• GOVERNESSES WITHOUT SCRUPLES [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
SIR,—Permit me to call the attention of Mr. Joseph Shearing, who states in his protest against your reviewer's comparison of his heroine, Lucelles Debilleyme to Becky Sharp, that Becky was never concerned in a murder, to the following passage, which concludes the introduction to the Centenary Editions of Vanity Fair.
" 'As you speak of Becky Sharp, Mr. Thackeray,' said Mr. Cooke (Lady Ritchie is quoting from an article in Appleton's Journal, by J. E. Cooke), there is one mystery about her which I should liko to have cleared up. Nearly at the end of the book there is a picture of Jos Sedley seated, a sick old man, in his chamber, and behind the curtain glaring and ghastly is Becky grasping a dagger. Beneath the picture is the single word " ClYtemnestta."
' Yes.'
Did Becky kill him, Mr. Thackeray ? ' "
He smiled meditatively; as if he was endeavouring to arrive at the solution of some problem, and then with a slow smile dawning on his face said, " I do not know."—I am, Sir,
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