Our friend Dobbin was one of them. It was he who brought her back to

England and to her mother's house; when Mrs. O'Dowd, receiving a

peremptory summons from her Colonel, had been forced to quit her

patient. To see Dobbin holding the infant, and to hear Amelia's laugh

of triumph as she watched him, would have done any man good who had a

sense of humour. William was the godfather of the child, and exerted

his ingenuity in the purchase of cups, spoons, pap-boats, and corals

for this little Christian.

How his mother nursed him, and dressed him, and lived upon him; how she

drove away all nurses, and would scarce allow any hand but her own to

touch him; how she considered that the greatest favour she could confer

upon his godfather, Major Dobbin, was to allow the Major occasionally

to dandle him, need not be told here. This child was her being. Her

existence was a maternal caress. She enveloped the feeble and

unconscious creature with love and worship. It was her life which the

baby drank in from her bosom. Of nights, and when alone, she had

stealthy and intense raptures of motherly love, such as God's

marvellous care has awarded to the female instinct--joys how far

higher and lower than reason--blind beautiful devotions which only

women's hearts know. It was William Dobbin's task to muse upon these

movements of Amelia's, and to watch her heart; and if his love made him

divine almost all the feelings which agitated it, alas! he could see

with a fatal perspicuity that there was no place there for him. And

so, gently, he bore his fate, knowing it, and content to bear it.

I suppose Amelia's father and mother saw through the intentions of the

Major, and were not ill-disposed to encourage him; for Dobbin visited

their house daily, and stayed for hours with them, or with Amelia, or

with the honest landlord, Mr. Clapp, and his family. He brought, on

one pretext or another, presents to everybody, and almost every day;

and went, with the landlord's little girl, who was rather a favourite

with Amelia, by the name of Major Sugarplums. It was this little child

who commonly acted as mistress of the ceremonies to introduce him to

Mrs. Osborne. She laughed one day when Major Sugarplums' cab drove up

to Fulham, and he descended from it, bringing out a wooden horse, a

drum, a trumpet, and other warlike toys, for little Georgy, who was

scarcely six months old, and for whom the articles in question were

entirely premature.

The child was asleep. "Hush," said Amelia, annoyed, perhaps, at the

creaking of the Major's boots; and she held out her hand; smiling

because William could not take it until he had rid himself of his cargo

of toys. "Go downstairs, little Mary," said he presently to the child,

"I want to speak to Mrs. Osborne." She looked up rather astonished, and

laid down the infant on its bed.




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