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tenham that he can’t last six months. Mrs. Briefless’s papa
succeeds; so you see she will be a baronet’s daughter.’ And
Toady asked Briefless and his wife to dinner the very next
week.
If the mere chance of becoming a baronet’s daughter can
procure a lady such homage in the world, surely, surely we
may respect the agonies of a young woman who has lost
the opportunity of becoming a baronet’s wife. Who would
have dreamed of Lady Crawley dying so soon? She was
one of those sickly women that might have lasted these ten
years—Rebecca thought to herself, in all the woes of repen-
tance—and I might have been my lady! I might have led that
old man whither I would. I might have thanked Mrs. Bute
for her patronage, and Mr. Pitt for his insufferable conde-
scension. I would have had the town-house newly furnished
and decorated. I would have had the handsomest carriage
in London, and a box at the opera; and I would have been
presented next season. All this might have been; and now—
now all was doubt and mystery.
But Rebecca was a young lady of too much resolution and
energy of character to permit herself much useless and un-
seemly sorrow for the irrevocable past; so, having devoted
only the proper portion of regret to it, she wisely turned her
whole attention towards the future, which was now vastly
more important to her. And she surveyed her position, and
its hopes, doubts, and chances.
In the first place, she was MARRIED—that was a great
fact. Sir Pitt knew it. She was not so much surprised into
the avowal, as induced to make it by a sudden calculation. It

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