The Child of Waterloo, or, The Horrors of the Battle-Field — page 168: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE CHILD OF WATERLOO. 165 to spare; so he felt compelled to do what he could to find her some unexceptionable place of abode. Of that, as a matter of course, he was a far better judge than she could be, and so she left it entirely to him, telling him that in her ignorance of London and all its localities, she had no choice whatever as to where she should reside. ‘*T only hope,” shesaid, ‘‘ that those who seem disposed to act kindly to me have no doubts of the truth of what I have re- lated. It would be a most wretched thing for me, after all my sufferings, to think that I was, even for one hour, suspected.” ‘* Ob! you must not make yourself unhappy about that. The magistrate will at once write to the parties you have named in the country as knowing something of you. A reply will, of course, come by return of post. and then you will no doubt feel yourself in a position which will be very much for the better.” ‘‘T do, indeed, now hope,” she said, ‘‘ that my miseries are nearly atan end. I think that, if I can once again behold the kind faces of those dear friends who lightened the paths of my “| childhood with their love, I should be mo&t supremely lest." ‘That is a result which may come about very soon; and now I think, upon recollection, that I shall be able to place you in a hee where I know you will receive both protection and com- ort.” . ‘A thousand thanks—a thousand thanks,” said Mabel. ‘* These are luxuries both which I have been sufficiently long without, most fully to know the value of, and appreciate.” _‘* It is over the water—that is to say, on the Surrey side of the river.” ‘But where are we now?” ‘This is Blackfriars Bridge.” There was the accustomed busy scene upon the river, and as Mabel looked through the old balustrades which used to flank the bridge, and saw the numbers of persons who were in boats of all sorts and description upon the stream so famous in his- torical recollection, her thoughts wandered back in imagination to the primitive time when the banks of that river, now so thronged with buildings for the convenience of commerce, were soft green slopes, a-down which the timid deer would quietly steal to slake his thirst in the stream. _ The officer kindly indulged her with as leisurely a survey of the river as she pleased, and then they passed on to the densely populated district lying over the bridge, a district which, to the inhabitants of the Middlesex side of the river, ever presents 80 odd and different an aspect, and, by some early error of associa- tion, is always considered to be a great distance from any at- tractive part of London. In one of these streets, which abound on the Surrey side of the water, and are composed of houses that at one time have made vigorous efforts to be mighty genteel, without being able to accomplish that great desideratum, the officer paused, and knocked at the door of a Jodging-house.. The door was opened by q dirty drab of a girl, about fifteen, comicbooks. com