Amelia admired Mr. Crawley very much, too, for this;
and trusted Rebecca would be happy with him, and hoped
(with a laugh) Jos would be consoled. And so
the pair went on prattling, as in quite early days.
Amelia’s confidence being perfectly restored
to her, though she expressed a great deal of pretty
jealousy about Miss Swartz, and professed to be dreadfully
frightened—like a hypocrite as she was—
lest George should forget her for the heiress and her
money and her estates in Saint Kitt’s.
But the fact is, she was a great deal too happy to
have fears or doubts or misgivings of any sort:
and having George at her side again, was not afraid
of any heiress or beauty, or indeed of any sort of
danger.
When Captain Dobbin came back in the afternoon to
these people— which he did with a great
deal of sympathy for them—it did his heart
good to see how Amelia had grown young again—how
she laughed, and chirped, and sang familiar old songs
at the piano, which were only interrupted by the bell
from without proclaiming Mr. Sedley’s return
from the City, before whom George received a signal
to retreat.
Beyond the first smile of recognition—and
even that was an hypocrisy, for she thought his arrival
rather provoking—Miss Sedley did not once
notice Dobbin during his visit. But he was content,
so that he saw her happy; and thankful to have been
the means of making her so.
CHAPTER XXI
A Quarrel About an Heiress
Love may be felt for any young lady endowed with such
qualities as Miss Swartz possessed; and a great dream
of ambition entered into old Mr. Osborne’s soul,
which she was to realize. He encouraged, with
the utmost enthusiasm and friendliness, his daughters’
amiable attachment to the young heiress, and protested
that it gave him the sincerest pleasure as a father
to see the love of his girls so well disposed.
“You won’t find,” he would say to
Miss Rhoda, “that splendour and rank to which
you are accustomed at the West End, my dear Miss, at
our humble mansion in Russell Square. My daughters
are plain, disinterested girls, but their hearts are
in the right place, and they’ve conceived an
attachment for you which does them honour—I
say, which does them honour. I’m a plain,
simple, humble British merchant—an honest
one, as my respected friends Hulker and Bullock will
vouch, who were the correspondents of your late lamented
father. You’ll find us a united, simple,
happy, and I think I may say respected, family—a
plain table, a plain people, but a warm welcome, my
dear Miss Rhoda—Rhoda, let me say, for my
heart warms to you, it does really. I’m
a frank man, and I like you. A glass of Champagne!
Hicks, Champagne to Miss Swartz.”
