“Here you are,” said Joseph Sedley, coming forward.  “What a day, eh?  You’re five minutes late, George, my boy.  Come along; my mother and Emmy are in the vestry.”

There was nobody in the church besides the officiating persons and a small marriage party and their attendants.  Old Sedley would not be present.  Joseph acted for his father giving away the bride, whilst Captain Dobbin stepped up as groomsman to his friend George.

“God bless you, old Dobbin,” George said, grasping him by the hand, when they went into the vestry and signed the register.  William replied only by nodding his head; his heart was too full to say much.

Ten days after the above ceremony Dobbin came down to Brighton, where not only Captain Osborne and Amelia, but also the Rawdon Crawleys were enjoying themselves, with news.  He had seen old Osborne, and tried to reconcile him to his son’s marriage, with the result that he left the implacable old man in a fit.  He had also learnt from his old Colonel that in a day or two the army would get its marching orders, for Belgium.

“It’s my opinion, George,” he said, “that the French Emperor will be upon us before three weeks are over.  But you need not say that to Mrs. Osborne, you know, and Brussels is full of fine people and ladies of fashion.”

Little Amelia, it must be owned, had rather a mean opinion of her husband’s friend, Captain Dobbin.  He was very plain and homely-looking, and exceedingly awkward and ungainly.  Not knowing him intimately as yet, she made light of honest William; and he knew her opinions of him quite well, and acquiesced in them very humbly.  A time came when she knew him better, and changed her notions regarding him; but that was distant as yet.

As for Rebecca, Captain Dobbin had not been two hours in the ladies’ company before she understood his secret perfectly.  She did not like him, and feared him privately.  He was so honest, that her arts did not affect him, and he shrank from her with instinctive repugnance.

On May 8 George Osborne received a letter from his father’s lawyer, informing him that “in consequence of the marriage which he had been pleased to contract Mr. Osborne ceases to consider him henceforth as a member of his family.  This determination is final and irrevocable.”

Within a week of this epistle George Osborne and his wife, Dobbin, Joseph Sedley, and the Rawdon Crawleys, were on their way to Brussels.

III.—­After Waterloo

About three weeks after the 18th of June, Alderman Sir William Dobbin called at Mr. Osborne’s house in Russell Square, and insisted upon seeing that gentleman.  “My son,” the Alderman said, with some hesitation, “dispatched me a letter by an officer of the —­th, who arrived in town to-day.  My son’s letter contains one for you, Osborne.”

The letter was in George’s well-known bold handwriting.  He had written it before daybreak on the 16th of June, just before he took leave of Amelia.  The very seal that sealed it had been robbed from George’s dead body on the field of battle.  The father knew nothing of this, but sat and looked at the letter in terrified vacancy.