The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 282: what you’re looking at

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

260 THE COURT OF LONDON stance riveted the attachment which the nobleman felt for his niece. On leaving school she became altogether an inmate of Leveson House, where her brother Algernon was likewise at the time passing a few weeks. But Algernon had not been accustomed to spend his holidays, when at Eton or the University, with his uncle. The young man, from the samples of the British aristocracy he met with at the public seminaries, had conceived no very great affection for the order to which he belonged, and having an uncle (by his late mother’s side) dwelling in a distant county and entirely devoted to agricultural pursuits, Algernon had always pre- ferred spending the vacations with him. This relative, however, died just before Algernon quitted Cambridge for good, and thus was it that he went to pass some little time at Leveson House. While there he could not help obtaining some insight into the real character of his uncle. Though himself of the steadiest habits, he was still experienced enough in the ways of the world — particularly after passing through the fiery ordeal of a college life — to perceive that his uncle was a confirmed voluptuary of the most unprin- cipled description, and a circumstance which soon aiter occurred made him look with loathing and horror upon his noble relative’s character. The incident we refer to was this. One day Algernon was reading in the Crimson Drawing-room, when he heard sounds resembling female shrieks that either appeared to be stifling, as if with a gag placed upon the lips, or else were penetrating through very thick walls which well-nigh deadened them. They continued, and the idea struck Algernon forcibly that they came from one of the inner rooms of the mansion. He had observed that the suite of apartments communicating from the Crimson Drawing-room were always shut up, but until this moment he had never paid much attention to the circumstance. Now, however, the mystery that was evi- dently connected with those rooms instantaneously associ- ated itself in his mind with the screams which, though so faintly, were still reaching his ears. All the natural generosity and chivalrous enterprise of his nature were suddenly awa- kened by the thought that some female was enduring ill- treatment in those apartments. He flew to the door com- municating therewith. By a most unusual oversight that door had been left unlocked. He opened it, and the screams, connicloooKks (CO) im