melia put on her bonnet, and
actually invaded the Osborne house. "What! leave our brother to come to
us?" said the young ladies. "Have you had a quarrel, Amelia? Do tell
us!" No, indeed, there had been no quarrel. "Who could quarrel with
him?" says she, with her eyes filled with tears. She only came over
to--to see her dear friends; they had not met for so long. And this
day she was so perfectly stupid and awkward, that the Misses Osborne
and their governess, who stared after her as she went sadly away,
wondered more than ever what George could see in poor little Amelia.

Of course they did. How was she to bare that timid little heart for
the inspection of those young ladies with their bold black eyes? It was
best that it should shrink and hide itself. I know the Misses Osborne
were excellent critics of a Cashmere shawl, or a pink satin slip; and
when Miss Turner had hers dyed purple, and made into a spencer; and
when Miss Pickford had her ermine tippet twisted into a muff and
trimmings, I warrant you the changes did not escape the two intelligent
young women before mentioned. But there are things, look you, of a
finer texture than fur or satin, and all Solomon's glories, and all the
wardrobe of the Queen of Sheba--things whereof the beauty escapes the
eyes of many connoisseurs. And there are sweet modest little souls on
which you light, fragrant and blooming tenderly in quiet shady places;
and there are garden-ornaments, as big as brass warming-pans, that are
fit to stare the sun itself out of countenance. Miss Sedley was not of
the sunflower sort; and I say it is out of the rules of all proportion
to draw a violet of the size of a double dahlia.

No, indeed; the life of a good young girl who is in the paternal nest
as yet, can't have many of those thrilling incidents to which the
heroine of romance commonly lays claim. Snares or shot may take off
the old birds foraging without--hawks may be abroad, from which they
escape or by whom they suffer; but the young ones in the nest have a
pretty comfortable unromantic sort of existence in the down and the
straw, till it comes to their turn, too, to get on the wing. While
Becky Sharp was on her own wing in the country, hopping on all sorts of
twigs, and amid a multiplicity of traps, and pecking up her food quite
harmless and successful, Amelia lay snug in her home of Russell Square;
if she went into the world, it was under the guidance of the elders;
nor did it seem