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
in the East India Company's Civil Service, and his name appeared, at
the period of which we write, in the Bengal division of the East
India Register, as collector of Boggley Wollah, an honourable and
lucrative post, as everybody knows: in order to know to what higher
posts Joseph rose in the service, the reader is referred to the same
periodical.
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