It may, perhaps, have struck her that to have been honest and humble,

to have done her duty, and to have marched straightforward on her way,

would have brought her as near happiness as that path by which she was

striving to attain it. But--just as the children at Queen's Crawley

went round the room where the body of their father lay--if ever Becky

had these thoughts, she was accustomed to walk round them and not look

in. She eluded them and despised them--or at least she was committed

to the other path from which retreat was now impossible. And for my

part I believe that remorse is the least active of all a man's moral

senses--the very easiest to be deadened when wakened, and in some never

wakened at all. We grieve at being found out and at the idea of shame

or punishment, but the mere sense of wrong makes very few people

unhappy in Vanity Fair.

So Rebecca, during her stay at Queen's Crawley, made as many friends of

the Mammon of Unrighteousness as she could possibly bring under

control. Lady Jane and her husband bade her farewell with the warmest

demonstrations of good-will. They looked forward with pleasure to the

time when, the family house in Gaunt Street being repaired and

beautified, they were to meet again in London. Lady Southdown made her

up a packet of medicine and sent a letter by her to the Rev. Lawrence

Grills, exhorting that gentleman to save the brand who "honoured" the

letter from the burning. Pitt accompanied them with four horses in the

carriage to Mudbury, having sent on their baggage in a cart previously,

accompanied with loads of game.

"How happy you will be to see your darling little boy again!" Lady

Crawley said, taking leave of her kinswoman.

"Oh so happy!" said Rebecca, throwing up the green eyes. She was

immensely happy to be free of the place, and yet loath to go. Queen's

Crawley was abominably stupid, and yet the air there was somehow purer

than that which she had been accustomed to breathe. Everybody had been

dull, but had been kind in their way. "It is all the influence of a

long course of Three Per Cents," Becky said to herself, and was right

very likely.

However, the London lamps flashed joyfully as the stage rolled into

Piccadilly, and Briggs had made a beautiful fire in Curzon Street, and

little Rawdon was up to welcome back his papa and mamma.




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