ay was plentiful and his luck good. Tufto perhaps was sulky. Mrs.
Tufto had come over to Paris at her own invitation, and besides this
contretemps, there were a score of generals now round Becky's chair,
and she might take her choice of a dozen bouquets when she went to the
play. Lady Bareacres and the chiefs of the English society, stupid and
irreproachable females, writhed with anguish at the success of the
little upstart Becky, whose poisoned jokes quivered and rankled in
their chaste breasts. But she had all the men on her side. She fought
the women with indomitable courage, and they could not talk scandal in
any tongue but their own.

So in fetes, pleasures, and prosperity, the winter of 1815-16 passed
away with Mrs. Rawdon Crawley, who accommodated herself to polite life
as if her ancestors had been people of fashion for centuries past--and
who from her wit, talent, and energy, indeed merited a place of honour
in Vanity Fair. In the early spring of 1816, Galignani's Journal
contained the following announcement in an interesting corner of the
paper: "On the 26th of March--the Lady of Lieutenant-Colonel Crawley,
of the Life Guards Green--of a son and heir."

This event was copied into the London papers, out of which Miss Briggs
read the statement to Miss Crawley, at breakfast, at Brighton. The
intelligence, expected as it might have been, caused a crisis in the
affairs of the Crawley family. The spinster's rage rose to its height,
and sending instantly for Pitt, her nephew, and for the Lady Southdown,
from Brunswick Square, she requested an immediate celebration of the
marriage which had been so long pending between the two families. And
she announced that it was her intention to allow the young couple a
thousand a year during her lifetime, at the expiration of which the
bulk of her property would be settled upon her nephew and her dear
niece, Lady Jane Crawley. Waxy came down to ratify the deeds--Lord
Southdown gave away his sister--she was married by a Bishop, and not by
the Rev. Bartholomew Irons--to the disappointment of the irregular
prelate.

When they were married, Pitt would have liked to take a hymeneal tour
with his bride, as became people of their condition. But the affection
of the old lady towards Lady Jane had grown so strong, that she fairly
owned she could not part with her favourite. Pitt and his wife came
therefore and lived with Miss Crawley: and (greatly to the annoyance of
poor Pitt