for Edmund if he
liked it. It was just as well that he should have something to do, and
it was just as well that he should have something for doing it. Whether
it would be more agreeable to Edmund than the army, remained to be seen.

Thus the Bosom; accomplished in the art of seeming to make things of
small account, and really enhancing them in the process. While Henry
Gowan, whom Decimus had thrown away, went through the whole round of
his acquaintance between the Gate of the People and the town of Albano,
vowing, almost (but not quite) with tears in his eyes, that Sparkler was
the sweetest-tempered, simplest-hearted, altogether most lovable jackass
that ever grazed on the public common; and that only one circumstance
could have delighted him (Gowan) more, than his (the beloved jackass's)
getting this post, and that would have been his (Gowan's) getting it
himself. He said it was the very thing for Sparkler. There was nothing
to do, and he would do it charmingly; there was a handsome salary to
draw, and he would draw it charmingly; it was a delightful, appropriate,
capital appointment; and he almost forgave the donor his slight of
himself, in his joy that the dear donkey for whom he had so great an
affection was so admirably stabled. Nor did his benevolence stop here.
He took pains, on all social occasions, to draw Mr Sparkler out, and
make him conspicuous before the company; and, although the considerate
action always resulted in that young gentleman's making a dreary and
forlorn mental spectacle of himself, the friendly intention was not to
be doubted.

Unless, indeed, it chanced to be doubted by the object of Mr Sparkler's
affections. Miss Fanny was now in the difficult situation of being
universally known in that light, and of not having dismissed Mr
Sparkler, however capriciously she used him. Hence, she was sufficiently
identified with the gentleman to feel compromised by his being more than
usually ridiculous; and hence, being by no means deficient in quickness,
she sometimes came to his rescue against Gowan, and did him very good
service. But, while doing this, she was ashamed of him, undetermined
whether to get rid of him or more decidedly encourage him, distracted
with apprehensions that she was every day becoming more and more
immeshed in her uncertainties, and tortured by misgivings that Mrs
Merdle triumphed in her distress. With this tumult in her mind, it is no
subject for surprise that Miss Fanny came h