The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 176: what you’re looking at

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

154 THE COURT OF LONDON Louisa could not speak. She tried to say something, but her voice was choked in sobs. It was indeed a scene pro- foundly touching for the poor girl. Three years had elapsed since the day of which her aunt had been speaking, that day when she was suddenly stricken down with paralysis, and a blank had indeed from that moment been the interval for her until the present one. ‘You have been ill, very, very ill,” at length sobbed forth the weeping girl. “Til! very ill!’’ repeated Miss Stanley. Then, after pausing for nearly a minute, as if to ascertain precisely what all her feelings and sensations were, she said, ‘‘ Yes, I have now a kind of intuitive knowledge that I have been ill, very ill, as you say, my dearest Louisa. Perhaps, then, I have been ill for some days, or it may be for some weeks? ”’ “ Yes, dear aunt,’ returned Louisa, now wiping her eyes, for that flood of tears had relieved her surcharged heart, ‘a great many, many weeks, and I wept because it cut me to the very quick to think that a portion of your life should have thus passed away as an utter blank to you, and that now, when you awake to consciousness once more, you should speak of the day on which you were taken ill as if it were but yesterday.” ‘Louisa, love, you alarm me,” said the aunt, looking intently up into her niece’s countenance. ‘‘ Have I, then, been ill so long, so very long? ”’ ‘‘ Dear aunt, there is nothing now to alarm you. See, I weep no more. I am happy, yes, Heaven knows I am happy now, and sincerely do I thank God Almighty for this great goodness on his part.” ‘“ And I also feel in my soul a deep gratitude to that Providence which has restored me to you,” said Miss Stanley, in a very serious tone, ‘‘ for I know full well how imperiously necessary my life is to the welfare of yourself and dear Clara. But where is Clara? Go and fetch her to me. I long to embrace her.”’ ‘Dear aunt, do not excite yourself too much now,”’ said Louisa, not offering to move from the couch by the side of which she stood half-bending over her invalid relative, “‘ for of course I have a great many things to tell you.”’ ‘But nothing wrong? Has any evil happened?” asked Miss Stanley, with feverish haste. Commicloooks (CO)