Georgy ran off to see about breakfast.Emmy, whose shawl and bonnet were off in the passage in the hands of Mrs.Payne, now went to undo the clasp of William's cloak, and--we will, if you please, go with George, and look after breakfast for the Colonel.The vessel is in port.
He has got the prize he has been trying for all his life.
The bird has come in at last.There it is with its head on his shoulder, billing and cooing close up to his heart, with soft outstretched fluttering wings.This is what he has asked for every day and hour for eighteen years.This is what he pined after.Here it is--the summit, the end--the last page of the third volume.Good-bye, Colonel--God bless you, honest William!--Farewell, dear Amelia --Grow green again, tender little parasite, round the rugged old oak to which you cling!
Perhaps it was compunction towards the kind and simple creature, who had been the first in life to defend her, perhaps it was a dislike to all such sentimental scenes --but Rebecca, satisfied with her part in the transaction, never presented herself before Colonel Dobbin and the lady whom he married."Particular business," she said, took her to Bruges, whither she went, and only Georgy and his uncle were present at the marriage ceremony.
When it was over, and Georgy had rejoined his parents, Mrs.Becky returned (just for a few days) to comfort the solitary bachelor, Joseph Sedley.He preferred a continental life, he said, and declined to join in housekeeping with his sister and her husband.
Emmy was very glad in her heart to think that she had written to her husband before she read or knew of that letter of George's."I knew it all along," William said; "but could I use that weapon against the poor fellow's memory? It was that which made me suffer so when you--""Never speak of that day again," Emmy cried out, so contrite and humble that William turned off the conversation by his account of Glorvina and dear old Peggy O'Dowd, with whom he was sitting when the letter of recall reached him."If you hadn't sent for me," he added with a laugh, "who knows what Glorvina's name might be now?"At present it is Glorvina Posky (now Mrs.Major Posky); she took him on the death of his first wife, having resolved never to marry out of the regiment.Lady O'Dowd is also so attached to it that, she says, if anything were to happen to Mick, bedad she'd come back and marry some of 'em.But the Major-General is quite well and lives in great splendour at O'Dowdstown, with a pack of beagles, and (with the exception of perhaps their neighbour, Hoggarty of Castle Hoggarty) he is the first man of his county.Her Ladyship still dances jigs, and insisted on standing up with the Master of the Horse at the Lord Lieutenant's last ball.Both she and Glorvina declared that Dobbin had used the latter SHEAMFULLY, but Posky falling in, Glorvina was consoled, and a beautiful turban from Paris appeased the wrath of Lady O'Dowd.
When Colonel Dobbin quitted the service, which he did immediately after his marriage, he rented a pretty little country place in Hampshire, not far from Queen's Crawley, where, after the passing of the Reform Bill, Sir Pitt and his family constantly resided now.All idea of a Peerage was out of the question, the Baronet's two seats in Parliament being lost.He was both out of pocket and out of spirits by that catastrophe, failed in his health, and prophesied the speedy ruin of the Empire.
Lady Jane and Mrs.Dobbin became great friends--there was a perpetual crossing of pony-chaises between the Hall and the Evergreens, the Colonel's place (rented of his friend Major Ponto, who was abroad with his family).Her Ladyship was godmother to Mrs.Dobbin's child, which bore her name, and was christened by the Rev.
James Crawley, who succeeded his father in the living:
and a pretty close friendship subsisted between the two lads, George and Rawdon, who hunted and shot together in the vacations, were both entered of the same college at Cambridge, and quarrelled with each other about Lady Jane's daughter, with whom they were both, of course, in love.A match between George and that young lady was long a favourite scheme of both the matrons, though Ihave heard that Miss Crawley herself inclined towards her cousin.
Mrs.Rawdon Crawley's name was never mentioned by either family.There were reasons why all should be silent regarding her.For wherever Mr.Joseph Sedley went, she travelled likewise, and that infatuated man seemed to be entirely her slave.The Colonel's lawyers informed him that his brother-in-law had effected a heavy insurance upon his life, whence it was probable that he had been raising money to discharge debts.He procured prolonged leave of absence from the East India House, and indeed, his infirmities were daily increasing.
On hearing the news about the insurance, Amelia, in a good deal of alarm, entreated her husband to go to Brussels, where Jos then was, and inquire into the state of his affairs.The Colonel quitted home with reluctance (for he was deeply immersed in his History of the Punjaub which still occupies him, and much alarmed about his little daughter, whom he idolizes, and who was just recovering from the chicken-pox) and went to Brussels and found Jos living at one of the enormous hotels in that city.Mrs.Crawley, who had her carriage, gave entertainments, and lived in a very genteel manner, occupied another suite of apartments in the same hotel.