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mean by your looks (and very expressive and kind they are,
too), I wouldn’t have said no.’
Mr. Osborne gave a look as much as to say, ‘Indeed, how
very obliging!’
‘What an honour to have had you for a brother-in-law,
you are thinking? To be sister-in-law to George Osborne,
Esquire, son of John Osborne, Esquire, son of—what was
your grandpapa, Mr. Osborne? Well, don’t be angry. You
can’t help your pedigree, and I quite agree with you that I
would have married Mr. Joe Sedley; for could a poor pen-
niless girl do better? Now you know the whole secret. I’m
frank and open; considering all things, it was very kind of
you to allude to the circumstance—very kind and polite.
Amelia dear, Mr. Osborne and I were talking about your
poor brother Joseph. How is he?’
Thus was George utterly routed. Not that Rebecca was
in the right; but she had managed most successfully to put
him in the wrong. And he now shamefully fled, feeling, if
he stayed another minute, that he would have been made to
look foolish in the presence of Amelia.
Though Rebecca had had the better of him, George
was above the meanness of talebearing or revenge upon
a lady—only he could not help cleverly confiding to Cap-
tain Crawley, next day, some notions of his regarding Miss
Rebecca—that she was a sharp one, a dangerous one, a des-
perate flirt, &c.; in all of which opinions Crawley agreed
laughingly, and with every one of which Miss Rebecca was
made acquainted before twenty-four hours were over. They
added to her original regard for Mr. Osborne. Her woman’s

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