The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 278: what you’re looking at

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

THE MYSTERIES OF THE COURT, From a eer- weeks : expired! It would not be Only altarnative that taay ave year lorece Ii.” Kate Marshall's ‘countenance expressed, as che listened, every variety of feeling which the several flashing eyes and flushing the uttermost extreme of my canception, when, its ‘rulers it reekons euch a man as thou | violate leaving none other openf You commit-e hideous crime by proposing to barter a human life against @ woman's honour; end yet if the injured ono dare speak of your enormity, you threaten to/ proceeding treat her as if abe were the culprit end you . were the law’s vindicator? And you tell me that you knew I shall come back to you—and that when I do ceme, I must be prepared to surrender inyself without esether murmur to . arras'?. ——Qh, sir! is it possible that you could ‘address. me thus and not avert -your looks in shame P’ forth from the eabinet. .Had she paused another moment to observe his countenance, she wonli have seen that so.far from being meved er affected by the way in whith she had spoken, there was only a slight perceptible soornful wreathing of his . lip; and as‘the doer clesed behind her, he said to himeelf, as if in allusien to her pradeful indigna- tion, “ Nevertheless, she will come bask again.” And in the afternoon of'that same day, the Minister of the Interior appeared in the Chamber of Deputies; and in an elequent speech proposed a measure for givigg an impulee to the moral and ! religious improvement of the . And any , ome to have heard him dilate with all his oratorical power upon the necessity of encoureging lofty, re- fined, and honourable notions amongst.the masses, 271 would have thought that he himself must be of Catalenia hed} deoply imbued with the sense of:-his high and im- your ‘lover's sentence fer three | portant eubject. CHAPTER C&XLYV. RHE MENIGEBE S -WIPS. } | ices Manswaxs issued from the private dwelling of the Minister of the Interior with mingled feel- ings of agguish and indigastion. Such was indeed her state of mand, she forgot she had about her the letter of the Marchioness de Villebelle, -ad- dressed to the Minister’s wife. She entered the hired vehicle which had brought her thither, and was sireedy half-way back to the hotel, when the cireumstance-of this letter flashed to her Hope for a moment sprang up within ber but i vanished almest as qniekly, as a sevond thought suggested that no wife, however excellent-hearted, could possibly wield any influence for good over such a husband as the man whom she had just left. She wae almost inelmed to abstain frem delivering the letter alitogether,—-when she reflected that not @ single stone should be left untarned that mi even by the remotest possibility, tend:to the accomplishment of the aim which was.dearer than her own life: and she reacived to present this Wet ch however, to return to the Minis. terial abarle in the vehicle whieh: might be reagg- mised by the Minister hieself from the wimdaws —supposing that he had watcha her departure, ~—and being also unable to make the driver under- stand that she wished to return thither, Kate stopped .the chaise aad alighted. She remembesed the proper direction to be pussued; and after a quarter ofan hour’s ‘walk, came ence more in: sight of the mansion. At that wery-imstant shé bebeld the Minister ise forth and enter hie carriage, which naomediately rolled away: fer he:was now ing to the Chamber ef Deputies. Sho was glad that he had thus left his house, at the time that she was sbout to seek an interview with his lady; and.when the carriege-was out of sight, she proceeded to the private entzance of ‘the dwelling. the name of the Minister's wife, she was: at omoe ar prninnrthtalrrenr peedrmntingti into a large and elegantly farnished where the domestic, perceiving she could not speak the Spanish tongue; politely motioned her to be seated. She waited in that room for nearly half- an-hour—at the expiration of whieh interval, the door epened and a lady made her appearance. The Minister's wife was a remarkably fine wo- man, of about Kate's own age—namely, between four and five-and-twanty. She was tall, well made, and of similar proportions to these of Miss Mar- shell. Indeed, her comttours were precisely of that samo: Hebe-richness adjusted to the moet admirable eymanetry, which characterized the Englishwoman. Tofbe more particular stil), a dress that was made for the ome would have exactly fitted the other. But if in the height of stature and in the modelled forms of shape, there existed titis similitude be- ‘tween the Minister's wife and Miss Marshall, the personal resemblance went no farther,—the former ‘being of Spanish duskiness of complexion, arith ut (COL (C DOO CS (COL