Here, as the poor fellow lay tossing in his fever, the people who watched him might have heard him raving about Amelia. The idea that he should never see her again depressed him in his lucid hours. He thought his last day was come, and he made his solemn preparations for departure, setting his affairs in this world in order and leaving the little property of which he was possessed to those whom he most desired to benefit. The friend in whose house he was located witnessed his testament. He desired to be buried with a little brown hair-chain which he wore round his neck and which, if the truth must be known, he had got from Amelia's maid at Brussels, when the young widow's hair was cut off, during the fever which prostrated her after the death of George Osborne on the plateau at Mount St. John.
He recovered, rallied, relapsed again, having undergone such a process of blood-letting and calomel as showed the strength of his original constitution. He was almost a skeleton when they put him on board the Ramchunder East Indiaman, Captain Bragg, from Calcutta, touching at Madras, and so weak and prostrate that his friend who had tended him through his illness prophesied that the honest Major would never survive the voyage, and that he would pass some morning, shrouded in flag and hammock, over the ship's side, and carrying down to the sea with him the relic that he wore at his heart. But whether it was the sea air, or the hope which sprung up in him afresh, from the day that the ship spread her canvas and stood out of the roads towards home, our friend began to amend, and he was quite well (though as gaunt as a greyhound) before they reached the Cape. "Kirk will be disappointed of his majority this time," he said with a smile; "he will expect to find himself gazetted by the time the regiment reaches home." For it must be premised that while the Major was lying ill at Madras, having made such prodigious haste to go thither, the gallant --th, which had passed many years abroad, which after its return from the West Indies had been baulked of its stay at home by the Waterloo campaign, and had been ordered from Flanders to India, had received orders home; and the Major might have accompanied his comrades, had he chosen to wait for their arrival at Madras.

Here, as the poor fellow lay tossing in his fever, you might have heard him raving about Amelia. In his lucid hours, he thought his last day was come, and made solemn preparations for departure, leaving his little property to those whom he most desired to benefit. The friend in whose house he was staying witnessed his will. The Major desired to be buried with a little brown hair-chain which he wore round his neck and which he had got from Amelia's maid at Brussels, when the young widow's hair was cut off during her illness after her husband's death.
He recovered, rallied, and relapsed again. He was almost a skeleton when they put him on board the East Indiaman ship, and so weak that the friend who had tended him through his illness thought that the honest Major would never survive the voyage. But whether it was the sea air, or the hope which sprung up in him afresh, from the day that the ship spread her sails and set out towards home, Dobbin began to amend, and he was quite well (though as gaunt as a greyhound) before they reached the Cape.
