the threshold of the Elephant to make him pay for
the beer which he had not consumed. Emmy laughed: she called him a
naughty man, who wanted to run away in debt, and, in fact, made some
jokes suitable to the occasion and the small-beer. She was in high
spirits and good humour, and tripped across the market-place very
briskly. She wanted to see Jos that instant. The Major laughed at the
impetuous affection Mrs. Amelia exhibited; for, in truth, it was not
very often that she wanted her brother "that instant." They found the
civilian in his saloon on the first-floor; he had been pacing the room,
and biting his nails, and looking over the market-place towards the
Elephant a hundred times at least during the past hour whilst Emmy was
closeted with her friend in the garret and the Major was beating the
tattoo on the sloppy tables of the public room below, and he was, on
his side too, very anxious to see Mrs. Osborne.

"Well?" said he.

"The poor dear creature, how she has suffered!" Emmy said.

"God bless my soul, yes," Jos said, wagging his head, so that his
cheeks quivered like jellies.

"She may have Payne's room, who can go upstairs," Emmy continued. Payne
was a staid English maid and personal attendant upon Mrs. Osborne, to
whom the courier, as in duty bound, paid court, and whom Georgy used to
"lark" dreadfully with accounts of German robbers and ghosts. She
passed her time chiefly in grumbling, in ordering about her mistress,
and in stating her intention to return the next morning to her native
village of Clapham. "She may have Payne's room," Emmy said.

"Why, you don't mean to say you are going to have that woman into the
house?" bounced out the Major, jumping up.

"Of course we are," said Amelia in the most innocent way in the world.
"Don't be angry and break the furniture, Major Dobbin. Of course we
are going to have her here."

"Of course, my dear," Jos said.

"The poor creature, after all her sufferings," Emmy continued; "her
horrid banker broken and run away; her husband--wicked wretch--having
deserted her and taken her child away from her" (here she doubled her
two little fists and held them in a most menacing attitude before her,
so that the Major was charmed to see such a dauntless virago) "the poor
dear thing! quite alone and absolutely forced to give lessons in
singing to get her bread--and not have her here!"

"Take lessons, my dear Mrs. George," cried the Major, "but don't have
her in t