The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 183: what you’re looking at

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

CHAPTER XVI APPREHENSIONS AND SUSPICIONS THE opening flowers were giving forth their perfume to the freshness of the morning air, and the churches in the old cathedral city were proclaiming the hour of six, when Louisa Stanley, having risen and performed the avocations of the toilet, noiselessly entered the chamber where her aunt now lay. She met the maid servant who was coming out at the moment, and she saw by that faithful domestic’s counte- nance that there was everything still to hope in respect to the invalid, and that no relapse had taken place. The aunt had passed a good night, and was now awake. She accord- ingly welcomed her niece with a most affectionate interest, and bidding her sit down by the bedside, said, “‘ We must now, dear Louisa, resume the thread of our discourse where it was broken off last night. We had been talking about Mrs. Owen and her daughters, you remember, when Mary” (alluding to the servant-maid) ‘‘ came back. I did not choose, after you left the room, to question her relative to a single thing. I not only feared the consequences of a prolonged excitement, but was anxious to receive all explanations from your lips. Let us now speak of Clara.”’ “ Dear aunt,”’ said Louisa, producing a packet of letters, ‘““T have brought you all the correspondence I have received either from my sister or from Jocelyn Loftus. Here it is, entirely at your disposal.’’ “You are a good girl, Louisa,” said Miss Stanley, “ and it is to me a source of indescribable comfort and satisfaction to find you thus frank, open-hearted, and ingenuous as ever.’’ “ Without vanity, and without egotism, my dear aunt,”’ said Louisa, in a soft tone, and with genuine sincerity in her looks, ‘‘ I can conscientiously declare that I have never, 161 (C(O) nn) GDoOo KS { r )