Whenever Becky made a little circle for herself with incredible toils

and labour, somebody came and swept it down rudely, and she had all her

work to begin over again. It was very hard; very hard; lonely and

disheartening.

There was Mrs. Newbright, who took her up for some time, attracted by

the sweetness of her singing at church and by her proper views upon

serious subjects, concerning which in former days, at Queen's Crawley,

Mrs. Becky had had a good deal of instruction. Well, she not only took

tracts, but she read them. She worked flannel petticoats for the

Quashyboos--cotton night-caps for the Cocoanut Indians--painted

handscreens for the conversion of the Pope and the Jews--sat under Mr.

Rowls on Wednesdays, Mr. Huggleton on Thursdays, attended two Sunday

services at church, besides Mr. Bawler, the Darbyite, in the evening,

and all in vain. Mrs. Newbright had occasion to correspond with the

Countess of Southdown about the Warmingpan Fund for the Fiji Islanders

(for the management of which admirable charity both these ladies formed

part of a female committee), and having mentioned her "sweet friend,"

Mrs. Rawdon Crawley, the Dowager Countess wrote back such a letter

regarding Becky, with such particulars, hints, facts, falsehoods, and

general comminations, that intimacy between Mrs. Newbright and Mrs.

Crawley ceased forthwith, and all the serious world of Tours, where

this misfortune took place, immediately parted company with the

reprobate. Those who know the English Colonies abroad know that we

carry with us us our pride, pills, prejudices, Harvey-sauces,

cayenne-peppers, and other Lares, making a little Britain wherever we

settle down.

From one colony to another Becky fled uneasily. From Boulogne to

Dieppe, from Dieppe to Caen, from Caen to Tours--trying with all her

might to be respectable, and alas! always found out some day or other

and pecked out of the cage by the real daws.

Mrs. Hook Eagles took her up at one of these places--a woman without a

blemish in her character and a house in Portman Square. She was

staying at the hotel at Dieppe, whither Becky fled, and they made each

other's acquaintance first at sea, where they were swimming together,

and subsequently at the table d'hote of the hotel. Mrs Eagles had

heard--who indeed had not?--some of the scandal of the Steyne affair;

but after a conversation with Becky, she pronounced that Mrs. Crawley

was an angel, her husband a ruffian, Lord Steyne an unprincipled

wretch, as everybody knew, and the whole case against Mrs. Crawley an

infamous and wicked conspiracy of that rascal Wenham. "If you were a

man of any spirit, Mr. Eagles, you would box the wretch's ears the next

time you see him at the Club," she said to her husband. But Eagles was

only a quiet old gentleman, husband to Mrs. Eagles, with a taste for

geology, and not tall enough to reach anybody's ears.




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