leaving the academy in a coach and throwing her copy of Johnson's Dictionary — given her by Miss Pinkerton — out of the window as she goes. As a penniless young lady of marriageable age alone in the world, hers is a traditional Burneyean entrance to the adult world. She starts on her career with the degenerate English gentry, and moves in with Sir Pitt Crawley as governess to his daughters. Sharp is dissatisfied, seeing herself as capable of far greater things: "in her imagination ... the princess de jure is only the governess de facto". She ends up in a more equal relationship with Crawley, who was described by Roger B. Henkle as "rascally, wenching, brawling ... drinks to all hours with Horrocks the Butler and smells of the stables". She makes herself indispensable to the soon-to-be-widowed Sir Pitt as his amanuensis, by doing his accounts and other paperwork. Partly due to this reliance on her, he proposes marriage after his second wife dies. She soon, however, realises the limitations of Crawley's position, and moves out when invited to London by Crawley's rich half-sister. She successfully insinuates herself into the British ruling class with almost nobody noticing. When she first meets Mr Sedley, she tells him her story, of her penniless orphanhood and he gives her gifts; the only character who ever sees through her now well-to-do English facade is Dobbin, who says to himself, "what a humbug that woman is!" Sharp's debut is at the Duchess of Richmond's ball, held on 15 June 1815 in Brussels, which celebrates the Duke of Wellington's army on the eve of the Battle of Quatre Bras against the exiled Napoleon who has returned to France and raised an army. However, she had no means of transport to the ball, and eventually only manages to travel by simpering to the owner of the only carriage available and flattering him over "the courage he does not possess". The ball is a perfect opportunity for Sharp to dress up in her finest, offset against the glamour of a military campaign and the presence of an entire officer corp. Compared to Amelia Sedley — whose own appearance there is described as being an abject failure — Sharp's "debut was, on the contrary, very brilliant. She arrived very late. Her face was radiant; her dress perfection". In Brussels, everyone is panicking due to the proximity of Napoleon's