The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 399: what you’re looking at

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

DOCTOR DUPONT’S ESTABLISHMENT 373 may be termed a poetic delicacy of sentiment, symbolizing in this arrangement that identity of feeling which had made the two sisters cling to each other from the first moment they had entered his asylum. There they lay, stretched out in the garments of the grave, the snowy whiteness of the shrouds being not whiter than the marble countenances of the dead girls. Yes, side by side they lay, like two ala- baster statues carved upon the same monument. Their features, fixed in the sleep of death, wore looks serene and placid. The world’s cares ruffled them no more; the passions which had stirred their frail natures excited them no longer; they seemed, indeed, as if no other expres- sion than that of innocence had ever been upon their faces. Life’s storm had sunk into an utter lull beneath the palsy- ing hand of death. And by the side of that couch where the two sisters thus lay motionless and statue-like, side by side, knelt the mother and surviving sister. There was no passionate outpouring of frenzied affliction now, and the solemn silence of the chamber of death was broken only by the low, half-subdued, but not the less convulsing sobs which indicated the well- nigh suffocating grief of those anguished mourners. Long did they kneel there, by that bed on which the two departed girls lay stretched, and in the depths of their souls they prayed fervently and with a most unfeigned sincerity. Poor Mary had nought wherewith to reproach herself, but the mother, the wretched, miserable mother, had everything in the form of dire remorse to lacerate her heart. Then did she feel that in this world there may be condign punishment for wrongs perpetrated and sins committed, for her con- science was bitter and merciless indeed in its self-accus- ings. They quitted the room at length, having taken a last long look at the countenances of the dead, those countenances to which they also pressed their lips. It was with slow and mournful pace, as if with leaden limbs dragged along pain- fully, that they thus issued from the chamber. But when they reached the passage outside, having noiselessly closed the dcor behind them, all the wildness of their grief burst forth, and for some minutes they leaned against the wall, weeping and sobbing, and giving vent to the most agonizing lamentations. Then they slowly passed away, and entering the hired vehicle (C(O) nn) GDOOo <Si nin