Then all her time and tenderness were devoted to the consolation and

comfort of the bereaved old father, who was stunned by the blow which

had befallen him, and stood utterly alone in the world. His wife, his

honour, his fortune, everything he loved best had fallen away from him.

There was only Amelia to stand by and support with her gentle arms the

tottering, heart-broken old man. We are not going to write the history:

it would be too dreary and stupid. I can see Vanity Fair yawning over

it d'avance.

One day as the young gentlemen were assembled in the study at the Rev.

Mr. Veal's, and the domestic chaplain to the Right Honourable the Earl

of Bareacres was spouting away as usual, a smart carriage drove up to

the door decorated with the statue of Athene, and two gentlemen stepped

out. The young Masters Bangles rushed to the window with a vague

notion that their father might have arrived from Bombay. The great

hulking scholar of three-and-twenty, who was crying secretly over a

passage of Eutropius, flattened his neglected nose against the panes

and looked at the drag, as the laquais de place sprang from the box and

let out the persons in the carriage.

"It's a fat one and a thin one," Mr. Bluck said as a thundering knock

came to the door.

Everybody was interested, from the domestic chaplain himself, who hoped

he saw the fathers of some future pupils, down to Master Georgy, glad

of any pretext for laying his book down.

The boy in the shabby livery with the faded copper buttons, who always

thrust himself into the tight coat to open the door, came into the

study and said, "Two gentlemen want to see Master Osborne." The

professor had had a trifling altercation in the morning with that young

gentleman, owing to a difference about the introduction of crackers in

school-time; but his face resumed its habitual expression of bland

courtesy as he said, "Master Osborne, I give you full permission to go

and see your carriage friends--to whom I beg you to convey the

respectful compliments of myself and Mrs. Veal."

Georgy went into the reception-room and saw two strangers, whom he

looked at with his head up, in his usual haughty manner. One was fat,

with mustachios, and the other was lean and long, in a blue frock-coat,

with a brown face and a grizzled head.

"My God, how like he is!" said the long gentleman with a start. "Can

you guess who we are, George?"

The boy's face flushed up, as it did usually when he was moved, and his

eyes brightened. "I don't know the other," he said, "but I should

think you must be Major Dobbin."

Indeed it was our old friend. His voice trembled with pleasure as he

greeted the boy, and taking both the other's hands in his own, drew the

lad to him.




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