Page:Vanity Fair 1848.djvu/47

Rh tale many scores of times to his apothecary, Dr. Gollop, when he came to inquire about the liver and the blue-pill.

Being an invalid, Joseph Sedley contented himself with a bottle of claret besides his Madeira at dinner, and he managed a couple of plates full of strawberries and cream, and twenty-four little rout cakes, that were lying neglected in a plate near him, and certainly (for novelists have the privilege of knowing everything), he thought a great deal about the girl up stairs. "A nice, gay, merry young creature," thought he to himself. "How she looked at me when I picked up her handkerchief at dinner! She dropped it twice.  Who's that singing in the drawing-room?  'Gad! shall I go up and see?"

But his modesty came rushing upon him with uncontrolable force. His father was asleep: his hat was in the hall: there was a hackney-coach stand hard by in Southampton Row. "I'll go and see the Forty Thieves," said he, "and Miss Decamp's dance;" and he slipped away gently on the pointed toes of his boots, and disappeared, without waking his worthy parent.

"There goes Joseph," said Amelia, who was looking from the open windows of the drawing-room, while Rebecca was singing at the piano.

"Miss Sharp has frightened him away," said Mrs. Sedley. "Poor Joe, why will he be so shy?"