handsomely in
getting her new clothes, and bringing her to the ball, where she was
free to amuse herself as she liked. Her thoughts were not the
pleasantest, and nobody except honest Dobbin came to disturb them.

Whilst her appearance was an utter failure (as her husband felt with a
sort of rage), Mrs. Rawdon Crawley's _debut_ was, on the contrary,
very brilliant. She arrived very late. Her face was radiant; her dress
perfection. In the midst of the great persons assembled, and the
eyeglasses directed to her, Rebecca seemed to be as cool and collected
as when she used to marshal Miss Pinkerton's little girls to church.
Numbers of the men she knew already, and the dandies thronged around
her. As for the ladies, it was whispered among them that Rawdon had
run away with her from out of a convent, and that she was a relation
of the Montmorency family. She spoke French so perfectly that there
might be some truth in this report, and it was agreed that her manners
were fine, and her air _distinguished_. Fifty would-be partners
thronged round her at once, and prest to have the honor to dance with
her. But she said she was engaged, and only going to dance very
little; and made her way at once to the place where Emmy sate quite
unnoticed, and dismally unhappy.

And so, to finish the poor child at once, Mrs. Rawdon ran and greeted
affectionately her dearest Amelia, and began forthwith to patronize
her. She found fault with her friend's dress, and her hair-dresser,
and wondered how she could be so _chaussee_, and vowed that she must
send her _corsetiere_ the next morning. She vowed that it was a
delightful ball; that there was everybody that every one knew, and
only a _very_ few nobodies in the whole room. It is a fact that in a
fortnight, and after three dinners in general society, this young
woman had got up the genteel jargon so well that a native could not
speak it better; and it was only from her French being so good, that
you could know that she was not a born woman of fashion.

George, who had left Emmy on the bench on entering the ballroom, very
soon found his way back when Rebecca was by her dear friend's side.
Becky was just lecturing Mrs. Osborne upon the follies which her
husband was committing. "For God's sake, stop him from gambling, my
dear," she said, "or he will ruin himself. He and Rawdon are playing
at cards every night; and you know he is very poor, and Rawdon will
win every shilling from him if he does not