Page 214 - vanity-fair

don attending to some of his innumerable schemes, and
busy with his endless lawyers. He had found time, neverthe-
less, to call often in Park Lane, and to despatch many notes
to Rebecca, entreating her, enjoining her, commanding her
to return to her young pupils in the country, who were now
utterly without companionship during their mother’s ill-
ness. But Miss Crawley would not hear of her departure; for
though there was no lady of fashion in London who would
desert her friends more complacently as soon as she was
tired of their society, and though few tired of them soon-
er, yet as long as her engoument lasted her attachment was
prodigious, and she clung still with the greatest energy to
Rebecca.
The news of Lady Crawley’s death provoked no more
grief or comment than might have been expected in Miss
Crawley’s family circle. ‘I suppose I must put off my party
for the 3rd,’ Miss Crawley said; and added, after a pause, ‘I
hope my brother will have the decency not to marry again.’
‘What a confounded rage Pitt will be in if he does,’ Rawdon
remarked, with his usual regard for his elder brother. Re-
becca said nothing. She seemed by far the gravest and most
impressed of the family. She left the room before Rawdon
went away that day; but they met by chance below, as he was
going away after taking leave, and had a parley together.
On the morrow, as Rebecca was gazing from the window,
she startled Miss Crawley, who was placidly occupied with
a French novel, by crying out in an alarmed tone, ‘Here’s
Sir Pitt, Ma’am!’ and the Baronet’s knock followed this an-
nouncement.

214 Vanity Fair