Page 222 - vanity-fair

stacle in the shape of a previous attachment, otherwise no
young woman in her senses would ever have refused so ad-
vantageous a proposal.
‘You would have accepted it yourself, wouldn’t you,
Briggs?’ Miss Crawley said, kindly.
‘Would it not be a privilege to be Miss Crawley’s sister?’
Briggs replied, with meek evasion.
‘Well, Becky would have made a good Lady Crawley, after
all,’ Miss Crawley remarked (who was mollified by the girl’s
refusal, and very liberal and generous now there was no call
for her sacrifices). ‘She has brains in plenty (much more wit
in her little finger than you have, my poor dear Briggs, in all
your head). Her manners are excellent, now I have formed
her. She is a Montmorency, Briggs, and blood is something,
though I despise it for my part; and she would have held
her own amongst those pompous stupid Hampshire people
much better than that unfortunate ironmonger’s daughter.’
Briggs coincided as usual, and the ‘previous attachment’
was then discussed in conjectures. ‘You poor friendless
creatures are always having some foolish tendre,’ Miss
Crawley said. ‘You yourself, you know, were in love with
a writing-master (don’t cry, Briggs—you’re always crying,
and it won’t bring him to life again), and I suppose this un-
fortunate Becky has been silly and sentimental too—some
apothecary, or house-steward, or painter, or young curate,
or something of that sort.’
‘Poor thing! poor thing!’ says Briggs (who was thinking of
twentyfour years back, and that hectic young writing-mas-
ter whose lock of yellow hair, and whose letters, beautiful

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