Pickwick Abroad: A Companion to the Pickwick Papers — page 240: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

12 and crying, with the hysterical yoops of Miss Swartz, the parlor-boarder, from her room, as no pen can depict, and as the ten- der heart would fain pass over. ‘The em- bracing was over ; they parted—that is, Miss Sedley parted from her friends. Miss Sharp had demurely entered the carriage some minutes before. Nobody cried for leaving her. Sambo of the bandy-legs slammed the carriage-door on his young, weeping mis- tress. He sprang up behind the carriage. ‘¢ Stop !’”’ cried Miss Jemima, rushing to the gate with a parcel. ‘It’s some sandwiches, my dear,” said she to Amelia. ‘* You may be hungry, you know; and Becky, Becky Sharp, here’s a book for you that my sister—that is, I— Johnson’s Dixonary, you know; you mustn’t leave us without that. Good by. Drive on, coachman. God bless you!” And the kind creature retreated into the garden, overcome with emotions. But, lo! and just as the coach drove off, Miss Sharp put her pale face out of the win- dow, and actually flung the book back into the garden. This almost caused Jemima to faint with terror. ‘ Well, I never’’—said she—*t what an audacious”—-Emotion prevented her from completing either sentence. ‘The carriage rolled away; the great gates were closed ; the bell rang for the dancing lesson. The world is before the two young ladies; and so, farewell to Chiswick Mall. i) CHAPTER II. IN WHICH MISS SHARP AND MISS SEDLEY PREPARE TO OPEN THE CAMPAIGN. Wuen Miss Sharp had performed the heroical act mentioned in the last chapter, and had seen the Dixonary flying over the pavement of the little garden, fall at length abthe feet of the astonished Miss Jemima, the. young lady’s countenance, which had before worn an almost livid look of hatred, assumed a smile that perhaps was scarcely more agreeable, and she sank back in the carriage in an easy frame of mind, saying— ‘So much for the Dixonary; and, thank God, ’'m out of Chiswick ?”’ Miss Sedley was almost as flurried at the act of defiance as Miss Jemima had been; for, consider, it was but one minute that she had left school, and the impressions of six years are not got over in that space of time. Nay, with some persons, those awes and terrors of youth last forever and ever. I know, for instance, an old gentleman of sixty- eight, who said to me one morning at break- fast, with a very agitated countenance, ‘I dreamed last night that I was flogged by Dr. Raine.” Fancy had carried him back only VANITY FAIR. fifty years in the course of that evening.. Dr. Raine and his rod were just as awful to him in his heart, then, at sixty-eight, as they had been at thirteen. Ifthe Doctor, witha large birch, had appeared bodily to him, even at the age of threescore and eight, and had said, in an awful vgice, ‘‘ Boy, take down your pant.....7” Well, well, Miss Sed- ley was exceedingly alarmed at this act of in- subordination. | ‘* How could you do so, Rebecca ?”’ at last she said, after a pause. “Why, do you think Miss Pinkerton will come out and order me back to the black - hole?” said Rebecca, laughing. ‘No: but a . ‘‘ | hate the whole house,” continued Miss Sharp, ina fury. ‘I hope I may never set. eyes on itagain. ‘I wish it were in the bot- tom of the Thames, I do; and if Miss Pink-. erton were there, I wouldn’t pick her out, that I wouldn’t. O, how I should like to see her floating in the water yonder, turban and all, with her train streaming after her, and her nose like the beak of a wherry.” ‘¢ Hush !” cried Miss Sedley. “Why, will the black footman tell tales ?”’ cried Miss Rebecca, laughing. ‘*‘ He may go back and tell Miss Pinkerton that I hate her with all my soul; and I wish he would ; and I wish I had a means of proving it, too. For two years | have only had insults and outrage from her. I have been treated worse than any servant in the kitchen. I have never had a friend or a kind word, ex- cept from you. I have been made to tend the little girls in the lower schoolroom, and to talk French to the Misses, until | grew sick of my mother tongue. But that talking French to Miss Pinkerton was capital fun, wasn’t it? She doesn’t know a word of French, and was too proud to confess it. I believe it was that which made her part with me; and sothank Heaven for French. Vive la France! Viel Empereur! Vive Bona- parte!” “Qh, Rebecca, Rebecca, for shame!” cried Miss Sedley ; for this was the greatest blasphemy Rebecca had as yet uttered ; and in those days, in England, to say, ‘‘ Long live Bonaparte!’ was as much as to say, ‘Long live Lucifer!” ‘* How can you— how dare you have such wicked, revengeful thoughts ?” “Revenge may be wicked, but it’s natu- ral,” answered Miss Rebecca. ‘‘I’m no angel.”” And, to say the truth, she certainly was not. For it may be remarked in the course of this conversation (which took place as the coach rolled along lazily by the river side), that though Miss Rebecca Sharp has twice had occasion to thank Heaven, it has been, in the first place, for ridding her of some » person whom she hated, and secondly, for enabling her to bring her enemies to some COMME OO <SGOim