Page 524 - vanity-fair

handsome remembrance of her, which would pay a few of
his most pressing bills at the commencement of the ensu-
ing Oxford term, and so took his place by the coach from
Southampton, and was safely landed at Brighton on the
same evening? with his portmanteau, his favourite bull-dog
Towzer, and an immense basket of farm and garden pro-
duce, from the dear Rectory folks to the dear Miss Crawley.
Considering it was too late to disturb the invalid lady on
the first night of his arrival, he put up at an inn, and did
not wait upon Miss Crawley until a late hour in the noon
of next day.
James Crawley, when his aunt had last beheld him, was a
gawky lad, at that uncomfortable age when the voice varies
between an unearthly treble and a preternatural bass; when
the face not uncommonly blooms out with appearances for
which Rowland’s Kalydor is said to act as a cure; when boys
are seen to shave furtively with their sister’s scissors, and
the sight of other young women produces intolerable sen-
sations of terror in them; when the great hands and ankles
protrude a long way from garments which have grown too
tight for them; when their presence after dinner is at once
frightful to the ladies, who are whispering in the twilight in
the drawing-room, and inexpressibly odious to the gentle-
men over the mahogany, who are restrained from freedom
of intercourse and delightful interchange of wit by the pres-
ence of that gawky innocence; when, at the conclusion of
the second glass, papa says, ‘Jack, my boy, go out and see if
the evening holds up,’ and the youth, willing to be free, yet
hurt at not being yet a man, quits the incomplete banquet.

524 Vanity Fair