Shut gently the door of the dark chamber wherein she suffers, as those kind people did who nursed her through the first months of her pain, and never left her until heaven had sent her consolation.A day came--of almost terrified delight and wonder--when the poor widowed girl pressed a child upon her breast--a child, with the eyes of George who was gone--a little boy, as beautiful as a cherub.What a miracle it was to hear its first cry! How she laughed and wept over it--how love, and hope, and prayer woke again in her bosom as the baby nestled there.She was safe.The doctors who attended her, and had feared for her life or for her brain, had waited anxiously for this crisis before they could pronounce that either was secure.It was worth the long months of doubt and dread which the persons who had constantly been with her had passed, to see her eyes once more beaming tenderly upon them.
Our friend Dobbin was one of them.It was he who brought her back to England and to her mother's house;when Mrs.O'Dowd, receiving a peremptory summons from her Colonel, had been forced to quit her patient.
To see Dobbin holding the infant, and to hear Amelia's laugh of triumph as she watched him, would have done any man good who had a sense of humour.William was the godfather of the child, and exerted his ingenuity in the purchase of cups, spoons, pap-boats, and corals for this little Christian.
How his mother nursed him, and dressed him, and lived upon him; how she drove away all nurses, and would scarce allow any hand but her own to touch him;how she considered that the greatest favour she could confer upon his godfather, Major Dobbin, was to allow the Major occasionally to dandle him, need not be told here.This child was her being.Her existence was a maternal caress.She enveloped the feeble and unconscious creature with love and worship.It was her life which the baby drank in from her bosom.Of nights, and when alone, she had stealthy and intense raptures of motherly love, such as God's marvellous care has awarded to the female instinct--joys how far higher and lower than reason--blind beautiful devotions which only women's hearts know.It was William Dobbin's task to muse upon these movements of Amelia's, and to watch her heart; and if his love made him divine almost all the feelings which agitated it, alas! he could see with a fatal perspicuity that there was no place there for him.And so, gently, he bore his fate, knowing it, and content to bear it.
I suppose Amelia's father and mother saw through the intentions of the Major, and were not ill-disposed to encourage him; for Dobbin visited their house daily, and stayed for hours with them, or with Amelia, or with the honest landlord, Mr.Clapp, and his family.He brought, on one pretext or another, presents to everybody, and almost every day; and went, with the landlord's little girl, who was rather a favourite with Amelia, by the name of Major Sugarplums.It was this little child who commonly acted as mistress of the ceremonies to introduce him to Mrs.Osborne.She laughed one day when Major Sugarplums'
cab drove up to Fulham, and he descended from it, bringing out a wooden horse, a drum, a trumpet, and other warlike toys, for little Georgy, who was scarcely six months old, and for whom the articles in question were entirely premature.
The child was asleep."Hush," said Amelia, annoyed, perhaps, at the creaking of the Major's boots; and she held out her hand; smiling because William could not take it until he had rid himself of his cargo of toys."Go downstairs, little Mary," said he presently to the child, "I want to speak to Mrs.Osborne." She looked up rather astonished, and laid down the infant on its bed.
"I am come to say good-bye, Amelia," said he, taking her slender little white hand gently.
"Good-bye? and where are you going?" she said, with a smile.
"Send the letters to the agents," he said; "they will forward them; for you will write to me, won't you? Ishall be away a long time."
"I'll write to you about Georgy," she said."Dear' William, how good you have been to him and to me.Look at him.Isn't he like an angel?"The little pink hands of the child closed mechanically round the honest soldier's finger, and Amelia looked up in his face with bright maternal pleasure.The cruellest looks could not have wounded him more than that glance of hopeless kindness.He bent over the child and mother.
He could not speak for a moment.And it was only with all his strength that he could force himself to say a God bless you."God bless you," said Amelia, and held up her face and kissed him.
"Hush! Don't wake Georgy!" she added, as William Dobbin went to the door with heavy steps.She did not hear the noise of his cab-wheels as he drove away: she was looking at the child, who was laughing in his sleep.
