manner
indescribably roguish, and he looked at Amelia; and Amelia, hanging
down her head, blushed as only young ladies of seventeen know how to
blush, and as Miss Rebecca Sharp never blushed in her life--at least
not since she was eight years old, and when she was caught stealing jam
out of a cupboard by her godmother. "Amelia had better write a note,"
said her father; "and let George Osborne see what a beautiful
handwriting we have brought back from Miss Pinkerton's. Do you
remember when you wrote to him to come on Twelfth-night, Emmy, and
spelt twelfth without the f?"

"That was years ago," said Amelia.

"It seems like yesterday, don't it, John?" said Mrs. Sedley to her
husband; and that night in a conversation which took place in a front
room in the second floor, in a sort of tent, hung round with chintz of
a rich and fantastic India pattern, and double with calico of a tender
rose-colour; in the interior of which species of marquee was a
featherbed, on which were two pillows, on which were two round red
faces, one in a laced nightcap, and one in a simple cotton one, ending
in a tassel--in a CURTAIN LECTURE, I say, Mrs. Sedley took her husband
to task for his cruel conduct to poor Joe.

"It was quite wicked of you, Mr. Sedley," said she, "to torment the
poor boy so."

"My dear," said the cotton-tassel in defence of his conduct, "Jos is a
great deal vainer than you ever were in your life, and that's saying a
good deal. Though, some thirty years ago, in the year seventeen
hundred and eighty--what was it?--perhaps you had a right to be vain--I
don't say no. But I've no patience with Jos and his dandified modesty.
It is out-Josephing Joseph, my dear, and all the while the boy is only
thinking of himself, and what a fine fellow he is. I doubt, Ma'am, we
shall have some trouble with him yet. Here is Emmy's little friend
making love to him as hard as she can; that's quite clear; and if she
does not catch him some other will. That man is destined to be a prey
to woman, as I am to go on 'Change every day. It's a mercy he did not
bring us over a black daughter-in-law, my dear. But, mark my words,
the first woman who fishes for him, hooks him."

"She shall go off to-morrow, the little artful creature," said Mrs.
Sedley, with great energy.

"Why not she as well as another, Mrs. Sedley? The girl's a white face
at any rate. I don't care who marries him. Let Joe please himself."

And presently the voices of the t