asked the Major about--about Mrs. George Osborne--a
theme on which the Major could be very eloquent when he chose. He told
Mr. Osborne of her sufferings--of her passionate attachment to her
husband, whose memory she worshipped still--of the tender and dutiful
manner in which she had supported her parents, and given up her boy,
when it seemed to her her duty to do so. "You don't know what she
endured, sir," said honest Dobbin with a tremor in his voice, "and I
hope and trust you will be reconciled to her. If she took your son
away from you, she gave hers to you; and however much you loved your
George, depend on it, she loved hers ten times more."

"By God, you are a good feller, sir," was all Mr. Osborne said. It had
never struck him that the widow would feel any pain at parting from the
boy, or that his having a fine fortune could grieve her. A
reconciliation was announced as speedy and inevitable, and Amelia's
heart already began to beat at the notion of the awful meeting with
George's father.

It was never, however, destined to take place. Old Sedley's lingering
illness and death supervened, after which a meeting was for some time
impossible. That catastrophe and other events may have worked upon Mr.
Osborne. He was much shaken of late, and aged, and his mind was
working inwardly. He had sent for his lawyers, and probably changed
something in his will. The medical man who looked in pronounced him
shaky, agitated, and talked of a little blood and the seaside; but he
took neither of these remedies.

One day when he should have come down to breakfast, his servant missing
him, went into his dressing-room and found him lying at the foot of the
dressing-table in a fit. Miss Osborne was apprised; the doctors were
sent for; Georgy stopped away from school; the bleeders and cuppers
came. Osborne partially regained cognizance, but never could speak
again, though he tried dreadfully once or twice, and in four days he
died. The doctors went down, and the undertaker's men went up the
stairs, and all the shutters were shut towards the garden in Russell
Square. Bullock rushed from the City in a hurry. "How much money had
he left to that boy? Not half, surely? Surely share and share alike
between the three?" It was an agitating moment.

What was it that poor old man tried once or twice in vain to say? I
hope it was that he wanted to see Amelia and be reconciled before he
left the world to one dear and faithful wife