The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 196: what you’re looking at

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

174 THE COURT OF LONDON deed, I have done wrong, perhaps, to detain you even for these few minutes in the parlour, for my aunt emphatically enjoined me to bid you walk up the moment you arrived. You are to goup alone. Iam not to accompany you.”’ “ But you will permit this lady, who is my sister,’”’ said Mrs. Owen, “ to go with me? ”’ ‘Your sister? ’”’ exclaimed Louisa, in surprise, for Mary had never mentioned to her that her mother had any sisters living. ‘‘ Yes, this lady is my sister,’’ rejoined Mrs. Owen. “ But you will doubtless know more presently, my dear girl. At all events, she must accompany me.”’ Louisa offered no objection. It seemed to her that Mrs. Owen knew full well what she was doing; and the maiden moreover perceived that there was in all this proceeding a mystery of which she could form no idea, but which, accord- ing to the hints dropped, was presently to be cleared up. Mrs. Owen and Lilian Halkin now quitted the parlour and ascended to the bedroom where Miss Stanley lay. Louisa did not follow, and the door closed immediately behind them. We need not penetrate into that room to describe the meeting of Lydia Halkin (which was Miss Stanley’s real name) with her sisters Anne and Lilian, nor will we pause to describe all that took place between them. That the interview was affecting in the extreme may be full readily conceived, for Miss Stanley possessed a kind, a generous, and a forgiving heart, and whatever might have been the errors, the faults, or the crimes of her two sisters, she was not disposed to make them the subject of reproach and anger, but of compassion and pardon. A quarter of an hour elapsed, during which interval Louisa remained below in the parlour, watching from the window with intense anxiety for the appearance of her sister. - Presently her aunt’s bell rang; the servant went up in re- sponse to the summons, and speedily came down again with the intimation that Louisa herself was wanted up-stairs. The young maiden, now feeling a presentiment that she stood upon the threshold of the revelation of a mystery, and with a strange fluttering at the heart, ascended the stairs. Upon entering the room she at once saw that her aunt, Mrs. Owen, and Lilian had been weeping, but that there was a degree of affectionate tenderness in their looks which showed connicloooKks (CO) im =)