ith a single evening, like a paltry town
entertainment, where the whole supply of eatables is put on the table
at once, and bedding is scanty. The Red House was provisioned as if
for a siege; and as for the spare feather-beds ready to be laid on
floors, they were as plentiful as might naturally be expected in a
family that had killed its own geese for many generations.

Godfrey Cass was looking forward to this New Year's Eve with a foolish
reckless longing, that made him half deaf to his importunate companion,
Anxiety.

"Dunsey will be coming home soon: there will be a great blow-up, and
how will you bribe his spite to silence?" said Anxiety.

"Oh, he won't come home before New Year's Eve, perhaps," said Godfrey;
"and I shall sit by Nancy then, and dance with her, and get a kind look
from her in spite of herself."

"But money is wanted in another quarter," said Anxiety, in a louder
voice, "and how will you get it without selling your mother's diamond
pin? And if you don't get it...?"

"Well, but something may happen to make things easier. At any rate,
there's one pleasure for me close at hand: Nancy is coming."

"Yes, and suppose your father should bring matters to a pass that will
oblige you to decline marrying her--and to give your reasons?"

"Hold your tongue, and don't worry me. I can see Nancy's eyes, just as
they will look at me, and feel her hand in mine already."

But Anxiety went on, though in noisy Christmas company; refusing to be
utterly quieted even by much drinking.

CHAPTER XI

Some women, I grant, would not appear to advantage seated on a pillion,
and attired in a drab joseph and a drab beaver-bonnet, with a crown
resembling a small stew-pan; for a garment suggesting a coachman's
greatcoat, cut out under an exiguity of cloth that would only allow of
miniature capes, is not well adapted to conceal deficiencies of
contour, nor is drab a colour that will throw sallow cheeks into lively
contrast. It was all the greater triumph to Miss Nancy Lammeter's
beauty that she looked thoroughly bewitching in that costume, as,
seated on the pillion behind her tall, erect father, she held one arm
round him, and looked down, with open-eyed anxiety, at the treacherous
snow-covered pools and puddles, which sent up formidable splashings of
mud under the stamp of Dobbin's foot. A painter would, perhaps, have
preferred her in those moments when she was free from
self-consciousness; but certainly the blo