me a constant guest at the French Embassy,
where no party was considered to be complete without the presence of
the charming Madame Ravdonn Cravley. Messieurs de Truffigny (of the
Perigord family) and Champignac, both attaches of the Embassy, were
straightway smitten by the charms of the fair Colonel's wife, and both
declared, according to the wont of their nation (for who ever yet met a
Frenchman, come out of England, that has not left half a dozen families
miserable, and brought away as many hearts in his pocket-book?), both,
I say, declared that they were au mieux with the charming Madame
Ravdonn.

But I doubt the correctness of the assertion. Champignac was very fond
of ecarte, and made many parties with the Colonel of evenings, while
Becky was singing to Lord Steyne in the other room; and as for
Truffigny, it is a well-known fact that he dared not go to the
Travellers', where he owed money to the waiters, and if he had not had
the Embassy as a dining-place, the worthy young gentleman must have
starved. I doubt, I say, that Becky would have selected either of
these young men as a person on whom she would bestow her special
regard. They ran of her messages, purchased her gloves and flowers,
went in debt for opera-boxes for her, and made themselves amiable in a
thousand ways. And they talked English with adorable simplicity, and
to the constant amusement of Becky and my Lord Steyne, she would mimic
one or other to his face, and compliment him on his advance in the
English language with a gravity which never failed to tickle the
Marquis, her sardonic old patron. Truffigny gave Briggs a shawl by way
of winning over Becky's confidante, and asked her to take charge of a
letter which the simple spinster handed over in public to the person to
whom it was addressed, and the composition of which amused everybody
who read it greatly. Lord Steyne read it, everybody but honest Rawdon,
to whom it was not necessary to tell everything that passed in the
little house in May Fair.

Here, before long, Becky received not only "the best" foreigners (as
the phrase is in our noble and admirable society slang), but some of
the best English people too. I don't mean the most virtuous, or indeed
the least virtuous, or the cleverest, or the stupidest, or the richest,
or the best born, but "the best,"--in a word, people about whom there
is no question--such as the great Lady Fitz-Willis, that Patron Saint
of Almack's, the great Lady Slow