ed seventy
thousand pounds, and had almost adopted Rawdon.

Both Miss Crawley and Rawdon were charmed with Rebecca, and on Lady
Crawley's death Sir Pitt said to his children's governess, "I can't get
on without you. Come and be my wife. You're as good a lady as ever I
see. Say yes, Becky. I'm good for twenty years. I'll make you happy, see
if I don't."

Rebecca started back a picture of consternation, "O Sir Pitt!" she
said--"O sir--I--I'm married already!"

* * * * *

"Suppose the old lady doesn't come round, eh, Becky?" Rawdon said to his
little wife, as they sat together in their snug Brompton lodgings, a few
weeks later.

"_I'll_ make your fortune," she said.

But old Miss Crawley did not come round, and Captain Rawdon Crawley and
Rebecca went to Brussels in June 1815 with the flower of the British
Army.

Another young married couple also went to Brussels at that time, Captain
George Osborne and Amelia his wife.

The landing of Napoleon at Cannes in March, 1815, brought, amongst other
things, ruin to the worthy old stockbroker John Sedley, and the most
determined and obstinate of his creditors was his old friend and
neighbour John Osborne--whom he had set up in life, and whose son was to
marry his daughter, and who consequently had the intolerable sense of
former benefit to goad and irritate him.

Joseph Sedley acted as a man of his disposition would; when the
announcement of the family misfortune reached him. He did not come to
London, but he wrote to his mother to draw upon his agents for whatever
money was wanted, so that his kind broken-spirited old parents had no
present poverty to fear. This done, Joseph went on at his boarding-house
at Cheltenham pretty much as before.

Amelia took the news very pale and calmly. A brutal letter from John
Osborne told her in a few curt lines that all engagements between the
families were at an end, and old Joseph Sedley spoke with almost equal
bitterness. No power on earth, he swore, would induce him to marry his
daughter to the son of such a villain, and he ordered Emmy to banish
George from her mind.

It was Captain William Dobbin, who, having made up his mind that Miss
Sedley would die of the disappointment, found himself the great promoter
of the match between George Osborne and Amelia.

To old Sedley's refusal Dobbin answered finally, "If you don't give your
daughter your consent it will be her duty to marry without it. What