The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 106: what you’re looking at

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

84 THE COURT OF LONDON were agitating there, not a ripple reached the marble sur- face of her features; and if it were despair that thus retained her limbs and looks spellbound, it must have been that blank numbness which freezes every sense with the ice-chill of its utter hopelessness. Upwards of an hour had passed during which Octavia Clarendon’s mind and conduct underwent the various changes which we have endeavoured to describe in this chapter; and the reader has observed that in one mood she fancied herself a princess or a queen, in another, she saw the delusion of that belief; now she retained her love for her seducer, whose speedy arrival she expected, and then she gave way to sentiments of the most implacable hatred toward him; now she laboured under a fearful excitement, and then she fell into a reverie which held her motionless and still as death. | But during the hour which had thus passed away, the little trap or wicket in the door of the chamber had been gently lifted more than once; and an old woman, with a benevolent countenance, had looked anxiously but cautiously into the apartment. Then, having satisfied herself that Octavia was inflicting no injury upon her own person, the female withdrew, closing the wicket as gently as she had opened it. The unfortunate young lady had remained upwards of twenty minutes in that deep, deep reverie which we have described above, and which was the most melancholy of all the varied phases wherein her mental aberration showed itself; twenty minutes of fathomless meditation, in which the soul and the body both looked inwardly and saw nothing outwardly. It was about the expiration of this interval that the wicket was raised noiselessly again, and first the countenance of the old woman appeared, and then a young and lovely face, but on every lineament of which was expressed the deepest grief. It was Pauline, who now beheld her sister for the first time since the terrible calamity had overtaken the victim of royal lust and perfidy. The door was opened softly, and the younger Miss Claren- don entered the room alone, the door being immediately closed behind her. conniclooks mM