The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 253: what you’re looking at

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

THE SICK - BED 231 scription. Of course I gave her some medicine to make her feel uncommon uneasy, and when I called again in the evening she had, as I foresaw, worried herself into a very decent state of fever. Again I prescribed and went away, leaving orders that I was to be fetched, no matter at what hour of the night, if her ladyship should feel at all worse. As a matter of course, the instructions I thus gave terrified her ladyship into a still higher state of fever, and at seven o’clock in the morning I was hurriedly fetched. Then it was I gravely recommended a consultation. The countess asked me whom I would like to have called in. I affected to deliberate with myself, and after a brief pause said that I did not like to reeommend any particular individual in such eases, but that if there were one who more than another had specially devoted himself to the dangers attendant upon severe injuries with sharp instruments, that eminent individ- ual was Doctor Thurston. You know the rest.”’ Doctor Thurston laughed with a sort of inward chuckle at this narrative, and again the two learned physicians drank a, glass of sherry to the success of fees in general and their own in particular. : “ And now, what about our fair patient beneath this roof? ’”’ said Doctor Copperas. ‘‘ Oh, ah,” observed Thurston, ‘‘ I almost forgot what we were here for. But did you notice the strange things she has uttered in her ravings, accusing herself of having conspired with the prince regent to send her own husband to the scaffold, and having caused the death of Sir Archibald Malvern by having him suffocated in a bath? ” “Yes, but all this was not the worst,’’ remarked Doctor Copperas. ‘‘ She talked of having been ravished by the public executioner.” ‘“T remember,” rejoined Thurston. ‘‘ What did you think of all that? ”’ “ Humph!” observed Copperas, “ I hardly know what to say. We are well aware that strange truths do peep forth in these ravings, and we likewise know that ladies of quality do queer things. There is doubtless some foundation for her self-accusings. For my part, I think it is clear enough she has been intimate with the prince regent. His name is ever uppermost in her mind. But as for the ravishing affair, that seems so utterly inconsistent, so very improbable — x. (CONN GDoOOo So! nin