o'clock in the morning through a whole mortal season? What causes
them to labour at pianoforte sonatas, and to learn four songs from a
fashionable master at a guinea a lesson, and to play the harp if
they have handsome arms and neat elbows, and to wear Lincoln Green
toxophilite hats and feathers, but that they may bring down some
"desirable" young man with those killing bows and arrows of theirs?
What causes respectable parents to take up their carpets, set their
houses topsy-turvy, and spend a fifth of their year's income in ball
suppers and iced champagne? Is it sheer love of their species, and
an unadulterated wish to see young people happy and dancing? Psha!
they want to marry their daughters; and, as honest Mrs. Sedley has,
in the depths of her kind heart, already arranged a score of little
schemes for the settlement of her Amelia, so also had our beloved
but unprotected Rebecca determined to do her very best to secure the
husband, who was even more necessary for her than for her friend.
She had a vivid imagination; she had, besides, read the Arabian
Nights and Guthrie's Geography; and it is a fact that while she was
dressing for dinner, and after she had asked Amelia whether her
brother was very rich, she had built for herself a most magnificent
castle in the air, of which she was mistress, with a husband
somewhere in the background (she had not seen him as yet, and his
figure would not therefore be very distinct); she had arrayed
herself in an infinity of shawls, turbans, and diamond necklaces,
and had mounted upon an elephant to the sound of the march in
Bluebeard, in order to pay a visit of ceremony to the Grand Mogul.
Charming Alnaschar visions! it is the happy privilege of youth to
construct you, and many a fanciful young creature besides Rebecca
Sharp has indulged in these delightful day-dreams ere now!

Joseph Sedley was twelve years older than his sister Amelia. He was