in England; how Brown, the famous novelist,
longs to be considered, not a man of genius, but a man of fashion; while
Robinson, the great lawyer, does not in the least care about his reputation in
Westminster Hall, but believes himself incomparable across country, and at a
five-barred gate - so to be, and to be thought, a respectable woman, was Becky's
aim in life, and she got up the genteel with amazing assiduity, readiness, and
success. We have said there were times when she believed herself to be a fine
lady, and forgot that there was no money in the chest at home - duns round the
gate, tradesmen to coax and wheedle - no ground to walk upon, in a word. And as
she went to Court in the carriage, the family carriage, she adopted a demeanour
so grand, self-satisfied, deliberate, and imposing, that it made even Lady Jane
laugh. She walked into the royal apartments with a toss of the head which would
have befitted an empress; and I have no doubt had she been one, she would have
become the character perfectly.
    We are authorized to state that Mrs. Rawdon Crawley's costume de cour on the
occasion of her presentation to the Sovereign was of the most elegant and
brilliant description. Some ladies we may have seen - we who wear stars and
cordons, and attend the St. James's assemblies, or we who, in muddy boots,
dawdle up and down Pall Mall, and peep into the coaches as they drive up with
the great folks in their feathers - some ladies of fashion, I say, we may have
seen, about two o'clock of the forenoon of a levee day, as the laced-jacketed
band of the Life Guards are blowing triumphal marches seated on those prancing
music-stools, their cream-coloured chargers - who are by no means lovely and
enticing objects at that early period of noon. A stout countess of sixty,
décolletée, painted, wrinkled with rouge up to her drooping eyelids, and
diamonds twinkling in her wig, is a wholesome and edifying, but not a pleasant
sight. She has the faded look of a St. James's Street illumination, as it may be
seen of an early morning, when half the lamps are out, and the others are
blinking wanly, as if they were about to vanish like ghosts before the dawn.
Such charms as those of which we catch glimpses while her ladyship's carriage
passes should appear abroad at night alone. If even Cynthia looks haggard