George Osborne's pale interesting
countenance, and those beautiful black, curling, shining whiskers,
which the young gentleman himself regarded with no ordinary
complacency, she thought in her little heart that in His Majesty's
army, or in the wide world, there never was such a face or such a
hero. "I don't care about Captain Dobbin's complexion," she said,
"or about his awkwardness. I shall always like him, I know," her
little reason being, that he was the friend and champion of George.
"There's not a finer fellow in the service," Osborne said, "nor a
better officer, though he is not an Adonis, certainly." And he
looked towards the glass himself with much naivete; and in so doing,
caught Miss Sharp's eye fixed keenly upon him, at which he blushed a
little, and Rebecca thought in her heart, "Ah, mon beau Monsieur! I
think I have YOUR gauge"--the little artful minx!
That evening, when Amelia came tripping into the drawing-room in a
white muslin frock, prepared for conquest at Vauxhall, singing like
a lark, and as fresh as a rose--a very tall ungainly gentleman, with
large hands and feet, and large ears, set off by a closely cropped
head of black hair, and in the hideous military frogged coat and
cocked hat of those times, advanced to meet her, and made her one of
the clumsiest bows that was ever performed by a mortal.
This was no other than Captain William Dobbin, of His Majesty's
Regiment of Foot, returned from yellow fever, in the West Indies, to
which the fortune of the service had ordered his regiment, whilst so
many of his gallant comrades were reaping glory in the Peninsula.
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