“Is the book called ‘Vanity Fair’?”
“That’s the very name. I dinna see yet the meaning o’ it.”
“Do you like it?”
“Weel, I like the folks best that I shouldna like. There’s an auld woman in it, that I wad gie a cup o’ tea and an hour’s crack to, any day, and be glad o’ the pleasure o’ it; and there’s the girl, called Becky, that isna at a’ a kirklike girl, but I canna help liking her weel. I think I wad hae been her marrow, if I had been born and brought up as she was. I’m sure it must be gey hard for men to mak’ up the likeness o’ a real good woman—they mak’ them too good, you feel as if they should be in heaven, and mostly I find they send them there by early death, or some other disease, or mischance.”
“So you like Becky?”
“I do. There’s circumstances, Sir! They alter cases. They do that! If a woman has the fight wi’ the warld on her hands, she’ll be requiring a little o’ 246 the deil in her, just to keep the deil out o’ her. I hope the man Thackeray has had sense enou’ to mak’ Becky come a’ right at the lang end.”
“I believe she becomes very respectable, and joins the Church of England.”
“That would be the right thing for her. I hae heard that it is a vera broad church, and that its deacons——”
“Wardens, Margot.”
“Wardens be it. I hae heard that they dinna dog its members round Sunday and work days, as our deacons do. Your ain deacons are vera officious, sir.”