Vanity Fair. What? even battered, brazen, beautiful, conscienceless, heartless, Mrs. Firebrace, whose father died of her shame: even lovely, daring Mrs. Mantrap, who will ride at any fence which any man in England will take, and who drives her greys in the park, while her mother keeps a huckster’s stall in Bath still—even those who are so bold, one might fancy they could face anything dare not face the world without a female friend. They must have somebody to cling to, the affectionate creatures! And you will hardly see them in any public place without a shabby companion in a dyed silk, sitting somewhere in the shade close behind them.

“Rawdon,” said Becky, very late one night, as a party of gentlemen were seated round her crackling drawing- room fire (for the men came to her house to finish the night; and she had ice and coffee for them, the best in London): “I must have a sheep-dog.”

“A what?” said Rawdon, looking up from an écarté table.

“A sheep-dog!” said young Lord Southdown. “My dear Mrs. Crawley, what a fancy! Why not have a Danish dog? I know of one as big as a camel-leopard, by Jove. It would almost pull your brougham. Or a Persian greyhound, eh? (I propose, if you please); or a little pug that would go into one of Lord Steyne’s snuff-boxes? There’s a man at Bayswater got one with such a nose that you might—I mark the king and play—that you might hang your hat on it.”

“I mark the trick,” Rawdon gravely said. He attended to his game commonly and didn’t much meddle with the conversation, except when it was about horses and betting.

“What can you want with a shepherd’s dog?” the lively little Southdown continued.

“I mean a moral shepherd’s dog,” said Becky, laughing and looking up at Lord Steyne.

“What the devil’s that?” said his Lordship.

“A dog to keep the wolves off me,” Rebecca continued. “A companion.”

“Dear little innocent lamb, you want one,” said the marquis; and his jaw thrust out, and he began to grin hideously, his little eyes leering towards Rebecca.

The great Lord of Steyne was standing by the fire sipping coffee. The fire crackled and blazed pleasantly There was a score of candles sparkling round the mantel piece, in all sorts of quaint sconces, of gilt and bronze and porcelain. They lighted up Rebecca’s figure to admiration, as she sat on a sofa covered with a pattern of gaudy flowers. She was in a pink dress that looked as fresh as a rose; her dazzling white arms and shoulders were half- covered with a thin hazy scarf through which they sparkled; her hair hung in curls round her neck; one of her little feet peeped out from the fresh crisp folds of the silk: the prettiest little foot in the prettiest little sandal in the finest silk stocking in the world.

The candles lighted up Lord Steyne’s shining bald head, which was fringed with red hair. He had thick bushy eyebrows, with little twinkling bloodshot eyes, surrounded by a thousand wrinkles. His jaw was underhung, and when he laughed, two white buck-teeth protruded themselves and glistened savagely in the midst of the grin. He had been dining with royal personages, and wore his garter and ribbon. A short man was his Lordship, broad-chested and bow-legged, but proud of the fineness of his foot and ankle, and always caressing his garter- knee.

“And so the shepherd is not enough,” said he, “to defend his lambkin?”

“The shepherd is too fond of playing at cards and going to his clubs,” answered Becky, laughing.

” ’Gad, what a debauched Corydon!” said my lord— “what a mouth for a pipe!”

“I take your three to two,” here said Rawdon, at the card-table.