Page 1052 - vanity-fair

that is the misfortune of beginning with this kind of forg-
ery. When one fib becomes due as it were, you must forge
another to take up the old acceptance; and so the stock of
your lies in circulation inevitably multiplies, and the danger
of detection increases every day.
‘My agonies,’ Becky continued, ‘were terrible (I hope she
won’t sit down on the bottle) when they took him away from
me; I thought I should die; but I fortunately had a brain
fever, during which my doctor gave me up, and—and I re-
covered, and—and here I am, poor and friendless.’
‘How old is he?’ Emmy asked.
‘Eleven,’ said Becky.
‘Eleven!’ cried the other. ‘Why, he was born the same
year with Georgy, who is—‘
‘I know, I know,’ Becky cried out, who had in fact quite
forgotten all about little Rawdon’s age. ‘Grief has made me
forget so many things, dearest Amelia. I am very much
changed: half-wild sometimes. He was eleven when they
took him away from me. Bless his sweet face; I have never
seen it again.’
‘Was he fair or dark?’ went on that absurd little Emmy.
‘Show me his hair.’
Becky almost laughed at her simplicity. ‘Not to-day,
love—some other time, when my trunks arrive from
Leipzig, whence I came to this place—and a little drawing
of him, which I made in happy days.’
‘Poor Becky, poor Becky!’ said Emmy. ‘How thankful,
how thankful I ought to be”; (though I doubt whether that
practice of piety inculcated upon us by our womankind in

1052 Vanity Fair