Agnes, or, Beauty and Pleasure — page 212: what you’re looking at

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

ee ee — ee | the lady ; so that the boy bearing the trunk was | quickly relieved of his burden; and a gentleman 204, quired, “ Do you belong to the luggage-train that is going to take all these goods ?” **Yos,” was the reply. “Then have the kindness to keep a special eye on this case,” said the young man, whom we may as well observe was a clerk to the shipping-agents to whose care the case had been consigned by Mr. Pinnock. “ We have already written to advise the party in London of its arrival at Liverpool, and that it would be sent on with the least pos- sible delay : but you had better tell your people at Euston Square that the case is only to be given up to the party on our letter being shown: for, I re- peat, it is important to be careful in this matter.” “T will attend toit,’ answered the guard of the luggage-train. “I suppose that the case con- tains if * Hush ! no matter!” said the clerk: and then | he whispered something in the guard’s ear. But at this moment the bell rang as a summons for the passenger-train which was about to start ; and Emily Pinnock hastened to take her seat in a | first-class carrriage. There were some other lady- travellers in the same compartment: but Emily maintained a most reserved silence throughout the journey ; for she had read of the numerous stra- tagems, tricks, and devices by which unprincipled | persons, with fair-seeming exteriors, entrapped the unwary in England; and she was resolved to | be constantly on her guard. It was about two o’clock in the afternoon when | Emily Pinnock reached the great metropolis. She | had already learnt, at the hotel where she tem: | porarily stopped at Liverpool, the address of a re- respectable family-hotel in London; and taking a cab at the station, she ordered the driver to pro- ceed thither. In about twenty minutes the cab reached the hotel; and Emily alighted. A couple of idle street-boys who were loitering near—ob- serving the quadroon’s dusky complexion, and | taking her to be some foreign lady whom they | might muke their victim—rushed forward as if to render an officious assistance. One caught up her trunk and was rushing with it into the hotel for the purpose of diverting her attention from the proceedings of his companion, who was at the in- stant endeavouring to dive his hand into Emily’s pocket with a view to her purse. But at that in- stant the waiter and porter came forth to receive | coming along the street, collared the other active. youth, who was at the very moment gliding away with Emily’s purse in his possession. ‘This gen- tleman had at a glance fathomed the proceeding ; —and to make the young thief surrender the purse, and then to consign him to the care of a policeman, was now the work of but a few mo. | ments. Indeed, it was all done before Emily was scarcely aware of the risk she had incurred of being deprived of her well-filled purse. She now ex- pressed her warm thanks to the gentlemap,— whom on thus addressing, she found to be a per- | son of about forty years of age, good-looking, and handsomely apparelled. He bowed courteously to | of time she had slept. AGNES; OR, BEAUTY AND PLEASURE. fare, mounted the box, and drove off. The gentle- man, struck by the remarkably handsome coun- tenance and superb figure of the quadroon, would fain have lingered in discourse with her, that he might improve the acquaintance which accident hac enabled him to form: but with a graceful - salutation, and a few more words of thanks for the service he had rendered her, Emily passed into the hotel. She was conducted to a private apartment; and as the dusk set in very early at that December season of the year, she resolved to wait until the morrow’s daylight before she took any farther step in pursuance of the designs which had brought her to England: for the little incident at the door of the hotel had tended to confirm her resolve to be constantly on her guard against the perils and ini- quities to be encountered by a stranger in the British metropolis. The voyage across the At- lantic had left behind it so strange and disagree. able a swimming in the head, that everything ap- peared to be moving up and down in Emily’s imagination. It was so in the railway-train—it was now so in her apartment at the hotel. She felt indisposed; and she retired to rest at a very | early hour in the evening. But it was a long time before the quadroon could compose herself to sleep. | The bed in which she lay seemed to be heaving up and down, thus producing a most sickening and unpleasant sensation; while her thoughts were likewise of a nature calculated to keep her awake, She was now in the same metropolis with her faithless lover: she felt convinced that he was in London! Perhaps within the lapse of a few hours she should see himP—and perhaps within the ' same space her own fate would be decided, whether she should succeed in wooing him back to her arms, or whether she should be compelled to punish his infidelity by means of a deadly ven- geance? It was not until deep in the night that slum- ber stole upon the eyes of Emily Pinnock ; and thoroughly exhausted both in mind and body, she slept until a late hour in the forenoon. Indeed it was past eleven o'clock when she awoke; and con- sulting her watch, she was surprised at the length Starting from the couch, she performed her toilet. The dizzy sensation had now entirely passed away from her brain: she ‘felt well in health, and resolute in all her pur- poses. Having partaken of breakfast, she desired the waiter of the hotel to purchase her the best Guide to London, alleging that her object was to obtain suggestions for visiting the principal sights and objects of interest; and her order was speedily executed. The little book thus furnished her, was a complete gazetteer in its way: it contained de- scriptions of prisons as well as of palaces; and thus Emily Pinnock quickly ascertained the where- abouts of the gaol in which old Mr. Barrington was confined. Taking a cab, she proceeded into the neighbourhood of Whitecross Street Prison : and dismissing the vehicle, she drew her thick veil closely over her countenance. In a few minutes she reached the gate of the prison, where it was her, and sternly reproached the cabman for not | her object to make certain inquiries, so that she taking more care of the young lady, and for suffer- | might be thereby guided in the course which she ing her thus to be mobbed as it were by boys whose very appearance denoted their calling. The should subsequently pursue. As the reader has already seen, Emily was informed by the turnkey cabman grumbled out some excuse, received his that Gustavus and Winifred were at that very GComilcbooks —_—