t of not going too. "Where you see such
persons as the Bishop of Ealing and the Countess of Slingstone, you may
be pretty sure, Jane," the Baronet would say, "that we cannot be wrong.
The great rank and station of Lord Steyne put him in a position to
command people in our station in life. The Lord Lieutenant of a
County, my dear, is a respectable man. Besides, George Gaunt and I
were intimate in early life; he was my junior when we were attaches at
Pumpernickel together."

In a word everybody went to wait upon this great man--everybody who was
asked, as you the reader (do not say nay) or I the writer hereof would
go if we had an invitation.

CHAPTER XLVIII

In Which the Reader Is Introduced to the Very Best of Company

At last Becky's kindness and attention to the chief of her husband's
family were destined to meet with an exceeding great reward, a reward
which, though certainly somewhat unsubstantial, the little woman
coveted with greater eagerness than more positive benefits. If she did
not wish to lead a virtuous life, at least she desired to enjoy a
character for virtue, and we know that no lady in the genteel world can
possess this desideratum, until she has put on a train and feathers and
has been presented to her Sovereign at Court. From that august
interview they come out stamped as honest women. The Lord Chamberlain
gives them a certificate of virtue. And as dubious goods or letters
are passed through an oven at quarantine, sprinkled with aromatic
vinegar, and then pronounced clean, many a lady, whose reputation would
be doubtful otherwise and liable to give infection, passes through the
wholesome ordeal of the Royal presence and issues from it free from all
taint.

It might be very well for my Lady Bareacres, my Lady Tufto, Mrs. Bute
Crawley in the country, and other ladies who had come into contact with
Mrs. Rawdon Crawley to cry fie at the idea of the odious little
adventuress making her curtsey before the Sovereign, and to declare
that, if dear good Queen Charlotte had been alive, she never would have
admitted such an extremely ill-regulated personage into her chaste
drawing-room. But when we consider that it was the First Gentleman in
Europe in whose high presence Mrs. Rawdon passed her examination, and
as it were, took her degree in reputation, it surely must be flat
disloyalty to doubt any more about her virtue. I, for my part, look
back with love and awe to that Great Character in histor