And as if all things conspired in favour of the gentle Rebecca, the

very elements (although she was not inclined at first to acknowledge

their action in her behalf) interposed to aid her. For on the evening

appointed for the Vauxhall party, George Osborne having come to dinner,

and the elders of the house having departed, according to invitation,

to dine with Alderman Balls at Highbury Barn, there came on such a

thunder-storm as only happens on Vauxhall nights, and as obliged the

young people, perforce, to remain at home. Mr. Osborne did not seem in

the least disappointed at this occurrence. He and Joseph Sedley drank a

fitting quantity of port-wine, tete-a-tete, in the dining-room, during

the drinking of which Sedley told a number of his best Indian stories;

for he was extremely talkative in man's society; and afterwards Miss

Amelia Sedley did the honours of the drawing-room; and these four young

persons passed such a comfortable evening together, that they declared

they were rather glad of the thunder-storm than otherwise, which had

caused them to put off their visit to Vauxhall.

Osborne was Sedley's godson, and had been one of the family any time

these three-and-twenty years. At six weeks old, he had received from

John Sedley a present of a silver cup; at six months old, a coral with

gold whistle and bells; from his youth upwards he was "tipped"

regularly by the old gentleman at Christmas: and on going back to

school, he remembered perfectly well being thrashed by Joseph Sedley,

when the latter was a big, swaggering hobbadyhoy, and George an

impudent urchin of ten years old. In a word, George was as familiar

with the family as such daily acts of kindness and intercourse could

make him.

"Do you remember, Sedley, what a fury you were in, when I cut off the

tassels of your Hessian boots, and how Miss--hem!--how Amelia rescued

me from a beating, by falling down on her knees and crying out to her

brother Jos, not to beat little George?"

Jos remembered this remarkable circumstance perfectly well, but vowed

that he had totally forgotten it.

"Well, do you remember coming down in a gig to Dr. Swishtail's to see

me, before you went to India, and giving me half a guinea and a pat on

the head? I always had an idea that you were at least seven feet high,

and was quite astonished at your return from India to find you no

taller than myself."

"How good of Mr. Sedley to go to your school and give you the money!"

exclaimed Rebecca, in accents of extreme delight.

"Yes, and after I had cut the tassels of his boots too. Boys never

forget those tips at school, nor the givers."

"I delight in Hessian boots," said Rebecca. Jos Sedley, who admired

his own legs prodigiously, and always wore this ornamental chaussure,

was extremely pleased at this remark, though he drew his legs under his

chair as it was made.




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