. For, happening to mention one night that hers, which Rawdon had given
to her, was of English workmanship, and went ill, on the very next morning there
came to her a little bijou marked Leroy, with a chain and cover charmingly set
with turquoises, and another signed Breguet, which was covered with pearls, and
yet scarcely bigger than a half-crown. General Tufto had bought one, and Captain
Osborne had gallantly presented the other. Mrs. Osborne had no watch, though, to
do George justice, she might have had one for the asking; and the Honourable
Mrs. Tufto in England had an old instrument of her mother's that might have
served for the plate warming-pan which Rawdon talked about. If Messrs. Howell
&amp; James were to publish a list of the purchasers of all the trinkets which
they sell, how surprised would some families be; and if all these ornaments;
went to gentlemen's lawful wives and daughters, what a profusion, of jewellery
there would be exhibited in the genteelest homes of Vanity Fair!
    Every calculation made of these valuables, Mrs. Rebecca found, not without a
pungent feeling of triumph and self-satisfaction, that should circumstances
occur, she might reckon, on six or seven hundred pounds at the very least, to
begin the world with; and she passed the morning disposing, ordering, looking
out, and locking up her properties in the most agreeable manner. Among the notes
in Rawdon's pocket-book was a draft for twenty pounds on Osborne's banker. This
made her think about Mrs. Osborne. »I will go and get the draft cashed,« she
said, »and pay a visit afterwards to poor little Emmy.« If this is a novel
without a hero, at least let us lay claim to a heroine. No man in the British
army which has marched away, not the great Duke himself, could be more cool or
collected in the presence of doubts and difficulties, than the indomitable
little aide-de-camp's wife.
 
And there was another of our acquaintances who was also to be left behind, a
non-combatant, and whose emotions and behaviour we have therefore a right to
know. This was our friend, the ex-Collector of Boggley Wollah, whose rest was
broken, like other people's, by the sounding of the bugles in the early morning.
Being a great sleeper, and fond of his bed, it is possible he would have snoozed
on until his usual hour of rising in the forenoon, in spite of
