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.

A NIGHT OF TERRORS 247 cast her eyes around. Objects of terror, conjured up by her excited imagination, met them on every side; and she felt as if she were about to go raving mad, when a bell was suddenly rung with violence in the house. Caroline started from her seat; and all the apparitions which her fancy had depicted Ponisi in an instant. The thought flashed to her that some one was up and stirring in the dwelling; and the sensation of utter loneliness aban- doned her. It seemed as if something like life and animation had awakened beneath that roof. The certainty sprang up in her mind that should she call out for assistance, succour would come; and it was even with a courageous feeling that she closed the door of the skeleton’s case. Scarcely had she done this, when the bell was rung furiously a second time; and Miss Walters hurried back to her own chamber. Shutting the door as noiselessly as possible, she placed the candle upon the mantelpiece, and seated herself to listen; for she knew that the summons came from one of the chambers tenanted by the midwife’s lodgers. ‘Then the thought struck her that Mrs. Lindley, who slept in a room below, would be hurrying up-stairs to answer that bell, and it was probable that she would see the light in Caroline’s chamber gleaming through the keyhole. The young girl, now no longer afraid, thereupon extinguished the candle; and, approaching the door, she held her breath to listen. Almost immediately afterward, some one came hurrying up the staircase; and Caroline knew by her step, hasty though it were, that it was Mrs. Lindley. The midwife passed by the young woman’s door, but stopped short at the next on the right hand; and Caroline heard her enter the adjoining apartment. That was the chamber occupied by the lady concerning whom the utmost precaution and secrecy were requisite, — the young lady of high birth, who never quitted her room. The wind had experienced some degree of abatement in its violence, and its gusts were less frequent than during the earlier part of the evening. But still it gushed along the bosom of the Thames and swept at intervals over the house; and soon those sounds without were mingled with moans of female anguish within. Trembling from head (CO) i 0) Oy 0) (C(O)