 at least only indulged in in privacy -
as when she was prevailed on by Jos of a summer evening, Emmy and the boy being
absent on their walks, to take a little spirit-and-water. But if she did not
indulge - the courier did: that rascal Kirsch could not be kept from the bottle;
nor could he tell how much he took when he applied to it. He was sometimes
surprised himself at the way in which Mr. Sedley's Cognac diminished. Well,
well; this is a painful subject. Becky did not very likely indulge so much as
she used before she entered a decorous family.
    At last the much-bragged-about boxes arrived from Leipsic - three of them,
not by any means large or splendid; nor did Becky appear to take out any sort of
dresses or ornaments from the boxes when they did arrive. But out of one, which
contained a mass of her papers (it was that very box which Rawdon Crawley had
ransacked in his furious hunt for Becky's concealed money), she took a picture
with great glee, which she pinned up in her room, and to which she introduced
Jos. It was the portrait of a gentleman in pencil, his face having the advantage
of being painted up in pink. He was riding on an elephant away from some
cocoa-nut trees, and a pagoda: it was an Eastern scene.
    »God bless my soul, it is my portrait!« Jos cried out. It was he indeed,
blooming in youth and beauty, in a nankeen jacket of the cut of 1804. It was the
old picture that used to hang up in Russell Square.
    »I bought it,« said Becky, in a voice trembling with emotion. »I went to see
if I could be of any use to my kind friends. I have never parted with that
picture - I never will.«
    »Won't you?« Jos cried, with a look of unutterable rapture and satisfaction.
»Did you really now value it for my sake?«
    »You know I did, well enough,« said Becky; »but why speak - why think - why
look back? It is too late now!«
    That evening's conversation was delicious for Jos. Emmy only came in to go
to bed very tired and unwell. Jos and his fair guest had a charming tête-à-tête,
and his sister could hear, as she lay awake in her adjoining chamber, Rebecca
singing over to Jos the old songs of 1815. He did not sleep
