trees. Do you call that nothing?' He pronounced avenue, evenue, and nothing, nothink, so droll; and he had a Mr. Hodson, his hind from Mudbury, into the carriage with him, and they talked about distraining, and selling up, and draining and subsoiling, and a great deal about tenants and farming-much more than I could understand. Sain Miles had been caught poaching, and Peter Bailey had gone to the workhouse at last. Serve him right,' said Sir Pitt; him and his family has been cheating me on that farm these hundred and fifty years.' Some old tenant, I suppose, who could not pay his rent. Sir Pitt might have said, he and his family' to be sure; but rich baronets do not need to be careful about grammar, as poor governesses must

be.

"As we passed, I remarked a beautiful church-spire rising above some old elms in the park; and before them, in the midst of a lawn, and some outhouses, an old red house with tall chimneys covered with ivy, and the windows shining in the sun. Is that your church, sir?' I said.

"Yes, hang it,' said Sir Pitt (only he used, dear, a much wickeder word); 'how's Buty, Hodson? Buty's my brother Bute, my dear-my brother the parson. Buty and the Beast I call him, ha, ha!' 'Hodson laughed too, and then looking more grave and nodding his head, said, 'I'm afraid he's better, Sir Pitt. He was out on his pony yesterday, looking at our corn.'

44

44 4

Looking after his tithes, hang'un ' (only he used the same wicked word). 'Will brandy and water never kill him? He's as tough as old whatdyecallum-old Methusalem.'

"Mr. Hodson laughed again. The young men is home from college. They've whopped John Scroggins till he's well nigh dead.'

Whop my second keeper!' roared out Sir Pitt.

'He was on the parson's ground, sir,' replied Mr. Hodson; and Sir Pitt in a fury swore that if he ever caught 'em poaching on his ground, he'd transport 'em, by the lord he would. However, he said, I've sold the presentation of the living, Hodson; none of that breed shall get it, I war'nt;' and Mr. Hodson said he was quite right; and I have no doubt from this that the two brothers are at variance-as brothers often are, and sisters too. Don't you remember the two Miss Scratchleys at Chiswick, how they used always to fight and quarrel-and Mary Box, how she was always thuinping Louisa?

Presently, seeing two little boys gathering sticks in the wood, Mr. Hodson jumped out of the carriage, at Sir Pitt's order, and rushed upon them with his whip. O Pitch into 'em, Hodson,' roared the baronet ; 'flog their little souls out, and bring 'em up to the house, the vagabonds; I'll commit 'em as sure as my name's Pitt.' And presently we heard Mr. Hodson's whip cracking on the shoulders of the poor little blubbering wretches, and Sir Pitt, seeing that the malefactors were in custody, drove on to the hall.

"All the servants were ready to meet us, and

"Here, my dear, I was interrupted last night by a dreadful thumping at my door; and who do you think it was? Sir Pitt Crawley in his night-cap and dressing-gown--such a figure! As I shrank away from such a visitor, he came forward and seized my candle. No candles after eleven o'clock, Miss Becky,' said he. 'Go to bed in the dark, you pretty little hussy' (that is what he called me), and unless you wish me to come for the candle every night, mind and be in bed at eleven.' And with this, he and Mr. Horrocks the butler went off laughing. You may be sure I shall not encourage any more of their visits. They let loose two immense blood-hounds at night, which all last night were yelling and howling at the moon. I call the dog Gorer,' said Sir Pitt; he's killed a man that dog has, and is master of a bull, and the mother I used to call Flora; but now I calls her Aroarer, for she's too old to bite. Haw, haw!'

44

Before the house of Queen's Crawley, which is an odious old-fashioned red-brick mansion, with tall chimneys and gables of the style of Queen Bess, there is a terrace flanked by the family dove and serpent, and on which the great hall-door opens. And oh, my dear, the great hall I am sure is as big and as glum as the great hall in the dear castle of Udolpho. It has a large fireplace, in which we might put half Miss Pinkerton's school, and the grate is big enough to roast an ox at the very least. Round the room hang I don't know how many generations of Crawleys, some with beards and ruffs, some with huge wigs and toes turned out, some dressed in long straight stays and gowns that look as stiff as towers, and some with long ringlets, and oh, my dear! scarcely any stays at all. At one end of the hall is the great staircase all in black oak, as dismal as may be, and on either side are tall doors with stags' heads over them, leading to the billiard-room and the library, and the great yellow saloon and the morning-rooms. I think there are at least twenty bedrooms on the first floor; one of them has the bed in which Queen Elizabeth slept; and I have been taken by my new pupils through all these fine apartments this morning. They are not rendered less gloomy, I promise you, by having the shutters always shut; and there is scarce one of the apartments, but when the light was let into it, I expected to see a ghost in the room. We have a school-room on the second floor, with my bedroom leading into it on one side, and that of the young ladies on the other. Then there are Mr. Pitt's apartments-Mr. Crawley, he is called—the eldest son, and Mr. Rawdon Crawley's rooms-he is an officer like somebody, and away with his regiment. There is no want of room I assure you. You might lodge all the people in Russell Square in the house, I think, and have space to spare.

Half an hour after our arrival the great dinner-bell was rung, and I came down with my two pupils (they are very thin, insignificant little chits of ten and eight years old). I came down in your dear muslin gown (about which that odious Mrs. Pinner was so rude, because you gave it me); for I am to be treated as one of the family, except on company days, when the young ladies and I are to dine up-stairs.

"Well, the great dinner-bell rang, and we all assembled in the little drawing-room where my Lady Crawley sits. She is the second Lady Crawley, and mother of the young ladies. She was an ironmonger's daughter, and her marriage was thought a great match. She looks as if she had been handsome once, and her eyes are always weeping for the loss of her beauty. She is pale and meagre and high-shouldered, and has not a word to say for herself, evidently. Her step-son, Mr. Crawley, was likewise in the room. He was in full dress, as pompous as an undertaker. He is pale, thin, ugly, silent; he has thin legs, no chest, hay-colored whiskers, and straw-colored hair. He is the very picture of his sainted mother over the mantelpiece-Griselda of the noble house of Binkie.

44 4

This is the new governess, Mr. Crawley,' said Lady Crawley, coming forward and taking my hand. 'Miss Sharp.'

"Oh!' said Mr. Crawley, and pushed his head once forward, and began again to read a great pamphlet with which he was busy.

***I hope you will be kind to my girls,' said Lady Crawley, with her pink eyes always full of tears. 'Law, ma, of course she will,' said the eldest; and I saw at a glance that I need not be afraid of that

woman.

My lady is served,' says the butler in black, in an immense white shirt-frill, that looked as if it had been one of the Queen Elizabeth's ruffs depicted in the hall; and so, taking Mr. Crawley's arm, she led the way to the dining-room, whither I followed with

my little pupils in each hand.

"Sir Pitt was already in the room with a silver jug. He had just been to the cellar, and was in full dress too-that is, he had taken his gaiters off, and showed his little dumpy legs in black worsted stockings. The sideboard was covered with glistening old plate-old cups, both gold and silver; old salvers and cruet-stands, like Rundell and Bridge's shop. Everything on the table was in silver too, and two footmen, with red hair and canary-colored liveries, stood on either side of the sideboard.

"Mr. Crawley said a long grace, and Sir Pitt said amen, and the great silver dish-covers were removed.

"What have we for dinner, Betsy?' said the baronet.

"Mutton broth, I believe, Sir Pitt,' answered Lady Crawley.

444 Mouton aux navets,' added the butler gravely (pronounce, if you please, moutongonavvy); and the soup is potage de mouton à l'Écossaise. The side-dishes contain pommes de terre au naturel and choufleur à l'eau.'

"Mutton's mutton,' said the baronet, and a devilish good thing. What ship was it, Horrocks, and when did you kill?'

"One of the black-faced Scotch, Sir Pitt: we killed on Thursday.'

"Who took any?"

"'Steel, of Mudbury, took the saddle and two

legs, Sir Pitt; but he says the last was too young

and confounded woolly, Sir Pitt.'

"Will you take some potage, Miss ah-Miss Blunt?' said Mr. Crawley.

"Capital Scotch broth, my dear,' said Sir Pitt, though they call it by a French name.'

"I believe it is the custom, sir, in decent society,' said Mr. Crawley haughtily, 'to call the dish as I have called it ;' and it was served to us on silver soup-plates by the footmen in the canary coats, with the mouton aux navets. Then 'ale and water' were brought and served to us young ladies in wine-glasses. I am not a judge of ale, but I can say with a clear conscience I prefer water.

"While we were enjoying our repast, Sir Pitt took occasion to ask what had become of the shoulders of the mutton.

"I believe they were eaten in the servants' hall,' said my lady, humbly.

"They was, my lady,' said Horrocks, and precious little else we get there neither.' "Sir Pitt burst into a horse-laugh and continued his conversation with Mr. Horrocks.

black pig of the Kent sow's breed must be uncommon fat now.'

'That there little

"It's not quite busting, Sir Pitt,' said the butler with the gravest air, at which Sir Pitt, and with him the young ladies, this time, began to laugh violently.

Miss Crawley, Miss Rose Crawley,' said Mr. Crawley, 'your laughter strikes me as being exceedingly out of place.'

Never mind, my lord,' said the baronet, 'we'll try the porker on Saturday. Kill un on Saturday morning, John Horrocks. Miss Sharp adores pork, don't you, Miss Sharp?'

"And I think this is all the conversation that I remember at dinner. When the repast was concluded a jug of hot water was placed before Sir Pitt, with a case-bottle containing, I believe, rum. Mr. Horrocks served myself and my pupils with three little glasses of wine, and a bumper was poured out for my lady. When we retired, she took from her work-drawer an enormous interminable piece of knitting; the young ladies began to play at cribbage with a dirty pack of cards. We had but one candle lighted, but it was in a magnificent old silver candlestick, and after a very few questions from my lady, I had my choice of amusement between a volume of sermons and a pamphlet on the corn-laws, which Mr. Crawley had been reading before dinner.

"So we sat for an hour until steps were heard.

44 4

'Put away the cards, girls,' cried my lady, in a great tremor; put down Mr. Crawley's books, Miss Sharp; and these orders had been scarcely obeyed when Mr. Crawley entered the room.

"We will resume yesterday's discourse, young ladies,' said he, and you shall each read a page by turns; so that Miss a-Miss Short may have an opportunity of hearing you; and the poor girls began to spell a long dismal sermon delivered at Bethesda Chapel, Liverpool, on behalf of the mission for the Chickasaw Indians. Was it not a charming evening?

"At ten the servants were told to call Sir Pitt and the household to prayers. Sir Pitt came in first, very much flushed, and rather unsteady in his gait; and after him the butler, the canaries, Mr. Crawley's man, three other men, smelling very much of the stable, and four women, one of whom, I remarked, was very much overdressed, and who flung me a look of great scorn as she plumped down on her knees.

"After Mr. Crawley had done haranguing and expounding, we received our candles, and then we went to bed; and then I was disturbed in my writing, as I have described to my dearest, sweetest Amelia.

Good-night. A thousand, thousand, thousand kisses!

"Saturday. This morning, at five, I heard the shrieking of the little black pig. Rose and Violet introduced me to it yesterday; and to the stables, and to the kennel, and to the gardener, who was picking fruit to send to market, and from whom they begged hard a bunch of hot-house grapes; but he said that Sir Pht had numbered every Man Jack' of them, and it would be as much as his place was worth to give any away.

The darling girls caught a colt in a paddock, and asked me if I would ride, and began to ride themselves, when the groom, coming with horrid oaths, drove them away.

"Lady Crawley is always knitting the worsted. Sir Pitt is always tipsy, every night, and, I believe, sits with Horrocks, the butler. Mr. Crawley always reads sermons in the evening, and in the morning is locked up in his study, or else rides to Mudbury, on county business, or to Squashmore, where he preaches, on Wednesdays and Fridays, to the tenants there.

"A hundred thousand grateful loves to your dear papa and mamma. Is your poor brother recovered of his rack-punch? Oh, dear! oh, dear! How men should beware of wicked punch! Ever and ever thine own

REBECCA."

Everything considered, I think it is quite as well for our dear Amelia Sedley, in Russell Square, that Miss Sharp and she are parted. Rebecca is a droll, funny creature, to be sure; and those descriptions of the poor lady weeping for the loss of her beauty, and the gentleman " with hay-colored whiskers and straw-colored hair," are very smart, doubtless, and show a great knowledge of the world. That she might, when on her knees, have been thinking of something better than Miss Horrock's ribbons, has possibly struck both of us. But my kind reader will please to remember that this history has Vanity Fair" for a title, and that Vanity Fair is a very vain, wicked, foolish place, full of all sorts of humbugs and falsenesses and pretensions. And while the moralist, who is holding forth on the cover* (an accurate portrait of your humble servant), professes to wear neither gown nor bands, but only the very same long-eared livery in which his congregation is arrayed; yet, look you, one is bound to speak the truth as far as one knows it, whether one mounts a cap and bells or a shovel hat; and a deal of disagreeable matter must come out in the course of such an undertaking.

I have heard a brother of the story-telling tfade, at Naples, preaching to a pack of good-for-nothing honest lazy fellows by the sea-shore, work himself up into such a rage and passion with some of the villains whose wicked deeds he was describing and inventing, that the audience could not resist it; and they and the poet together would burst out into a roar of oaths and execrations against the fictitious monster of the tale, so that the hat went round, and the bajocchi tumbled into it, in the midst of a perfect storm of sympathy.

At the little Paris theatres, on the other hand, you will not only hear the people yelling out "Ah gredin! Ah monstre!" and cursing the tyrant of the play from the boxes, but the actors themselves positively refuse to play the wicked parts, such as those of infâmes Anglais, brutal Cossacks, and what not, and prefer to appear at a smaller salary, in their real characters as loyal Frenchmen. I set the two stories one against the other, so that you may see that it is not from mere mercenary motives that the present performer is desirous to show up and trounce his villains; but because he has a sincere hatred of them, which he cannot keep down, and which must find a vent in suitable abuse and bad language.

I warn my "kyind friends," then, that I am going to tell a story of harrowing villainy and complicated-but, as I trust, intensely interesting-crime. My rascals are no milk-and-water rascals, I promise you. When we come to the proper places we won't spare fine language-no, no! But when we are going over the quiet country we must perforce be calm. A tempest in a slop-basin is absurd. We will reserve that sort of thing for the mighty ocean and the lonely midnight. The present chapter is very mild. Others But we will not anticipate those.

And as we bring our characters forward, I will ask leave, as a man and a brother, not only to introduce them, but occasionally to step down from the platform, and talk about them if they are good and kindly, to love them and shake them by the hand; if they are silly, to laugh at them confidentially in the reader's sleeve; if they are wicked and heartless, to abuse them in the strongest terms which politeness admits of.

Otherwise you might fancy it was I who was sneering at the practice of devotion, which Miss Sharp finds so ridiculous; that it was I who laughed good-humoredly at the reeling old Silenus of a baronet-whereas the laughter comes from one who has no reverence except for prosperity, and no eye for anything beyond success. Such people there are living and flourishing in the world-faithless, hopeless, charityless let us have at them, dear friends, with might and main. Some there are, and very successful too, mere quacks and fools, and it was to combat and expose such as those, no doubt, that Laughter was made.

* A reference to a woodcut on the cover of the original edition, which is printed on page of this edition.

CHAPTER IX.

FAMILY PORTRAITS.

IR PITT CRAWLEY was a philosopher with a taste for what is called low life. His first marriage with the daughter of the noble Binkie had been made under the auspices of his parents; and as he often told Lady Crawley in her lifetime she was such a confounded quarrelsome high-bred jade that when she died he was hanged if he would ever take another of her sort, at her ladyship's demise he kept his promise, and selected for a second wife Miss Rose Dawson, daughter of Mr. John Thomas Dawson, ironmonger, of Mudbury. What a happy woman was Rose to be my Lady Crawley!

Let us set down the items of her happiness. In the first place, she gave up Peter Butt, a young man who kept company with her, and in consequence of his disappointment in love took to smuggling, poaching, and a thousand other bad courses. Then she quarrelled, as in duty bound, with all the friends and intimates of her youth, who, of course, could not be received by my Lady at Queen's Crawley-nor did she find in her new rank and abode any persons who were willing to welcome her. Who ever did? Sir Huddleston Fuddleston had three daughters who all hoped to be Lady Crawley. Sir Giles Wapshot's family were insulted that one of the Wapshot girls had not the preference in the marriage, and the remaining baronets of the county were indignant at their comrade's misalliance. Never mind the commoners, whom we will

leave to grumble anonymously.

Sir Pitt did not care, as he said, a brass farden for any one of them. He had his pretty Rose, and what more need a man require than to please himself? So he used to get drunk every night; to beat his pretty Rose sometimes; to leave her in Hampshire when he went to London for the parliamentary session, without a single friend in the wide world. Even Mrs. Bute Crawley, the rector's wife, refused to visit her, as she said she would never give the pas to a tradesman's daughter.

As the only endowments with which Nature had gifted Lady Crawley were those of pink cheeks and a white skin, and as she had no sort of character, nor talents, nor opinions, nor occupations, nor amusements, nor that vigor of soul and ferocity of temper which often falls to the lot of entirely foolish women, her hold upon Sir Pitt's affections was not very great. Her roses faded out of her cheeks, and the pretty freshness left her figure after the birth of a couple of children, and she became a mere machine in her husband's house, of no more use than the late Lady Crawley's grand piano. Being a lightcomplexioned woman, she wore light clothes, as most blondes will, and appeared, in preference, in draggled sea-green or slatternly sky-blue. She worked that worsted day and night, or other pieces like it. She had counterpanes in the course of a few years to all the beds in Crawley. She had a small flower-garden, for which she had rather an affection; but beyond this no other like or disliking. When her husband was rude to her she was apathetic; whenever he struck her she cried. She had not character enough to take to drinking, and moaned about, slip-shod and in curl-papers all day. O Vanity Fair! Vanity Fair! This might have been, but for you, a cheery lass -Peter Butt and Rose a happy man and wife, in a snug farm, with a hearty family; and an honest portion of pleasures, cares, hopes, and struggles. But a title and a coach and four are toys more precious than happiness in Vanity Fair; and if Harry the Eighth or Bluebeard were alive now, and wanted a tenth wife, do you suppose he could not get the prettiest girl that shall be presented this season?

The languid dulness of their mamma did not, as it may be supposed, awaken much affection in her little daughters, but they were very happy in the servants' hall and in the stables; and the Scotch gardener having luckily a good wife and some good children, they got a little wholesome society and instruction in his lodge, which was the only education bestowed upon them until Miss Sharp came.

Her engagement was owing to the remonstrances of Mr. Pitt Crawley, the only friend or protector Lady Crawley ever had, and the only person, besides her children, for whom she entertained a little feeble attachment. Mr. Pitt took after the noble Binkies, from whom he was descended, and was a very polite and proper gentleman. When he grew to man's estate, and came back from Christchurch, he began to reform the slackened discipline of the hall, in spite of his father, who stood in awe of him. He

was a man of such rigid refinement that he would have starved rather than have dined without a white neck-cloth. Once, when just from college, and when Horrocks the butler brought him a letter without placing it previously on a tray, he gave that domestic a look, and administered to him a speech so cutting, that Horrocks ever after trembled before him; the whole household bowed to him: Lady Crawley's curl-papers came off earlier when he was at home: Sir Pitt's muddy gaiters disappeared; and if that incorrigible old man still adhered to other old habits, he never fuddled himself with rum-and-water in his son's presence, and only talked to his servants in a very reserved and polite manner; and those persons remarked that Sir Pitt never swore at Lady Crawley while his son was in the room.

It was he who taught the butler to say, My lady is served," and who insisted on handing her ladyship in to dinner. He seldom spoke to her, but when he did it was with the most powerful respect; and he never let her quit the apartment without rising in the most stately manner to open the door, and making an elegant bow at her egress. At Eton he was called Miss Crawley; and here, I am sorry to say, his younger brother Rawdon used to lick him violently. But though his parts were not brilliant, he made up for his lack of talent by meritorious industry, and was never known, during eight years at school, to be subject to that punishment which it is generally thought none but a cherub can escape.

At college his career was of course highly creditable. And here he prepared himself for public life, into which he was to be introduced by the patronage of his grandfather, Lord Binkie, by studying the ancient and modern orators with great assiduity, and by speaking unceasingly at the debating societies. But though he had a fine flux of words, and delivered his little voice with great pomposity and pleasure to himself, and never advanced any sentiment or opinion which was not perfectly trite and stale, and supported by a Latin quotation; yet he failed somehow, in spite of a mediocrity which ought to have insured any man a success. He did not even get the prize poem,

which all his friends said he was sure of.

After leaving college he became Private Secretary to Lord Binkie, and was then appointed Attaché to the Legation at Pumpernickel, which post he filled with perfechonor, and brought home dispatches, consisting of Strasburg pie, to the Foreign Minister of the day. After remaining ten years Attaché (several years after the lamented Lord Binkie's demise), and finding the advancement slow, he at length gave up the diplomatic service in some disgust, and began to turn country gentleman.

He wrote a pamphlet on Malt on returning to England (for he was an ambitious man, and always liked to be before the public), and took a strong part in the Negro Emancipation question. Then he became a friend of Mr. Wilberforce's, whose politics he admired, and had that famous correspondence with the Reverend Silas Hornblower, on the Ashantee Mission. He was in London, if not for the Parliament session, at least in May, for the religious meetings. In the country he was a magistrate, and an active visitor and speaker among those destitute of religious instruction. He was said to be paying his addresses to Lady Jane Sheepshanks, Lord Southdown's third daughter, and whose sister, Lady Emily, wrote those sweet tracts, "The Sailor's True Binnacle," and "The Applewoman of Finchley Common."

Miss Sharp's accounts of his employment at Queen's Crawley were not caricatures. He subjected the servants there to the devotional exercises before mentioned, in which (and so much the better) he brought his father to join. He patronized an Independent meeting-house in Crawley parish, much to the indignation of his uncle the rector, and to the consequent delight of Sir Pitt, who was induced to go himself once or twice, which occasioned some violent sermons at Crawley parish church, directed point-blank at the baronet's old Gothic pew there. Honest Sir Pitt, however, did not feel the force of these discourses, as he always took his nap during sermon-time.

Mr. Crawley was very earnest, for the good of the nation and of the Christian world, that the old gentleman should yield him up his place in Parliament; but this the clder constantly refused to do. Both were of course too prudent to give up the fifteen hundred a year which was brought in by the second seat (at this period filled by Mr. Quadroon, with carte-blanche on the Slave question); indeed the family estate was much embarrassed, and the income drawn from the borough was of great use to the house of Queen's Crawley.

It had never recovered the heavy fine imposed upon Walpole Crawley, first baronet, for peculation in the Tape and Sealing-Wax Office. Sir Walpole was a jolly fellow, eager to seize and to spend money (“alieni appetens, sui profusus," as Mr. Crawley would remark with a sigh), and in his day beloved by all the county for the constant drunkenness and hospitality which was maintained at Queen's Crawley. The cellars were filled with burgundy then, the kennels with hounds, and the stables with gallant