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Vanity Fair

By WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY Condensation by CAROLYN WELLS AFTER six years at Miss Pinkerton's school, Amelia Sedley went home, guaranteed a polished and refined young lady. Amelia was a dear little creature, all rosy health and bright good humor, though the silly thing would cry over a dead canary-bird or a mouse the cat had seized upon. She was accompanied by her dear friend, Becky Sharp, who was to make a short visit at the Sedley home before beginning her career of self-support as a governess. Becky was small, pale, and sandy-haired, with eyes habitually cast down; when they looked up they were large, odd, and attractive. As Miss Sharp's father had been an artist and a drunkard, and her French mother an opera girl, it is not surprising that Rebecca asserted she had never been a girl-she had been a woman since she was eight years old.