Show has passed, and where it has been most favourably noticed by the respected conductors of the public Press, and by the Nobility and Gentry. He is proud to think that his Puppets have given satisfaction to the very best company in this empire. The famous little Becky Puppet has been pronounced to be uncommonly flexible in the joints, and lively on the wire; the Amelia Doll, though it has had a smaller circle of admirers, has yet been carved and dressed with the greatest care by the artist; the Dobbin Figure, though apparently clumsy, yet dances in a very amusing and natural manner; the Little Boys’ Dance has been liked by some; and please to remark the richly dressed figure of the Wicked Nobleman, on which no expense has been spared, and which Old Nick will fetch away at the end of this singular performance.

    And with this, and a profound bow to his patrons, the Manager retires, and the curtain rises.

    LONDON, June 28, 1848.

    Chapter I.

    CHISWICK MALL

    While the present century was in its teens, and on one sunshiny morning in June, there drove up to the great iron gate of Miss Pinkerton’s academy for young ladies, on Chiswick Mall, a large family coach, with two fat horses in blazing harness, driven by a fat coachman in a three-cornered hat and wig, at the rate of four miles an hour. A black servant, who reposed on the box beside the fat coachman, uncurled his bandy legs as soon as the equipage drew up opposite Miss Pinkerton’s shining brass plate, and as he pulled the bell at least a score of young heads were seen peering out of the narrow windows of the stately old brick house. Nay, the acute observer might have recognized the little red nose of good-natured Miss Jemima Pinkerton herself, rising over some geranium pots in the window of that lady’s own drawing-room.

    It is Mrs. Sedley’s coach, sister, said Miss Jemima. Sambo, the black servant, has just rung the bell; and the coachman has a new red waistcoat.

    Have you completed all the necessary preparations incident to Miss Sedley’s departure, Miss Jemima? asked Miss Pinkerton herself, that majestic lady; the Semiramis of Hammersmith, the friend of Doctor Johnson, the correspondent of Mrs. Chapone herself.

    The girls were up at four this morning, packing her trunks, sister, replied Miss Jemima; we have made her a bow-pot.

    Say a bouquet, sister Jemima, ’tis more genteel.

    Well, a booky as big almost as a haystack; I have put up two bottles of the gillyflower water for Mrs. Sedley, and the receipt for making it, in Amelia’s box.

    And I trust, Miss Jemima, you have made a copy of Miss Sedley’s account. This is it, is it? Very good—ninety-three pounds, four shillings. Be kind enough to address it to John Sedley, Esquire, and to seal this billet which I have written to his lady.

    In Miss Jemima’s eyes an autograph letter of her sister, Miss Pinkerton, was an object of as deep veneration as would have been a letter from a sovereign. Only when her pupils quitted the establishment, or when they were about to be married, and once, when poor Miss Birch died of the scarlet fever, was Miss Pinkerton known to write personally to the parents of her pupils; and it was Jemima’s opinion that if anything could console Mrs. Birch for her daughter’s loss, it would be that pious and eloquent composition in which Miss Pinkerton announced the event.

    In the present instance Miss Pinkerton’s billet was to the following effect:—

    The Mall, Chiswick, June 15, 18—.

    MADAM,—After her six years’ residence at the Mall, I have the honour and happiness of presenting Miss Amelia Sedley to her parents, as a young lady not unworthy to occupy a fitting position in their polished and refined circle. Those virtues which characterize the young English gentlewoman, those accomplishments which become her birth and station, will not be found wanting in the amiable Miss Sedley, whose industry and obedience have endeared her to her instructors, and whose delightful sweetness of temper has charmed her aged and her youthful companions.

    In music, in dancing, in orthography, in every variety of embroidery and needlework, she will be found to have realized her friends’ fondest wishes. In geography there is still much to be desired; and a careful and undeviating use of the backboard, for four hours daily during the next three years, is recommended as necessary to the acquirement of that dignified deportment and carriage, so requisite for every young lady of fashion.

    In the principles of religion and morality, Miss Sedley will be found worthy of an establishment which has been honoured by the presence of The Great Lexicographer, and the patronage of the admirable Mrs. Chapone. In leaving the Mall, Miss Amelia carries with her the hearts of her companions, and the affectionate regards of her mistress, who has the honour to subscribe herself,

    Madam,

    Your most obliged humble servant,

    BARBARA PINKERTON.

    P.S.—Miss Sharp accompanies Miss Sedley. It is particularly requested that Miss Sharp’s stay in Russell Square may not exceed ten days. The family of distinction with whom she is engaged, desire to avail themselves of her services as soon as possible.

    This letter completed, Miss Pinkerton proceeded to write her own name, and Miss Sedley’s, in the fly-leaf of a Johnson’s Dictionary—the interesting work which she invariably presented to her scholars, on their departure from the Mall. On the cover was inserted a copy of Lines addressed to a young lady on quitting Miss Pinkerton’s school, at the Mall; by the late revered Doctor Samuel Johnson. In fact, the Lexicographer’s name was always on the lips of this majestic woman, and a visit he had paid to her was the cause of her reputation and her fortune.

    Being commanded by her elder sister to get the Dictionary from the cupboard, Miss Jemima had extracted two copies of the book from the receptacle in question. When Miss Pinkerton had finished the inscription in the first, Jemima, with rather a dubious and timid air, handed her the second.

    For whom is this, Miss Jemima? said Miss Pinkerton, with awful coldness.

    For Becky Sharp, answered Jemima, trembling very much, and blushing over her withered face and neck, as she turned her back on her sister. For Becky Sharp: she’s going too.

    MISS JEMINA! exclaimed Miss Pinkerton, in the largest capitals. Are you in your senses? Replace the Dixonary in the closet, and never venture to take such a liberty in future.

    Well, sister, it’s only two-and-ninepence, and poor Becky will be miserable if she don’t get one.

    Send Miss Sedley instantly to me, said Miss Pinkerton. And so venturing not to say another word, poor Jemima trotted off, exceedingly flurried and nervous.

    Miss Sedley’s papa was a merchant in London, and a man of some wealth; whereas Miss Sharp was an articled pupil, for whom Miss Pinkerton had done, as she thought, quite enough, without conferring upon her at parting the high honour of the Dixonary.

    Although schoolmistresses’ letters are to be trusted no more nor less than churchyard epitaphs; yet, as it sometimes happens that a person departs this life who is really deserving of all the praises the stone cutter carves over his bones; who is a good Christian, a good parent, child, wife, or husband; who actually does leave a disconsolate family to mourn his loss; so in academies of the male and female sex it occurs every now and then that the pupil is fully worthy of the praises bestowed by the disinterested instructor. Now, Miss Amelia Sedley was a young lady of this singular species; and deserved not only all that Miss Pinkerton said in her praise, but had many charming qualities which that pompous old Minerva of a woman could not see, from the differences of rank and age between her pupil and herself.

    For she could not only sing like a lark, or a Mrs. Billington, and dance like Hillisberg or Parisot; and embroider beautifully; and spell as well as a Dixonary itself; but she had such a kindly, smiling, tender, gentle, generous heart of her own, as won the love of everybody who came near her, from Minerva herself down to the poor girl in the scullery, and the one-eyed tart-woman’s daughter, who was permitted to vend her wares once a week to the young ladies in the Mall. She had twelve intimate and bosom friends out of the twenty-four young ladies. Even envious Miss Briggs never spoke ill of her; high and mighty Miss Saltire (Lord Dexter’s granddaughter) allowed that her figure was genteel; and as for Miss Swartz, the rich woolly-haired mulatto from St. Kitts, on the day Amelia went away, she was in such a passion of tears that they were obliged to send for Dr. Floss, and half tipsify her with sal volatile. Miss Pinkerton’s attachment was, as may be supposed from the high position and eminent virtues of that lady, calm and dignified; but Miss Jemima had already whimpered several times at the idea of Amelia’s departure; and, but for fear of her sister, would have gone off in downright hysterics, like the heiress (who paid double) of St. Kitt’s. Such luxury of grief, however, is only allowed to parlour-boarders. Honest Jemima had all the bills, and the washing, and the mending, and the puddings, and the plate and crockery, and the servants to superintend. But why speak about her? It is probable that we shall not hear of her again from this moment to the end of time, and that when the great filigree iron gates are once closed on her, she and her awful sister will never issue therefrom into this little world of history.

    But as we are to see a great deal of Amelia, there is no harm in saying, at the outset of our acquaintance, that she was a dear little creature; and a great mercy it is, both in life and in novels, which (and the latter especially) abound in villains of the most sombre sort, that we are to have for a constant companion so guileless and good-natured a person. As she is not a heroine, there is no need to describe her person; indeed I am afraid that her nose was rather short than otherwise, and her cheeks a great deal too round and red for a heroine; but her face blushed with rosy health, and her lips with the freshest of smiles, and she had a pair of eyes which sparkled with the brightest and honestest good-humour, except indeed when they filled with tears, and that was a great deal too often; for the silly thing would cry over a dead canary-bird; or over a mouse, that the cat haply had seized upon; or over the end of a novel, were it ever so stupid; and as for saying an unkind word to her, were any persons hard-hearted enough to do so—why, so much the worse for them. Even Miss Pinkerton, that austere and godlike woman, ceased scolding her after the first time, and though she no more comprehended sensibility than she did Algebra, gave all masters and teachers particular orders to treat Miss Sedley with the utmost gentleness, as harsh treatment was injurious to her.

    So that when the day of departure came, between her two customs of laughing and crying, Miss Sedley was greatly puzzled how to act. She was glad to go home, and yet most woefully sad at leaving school. For three days before, little Laura Martin, the orphan, followed her about like a little dog. She had to make and receive at least fourteen presents—to make fourteen solemn promises of writing every week: Send my letters under cover to my grandpapa, the Earl of Dexter, said Miss Saltire (who, by the way, was rather shabby). Never mind the postage, but write every day, you dear darling, said the impetuous and woolly-headed, but generous and affectionate Miss Swartz; and the orphan little Laura Martin (who was just in round-hand), took her friend’s hand and said, looking up in her face wistfully, Amelia, when I write to you I shall call you Mamma. All which details, I have no doubt, Jones, who reads this book at his Club, will pronounce to be excessively foolish, trivial, twaddling, and ultra-sentimental. Yes; I can see Jones at this minute (rather flushed with his joint of mutton and half pint of wine), taking out his pencil and scoring under the words foolish, twaddling, etc., and adding to them his own remark of "quite true." Well, he is a lofty man of genius, and admires the great and heroic in life and novels; and so had better take warning and go elsewhere.

    Well, then. The flowers, and the presents, and the trunks, and bonnet-boxes of Miss Sedley having been arranged by Mr. Sambo in the carriage, together with a very small and weather-beaten old cow’s-skin trunk with Miss Sharp’s card neatly nailed upon it, which was delivered by Sambo with a grin, and packed by the coachman with a corresponding sneer—the hour for parting came; and the grief of that moment was considerably lessened by the admirable discourse which Miss Pinkerton addressed to her pupil. Not that the parting speech caused Amelia to philosophize, or that it armed her in any way with a calmness, the result of argument; but it was intolerably dull, pompous, and tedious; and having the fear of her schoolmistress greatly before her eyes, Miss Sedley did not venture, in her presence, to give way to any ebullitions of private grief. A seed-cake and a bottle of wine were produced in the drawing-room, as on the solemn occasions of the visits of parents, and these refreshments being partaken of, Miss Sedley was at liberty to depart.

    You’ll go in and say good-by to Miss Pinkerton, Becky! said Miss Jemima to a young lady of whom nobody took any notice, and who was coming downstairs with her own bandbox.

    I suppose I must, said Miss Sharp calmly, and much to the wonder of Miss Jemima; and the latter having knocked at the door, and receiving permission to come in, Miss Sharp advanced in a very unconcerned manner, and said in French, and with a perfect accent, Mademoiselle, je viens vous faire mes adieux.

    Miss Pinkerton did not understand French; she only directed those who did: but biting her lips and throwing up her venerable and Roman-nosed head (on the top of which figured a large and solemn turban), she said, Miss Sharp, I wish you a good morning. As the Hammersmith Semiramis spoke, she waved one hand, both by way of adieu, and to give Miss Sharp an opportunity of shaking one of the fingers of the hand which was left out for that purpose.

    Miss Sharp only folded her own hands with a very frigid smile and bow, and quite declined to accept the proffered honour; on which Semiramis tossed up her turban more indignantly than ever. In fact, it was a little battle between the young lady and the old one, and the latter was worsted. Heaven bless you, my child, said she, embracing Amelia, and scowling the while over the girl’s shoulder at Miss Sharp. Come away, Becky, said Miss Jemima, pulling the young woman away in great alarm, and the drawing-room door closed upon them for ever.

    Then came the struggle and parting below. Words refuse to tell it. All the servants were there in the hall—all the dear friend—all the young ladies—the dancing-master who had just arrived; and there was such a scuffling, and hugging, and kissing, and crying, with the hysterical yoops of Miss Swartz, the parlour-boarder, from her room, as no pen can depict, and as the tender heart would fain pass over. The embracing was over; they parted—that is, Miss Sedley parted from her friends. Miss Sharp had demurely entered the carriage some minutes before. Nobody cried for leaving her.

    Sambo of the bandy legs slammed the carriage door on his young weeping mistress. He sprang up behind the carriage. Stop! cried Miss Jemima, rushing to the gate with a parcel.

    It’s some sandwiches, my dear, said she to Amelia. You may be hungry, you know; and Becky, Becky Sharp, here’s a book for you that my sister—that is, I—Johnson’s Dixonary, you know; you mustn’t leave us without that. Good-by. Drive on, coachman. God bless you!

    And the kind creature retreated into the garden, overcome with emotion.

    But, lo! and just as the coach drove off, Miss Sharp put her pale face out of the window and actually flung the book back into the garden.

    This almost caused Jemima to faint with terror. Well, I never—said she—what an audacious—Emotion prevented her from completing either sentence. The carriage rolled away; the great gates were closed; the bell rang for the dancing lesson. The world is before the two young ladies; and so, farewell to Chiswick Mall.

    Chapter II.

    IN WHICH MISS SHARP AND MISS SEDLEY PREPARE TO OPEN THE CAMPAIGN

    When Miss Sharp had performed the heroical act mentioned in the last chapter, and had seen the Dixonary, flying over the pavement of the little garden, fall at length at the feet of the astonished Miss Jemima, the young lady’s countenance, which had before worn an almost livid look of hatred, assumed a smile that perhaps was scarcely more agreeable, and she sank back in the carriage in an easy frame of mind, saying—So much for the Dixonary; and, thank God, I’m out of Chiswick.

    Miss Sedley was almost as flurried at the act of defiance as Miss Jemima had been; for, consider, it was but one minute that she had left school, and the impressions of six years are not got over in that space of time. Nay, with some persons those awes and terrors of youth last for ever and ever. I know, for instance, an old gentleman of sixty-eight, who said to me one morning at breakfast, with a very agitated countenance, I dreamed last night that I was flogged by Dr. Raine. Fancy had carried him back five-and-fifty years in the course of that evening. Dr. Raine and his rod were just as awful to him in his heart, then, at sixty-eight, as they had been at thirteen. If the Doctor, with a large birch, had appeared bodily to him, even at the age of threescore and eight, and had said in awful voice, Boy, take down your pant—? Well, well, Miss Sedley was exceedingly alarmed at this act of insubordination.

    How could you do so, Rebecca? at last she said, after a pause.

    Why, do you think Miss Pinkerton will come out and order me back to the black-hole? said Rebecca, laughing.

    No: but—

    I hate the whole house, continued Miss Sharp in a fury. I hope I may never set eyes on it again. I wish it were in the bottom of the Thames, I do; and if Miss Pinkerton were there, I wouldn’t pick her out, that I wouldn’t. Oh how I should like to see her floating in the water yonder, turban and all, with her train streaming after her, and her nose like the beak of a wherry.

    Hush! cried Miss Sedley.

    Why, will the black footman tell tales? cried Miss Rebecca, laughing. "He may go back and tell Miss Pinkerton that I hate her with all my soul; and I wish he would; and I wish I had a means of proving it, too. For two years I have only had insults and outrage from her. I have been treated worse than any servant in the kitchen. I have never had a friend or a kind word, except from you. I have been made to tend the little girls in the lower schoolroom, and to talk French to the Misses, until I grew sick of my mother tongue. But that talking French to Miss Pinkerton was capital fun, wasn’t it? She doesn’t know a word of French, and was too proud to confess it. I believe it was that which made her part with me; and so thank Heaven for French. Vive la France! Vive l’Empereur! Vive Bonaparte!"

    Oh Rebecca, Rebecca, for shame! cried Miss Sedley; for this was the greatest blasphemy Rebecca had as yet uttered; and in those days, in England, to say, Long live Bonaparte! was as much as to say, Long live Lucifer! How can you—how dare you have such wicked, revengeful thoughts?

    Revenge may be wicked, but it’s natural, answered Miss Rebecca. I’m no angel. And, to say the truth, she certainly was not.

    For it may be remarked in the course of this little conversation (which took place as the coach rolled along lazily by the river side) that though Miss Rebecca Sharp has twice had occasion to thank Heaven, it has been, in the first place, for ridding her of some person whom she hated, and secondly, for enabling her to bring her enemies to some sort of perplexity or confusion; neither of which are very amiable motives for religious gratitude, or such as would be put forward by persons of a kind and placable disposition. Miss Rebecca was not, then, in the least kind or placable. All the world used her ill, said this young misanthropist, and we may be pretty certain that persons whom all the world treats ill, deserve entirely the treatment they get. The world is a looking-glass, and gives back to every man the reflection of his own face. Frown at it, and it will in turn look sourly upon you; laugh at it and with it, and it is a jolly kind companion; and so let all young persons take their choice. This is certain, that if the world neglected Miss Sharp, she never was known to have done a good action in behalf of anybody; nor can it be expected that twenty-four young ladies should all be as amiable as the heroine of this work, Miss Sedley (whom we have selected for the very reason that she was the best-natured of all, otherwise what on earth was to have prevented us from putting up Miss Swartz, or Miss Crump, or Miss Hopkins, as heroine in her place!) it could not be expected that every one should be of the humble and gentle temper of Miss Amelia Sedley; should take every opportunity to vanquish Rebecca’s hard-heartedness and ill-humour; and, by a thousand kind words and offices, overcome, for once at least, her hostility to her kind.

    Miss Sharp’s father was an artist, and in that quality had given lessons of drawing at Miss Pinkerton’s school. He was a clever man; a pleasant companion; a careless student; with a great propensity for running into debt, and a partiality for the tavern. When he was drunk, he used to beat his wife and daughter; and the next morning, with a headache, he would rail at the world for its neglect of his genius, and abuse, with a good deal of cleverness, and sometimes with perfect reason, the fools, his brother painters. As it was with the utmost difficulty that he could keep himself, and as he owed money for a mile round Soho, where he lived, he thought to better his circumstances by marrying a young woman of the French nation, who was by profession an opera-girl. The humble calling of her female parent Miss Sharp never alluded to, but used to state subsequently that the Entrechats were a noble family of Gascony, and took great pride in her descent from them. And curious it is that as she advanced in life this young lady’s ancestors increased in rank and splendour.

    Rebecca’s mother had had some education somewhere, and her daughter spoke French with purity and a Parisian accent. It was in those days rather a rare accomplishment, and led to her engagement with the orthodox Miss Pinkerton. For her mother being dead, her father, finding himself not likely to recover, after his third attack of delirium tremens, wrote a manly and pathetic letter to Miss Pinkerton, recommending the orphan child to her protection, and so descended to the grave, after two bailiffs had quarrelled over his corpse. Rebecca was seventeen when she came to Chiswick, and was bound over as an articled pupil; her duties being to talk French, as we have seen; and her privileges to live cost free, and, with a few guineas a year, to gather scraps of knowledge from the professors who attended the school.

    She was small and slight in person; pale, sandy-haired, and with eyes habitually cast down: when they looked up they were very large, odd, and attractive; so attractive that the Reverend Mr. Crisp, fresh from Oxford, and curate to the Vicar of Chiswick, the Reverend Mr. Flowerdew, fell in love with Miss Sharp; being shot dead by a glance of her eyes which was fired all the way across Chiswick Church from the school-pew to the reading-desk. This infatuated young man used sometimes to take tea with Miss Pinkerton, to whom he had been presented by his mamma, and actually proposed something like marriage in an intercepted note, which the one-eyed apple-woman was charged to deliver. Mrs. Crisp was summoned from Buxton, and abruptly carried off her darling boy; but the idea, even, of such an eagle in the Chiswick dovecot caused a great flutter in the breast of Miss Pinkerton, who would have sent away Miss Sharp but that she was bound to her under a forfeit, and who never could thoroughly believe the young lady’s protestations that she had never exchanged a single word with Mr. Crisp, except under her own eyes on the two occasions when she had met him at tea.

    By the side of many tall and bouncing young ladies in the establishment, Rebecca Sharp looked like a child. But she had the dismal precocity of poverty. Many a dun had she talked to, and turned away from her father’s door; many a tradesman had she coaxed and wheedled into good-humour, and into the granting of one meal more. She sate commonly with her father, who was very proud of her wit, and heard the talk of many of his wild companions—often but ill-suited for a girl to hear. But she never had been a girl, she said; she had been a woman since she was eight years old. Oh, why did Miss Pinkerton let such a dangerous bird into her cage?

    The fact is, the old lady believed Rebecca to be the meekest creature in the world, so admirably, on the occasions when her father brought her to Chiswick, used Rebecca to perform the part of the ingénue; and only a year before the arrangement by which Rebecca had been admitted into her house, and when Rebecca was sixteen years old, Miss Pinkerton majestically, and with a little speech, made her a present of a doll—which was, by the way, the confiscated property of Miss Swindle, discovered surreptitiously nursing it in school-hours. How the father and daughter laughed as they trudged home together after the evening party (it was on the occasion of the speeches, when all the professors were invited) and how Miss Pinkerton would have raged had she seen the caricature of herself which the little mimic, Rebecca, managed to make out of her doll. Becky used to go through dialogues with it; it formed the delight of Newman Street, Gerrard Street, and the Artists’ quarter: and the young painters, when they came to take their gin-and-water with their lazy, dissolute, clever, jovial senior, used regularly to ask Rebecca if Miss Pinkerton was at home: she was as well known to them, poor soul! as Mr. Lawrence or President West. Once Rebecca had the honour to pass a few days at Chiswick; after which she brought back Jemima, and erected another doll as Miss Jemmy: for though that honest creature had made and given her jelly and cake enough for three children, and a seven-shilling piece at parting, the girl’s sense of ridicule was far stronger than her gratitude, and she sacrificed Miss Jemmy quite as pitilessly as her sister.

    The catastrophe came, and she was brought to the Mall as to her home. The rigid formality of the place suffocated her: the prayers and the meals, the lessons and the walks, which were arranged with a conventional regularity, oppressed her almost beyond endurance; and she looked back to the freedom and the beggary of the old studio in Soho with so much regret, that everybody, herself included, fancied she was consumed with grief for her father. She had a little room in the garret, where the maids heard her walking and sobbing at night; but it was with rage, and not with grief. She had not been much of a dissembler, until now her loneliness taught her to feign. She had never mingled in the society of women: her father, reprobate as he was, was a man of talent; his conversation was a thousand times more agreeable to her than the talk of such of her own sex as she now encountered. The pompous vanity of the old schoolmistress, the foolish good-humour of her sister, the silly chat and scandal of the elder girls, and the frigid correctness of the governesses equally annoyed her; and she had no soft maternal heart, this unlucky girl, otherwise the prattle and talk of the younger children, with whose care she was chiefly intrusted, might have soothed and interested her; but she lived among them two years, and not one was sorry that she went away. The gentle tender-hearted Amelia Sedley was the only person to whom she could attach herself in the least; and who could help attaching herself to Amelia?

    The happiness the superior advantages of the young women round about her, gave Rebecca inexpressible pangs of envy. What airs that girl gives herself, because she is an Earl’s grand-daughter, she said of one. How they cringe and bow to that Creole, because of her hundred thousand pounds! I am a thousand times cleverer and more charming than that creature, for all her wealth. I am as well bred as the Earl’s grand-daughter, for all her fine pedigree; and yet every one passes me by here. And yet, when I was at my father’s, did not the men give up their gayest balls and parties in order to pass the evening with me? She determined at any rate to get free from the prison in which she found herself, and now began to act for herself, and for the first time to make connected plans for the future.

    She took advantage, therefore, of the means of study the place offered her; and as she was already a musician and a good linguist, she speedily went through the little course of study which was considered necessary for ladies in those days. Her music she practised incessantly, and one day, when the girls were out, and she had remained at home, she was overheard to play a piece so well that Minerva thought, wisely, she could spare herself the expense of a master for the juniors, and intimated to Miss Sharp that she was to instruct them in music for the future.

    The girl refused; and for the first time, and to the astonishment of the majestic mistress of the school. I am here to speak French with the children, Rebecca said abruptly, not to teach them music, and save money for you. Give me money, and I will teach them.

    Minerva was obliged to yield, and, of course, disliked her from that day. For five-and-thirty years, she said, and with great justice, I never have seen the individual who has dared in my own house to question my authority. I have nourished a viper in my bosom.

    A viper—a fiddlestick, said Miss Sharp to the old lady, almost fainting with astonishment. You took me because I was useful. There is no question of gratitude between us. I hate this place, and want to leave it. I will do nothing here but what I am obliged to do.

    It was in vain that the old lady asked her if she was aware she was speaking to Miss Pinkerton? Rebecca laughed in her face, with a horrid sarcastic demoniacal laughter, that almost sent the schoolmistress into fits. Give me a sum of money, said the girl, and get rid of me—or, if you like better, get me a good place as governess in a nobleman’s family—you can do so if you please. And in their further disputes she always returned to this point, Get me a situation—we hate each other, and I am ready to go.

    Worthy Miss Pinkerton, although she had a Roman nose and a turban, and was as tall as a grenadier, and had been up to this time an irresistible princess, had no will or strength like that of her little apprentice, and in vain did battle against her, and tried to overawe her. Attempting once to scold her in public, Rebecca hit upon the before-mentioned plan of answering her in French, which quite routed the old woman. In order to maintain authority in her school, it became necessary to remove this rebel, this monster, this serpent, this firebrand; and hearing about this time that Sir Pitt Crawley’s family was in want of a governess, she actually recommended Miss Sharp for the situation, firebrand and serpent as she was. I cannot, certainly, she said, find fault with Miss Sharp’s conduct, except to myself; and must allow that her talents and accomplishments are of a high order. As far as the head goes, at least, she does credit to the educational system pursued at my establishment.

    And so the schoolmistress reconciled the recommendation to her conscience, and the indentures were cancelled, and the apprentice was free. The battle here described in a few lines, of course, lasted for some months. And as Miss Sedley, being now in her seventeenth year, was about to leave school, and had a friendship for Miss Sharp (’tis the only point in Amelia’s behaviour, said Minerva, which has not been satisfactory to her mistress), Miss Sharp was invited by her friend to pass a week with her at home, before she entered upon her duties as governess in a private family.

    Thus the world began for these two young ladies. For Amelia it was quite a new, fresh, brilliant world, with all the bloom upon it. It was not quite a new one for Rebecca—(indeed, if the truth must be told with respect to the Crisp affair, the tart-woman hinted to somebody, who took an affidavit of the fact to somebody else, that there was a great deal more than was made public regarding Mr. Crisp and Miss Sharp, and that his letter was in answer to another letter). But who can tell you the real truth of the matter? At all events, if Rebecca was not beginning the world, she was beginning it over again.

    By the time the young ladies reached Kensington turnpike, Amelia had not forgotten her companions, but had dried her tears, and had blushed very much and been delighted at a young officer of the Life Guards, who spied her as he was riding by, and said, A dem fine gal, egad! and before the carriage arrived in Russell Square, a great deal of conversation had taken place about the Drawing-room, and whether or not young ladies wore powder as well as hoops when presented, and whether she was to have that honour: to the Lord Mayor’s ball she knew she was to go. And when at length home was reached, Miss Amelia Sedley skipped out on Sambo’s arm, as happy and as handsome a girl as any in the whole big city of London. Both he and coachman agreed on this point, and so did her father and mother, and so did every one of the servants in the house, as they stood bobbing, and curtseying, and smiling, in the hall to welcome their young mistress.

    You may be sure that she showed Rebecca over every room of the house, and everything in every one of her drawers; and her books, and her piano, and her dresses, and all her necklaces, brooches, laces, and gimcracks. She insisted upon Rebecca accepting the white cornelian and the turquoise rings, and a sweet sprigged muslin, which was too small for her now, though it would fit her friend to a nicety; and she determined in her heart to ask her mother’s permission to present her white Cashmere shawl to her friend. Could she not spare it? and had not her brother Joseph just brought her two from India?

    When Rebecca saw the two magnificent Cashmere shawls which Joseph Sedley had brought home to his sister, she said, with perfect truth, that it must be delightful to have a brother, and easily got the pity of the tender-hearted Amelia for being alone in the world, an orphan without friends or kindred.

    Not alone, said Amelia; you know, Rebecca, I shall always be your friend, and love you as a sister—indeed I will.

    Ah, but to have parents, as you have—kind, rich, affectionate parents, who give you everything you ask for; and their love, which is more precious than all! My poor papa could give me nothing, and I had but two frocks in all the world! And then, to have a brother, a dear brother! Oh, how you must love him!

    Amelia laughed.

    "What! don’t you love him? you, who say you love everybody?"

    Yes, of course, I do—only—

    Only what?

    Only Joseph doesn’t seem to care much whether I love him or not. He gave me two fingers to shake when he arrived after ten years’ absence! He is very kind and good, but he scarcely ever speaks to me; I think he loves his pipe a great deal better than his—but here Amelia checked herself, for why should she speak ill of her brother? He was very kind to me as a child, she added; I was but five years old when he went away.

    Isn’t he very rich? said Rebecca. They say all Indian nabobs are enormously rich.

    I believe he has a very large income.

    And is your sister-in-law a nice pretty woman?

    La! Joseph is not married, said Amelia, laughing again.

    Perhaps she had mentioned the fact already to Rebecca, but that young lady did not appear to have remembered it; indeed, vowed and protested that she expected to see a number of Amelia’s nephews and nieces. She was quite disappointed that Mr. Sedley was not married; she was sure Amelia had said he was, and she doted so on little children.

    I think you must have had enough of them at Chiswick, said Amelia, rather wondering at the sudden tenderness on her friend’s part; and indeed in later days Miss Sharp would never have committed herself so far as to advance opinions, the untruth of which would have been so easily detected. But we must remember that she is but nineteen as yet, unused to the art of deceiving, poor innocent creature! and making her own experience in her own person. The meaning of the above series of queries, as translated in the heart of this ingenious young woman, was simply this: If Mr. Joseph Sedley is rich and unmarried, why should I not marry him? I have only a fortnight, to be sure, but there is no harm in trying. And she determined within herself to make this laudable attempt. She redoubled her caresses to Amelia; she kissed the white cornelian necklace as she put it on; and vowed she would never, never part with it. When the dinner-bell rang she went downstairs with her arm round her friend’s waist, as is the habit of young ladies. She was so agitated at the drawing-room door, that she could hardly find courage to enter. Feel my heart, how it beats, dear! said she to her friend.

    No, it doesn’t, said Amelia. Come in, don’t be frightened. Papa won’t do you any harm.

    Chapter III.

    REBECCA IS IN PRESENCE OF THE ENEMY

    A very stout, puffy man, in buckskins and Hessian boots, with several immense neckcloths that rose almost to his nose, with a red striped waistcoat and an apple green coat with steel buttons almost as large as crown pieces (it was the morning costume of a dandy or blood of those days) was reading the paper by the fire when the two girls entered, and bounced off his arm-chair, and blushed excessively, and hid his entire face almost in his neckcloths at this apparition.

    It’s only your sister, Joseph, said Amelia, laughing and shaking the two fingers which he held out. "I’ve come home for good, you know; and this is my friend, Miss Sharp, whom you have heard me mention."

    No, never, upon my word, said the head under the neckcloth, shaking very much—that is, yes—what abominably cold weather, Miss—and herewith he fell to poking the fire with all his might, although it was in the middle of June.

    He’s very handsome, whispered Rebecca to Amelia, rather loud.

    Do you think so? said the latter. I’ll tell him.

    Darling! not for worlds, said Miss Sharp, starting back as timid as a fawn. She had previously made a respectful virgin-like curtsey to the gentleman, and her modest eyes gazed so perseveringly on the carpet that it was a wonder how she should have found an opportunity to see him.

    Thank you for the beautiful shawls, brother, said Amelia to the fire poker. Are they not beautiful, Rebecca?

    Oh, heavenly! said Miss Sharp, and her eyes went from the carpet straight to the chandelier.

    Joseph still continued a huge clattering at the poker and tongs, puffing and blowing the while, and turning as red as his yellow face would allow him. I can’t make you such handsome presents, Joseph, continued his sister, but while I was at school, I have embroidered for you a very beautiful pair of braces.

    Good Gad! Amelia, cried the brother, in serious alarm, what do you mean? and plunging with all his might at the bell-rope, that article of furniture came away in his hand, and increased the honest fellow’s confusion. "For heaven’s sake see if my buggy’s at the door. I can’t wait. I must go. D—that groom of mine. I must go."

    At this minute the father of the family walked in, rattling his seals like a true British merchant. What’s the matter, Emmy? says he.

    Joseph wants me to see if his—his buggy is at the door. What is a buggy, Papa?

    It is a one-horse palanquin, said the old gentleman, who was a wag in his way.

    Joseph at this burst out into a wild fit of laughter; in which, encountering the eye of Miss Sharp, he stopped all of a sudden, as if he had been shot.

    This young lady is your friend? Miss Sharp, I am very happy to see you. Have you and Emmy been quarrelling already with Joseph, that he wants to be off?

    I promised Bonamy of our service, sir, said Joseph, to dine with him.

    Oh fie! didn’t you tell your mother you would dine here?

    But in this dress it’s impossible.

    Look at him, isn’t he handsome enough to dine anywhere, Miss Sharp?

    On which, of course, Miss Sharp looked at her friend, and they both set off in a fit of laughter, highly agreeable to the old gentleman.

    Did you ever see a pair of buckskins like those at Miss Pinkerton’s? continued he, following up his advantage.

    Gracious heavens! Father, cried Joseph.

    There now, I have hurt his feelings. Mrs. Sedley, my dear, I have hurt your son’s feelings. I have alluded to his buckskins. Ask Miss Sharp if I haven’t? Come, Joseph, be friends with Miss Sharp, and let us all go to dinner.

    "There’s a pillau, Joseph, just

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