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443 | 77_chapter_3 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | The door to the shop opens. It's a handsome, somewhat impoverished looking young man: the Pyncheon house lodger, Mr. Holgrave. He congratulates Hepzibah on following through with her plan. She begins to sob: "I wish I were dead, and in the old family-tomb, with all my forefathers!" . Mr. Holgrave promises that Hepzibah... | [
"MISS HEPZIBAH PYNCHEON sat in the oaken elbow-chair, with her hands\nover her face, giving way to that heavy down-sinking of the heart which\nmost persons have experienced, when the image of hope itself seems\nponderously moulded of lead, on the eve of an enterprise at once\ndoubtful and momentous. She was suddenl... |
444 | 77_chapter_4 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Around noon, Hepzibah sees a man walking by. He's elderly and rich-looking, with a cold, heavy face. He sees Hepzibah's shop and looks displeased, then suddenly smiles. This is Hepzibah's cousin Jaffrey Pyncheon - the judge who is head of the Pyncheon family. Just then, little Ned Higgins comes in to buy a gingerbread ... | [
"TOWARDS noon, Hepzibah saw an elderly gentleman, large and portly, and\nof remarkably dignified demeanor, passing slowly along on the opposite\nside of the white and dusty street. On coming within the shadow of the\nPyncheon Elm, he stopt, and (taking off his hat, meanwhile, to wipe the\n perspiration from ... |
445 | 77_chapter_5 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Phoebe wakes up the next morning in a room overlooking the garden. She sees a lush rosebush that had been planted generations before by Alice Pyncheon. Phoebe rearranges the old, dusty room to try to make it more lovely and homey. She emerges dressed and ready for the day. Hepzibah and Phoebe chat over breakfast. Phoeb... | [
"PHOEBE PYNCHEON slept, on the night of her arrival, in a chamber that looked down on the garden of the old house. It fronted towards the east, so that at a very seasonable hour a glow of crimson light came flooding through the window, and bathed the dingy ceiling and paper-hangings in its own hue. There were curta... |
446 | 77_chapter_6 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Phoebe goes out into the garden. She sees signs that the garden has been well-cared for. She can't figure out who's doing the upkeep, but she's sure it's not Hepzibah. She finds a corner of the garden with a lovely old mossy fountain. There is also a chicken coop. Phoebe runs inside to get breadcrumbs for the chickens.... | [
"AFTER an early tea, the little country-girl strayed into the garden.\nThe enclosure had formerly been very extensive, but was now contracted\nwithin small compass, and hemmed about, partly by high wooden fences,\n and partly by the outbuildings of houses that stood on another street.\n In its centre wa... |
447 | 77_chapter_7 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Phoebe wakes up the next morning and walks downstairs. She finds Hepzibah looking at a cookbook. Hepzibah asks Phoebe to go look for an egg in the hen coop. Hepzibah begins cooking energetically. Phoebe, the rats, and the ghosts of the household are all surprised at this unusual activity. Phoebe gathers some flowers to... | [
"WHEN Phoebe awoke,--which she did with the early twittering of the\nconjugal couple of robins in the pear-tree,--she heard movements below\nstairs, and, hastening down, found Hepzibah already in the kitchen. She stood by a window, holding a book in close contiguity to her nose,\n as if with the hope of gaining ... |
448 | 77_chapter_8 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Phoebe goes down to the shop to find Ned Higgins waiting. This time little Ned is on a chore for his mother. Ned buys some eggs, but he also asks Phoebe how Hepzibah's brother is getting along. It's only with this question that Phoebe realizes how Clifford Pyncheon is related to Hepzibah. But she still doesn't know whe... | [
"PHOEBE, on entering the shop, beheld there the already familiar face of\nthe little devourer--if we can reckon his mighty deeds aright--of Jim\nCrow, the elephant, the camel, the dromedaries, and the locomotive. Having expended his private fortune, on the two preceding days, in the\npurchase of the above unheard-o... |
449 | 77_chapter_9 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Hepzibah has spent her entire life patiently waiting to get her beloved brother back home again. Now that he is out of prison, she does her best to make him feel warm and loved again. She brings down his old books of poetry and fiction. But Clifford doesn't seem to enjoy listening to Hepzibah read. Her voice is harsh, ... | [
"TRULY was there something high, generous, and noble in the native composition of our poor old Hepzibah! Or else,--and it was quite as probably the case,--she had been enriched by poverty, developed by sorrow, elevated by the strong and solitary affection of her life, and thus endowed with heroism, which never coul... |
450 | 77_chapter_10 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Phoebe suggests that Clifford go out into the garden for some sunshine. She reads to Clifford outside, choosing from Mr. Holgrave's fiction and poetry collection. Clifford still doesn't think much of fiction, but he does enjoy the poetry, with its rhythmic language. Even more than Phoebe's reading, though, Clifford enj... | [
"CLIFFORD, except for Phoebe's More active instigation would ordinarily\nhave yielded to the torpor which had crept through all his modes of\nbeing, and which sluggishly counselled him to sit in his morning chair\ntill eventide. But the girl seldom failed to propose a removal to the\ngarden, where Uncle Venner and... |
451 | 77_chapter_11 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Clifford would probably have been content to spend the rest of his life sitting in the garden, but Phoebe gets the idea that he should have some variety. So occasionally she brings Clifford to the window at the top of the stairs that looks out on Pyncheon Street. Clifford is quite stunned by the technological advances ... | [
"FROM the inertness, or what we may term the vegetative character, of\nhis ordinary mood, Clifford would perhaps have been content to spend\none day after another, interminably,--or, at least, throughout the\nsummer-time,--in just the kind of life described in the preceding\npages. Fancying, however, that it might ... |
452 | 77_chapter_12 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Clifford usually gets tired long before sunset, so Phoebe is free to entertain herself in the evening. This is lucky because the House of the Seven Gables is not a cheerful place. The only young person she regularly sees is Mr. Holgrave. Even though they don't have much in common, they are still thrown into society tog... | [
"IT must not be supposed that the life of a personage naturally so\nactive as Phoebe could be wholly confined within the precincts of the\nold Pyncheon House. Clifford's demands upon her time were usually\nsatisfied, in those long days, considerably earlier than sunset. Quiet\nas his daily existence seemed, it neve... |
453 | 77_chapter_13 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | One day Matthew Maule II gets a message to come to the House of the Seven Gables. The servant who brings the message, Scipio, says the house is haunted by Colonel Pyncheon. Matthew Maule II adds that, if Colonel Pyncheon weren't haunting the place, his grandfather Matthew Maule certainly would be. Matthew Maule II send... | [
"THERE was a message brought, one day, from the worshipful Gervayse\nPyncheon to young Matthew Maule, the carpenter, desiring his immediate\npresence at the House of the Seven Gables.",
"\"And what does your master want with me?\" said the carpenter to Mr.\nPyncheon's black servant. \"Does the house need any rep... |
454 | 77_chapter_14 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | After Mr. Holgrave finishes reading his story aloud, he notices that Phoebe has become literally hypnotized as a result of his gestures. Mr. Holgrave has a sudden temptation: he could establish total power over Phoebe in this state. But he has too much respect for individual choice to do this to Phoebe, so he releases ... | [
"HOLGRAVE, plunging into his tale with the energy and absorption natural\nto a young author, had given a good deal of action to the parts capable\nof being developed and exemplified in that manner. He now observed\nthat a certain remarkable drowsiness (wholly unlike that with which the\n reader possibly feel... |
455 | 77_chapter_15 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Clifford and Hepzibah start moping around the House of the Seven Gables. The weather is cold and stormy. Hepzibah is exhausted trying to keep up the house by herself. On the fifth day of this, Clifford refuses to get up in the morning. Frankly, Hepzibah is relieved to be alone for a bit. Clifford taps out a few notes o... | [
"SEVERAL days passed over the Seven Gables, heavily and drearily enough.\nIn fact (not to attribute the whole gloom of sky and earth to the one\n inauspicious circumstance of Phoebe's departure), an easterly storm had\nset in, and indefatigably apply itself to the task of making the black\nroof and walls of ... |
456 | 77_chapter_16 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Hepzibah goes back inside the House of the Seven Gables. She has a feeling that something new, something unprecedented in the Pyncheon family history, is about to take place. Hepzibah is sure that Judge Jaffrey Pyncheon will destroy Clifford. She is also sure that Clifford has no access to the secret Judge Pyncheon bel... | [
"NEVER had the old house appeared so dismal to poor Hepzibah as when she\ndeparted on that wretched errand. There was a strange aspect in it. As she trode along the foot-worn passages, and opened one crazy door\nafter another, and ascended the creaking staircase, she gazed wistfully\nand fearfully around. It would ... |
457 | 77_chapter_17 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Hepzibah and Clifford are as inexperienced as children as they step out of the yard of the House of the Seven Gables. Clifford looks almost drunk with excitement. Hardly anyone notices Clifford and Hepzibah passing by. Hepzibah continues to feel as though she is walking in a dream. Clifford pulls Hepzibah toward a line... | [
"SUMMER as it was, the east wind set poor Hepzibah's few remaining teeth chattering in her head, as she and Clifford faced it, on their way up Pyncheon Street, and towards the centre of the town. Not merely was it the shiver which this pitiless blast brought to her frame (although her feet and hands, especially, ha... |
458 | 77_chapter_18 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Judge Pyncheon still sits in the parlor "keeping house" . He has not moved a muscle. The narrator comments that it's odd to see Judge Pyncheon sitting so still when he has so much business to do today. After finishing his business with Clifford, he was going to meet with his broker to invest more money. He was going to... | [
"JUDGE PYNCHEON, while his two relatives have fled away with such\nill-considered haste, still sits in the old parlor, keeping house, as\nthe familiar phrase is, in the absence of its ordinary occupants. To\nhim, and to the venerable House of the Seven Gables, does our story now\nbetake itself, like an owl, bewild... |
459 | 77_chapter_19 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Uncle Venner is the first person awake the morning after the storm. Everything looks clean and refreshed, even the House of the Seven Gables. The most eye-catching thing about the whole house is the full bloom of Alice's Posies, the flowers sown by Alice Pyncheon so many years before. Uncle Venner stops by the House of... | [
"UNCLE VENNER, trundling a wheelbarrow, was the earliest person stirring\nin the neighborhood the day after the storm.",
"Pyncheon Street, in front of the House of the Seven Gables, was a far\npleasanter scene than a by-lane, confined by shabby fences, and\nbordered with wooden dwellings of the meaner class, coul... |
460 | 77_chapter_20 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | At first Phoebe can't see in the sudden dark of the house. She feels a hand drawing her into the grand reception room. She sees that it's Mr. Holgrave who has brought her inside. He looks paler than usual, but his smile is full of a rare warmth. Phoebe asks what has happened to Hepzibah and Clifford. Mr. Holgrave the t... | [
"PHOEBE, coming so suddenly from the sunny daylight, was altogether\nbedimmed in such density of shadow as lurked in most of the passages of\nthe old house. She was not at first aware by whom she had been\nadmitted. Before her eyes had adapted themselves to the obscurity, a\nhand grasped her own with a firm but gen... |
461 | 77_chapter_21 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | When it becomes public knowledge that Judge Pyncheon died a natural death, people start to think back to the death of Uncle Jaffrey Pyncheon 30 years before. They realize that he must also have died a natural death. But it is nonetheless true that someone got into Uncle Jaffrey Pyncheon's rooms after his death and sear... | [
"THE sudden death of so prominent a member of the social world as the\nHonorable Judge Jaffrey Pyncheon created a sensation (at least, in the\n circles more immediately connected with the deceased) which had hardly\nquite subsided in a fortnight.",
"It may be remarked, however, that, of all the events whic... |
441 | 77_chapter_1 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | On one of the side streets of a New England town stands a seven-gabled house with an enormous elm tree before its door. It is the ancestral Pyncheon house, owned by a family with a long tradition. It was built on the site of the house of Matthew Maule. Envious of the fine location, Colonel Pyncheon had helped convict t... | [
"HALFWAY down a by-street of one of our New England towns stands a rusty\nwooden house, with seven acutely peaked gables, facing towards various\npoints of the compass, and a huge, clustered chimney in the midst. The\nstreet is Pyncheon Street; the house is the old Pyncheon House; and an\nelm-tree, of wide circumf... |
462 | 77_chapters_2-4 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Early one morning, Hepzibah, who according to the previous owner's will can live in the house as long as she wishes, arises, gazes at the miniature portrait of a delicate young man, and then goes into a paneled old room with a faded carpet, tables, a high-backed chair, and the portrait of old Colonel Pyncheon, to which... | [
"IT still lacked half an hour of sunrise, when Miss Hepzibah\nPyncheon--we will not say awoke, it being doubtful whether the poor\nlady had so much as closed her eyes during the brief night of\nmidsummer--but, at all events, arose from her solitary pillow, and\nbegan what it would be mockery to term the adornment o... |
463 | 77_chapters_5-6 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | The next morning Phoebe awakens, says her prayers, and visits the rose garden where she picks some of the prettiest blossoms. Returning to the house, she meets Hepzibah, who tells her that she has no financial means to keep her and that Phoebe must return home. As they talk, Phoebe enthusiastically maintains that she c... | [
"PHOEBE PYNCHEON slept, on the night of her arrival, in a chamber that looked down on the garden of the old house. It fronted towards the east, so that at a very seasonable hour a glow of crimson light came flooding through the window, and bathed the dingy ceiling and paper-hangings in its own hue. There were curta... |
464 | 77_chapters_7-8 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | In the morning, Phoebe tenderly helps the nervous and uneasy Hepzibah to prepare an unusually fine breakfast for Clifford, who finally appears in a faded damask gown. This soft, gray-white man is ravenously hungry and is sensually delighted with the food and the flowers which Phoebe presents to him. Since Hepzibah's gr... | [
"WHEN Phoebe awoke,--which she did with the early twittering of the\nconjugal couple of robins in the pear-tree,--she heard movements below\nstairs, and, hastening down, found Hepzibah already in the kitchen. She stood by a window, holding a book in close contiguity to her nose,\n as if with the hope of gaining ... |
465 | 77_chapters_9-11 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Since Clifford dislikes Hepzibah's ugliness, rustiness, and scowl, she soon quits reading to him and playing the harpsichord for him, and she sadly and reluctantly resigns to Phoebe the task of pleasing him. This pretty young girl, therefore, who is really without true intellectual depth, sings appropriately sad songs ... | [
"TRULY was there something high, generous, and noble in the native composition of our poor old Hepzibah! Or else,--and it was quite as probably the case,--she had been enriched by poverty, developed by sorrow, elevated by the strong and solitary affection of her life, and thus endowed with heroism, which never coul... |
466 | 77_chapters_12-14 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Clifford, who becomes fatigued easily, is now in the habit of retiring early, which is fortunate for Phoebe, who thus has a good deal of time to herself. Interestingly, she is changing; her eyes are now larger, darker, and deeper, and she seems to be less girlish. In the summer house, she is occasionally thrown into th... | [
"IT must not be supposed that the life of a personage naturally so\nactive as Phoebe could be wholly confined within the precincts of the\nold Pyncheon House. Clifford's demands upon her time were usually\nsatisfied, in those long days, considerably earlier than sunset. Quiet\nas his daily existence seemed, it neve... |
467 | 77_chapters_15-16 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Several sunless, stormy days pass after Phoebe's departure. Then one morning, Judge Pyncheon ponderously enters the shop and responds to Hepzibah's scowl with his usual hypocritically genial smile. He wants to see Clifford, but Hepzibah refuses to permit this, accusing her dark visitor of hounding her nearly demented b... | [
"SEVERAL days passed over the Seven Gables, heavily and drearily enough.\nIn fact (not to attribute the whole gloom of sky and earth to the one\n inauspicious circumstance of Phoebe's departure), an easterly storm had\nset in, and indefatigably apply itself to the task of making the black\nroof and walls of ... |
457 | 77_chapter_17 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Hepzibah and Clifford dash out through the summer rain and soon find themselves at a railroad station; they board a train and Clifford seems to be almost bubbling; Hepzibah, however, views the passengers about them as though they were figures in a dream. Clifford then strikes up a wild conversation with a gimlet-eyed o... | [
"SUMMER as it was, the east wind set poor Hepzibah's few remaining teeth chattering in her head, as she and Clifford faced it, on their way up Pyncheon Street, and towards the centre of the town. Not merely was it the shiver which this pitiless blast brought to her frame (although her feet and hands, especially, ha... |
458 | 77_chapter_18 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Meanwhile, back in the old Pyncheon house, Judge Jaffrey Pyncheon remains seated in the foreboding house, heedless of time. This is odd, because he is burdened with engagements -- he should see Clifford, and then he should see his broker, attend an auction to add a parcel of land to the Pyncheon holdings, buy a house, ... | [
"JUDGE PYNCHEON, while his two relatives have fled away with such\nill-considered haste, still sits in the old parlor, keeping house, as\nthe familiar phrase is, in the absence of its ordinary occupants. To\nhim, and to the venerable House of the Seven Gables, does our story now\nbetake itself, like an owl, bewild... |
468 | 77_chapters_19-20 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | The morning is gloriously sunny. The once old and dark Pyncheon house now seems alive and happy, and Alice Pyncheon's posies glow red in a corner of one of the upper mossy eaves. Uncle Venner tries to obtain some leftover vegetables for his pigs, but no one answers his knock at the Pyncheon house, although Holgrave yel... | [
"UNCLE VENNER, trundling a wheelbarrow, was the earliest person stirring\nin the neighborhood the day after the storm.",
"Pyncheon Street, in front of the House of the Seven Gables, was a far\npleasanter scene than a by-lane, confined by shabby fences, and\nbordered with wooden dwellings of the meaner class, coul... |
461 | 77_chapter_21 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Before Holgrave can throw open the doors of the house and admit the warm sunlight, Hepzibah and Clifford enter and embrace Phoebe, now happily returned to them. After what is soon termed a "natural death," Judge Pyncheon is quickly forgotten. A theory is advanced that as a youth he was surprised by his uncle while rans... | [
"THE sudden death of so prominent a member of the social world as the\nHonorable Judge Jaffrey Pyncheon created a sensation (at least, in the\n circles more immediately connected with the deceased) which had hardly\nquite subsided in a fortnight.",
"It may be remarked, however, that, of all the events whic... |
441 | 77_chapter_1 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | The Old Pyncheon Family In the mid-1600s, the farmer Matthew Maule builds a small house next to a lovely, clear spring in what will become a small, well-to-do Massachusetts town. A local landowner named Colonel Pyncheon, who wants the land for himself, accuses Maule of witchcraft at a time of mass hysteria against witc... | [
"HALFWAY down a by-street of one of our New England towns stands a rusty\nwooden house, with seven acutely peaked gables, facing towards various\npoints of the compass, and a huge, clustered chimney in the midst. The\nstreet is Pyncheon Street; the house is the old Pyncheon House; and an\nelm-tree, of wide circumf... |
442 | 77_chapter_2 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | The Little Shop-Window Hepzibah Pyncheon, the old maid who inhabits the house of the seven gables, awakens. A woman with a good heart but a permanent scowl brought on by nearsightedness, Hepzibah spends quite a bit of time on her appearance, pausing every now and then to sigh over the portrait of a beautiful young man... | [
"IT still lacked half an hour of sunrise, when Miss Hepzibah\nPyncheon--we will not say awoke, it being doubtful whether the poor\nlady had so much as closed her eyes during the brief night of\nmidsummer--but, at all events, arose from her solitary pillow, and\nbegan what it would be mockery to term the adornment o... |
443 | 77_chapter_3 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | The First Customer The shop's first visitor is actually the Pyncheon house's only lodger, Holgrave, a young man of twenty-two who makes daguerreotypes, an early kind of photograph. Holgrave gently chides Hepzibah for being so worried about losing her dignity, saying that now she will become a "woman" rather a "lady. He... | [
"MISS HEPZIBAH PYNCHEON sat in the oaken elbow-chair, with her hands\nover her face, giving way to that heavy down-sinking of the heart which\nmost persons have experienced, when the image of hope itself seems\nponderously moulded of lead, on the eve of an enterprise at once\ndoubtful and momentous. She was suddenl... |
444 | 77_chapter_4 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | A Day Behind the Counter As the day wears on, an elderly gentleman walks by the house. With his cane and fine clothes, he is clearly someone of importance. The man peers into the newly reopened shop window and frowns briefly. When he sees Hepzibah, the man smiles, nods at her, and moves on. She recognizes the man as Ju... | [
"TOWARDS noon, Hepzibah saw an elderly gentleman, large and portly, and\nof remarkably dignified demeanor, passing slowly along on the opposite\nside of the white and dusty street. On coming within the shadow of the\nPyncheon Elm, he stopt, and (taking off his hat, meanwhile, to wipe the\n perspiration from ... |
445 | 77_chapter_5 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | May and November Phoebe awakens in the Pyncheon house. She has already brightened the dingy home with her presence, and she immediately begins redecorating her room, making it more comfortable and easier to live in. Hepzibah tells her that she cannot stay, because the master of the house will be returning soon. When Ph... | [
"PHOEBE PYNCHEON slept, on the night of her arrival, in a chamber that looked down on the garden of the old house. It fronted towards the east, so that at a very seasonable hour a glow of crimson light came flooding through the window, and bathed the dingy ceiling and paper-hangings in its own hue. There were curta... |
446 | 77_chapter_6 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Maule's Well Phoebe heads out into the garden to see if she can help rejuvenate the plants. She finds a garden in an advanced state of decay, with an old summerhouse slowly crumbling in the center of it. She discovers a rooster, two hens, and a chick, and she starts to feed and take care of them. The chickens, we are ... | [
"AFTER an early tea, the little country-girl strayed into the garden.\nThe enclosure had formerly been very extensive, but was now contracted\nwithin small compass, and hemmed about, partly by high wooden fences,\n and partly by the outbuildings of houses that stood on another street.\n In its centre wa... |
447 | 77_chapter_7 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | The Guest Phoebe awakes to find Hepzibah downstairs, deeply immersed in a cookbook. Hepzibah decides to buy a mackerel from a fishmonger walking along the street and immediately begins cooking it. Phoebe, surprised by Hepzibah's sudden energy, helps to cook the large breakfast. Throughout the cooking, Hepzibah is on an... | [
"WHEN Phoebe awoke,--which she did with the early twittering of the\nconjugal couple of robins in the pear-tree,--she heard movements below\nstairs, and, hastening down, found Hepzibah already in the kitchen. She stood by a window, holding a book in close contiguity to her nose,\n as if with the hope of gaining ... |
448 | 77_chapter_8 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | The Pyncheon of To-day The shop bell that so startled Clifford turns out to have announced the arrival of a new customer. This new arrival is the small boy who bought gingerbread from Hepzibah before. As the boy leaves the shop, in walks a portly man with a very noble bearing and a wide and endearing smile. This is no ... | [
"PHOEBE, on entering the shop, beheld there the already familiar face of\nthe little devourer--if we can reckon his mighty deeds aright--of Jim\nCrow, the elephant, the camel, the dromedaries, and the locomotive. Having expended his private fortune, on the two preceding days, in the\npurchase of the above unheard-o... |
449 | 77_chapter_9 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Clifford and Phoebe Hepzibah comes to realize that she cannot be a comforting presence to Clifford. Her voice croaks when she reads to him; he finds the books she chooses uninteresting; and he cannot even bear to look at her withered, scowling face. So Phoebe becomes the sole source of happiness for the two miserable e... | [
"TRULY was there something high, generous, and noble in the native composition of our poor old Hepzibah! Or else,--and it was quite as probably the case,--she had been enriched by poverty, developed by sorrow, elevated by the strong and solitary affection of her life, and thus endowed with heroism, which never coul... |
450 | 77_chapter_10 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | The Pyncheon-Garden One of the few sources of amusement for Clifford is the garden, which, under Phoebe and Holgrave's tender care, has slowly been coming back to life. Phoebe often takes Clifford out into the garden, where she reads aloud to him. These little excursions with Phoebe always please Clifford, particularl... | [
"CLIFFORD, except for Phoebe's More active instigation would ordinarily\nhave yielded to the torpor which had crept through all his modes of\nbeing, and which sluggishly counselled him to sit in his morning chair\ntill eventide. But the girl seldom failed to propose a removal to the\ngarden, where Uncle Venner and... |
451 | 77_chapter_11 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | The Arched Window Hoping to lighten Clifford's mood, Phoebe often takes him to the window of the front gable, which looks out onto the street. Clifford is surprised by many of the new innovations that have come about while he was gone, although he has trouble making sense of the endless stream passing by: water carts, ... | [
"FROM the inertness, or what we may term the vegetative character, of\nhis ordinary mood, Clifford would perhaps have been content to spend\none day after another, interminably,--or, at least, throughout the\nsummer-time,--in just the kind of life described in the preceding\npages. Fancying, however, that it might ... |
452 | 77_chapter_12 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | The Daguerreotypist Phoebe has now been at the Pyncheon house for a month. Since she is young and hungry for company of her own age, she becomes friends with Holgrave, the daguerreotypist. Their conversations are especially important to Phoebe, who craves a break from the dour company of Clifford and Hepzibah. Phoebe ... | [
"IT must not be supposed that the life of a personage naturally so\nactive as Phoebe could be wholly confined within the precincts of the\nold Pyncheon House. Clifford's demands upon her time were usually\nsatisfied, in those long days, considerably earlier than sunset. Quiet\nas his daily existence seemed, it neve... |
453 | 77_chapter_13 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Alice Pyncheon This chapter is the text of Holgrave's story about the Pyncheon curse, which he reads aloud to Phoebe. Gervayse Pyncheon, the grandson of Colonel Pyncheon, summons a carpenter named Matthew Maule, the grandson of the same Matthew Maule who placed the curse on the Pyncheon family. The younger Maule, a bit... | [
"THERE was a message brought, one day, from the worshipful Gervayse\nPyncheon to young Matthew Maule, the carpenter, desiring his immediate\npresence at the House of the Seven Gables.",
"\"And what does your master want with me?\" said the carpenter to Mr.\nPyncheon's black servant. \"Does the house need any rep... |
454 | 77_chapter_14 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Phoebe's Good Bye Holgrave finishes his story and realizes that his graphic description of Maule's hypnotic techniques have succeeded in mesmerizing Phoebe. For a moment, Holgrave is close to having the same tight grasp on Phoebe as Maule had on Alice, and we are told that for young men of Holgrave's temperament, ther... | [
"HOLGRAVE, plunging into his tale with the energy and absorption natural\nto a young author, had given a good deal of action to the parts capable\nof being developed and exemplified in that manner. He now observed\nthat a certain remarkable drowsiness (wholly unlike that with which the\n reader possibly feel... |
455 | 77_chapter_15 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | The Scowl and Smile The house of the seven gables becomes a dreary place after Phoebe leaves; it is made even more so by the arrival of a storm that lingers for several days. Clifford becomes more and more dour, eventually refusing to get out of bed. Hepzibah feels helpless and does not know how to help her brother. Th... | [
"SEVERAL days passed over the Seven Gables, heavily and drearily enough.\nIn fact (not to attribute the whole gloom of sky and earth to the one\n inauspicious circumstance of Phoebe's departure), an easterly storm had\nset in, and indefatigably apply itself to the task of making the black\nroof and walls of ... |
456 | 77_chapter_16 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Clifford's Chamber Hepzibah very slowly mounts the stairs that lead to Clifford's room, pausing on the way to look through the window at the busy street outside. She wonders if Clifford actually knows of any hidden gold, and she wonders what it would mean for them if he did. Hepzibah soon sees, however, that no one as... | [
"NEVER had the old house appeared so dismal to poor Hepzibah as when she\ndeparted on that wretched errand. There was a strange aspect in it. As she trode along the foot-worn passages, and opened one crazy door\nafter another, and ascended the creaking staircase, she gazed wistfully\nand fearfully around. It would ... |
457 | 77_chapter_17 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | The Flight of Two Owls Clifford and Hepzibah flee the house of the seven gables, worried that they will be implicated in the death of Judge Pyncheon. They walk along the village streets, fading into the gloomy background of the overcast day, noticed by no one. Hepzibah feels as if she is living in a nightmare, but Clif... | [
"SUMMER as it was, the east wind set poor Hepzibah's few remaining teeth chattering in her head, as she and Clifford faced it, on their way up Pyncheon Street, and towards the centre of the town. Not merely was it the shiver which this pitiless blast brought to her frame (although her feet and hands, especially, ha... |
458 | 77_chapter_18 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Governor Pyncheon Judge Pyncheon is both spoken of and directly addressed in this chapter, as if the man were not dead but merely asleep or meditating in his chair. The narrator exhorts the Judge to awaken while simultaneously listing all of the scheduled plans that the Judge is now missing. The most significant is a ... | [
"JUDGE PYNCHEON, while his two relatives have fled away with such\nill-considered haste, still sits in the old parlor, keeping house, as\nthe familiar phrase is, in the absence of its ordinary occupants. To\nhim, and to the venerable House of the Seven Gables, does our story now\nbetake itself, like an owl, bewild... |
459 | 77_chapter_19 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Alice's Posies Pyncheon Street, which runs in front of the house of the seven gables, is beautiful and abounds with vegetables growing in the neighbors' gardens and the leaves of the great Pyncheon elm whispering in the wind. Alice's Posies, the flowers that grow in the dust between two gables, have bloomed. Uncle Venn... | [
"UNCLE VENNER, trundling a wheelbarrow, was the earliest person stirring\nin the neighborhood the day after the storm.",
"Pyncheon Street, in front of the House of the Seven Gables, was a far\npleasanter scene than a by-lane, confined by shabby fences, and\nbordered with wooden dwellings of the meaner class, coul... |
460 | 77_chapter_20 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | The Flower of Eden Phoebe is pulled into the house by a strange, warm hand, and when she steps into the light she realizes it is Holgrave. Holgrave has an attitude of genuine warmth, as if something wonderful has happened, but he refuses to let Phoebe look in the parlor. He shows her his old daguerreotype of Judge Pync... | [
"PHOEBE, coming so suddenly from the sunny daylight, was altogether\nbedimmed in such density of shadow as lurked in most of the passages of\nthe old house. She was not at first aware by whom she had been\nadmitted. Before her eyes had adapted themselves to the obscurity, a\nhand grasped her own with a firm but gen... |
461 | 77_chapter_21 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | The Departure The death of Judge Pyncheon creates only a mild sensation around town, but it does prompt rumors about the man's ugly past. The death of old Jaffrey Pyncheon thirty or forty years before was dismissed by doctors as an accident, but circumstances made it seem suspicious, and the suspicion fell on Clifford.... | [
"THE sudden death of so prominent a member of the social world as the\nHonorable Judge Jaffrey Pyncheon created a sensation (at least, in the\n circles more immediately connected with the deceased) which had hardly\nquite subsided in a fortnight.",
"It may be remarked, however, that, of all the events whic... |
469 | 599_chapters_1_-_6 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | The book begins at Miss Pinkerton's academy for young ladies, on the day of Becky Sharp and Amelia Sedley's departure. The reference letter prepared by Miss Pinkerton about Amelia commends her character and talents and recommends her highly for a position at the lexicographer's. This is due in part because she has a ri... | [
"Chiswick Mall",
"While the present century was in its teens, and on one sunshiny morning\nin June, there drove up to the great iron gate of Miss Pinkerton's\nacademy for young ladies, on Chiswick Mall, a large family coach, with\ntwo fat horses in blazing harness, driven by a fat coachman in a\nthree-cornered ha... |
470 | 599_chapters_7_-_12 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Rebecca is excited about meeting a baronet but is disappointed to learn what Sir Pitt Crawley is actually like. She meets him and his housekeeper, Mrs. Tinker, at his town house on Great Gaunt Street. Sir Pitt Crawley is a boisterous, crude and stingy man, but he belongs to a house that is higher than that of the Sedle... | [
"Crawley of Queen's Crawley",
"Among the most respected of the names beginning in C which the\nCourt-Guide contained, in the year 18--, was that of Crawley, Sir Pitt,\nBaronet, Great Gaunt Street, and Queen's Crawley, Hants. This\nhonourable name had figured constantly also in the Parliamentary list\nfor many ye... |
471 | 599_chapters_13_-_18 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | George is admired in the military for being a playboy. Dobbin becomes so irate at his behavior that he blurts out that George is engaged to a nice young lady. George does not appreciate Dobbin's interference. Dobbin accuses George of being ashamed of Amelia and mistreating her. George rejects Dobbin's "sermonising" and... | [
"Sentimental and Otherwise",
"I fear the gentleman to whom Miss Amelia's letters were addressed was\nrather an obdurate critic. Such a number of notes followed Lieutenant\nOsborne about the country, that he became almost ashamed of the jokes\nof his mess-room companions regarding them, and ordered his servant\nn... |
472 | 599_chapters_25_-_30 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Dobbin worries about Amelia discovering the danger of going to war. She tries to get the soldiers to talk about it as if it is just every day routine. Amelia is annoyed by Dobbin; she finds him unattractive, and his feelings for her make her uncomfortable. Becky also dislikes Dobbin, but here the feeling is mutual, bec... | [
"In Which All the Principal Personages Think Fit to Leave Brighton",
"Conducted to the ladies, at the Ship Inn, Dobbin assumed a jovial and\nrattling manner, which proved that this young officer was becoming a\nmore consummate hypocrite every day of his life. He was trying to hide\nhis own private feelings, firs... |
473 | 599_chapters_31_-_36 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Becky flirts with Jos because she believes it might behoove her to be on good terms with him. He, of course, falls for her charms. Becky also looks in on the sick Amelia, who does not leave her room and does not eat because of her grief over George's departure. To Becky's surprise, Amelia lashes out at her for flirting... | [
"In Which Jos Sedley Takes Care of His Sister",
"Thus all the superior officers being summoned on duty elsewhere, Jos\nSedley was left in command of the little colony at Brussels, with\nAmelia invalided, Isidor, his Belgian servant, and the bonne, who was\nmaid-of-all-work for the establishment, as a garrison und... |
474 | 599_chapters_37_-_42 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Rawdon and Rebecca live in a mansion that belonged to the Crawleys' former butler, Mr. Raggles, who they extort and eventually drive to financial ruin. Becky again works her way up in society. She becomes quite popular with many of the noblemen, including Lord Styne. Aunt Matilda finally dies. She leaves 5000 pounds to... | [
"The Subject Continued",
"In the first place, and as a matter of the greatest necessity, we are\nbound to describe how a house may be got for nothing a year. These\nmansions are to be had either unfurnished, where, if you have credit\nwith Messrs. Gillows or Bantings, you can get them splendidly montees\nand dec... |
475 | 599_chapters_43_-_48 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Dobbin and his regiment are doing well in India, and Glorvina flirts with him constantly. But Dobbin cannot get Amelia out of his head. He receives a letter from her, in which she writes that she is happy for him that he is getting married, which makes him extremely upset. Then he receives a letter from his sister. It ... | [
"In Which the Reader Has to Double the Cape",
"The astonished reader must be called upon to transport himself ten\nthousand miles to the military station of Bundlegunge, in the Madras\ndivision of our Indian empire, where our gallant old friends of the\n--th regiment are quartered under the command of the brave C... |
476 | 599_chapters_49_-_54 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Lord Steyne approaches the women who are planning the dinner party on Friday. He finds that they are not willing to invite Becky. He is outraged at this news. He becomes excessively cruel, and tells Lady Gaunt that she is worthless, that her husband doesn't love her, that she is unable to have children, and the only wo... | [
"In Which We Enjoy Three Courses and a Dessert",
"When the ladies of Gaunt House were at breakfast that morning, Lord\nSteyne (who took his chocolate in private and seldom disturbed the\nfemales of his household, or saw them except upon public days, or when\nthey crossed each other in the hall, or when from his p... |
477 | 599_chapters_55_-_60 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | When Becky wakes, late the next morning, she runs over to Sir Pitt and begs him to help her reconcile with Rawdon. She claims that she was only holding the money because Rawdon is a spendthrift and can't be trusted with it. Also, she claims that she only courted Lord Steyne in order to get a governorship for her husban... | [
"In Which the Same Subject is Pursued",
"Becky did not rally from the state of stupor and confusion in which the\nevents of the previous night had plunged her intrepid spirit until the\nbells of the Curzon Street Chapels were ringing for afternoon service,\nand rising from her bed she began to ply her own bell, i... |
478 | 599_chapters_61_-_67 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Mr. Sedley passes away, telling his daughter before he dies that he is sorry wasn't fair to her. Mr. Osborne is also doing his best to reconcile with those he mistreated. He tells Georgy that Mr. Sedley was a much better man than he. He even sends a letter to the late Mr. Sedley. Dobbin visits him, and it is revealed t... | [
"In Which Two Lights are Put Out",
"There came a day when the round of decorous pleasures and solemn\ngaieties in which Mr. Jos Sedley's family indulged was interrupted by\nan event which happens in most houses. As you ascend the staircase of\nyour house from the drawing towards the bedroom floors, you may have\... |
479 | 599_chapter_1 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | The Sedleys' coach comes to pick Amelia Sedley up from Miss Pinkerton's school. She just graduated. Woo-hoo! Mortarboard in the air! Miss Pinkerton sends her on her way with a nice letter about what a nice young lady she is, her bill, a fancy dictionary, and a note saying that her friend Becky Sharp is also graduating ... | [
"Chiswick Mall",
"While the present century was in its teens, and on one sunshiny morning\nin June, there drove up to the great iron gate of Miss Pinkerton's\nacademy for young ladies, on Chiswick Mall, a large family coach, with\ntwo fat horses in blazing harness, driven by a fat coachman in a\nthree-cornered ha... |
480 | 599_chapter_2 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Amelia is sort of shocked by Becky's throwing the dictionary out of the carriage. It figures - she's all prim and proper and always psyched to obey authority. Becky? Not so much. Now we get a little background on Rebecca Sharp. Daddy was a broke, semi-alcoholic artist. Mommy was a French "opera-girl" . This is how Beck... | [
"In Which Miss Sharp and Miss Sedley Prepare to Open the Campaign",
"When Miss Sharp had performed the heroical act mentioned in the last\nchapter, and had seen the Dixonary, flying over the pavement of the\nlittle garden, fall at length at the feet of the astonished Miss\nJemima, the young lady's countenance, wh... |
481 | 599_chapter_3 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Becky and Amelia make their way downstairs and meet Jos, who turns out to be a very fat, awkward, shy man. Becky tries to flirt on his level, putting on some super-virginal airs. Jos is kind of into it, but when his father, Mr. Sedley, comes home and starts to make fun of the fashion-victim way Jos is dressed, the whol... | [
"Rebecca Is in Presence of the Enemy",
"A VERY stout, puffy man, in buckskins and Hessian boots, with several\nimmense neckcloths that rose almost to his nose, with a red striped\nwaistcoat and an apple green coat with steel buttons almost as large as\ncrown pieces (it was the morning costume of a dandy or blood ... |
482 | 599_chapter_4 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | A few days later, Jos comes back. In the meantime, Becky has ingratiated herself into the Sedley family and household . Becky demurely flirts with Jos, going so far as to actually squeeze his hand slightly. Amelia suggests spending an evening at Vauxhall, a kind of park with music, cafes, and other entertainment. Mr. S... | [
"The Green Silk Purse",
"Poor Joe's panic lasted for two or three days; during which he did not\nvisit the house, nor during that period did Miss Rebecca ever mention\nhis name. She was all respectful gratitude to Mrs. Sedley; delighted\nbeyond measure at the Bazaars; and in a whirl of wonder at the theatre,\nwh... |
483 | 599_chapter_5 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Another kid at the school was Cuff, who was the popular, bullying jock type. Everyone who was there will always remember the day Dobbin saw Cuff about to beat up George. It's not really clear how old everyone is at this point. We'll hazard a guess that George was 9ish, Dobbin 11ish, and Cuff 14ish. Point being that Cuf... | [
"Dobbin of Ours",
"Cuff's fight with Dobbin, and the unexpected issue of that contest,\nwill long be remembered by every man who was educated at Dr. Swishtail's famous school. The latter Youth (who used to be called\nHeigh-ho Dobbin, Gee-ho Dobbin, and by many other names indicative of\npuerile contempt) was the ... |
484 | 599_chapter_6 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | The narrator wonders how the story would change if the main characters were at the top of the social heap , or if they were servants. It seems that necessarily at least the tone of the novel would be completely different. Anyhoodle, the five young people finally go to Vauxhall. Everyone is convinced that Jos will propo... | [
"Vauxhall",
"I know that the tune I am piping is a very mild one (although there are\nsome terrific chapters coming presently), and must beg the good-natured\nreader to remember that we are only discoursing at present about a\nstockbroker's family in Russell Square, who are taking walks, or\nluncheon, or dinner, ... |
485 | 599_chapter_7 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | The narrator tells us a bit about Sir Pitt, with the upshot being that he comes from a very long line of nobility. On the road to a fancy London house, Sir Pitt's mansion, Becky wonders how fancy a man the Baronet will be. At the door of the mansion, an old, dirty man meets the carriage and grudgingly helps Becky with ... | [
"Crawley of Queen's Crawley",
"Among the most respected of the names beginning in C which the\nCourt-Guide contained, in the year 18--, was that of Crawley, Sir Pitt,\nBaronet, Great Gaunt Street, and Queen's Crawley, Hants. This\nhonourable name had figured constantly also in the Parliamentary list\nfor many ye... |
486 | 599_chapter_8 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | This chapter is a letter that Becky writes to Amelia, describing life at Queen's Crawley. On the way to this big estate, Sir Pitt talks to one of his groundskeepers about the various tenants on his land , various ongoing lawsuits, and the general upkeep of a large country estate. Becky learns that Sir Pitt has a younge... | [
"Private and Confidential",
"Miss Rebecca Sharp to Miss Amelia Sedley, Russell Square, London.\n(Free.--Pitt Crawley.)",
"MY DEAREST, SWEETEST AMELIA,",
"With what mingled joy and sorrow do I take up the pen to write to my\ndearest friend! Oh, what a change between to-day and yesterday! Now I\nam friendless ... |
487 | 599_chapter_9 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | So, this is one those chapters that doesn't advance the plot or anything, but instead gives us some more details and biography about the characters. First up, Lady Crawley. Sir Pitt's first wife had been a very high-class, aristocratic lady. They did not get along too well. So the second time around, he decided to marr... | [
"Family Portraits",
"Sir Pitt Crawley was a philosopher with a taste for what is called low\nlife. His first marriage with the daughter of the noble Binkie had\nbeen made under the auspices of his parents; and as he often told Lady\nCrawley in her lifetime she was such a confounded quarrelsome high-bred\njade th... |
488 | 599_chapter_10 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | OK, back to the actual plot. Becky has now become even smarter and better at faking niceness than before. She uses her new skills to worm her way into the Crawley family. She endears herself to the two girls in her charge by not making them learn anything and generally leaving them alone to do whatever they want to do.... | [
"Miss Sharp Begins to Make Friends",
"And now, being received as a member of the amiable family whose\nportraits we have sketched in the foregoing pages, it became naturally\nRebecca's duty to make herself, as she said, agreeable to her\nbenefactors, and to gain their confidence to the utmost of her power. Who ca... |
489 | 599_chapter_11 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | OK, now a bit about the other side of the family - Sir Pitt and Miss Crawley's younger brother Bute Crawley, who is a minister. And what a minister! He likes drinking, gambling, hunting, and going out to dinner. His wife writes all his sermons and tries to deal with his gambling debts. He's basically waiting for his si... | [
"Arcadian Simplicity",
"Besides these honest folks at the Hall (whose simplicity and sweet\nrural purity surely show the advantage of a country life over a town\none), we must introduce the reader to their relatives and neighbours at\nthe Rectory, Bute Crawley and his wife.",
"The Reverend Bute Crawley was a ta... |
490 | 599_chapter_12 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | OK, enough fun with Becky; let's check back in on Amelia. The narrator apologizes that Amelia so super-boring, but argues that this is because she is such a good and nice person. Nice people don't make good heroines of novels, apparently. Amelia doesn't have too much to do in life, since she is rich and protected by he... | [
"Quite a Sentimental Chapter",
"We must now take leave of Arcadia, and those amiable people practising\nthe rural virtues there, and travel back to London, to inquire what has\nbecome of Miss Amelia.",
"\"We don't care a fig for her,\" writes some unknown correspondent with a\npretty little handwriting and a pi... |
491 | 599_chapter_13 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | In keeping with his general attitude, George tries to keep his engagement to Amelia on the down low from his fellow soldiers. Instead, he acts like a womanizer, and the other soldiers don't realize that he's a poser and admire him. Only Dobbin is sort of scandalized by the way George treats Amelia. Um, because he's in ... | [
"Sentimental and Otherwise",
"I fear the gentleman to whom Miss Amelia's letters were addressed was\nrather an obdurate critic. Such a number of notes followed Lieutenant\nOsborne about the country, that he became almost ashamed of the jokes\nof his mess-room companions regarding them, and ordered his servant\nn... |
492 | 599_chapter_14 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Miss Crawley comes back from the country to her London house with a new "young person" in tow to take care of her during her illness. The narrator makes it sort of mysterious who this might be, but - spoiler alert - it's Becky! The two women who used to take care of Miss Crawley are totally jealous that she's suddenly ... | [
"Miss Crawley at Home",
"About this time there drove up to an exceedingly snug and\nwell-appointed house in Park Lane, a travelling chariot with a lozenge on\nthe panels, a discontented female in a green veil and crimped curls on\nthe rumble, and a large and confidential man on the box. It was the\nequipage of ou... |
493 | 599_chapter_15 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Sir Pitt is totally floored. Who on earth is Becky married to already? Becky squirms under questioning and asks to just come back to Queen's Crawley anyway. Sir Pitt thinks he has it figured out - "the feller has left you, has he?" - and offers to take Becky as a mistress. Becky is like, um, no. Instead she gets down o... | [
"In Which Rebecca's Husband Appears for a Short Time",
"Every reader of a sentimental turn (and we desire no other) must have\nbeen pleased with the tableau with which the last act of our little\ndrama concluded; for what can be prettier than an image of Love on his\nknees before Beauty?",
"But when Love heard ... |
494 | 599_chapter_16 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | The narrator fills in some details for us. How could Becky and Rawdon have gotten married? Easy enough - they are both of age, so they slipped off and just did it one day. It might not have been Rawdon's best decision, but probably his most honorable. After all, isn't that what men are supposed to do - meet a girl, fal... | [
"The Letter on the Pincushion",
"How they were married is not of the slightest consequence to anybody.\nWhat is to hinder a Captain who is a major, and a young lady who is of\nage, from purchasing a licence, and uniting themselves at any church in\nthis town? Who needs to be told, that if a woman has a will she ... |
495 | 599_chapter_17 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | The chapter opens with an estate auction. The narrator muses about how quickly life can change - one day a guy is rich, and the next all of his belongings are for sale to random strangers. In any case, the next item up for auction is a portrait of a fat guy on an elephant. The painting is heckled and mocked, and finall... | [
"How Captain Dobbin Bought a Piano",
"If there is any exhibition in all Vanity Fair which Satire and\nSentiment can visit arm in arm together; where you light on the\nstrangest contrasts laughable and tearful: where you may be gentle and\npathetic, or savage and cynical with perfect propriety: it is at one of\nth... |
496 | 599_chapter_18 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | The narrator steps in for a little aside about the fact that the whole Sedley bankruptcy is happening because of Napoleon. Yes, that Napoleon. He is back from Elba, and in total invasion mode. It's the threat of war that made Mr. Sedley's investments go ka-blooey, and it's the thing that is destroying Amelia's life. Mr... | [
"Who Played on the Piano Captain Dobbin Bought",
"Our surprised story now finds itself for a moment among very famous\nevents and personages, and hanging on to the skirts of history. When\nthe eagles of Napoleon Bonaparte, the Corsican upstart, were flying\nfrom Provence, where they had perched after a brief sojo... |
497 | 599_chapter_19 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Mrs. Bute quickly gets the upper hand at Miss Crawley's house. She has spent her life ingratiating herself with Briggs and Firkin, so they are happy to have her there and serve her. Rawdon, meanwhile, has spent his life treating them like the servants that they are, so no one there is going to go to bat for him. The na... | [
"Miss Crawley at Nurse",
"We have seen how Mrs. Firkin, the lady's maid, as soon as any event of\nimportance to the Crawley family came to her knowledge, felt bound to\ncommunicate it to Mrs. Bute Crawley, at the Rectory; and have before\nmentioned how particularly kind and attentive that good-natured lady\nwas t... |
498 | 599_chapter_20 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Dobbin is very eager for George and Amelia to be married, probably because he's so hung up on her that he wants to get the whole thing over with. Or something...he's not a very clear thinker. Amelia is thrilled to see George, and he is pretty moved to see how much she still loves him. She very quickly gets better and s... | [
"In Which Captain Dobbin Acts as the Messenger of Hymen",
"Without knowing how, Captain William Dobbin found himself the great\npromoter, arranger, and manager of the match between George Osborne and\nAmelia. But for him it never would have taken place: he could not but\nconfess as much to himself, and smiled r... |
499 | 599_chapter_21 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Mr. Osborne strongly encourages his daughters to be friends with Miss Swartz. He brags about how colorblind and inclusive he is, but obviously it's just because of her money. Mr. Osborne is also really hoping for George to marry her. He checks out the way her money is invested and does a little digging on the Stock Exc... | [
"A Quarrel About an Heiress",
"Love may be felt for any young lady endowed with such qualities as Miss\nSwartz possessed; and a great dream of ambition entered into old Mr.\nOsborne's soul, which she was to realize. He encouraged, with the\nutmost enthusiasm and friendliness, his daughters' amiable attachment\nt... |
500 | 599_chapter_22 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Mr. Osborne assumes that as soon as George runs out of his allowance money he'll be back to make up. George, meanwhile, meets up with Dobbin one morning. Both are dressed to the nines. They meet Amelia, Mrs. Sedley, and Jos at a church. George and Amelia are married in a kind of sad ceremony with no wedding breakfast, ... | [
"A Marriage and Part of a Honeymoon",
"Enemies the most obstinate and courageous can't hold out against\nstarvation; so the elder Osborne felt himself pretty easy about his\nadversary in the encounter we have just described; and as soon as\nGeorge's supplies fell short, confidently expected his unconditional\nsub... |
501 | 599_chapter_23 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Like many people, Dobbin is shy on his own behalf, but when he is trying to be altruistic, he has all the energy in the world. While Amelia and George are on their honeymoon, Dobbin is in London trying to figure out the business side of their marriage. He has dealt with the Sedleys, and now the time has come to tell th... | [
"Captain Dobbin Proceeds on His Canvass",
"What is the secret mesmerism which friendship possesses, and under the\noperation of which a person ordinarily sluggish, or cold, or timid,\nbecomes wise, active, and resolute, in another's behalf? As Alexis,\nafter a few passes from Dr. Elliotson, despises pain, reads w... |
502 | 599_chapter_24 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Dobbin goes off to meet with Mr. Osborne to tell him the news. When he gets there, Osborne is fully convinced that he's coming to negotiate George's surrender and is all smiles and rainbows. But when he finds out the real reason Dobbin is there, Osborne has a total meltdown and is completely apoplectic. That night he g... | [
"In Which Mr. Osborne Takes Down the Family Bible",
"So having prepared the sisters, Dobbin hastened away to the City to\nperform the rest and more difficult part of the task which he had\nundertaken. The idea of facing old Osborne rendered him not a little\nnervous, and more than once he thought of leaving the ... |
503 | 599_chapter_25 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Dobbin puts on his best Becky face to try to fake Amelia out about how dangerous the deployment to Belgium will really be . Becky figures out that Dobbin wants Amelia almost immediately. Dobbin freaks her out, though, because he's too honest and upright to fall for her shenanigans. Finally, Dobbin gives George the lett... | [
"In Which All the Principal Personages Think Fit to Leave Brighton",
"Conducted to the ladies, at the Ship Inn, Dobbin assumed a jovial and\nrattling manner, which proved that this young officer was becoming a\nmore consummate hypocrite every day of his life. He was trying to hide\nhis own private feelings, firs... |
504 | 599_chapter_26 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Amelia, Dobbin, Jos, and George head back to London. The more we see of George, the more jerk-tastic he is turning out to be. On their trip back he insists on renting a super-swanky hotel suite and going out to the most expensive restaurant he can find. Ostensibly this is all for Amelia, because "as long as there's a s... | [
"Between London and Chatham",
"On quitting Brighton, our friend George, as became a person of rank and\nfashion travelling in a barouche with four horses, drove in state to a\nfine hotel in Cavendish Square, where a suite of splendid rooms, and a\ntable magnificently furnished with plate and surrounded by a half-... |
505 | 599_chapter_27 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Amelia, George, and Jos make their way to Chatham, the staging ground for the deployment. It's not really clear why Jos is coming with them, but whatever. Dobbin is already there. In the inn Amelia finds a letter addressed to herself, and George recognizes the handwriting of Peggy O'Dowd, the wife of the regiment's maj... | [
"In Which Amelia Joins Her Regiment",
"When Jos's fine carriage drove up to the inn door at Chatham, the first\nface which Amelia recognized was the friendly countenance of Captain\nDobbin, who had been pacing the street for an hour past in expectation\nof his friends' arrival. The Captain, with shells on his fr... |
506 | 599_chapter_28 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | The army men cross the Channel to Belgium in government boats, and Jos, Amelia, Mrs. O'Dowd, and the other civilians follow them later. Jos makes the most of this time, which will provide him with stories and party conversation for the rest of his life. He has a special military-looking coat made, grows a huge military... | [
"In Which Amelia Invades the Low Countries",
"The regiment with its officers was to be transported in ships provided\nby His Majesty's government for the occasion: and in two days after\nthe festive assembly at Mrs. O'Dowd's apartments, in the midst of\ncheering from all the East India ships in the river, and th... |
507 | 599_chapter_29 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Out for a drive the next day, George, Amelia, Mrs. O'Dowd, and Jos run into Becky and Rawdon. Becky has now become pretty high and mighty. She is riding in a little group of horsemen, looking fantastic. In the group, Mrs. O'Dowd spots Wellington, the commander in chief of the whole army! Jos freaks out stalker style, a... | [
"Brussels",
"Mr. Jos had hired a pair of horses for his open carriage, with which\ncattle, and the smart London vehicle, he made a very tolerable figure\nin the drives about Brussels. George purchased a horse for his private\nriding, and he and Captain Dobbin would often accompany the carriage in\nwhich Jos and h... |
508 | 599_chapter_30 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | So this chapter is all about how the different women we've come to know prepare for their men going away to the army. Always remember: whenever you see a bunch of characters doing a similar action, the author wants you to compare and contrast. Let's see. First, we get the O'Dowds. The Major is calm and relaxed. He didn... | [
"\"The Girl I Left Behind Me\"",
"We do not claim to rank among the military novelists. Our place is with\nthe non-combatants. When the decks are cleared for action we go below\nand wait meekly. We should only be in the way of the manoeuvres that\nthe gallant fellows are performing overhead. We shall go no far... |
509 | 599_chapter_31 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Jos is, all things being equal, pretty happy that George is gone. George used to mock him mercilessly. He is getting ready for breakfast, but Amelia is too ill to come out of her room and join him. Instead he talks to his servant Isidor, who periodically goes into town to try to get whatever news he can about the war. ... | [
"In Which Jos Sedley Takes Care of His Sister",
"Thus all the superior officers being summoned on duty elsewhere, Jos\nSedley was left in command of the little colony at Brussels, with\nAmelia invalided, Isidor, his Belgian servant, and the bonne, who was\nmaid-of-all-work for the establishment, as a garrison und... |
510 | 599_chapter_32 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Everyone in Brussels runs outside in alarm at the gunfire. Isidor keeps coming back with more and more bad news about the British and Jos is increasingly panicked. Finally he decides to flee the city and comes to take Amelia with him. At first Mrs. O'Dowd thinks he just wants to get her to go outside and is concerned t... | [
"In Which Jos Takes Flight, and the War Is Brought to a Close",
"We of peaceful London City have never beheld--and please God never\nshall witness--such a scene of hurry and alarm, as that which Brussels\npresented. Crowds rushed to the Namur gate, from which direction the\nnoise proceeded, and many rode along th... |
511 | 599_chapter_33 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | OK, enough about Brussels, the war, and all that stuff. What's happening with the characters back in England? Miss Crawley has been following the war in the papers, where she learns that Rawdon served with distinction and has been promoted to Colonel. She then receives a long and amusing letter from Rawdon about the fi... | [
"In Which Miss Crawley's Relations Are Very Anxious About Her",
"The kind reader must please to remember--while the army is marching\nfrom Flanders, and, after its heroic actions there, is advancing to\ntake the fortifications on the frontiers of France, previous to an\noccupation of that country--that there are ... |
512 | 599_chapter_34 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Miss Crawley, bored in Brighton, is happy to meet Pitt, Lady Jane, and her mother. The visit goes well, with Pitt mediating between the two bossy old women with a skill "which showed that, had his diplomatic career not been blighted by early neglect, he might have risen to a high rank in his profession" . Miss Crawley ... | [
"James Crawley's Pipe Is Put Out",
"The amiable behaviour of Mr. Crawley, and Lady Jane's kind reception of\nher, highly flattered Miss Briggs, who was enabled to speak a good word\nfor the latter, after the cards of the Southdown family had been\npresented to Miss Crawley. A Countess's card left personally too ... |
513 | 599_chapter_35 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | OK, enough in Crawley Funville. Now back to Osborne Sadtown. So, Mr. Osborne and George's sisters are totally destroyed by George's death. The women weep openly, but Mr. Osborne doesn't talk about his grief to anyone. His feelings are split. On the one hand, he is really sad that his son is dead. On the other hand, he ... | [
"Widow and Mother",
"The news of the great fights of Quatre Bras and Waterloo reached\nEngland at the same time. The Gazette first published the result of\nthe two battles; at which glorious intelligence all England thrilled\nwith triumph and fear. Particulars then followed; and after the\nannouncement of the vic... |
514 | 599_chapter_36 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | The narrator takes a little time out from the action to explain just how it is that Becky and Rawdon are able to live their fancy-pants lifestyle despite being totally broke. There's really only one keyword to solve that mystery - credit. Namely, unguaranteed, far-too-risky credit. So yes, basically Becky and Rawdon pu... | [
"How to Live Well on Nothing a Year",
"I suppose there is no man in this Vanity Fair of ours so little\nobservant as not to think sometimes about the worldly affairs of his\nacquaintances, or so extremely charitable as not to wonder how his\nneighbour Jones, or his neighbour Smith, can make both ends meet at the\... |
515 | 599_chapter_37 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | In London, the Crawleys go right back to living off credit without paying anything to anyone. Mr. Raggles, who used to be Miss Crawley's butler before Bowls, now owns a house that he rents out to Becky and Rawdon. He also provides all their food and whenever they have company, he acts as their butler while his wife doe... | [
"The Subject Continued",
"In the first place, and as a matter of the greatest necessity, we are\nbound to describe how a house may be got for nothing a year. These\nmansions are to be had either unfurnished, where, if you have credit\nwith Messrs. Gillows or Bantings, you can get them splendidly montees\nand dec... |
516 | 599_chapter_38 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | So, speaking of George Jr., how is that Sedley family doing these days? Well, let's see. Jos has gone back to India and has been promoted a few times in his post there. All he ever talks about is how he was at Waterloo, and at this point his stories make it seem like he was actually with Wellington during the battle. H... | [
"A Family in a Very Small Way",
"We must suppose little George Osborne has ridden from Knightsbridge\ntowards Fulham, and will stop and make inquiries at that village\nregarding some friends whom we have left there. How is Mrs. Amelia\nafter the storm of Waterloo? Is she living and thriving? What has come\nof Ma... |
517 | 599_chapter_39 | Write a detailed summary of the context provided. | Hey, how about those Crawleys back in the country? Here's an update. Mr. and Mrs. Bute are totally enraged that Miss Crawley only left them 5,000 pounds after she died . But Mrs. Bute makes the best of it, making her ugly daughter go out into society as much as possible in order to find a husband. They act so non-poor ... | [
"A Cynical Chapter",
"Our duty now takes us back for a brief space to some old Hampshire acquaintances of ours, whose hopes respecting the disposal of their rich kinswoman's property were so woefully disappointed. After counting upon thirty thousand pounds from his sister, it was a heavy blow to Bute Crawley to r... |
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