"He is just the age for Rosa," the fond parent thought, and glanced towards that dear child, a little miss of seven years. "Rosa, go and kiss your dear cousin," added Mrs. Bullock. "Don't you know me, George? I am your aunt."
"I know you well enough," George said; "but I don't like kissing, please," and he retreated from the obedient caresses of his cousin.
"Take me to your dear mamma, you droll child," Mrs. Bullock said; and those ladies met, after an absence of more than fifteen years. During Emmy's poverty Mrs. Bullock had never thought about coming to see her; but now that she was decently prosperous in the world, her sister-in-law came to her as a matter of course.
So did many others. In fact, before the period of grief for Mr. Osborne's death had subsided, Emmy, had she wished, could have become a leader in fashionable society. But that was not her desire: worn out with the long period of poverty, care, and separation from George, her one wish was a change of scene and thought.
Because of this wish, some time later, on a fine morning, when the Batavier steamboat was about to leave its dock, we see among the carriages being taken on, a very neat, handsome travelling carriage, from which a courier, Kirsch by name, got out and informed inquirers that the carriage belonged to an enormously rich Nabob from Calcutta and Jamaica, with whom he was engaged to travel. At this moment a young gentleman who had been warned off the bridge between the paddle-boxes, and who had dropped thence onto the roof of Lord Methusala's carriage, from which he made his way over other carriages until he had clambered onto his own, descended thence and through the window into the body of the carriage to the applause of the couriers looking on.
"Nous allons avoir une belle traversée, Monsieur George," said Kirsch with a grin, as he lifted his gold laced cap.
"Bother your French!" said the young gentleman.
"Where's the biscuits, ay?" Whereupon Kirsch answered him in such
English as he could command and produced the desired repast.
The imperious young gentleman who gobbled the biscuits (and indeed it was time to refresh himself, for he had breakfasted at Richmond full three hours before) was our young friend George Osborne. Uncle Jos and his mamma were on the quarter-deck with Major Dobbin, and the four were about to make a summer tour. Amelia wore a straw bonnet with black ribbons, and otherwise dressed in mourning, but the little bustle and holiday of the journey pleased and excited her, and from that day throughout the entire journey she continued to be very happy and pleased. Wherever they stopped Dobbin used to carry about for her her stool and sketch book, and admired her drawings as they never had been admired before. She sat upon steamer decks and drew crags and castles, or she mounted upon donkeys and descended to ancient robber towers, attended by her two escorts, Georgie and Dobbin. Dobbin was interpreter for the party, having a good military knowledge of the German language, and he and the delighted George, who was having a wonderful trip, fought over again the campaigns of the Rhine and the Palatinate. In the course of a few weeks of constant conversation with Herr Kirsch on the box of the carriage, George made great advance in the knowledge of High Dutch, and could talk to hotel waiters and postilions in a way that charmed his mother and amused his guardian.
At the little ducal town of Pumpernickel our party settled down for a protracted stay. There each one of them found something especially pleasing or interesting them, and there it was that they encountered an acquaintance of other days,—no other than Mrs. Rawdon Crawley; and because of Becky's experiences since she had quitted her husband, her child, and the little house in Curzon Street, London, of which he knew the details, Major Dobbin was anything but pleased at the meeting.