 his
father, resulted from money arrangements. The Baronet owed his son a sum of
money out of the jointure of his mother, which he did not find it convenient to
pay; indeed he had an almost invincible repugnance to paying anybody, and could
only be brought by force to discharge his debts. Miss Sharp calculated (for she
became, as we shall hear speedily, inducted into most of the secrets of the
family) that the mere payment of his creditors cost the honourable Baronet
several hundreds yearly: but this was a delight he could not forego; he had a
savage pleasure in making the poor wretches wait, and in shifting from court to
court and from term to term the period of satisfaction. What's the good of being
in Parliament, he said, if you must pay your debts? Hence, indeed, his position
as a senator was a not a little useful to him.
    Vanity Fair - Vanity Fair! Here was a man, who could not spell, and did not
care to read; who had the habits and the cunning of a boor; whose aim in life
was pettifogging; who never had a taste, or emotion, or enjoyment, but what was
sordid and foul: and yet he had rank, and honours, and power, somehow; and was a
dignitary of the land, and a pillar of the state. He was high sheriff, and rode
in a golden coach. Great ministers and statesmen courted him; and in Vanity Fair
he had a higher place than the most brilliant genius or spotless virtue.
 
Sir Pitt had an unmarried half-sister who inherited her mother's large fortune;
and though the Baronet proposed to borrow this money of her on mortgage, Miss
Crawley declined the offer, and preferred the security of the funds. She had
signified, however, her intention of leaving her inheritance between Sir Pitt's
second son and the family at the Rectory, and had once or twice paid the debts
of Rawdon Crawley in his career at college and in the army. Miss Crawley was, in
consequence, an object of great respect when she came to Queen's Crawley, for
she had a balance at her banker's which would have made her beloved anywhere.
    What a dignity it gives an old lady, that balance at the banker's! How
tenderly we look at her faults if she is a relative (and may every reader have a
score of such); what a kind good-natured old creature we find her! How the
junior partner of Hobbs and Dobbs leads her smiling to the carriage with the
