Putting her handkerchief to her eyes, and nodding away honest Briggs,

who would have followed her upstairs, she went up to her apartment;

while Briggs and Miss Crawley, in a high state of excitement, remained

to discuss the strange event, and Firkin, not less moved, dived down

into the kitchen regions, and talked of it with all the male and female

company there. And so impressed was Mrs. Firkin with the news, that

she thought proper to write off by that very night's post, "with her

humble duty to Mrs. Bute Crawley and the family at the Rectory, and Sir

Pitt has been and proposed for to marry Miss Sharp, wherein she has

refused him, to the wonder of all."

The two ladies in the dining-room (where worthy Miss Briggs was

delighted to be admitted once more to confidential conversation with

her patroness) wondered to their hearts' content at Sir Pitt's offer,

and Rebecca's refusal; Briggs very acutely suggesting that there must

have been some obstacle in the shape of a previous attachment,

otherwise no young woman in her senses would ever have refused so

advantageous a proposal.

"You would have accepted it yourself, wouldn't you, Briggs?" Miss

Crawley said, kindly.

"Would it not be a privilege to be Miss Crawley's sister?" Briggs

replied, with meek evasion.

"Well, Becky would have made a good Lady Crawley, after all," Miss

Crawley remarked (who was mollified by the girl's refusal, and very

liberal and generous now there was no call for her sacrifices). "She

has brains in plenty (much more wit in her little finger than you have,

my poor dear Briggs, in all your head). Her manners are excellent, now

I have formed her. She is a Montmorency, Briggs, and blood is

something, though I despise it for my part; and she would have held her

own amongst those pompous stupid Hampshire people much better than that

unfortunate ironmonger's daughter."

Briggs coincided as usual, and the "previous attachment" was then

discussed in conjectures. "You poor friendless creatures are always

having some foolish tendre," Miss Crawley said. "You yourself, you

know, were in love with a writing-master (don't cry, Briggs--you're

always crying, and it won't bring him to life again), and I suppose

this unfortunate Becky has been silly and sentimental too--some

apothecary, or house-steward, or painter, or young curate, or something

of that sort."

"Poor thing! poor thing!" says Briggs (who was thinking of twenty-four

years back, and that hectic young writing-master whose lock of yellow

hair, and whose letters, beautiful in their illegibility, she cherished

in her old desk upstairs). "Poor thing, poor thing!" says Briggs.

Once more she was a fresh-cheeked lass of eighteen; she was at evening

church, and the hectic writing-master and she were quavering out of the

same psalm-book.

"After such conduct on Rebecca's part," Miss Crawley said

enthusiastically, "our family should do something. Find out who is the

objet, Briggs. I'll set him up in a shop; or order my portrait of him,

you know; or speak to my cousin, the Bishop and I'll doter Becky, and

we'll have a wedding, Briggs, and you shall make the breakfast, and be

a bridesmaid."




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