Now, Miss Sedley's papa was a merchant in London, and a man of some wealth, whereas Miss Sharp was only an articled pupil, for whom Miss Pinkerton had done, as she thought, quite enough, without conferring upon her at parting the high honour of the dixonary. Miss Sharp's father had been an artist, and in former years had given lessons in drawing at Miss Pinkerton's school. He was a clever man, a pleasant companion, a careless student, with a great propensity for running into debt, and a partiality for the tavern. As it was with the utmost difficulty that he could keep himself, and as he owed money for a mile round Soho, where he lived, he thought to better his circumstances by marrying a young woman of the French nation, who was by profession an opera-girl, who had had some education somewhere, and her daughter Rebecca spoke French with purity and a Parisian accent. It was in those days rather a rare accomplishment, and led to her engagement with the orthodox Miss Pinkerton. For, her mother being dead, her father, finding himself fatally ill, as a consequence of his bad habits, wrote a manly and pathetic letter to Miss Pinkerton, recommending the orphan child to her protection, and so descended to the grave, after two bailiffs had quarrelled over his corpse. Rebecca was seventeen when she came to Chiswick, and was bound over as an articled pupil; her duties being to talk French, as we have seen; and her privileges to live cost free, and with a few guineas a year, to gather scraps of knowledge from the professors who attended the school. She was small, and slight in person; pale, sandy-haired, and with eyes almost habitually cast down. When they looked up, they were very large, odd, and attractive. By the side of many tall and bouncing young ladies in the establishment Rebecca Sharp looked like a child. But she had the dismal precocity of poverty. Many a dun had she talked to, and turned away from her father's door; many a tradesman had she coaxed and wheedled into good-humour, and into the granting of one meal more. She had sat commonly with her father, who was very proud of her wit, and heard the talk of many of his wild companions, often but ill-suited for a girl to hear; but she had never been a girl, she said; she had been a woman since she was eight years old.