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whom Georgy used to lark dreadfully with accounts of German robbers and ghosts. She passed her time chiefly in grumbling, in ordering about her mistress, and in stating her intention to return the next morning to her native village of Clapham. She may have Paynes room, Emmy said. Why, you dont mean to say you are going to have that woman into the house? bounced out the Major, jumping up. Of course we are, said Amelia in the most innocent way in the world. Dont be angry and break the furniture, Major Dobbin. Of course we are going to have her here. Of course, my dear, Jos said. The poor creature, after all her sufferings, Emmy continued; her horrid banker broken and run away; her husbandwicked wretchhaving deserted her and taken her child away from her (here she doubled her two little fists and held them in a most menacing attitude before her, so that the Major was charmed to see such a dauntless virago) the poor dear thing! quite alone and absolutely forced to give lessons in singing to get her breadand not have her here! Take lessons, my dear Mrs. George, cried the Major, but dont have her in the house. I implore you dont. Pooh, said Jos. You who are always good and kindalways used to be at any rateIm astonished at you, Major William, Amelia cried. Why, what is the moment to help her but when she is so miserable? Now is the time to be of service to her. The oldest friend I ever had, and not She was not always your friend, Amelia, the Major said, for he was quite angry. This allusion was too much for Emmy, who, looking the Major almost fiercely in the face, said, For shame, Major Dobbin! and after having fired this shot, she walked out of the room with a most majestic air and shut her own door briskly on herself and her outraged dignity. To allude to that! she said, when the door was closed. Oh, it was cruel of him to remind me of it, and she looked up at Georges picture, which hung there as usual, with the portrait of the boy underneath. It was cruel of him. If I had forgiven it, ought he to have spoken? No. And it is from his own lips that I know how wicked and groundless my jealousy was; and that you were pureoh, yes, you were pure, my saint in heaven! She paced the room, trembling and indignant. She went and leaned on the chest of drawers over which the picture hung, and gazed and gazed at it. Its eyes seemed to look down on her with a reproach that deepened as she looked. The early dear, dear memories of that brief prime of love rushed back upon her. The wound which years had scarcely cicatrized bled afresh, and oh, how bitterly! She could not bear the reproaches of the husband there before her. It couldnt be. Never, never. Poor Dobbin; poor old William! That unlucky word had undone the work of many a yearthe long laborious edifice of a life of love and constancyraised too upon what secret and hidden foundations, wherein lay buried passions, uncounted struggles, unknown sacrificesa little word was spoken, and down fell the fair palace of hopeone word, and away flew the bird which he had been trying all his life to lure! William, though he saw by Amelias looks that a great crisis had come, nevertheless continued to implore Sedley, in the most energetic terms, to beware of Rebecca; and he eagerly, almost frantically, adjured Jos not to receive her. He besought Mr. Sedley to inquire at least regarding her; told him how he had heard that she was in the company of gamblers and people of ill repute; pointed out what evil she had done in former days, how she and Crawley had misled poor George into ruin, how she was now parted from her husband, by her own confession, and, perhaps, for good reason. What a dangerous companion she would be for his sister, who knew nothing of the affairs of the world! William implored Jos, with all the eloquence which he could bring to bear, and a great deal more energy than this quiet gentleman was ordinarily in the habit of showing, to keep Rebecca out of his household. |
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