William Dobbin stood in the church-porch, looking at it, a queer

figure. The small crew of spectators jeered him. He was not thinking

about them or their laughter.

"Come home and have some tiffin, Dobbin," a voice cried behind him; as

a pudgy hand was laid on his shoulder, and the honest fellow's reverie

was interrupted. But the Captain had no heart to go a-feasting with

Jos Sedley. He put the weeping old lady and her attendants into the

carriage along with Jos, and left them without any farther words

passing. This carriage, too, drove away, and the urchins gave another

sarcastical cheer.

"Here, you little beggars," Dobbin said, giving some sixpences amongst

them, and then went off by himself through the rain. It was all over.

They were married, and happy, he prayed God. Never since he was a boy

had he felt so miserable and so lonely. He longed with a heart-sick

yearning for the first few days to be over, that he might see her again.

Some ten days after the above ceremony, three young men of our

acquaintance were enjoying that beautiful prospect of bow windows on

the one side and blue sea on the other, which Brighton affords to the

traveller. Sometimes it is towards the ocean--smiling with countless

dimples, speckled with white sails, with a hundred bathing-machines

kissing the skirt of his blue garment--that the Londoner looks

enraptured: sometimes, on the contrary, a lover of human nature rather

than of prospects of any kind, it is towards the bow windows that he

turns, and that swarm of human life which they exhibit. From one issue

the notes of a piano, which a young lady in ringlets practises six

hours daily, to the delight of the fellow-lodgers: at another, lovely

Polly, the nurse-maid, may be seen dandling Master Omnium in her arms:

whilst Jacob, his papa, is beheld eating prawns, and devouring the

Times for breakfast, at the window below. Yonder are the Misses Leery,

who are looking out for the young officers of the Heavies, who are

pretty sure to be pacing the cliff; or again it is a City man, with a

nautical turn, and a telescope, the size of a six-pounder, who has his

instrument pointed seawards, so as to command every pleasure-boat,

herring-boat, or bathing-machine that comes to, or quits, the shore,

&c., &c. But have we any leisure for a description of Brighton?--for

Brighton, a clean Naples with genteel lazzaroni--for Brighton, that

always looks brisk, gay, and gaudy, like a harlequin's jacket--for

Brighton, which used to be seven hours distant from London at the time

of our story; which is now only a hundred minutes off; and which may

approach who knows how much nearer, unless Joinville comes and untimely

bombards it?

"What a monstrous fine girl that is in the lodgings over the

milliner's," one of these three promenaders remarked to the other;

"Gad, Crawley, did you see what a wink she gave me as I passed?"




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