Georgy made great progress in the school, which was kept by a friend of

his mother's constant admirer, the Rev. Mr. Binny. He brought home

numberless prizes and testimonials of ability. He told his mother

countless stories every night about his school-companions: and what a

fine fellow Lyons was, and what a sneak Sniffin was, and how Steel's

father actually supplied the meat for the establishment, whereas

Golding's mother came in a carriage to fetch him every Saturday, and

how Neat had straps to his trowsers--might he have straps?--and how

Bull Major was so strong (though only in Eutropius) that it was

believed he could lick the Usher, Mr. Ward, himself. So Amelia learned

to know every one of the boys in that school as well as Georgy himself,

and of nights she used to help him in his exercises and puzzle her

little head over his lessons as eagerly as if she was herself going in

the morning into the presence of the master. Once, after a certain

combat with Master Smith, George came home to his mother with a black

eye, and bragged prodigiously to his parent and his delighted old

grandfather about his valour in the fight, in which, if the truth was

known he did not behave with particular heroism, and in which he

decidedly had the worst. But Amelia has never forgiven that Smith to

this day, though he is now a peaceful apothecary near Leicester Square.

In these quiet labours and harmless cares the gentle widow's life was

passing away, a silver hair or two marking the progress of time on her

head and a line deepening ever so little on her fair forehead. She

used to smile at these marks of time. "What matters it," she asked,

"For an old woman like me?" All she hoped for was to live to see her

son great, famous, and glorious, as he deserved to be. She kept his

copy-books, his drawings, and compositions, and showed them about in

her little circle as if they were miracles of genius. She confided

some of these specimens to Miss Dobbin, to show them to Miss Osborne,

George's aunt, to show them to Mr. Osborne himself--to make that old

man repent of his cruelty and ill feeling towards him who was gone.

All her husband's faults and foibles she had buried in the grave with

him: she only remembered the lover, who had married her at all

sacrifices, the noble husband, so brave and beautiful, in whose arms

she had hung on the morning when he had gone away to fight, and die

gloriously for his king. From heaven the hero must be smiling down upon

that paragon of a boy whom he had left to comfort and console her. We

have seen how one of George's grandfathers (Mr. Osborne), in his easy

chair in Russell Square, daily grew more violent and moody, and how his

daughter, with her fine carriage, and her fine horses, and her name on

half the public charity-lists of the town, was a lonely, miserable,

persecuted old maid. She thought again and again of the beautiful

little boy, her brother's son, whom she had seen. She longed to be

allowed to drive in the fine carriage to the house in which he lived,

and she used to look out day after day as she took her solitary drive

in the park, in hopes that she might see him. Her sister, the banker's

lady, occasionally condescended to pay her old home and companion a

visit in Russell Square. She brought a couple of sickly children

attended by a prim nurse, and in a faint genteel giggling tone cackled

to her sister about her fine acquaintance, and how her little Frederick

was the image of Lord Claud Lollypop and her sweet Maria had been

noticed by the Baroness as they were driving in their donkey-chaise at

Roehampton. She urged her to make her papa do something for the

darlings. Frederick she had determined should go into the Guards; and

if they made an elder son of him (and Mr. Bullock was positively

ruining and pinching himself to death to buy land), how was the darling

girl to be provided for? "I expect YOU, dear," Mrs. Bullock would say,

"for of course my share of our Papa's property must go to the head of

the house, you know. Dear Rhoda McMull will disengage the whole of the

Castletoddy property as soon as poor dear Lord Castletoddy dies, who is

quite epileptic; and little Macduff McMull will be Viscount

Castletoddy. Both the Mr. Bludyers of Mincing Lane have settled their

fortunes on Fanny Bludyer's little boy. My darling Frederick must

positively be an eldest son; and--and do ask Papa to bring us back his

account in Lombard Street, will you, dear? It doesn't look well, his

going to Stumpy and Rowdy's." After which kind of speeches, in which

fashion and the main chance were blended together, and after a kiss,

which was like the contact of an oyster--Mrs. Frederick Bullock would

gather her starched nurslings and simper back into her carriage.




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