"What's the matter, Emmy?" says he.

"Joseph wants me to see if his--his buggy is at the door. What is a
buggy, Papa?"

"It is a one-horse palanquin," said the old gentleman, who was a wag in
his way.

Joseph at this burst out into a wild fit of laughter; in which,
encountering the eye of Miss Sharp, he stopped all of a sudden, as if
he had been shot.

"This young lady is your friend? Miss Sharp, I am very happy to see
you. Have you and Emmy been quarrelling already with Joseph, that he
wants to be off?"

"I promised Bonamy of our service, sir," said Joseph, "to dine with
him."

"O fie! didn't you tell your mother you would dine here?"

"But in this dress it's impossible."

"Look at him, isn't he handsome enough to dine anywhere, Miss Sharp?"

On which, of course, Miss Sharp looked at her friend, and they both set
off in a fit of laughter, highly agreeable to the old gentleman.

"Did you ever see a pair of buckskins like those at Miss Pinkerton's?"
continued he, following up his advantage.

"Gracious heavens! Father," cried Joseph.

"There now, I have hurt his feelings. Mrs. Sedley, my dear, I have
hurt your son's feelings. I have alluded to his buckskins. Ask Miss
Sharp if I haven't? Come, Joseph, be friends with Miss Sharp, and let
us all go to dinner."

"There's a pillau, Joseph, just as you like it, and Papa has brought
home the best turbot in Billingsgate."

"Come, come, sir, walk downstairs with Miss Sharp, and I will follow
with these two young women," said the father, and he took an arm of
wife and daughter and walked merrily off.

If Miss Rebecca Sharp had determined in her heart upon making the
conquest of this big beau, I don't think, ladies, we have any right to
blame her; for though the task of husband-hunting is generally, and
with becoming modesty, entrusted by young persons to their mammas,
recollect that Miss Sharp had no kind parent to arrange these delicate
matters for her, and that if she did not get a husband for herself,
there was no one else in the wide world who would take the trouble off
her hands. What causes young people to "come out," but the noble
ambition of matrimony? What sends them trooping to watering-places?
What keeps them dancing till five o'clock in the morning through a
whole mortal season? What causes them to labour at pianoforte sonatas,
and to learn four songs from a fashionable master at a guinea a lesson,
and to play the harp if they have handsome ar