The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 150: what you’re looking at

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

128 THE COURT OF LONDON young girl’s taunts, though words in seeming, were daggers in sooth. ‘“‘ Silence! in the name of God, silence!” said Mrs. Lind- ley, in a tone of abject entreaty. ‘‘ You will alarm the house, the neighbourhood — ” “No, no, we will put an end to this scene at once,” in- terrupted Mrs. Brace. ‘“‘ Now, listen attentively, Miss Walters,” she continued, assuming an imperious manner as a last effort to overawe the young girl whose conduct both alarmed and surprised her. ‘‘ Do you know how stands the law with regard to us? I claim you as my apprentice, and I exact from you the obedience which you owe to one who stands in the light of a parent. Refuse me that obedience, and a magistrate will very speedily teach you what are my rights and your duties. Nay, more,’”’ added the milliner, becoming bolder as she perceived, or fancied she perceived, that her words were producing the desired effect upon Caroline Walters, “‘ that same magistrate, if appealed to by me, will punish you for your past frailty, and there is no doubt that six weeks at Bridewell would curb your haughty and rebellious spirit into the proper compass. Now do we begin to understand each other?’’ demanded Mrs. Brace, in a tone of undisguised triumph, as she beheld her victim cowering beneath menaces which appeared feasible enough to an inexperienced mind. The poor girl, for a moment crushed and overwhelmed as well by fear of the threatened terrors of the law as by the consciousness of her own unfriended, orphan, and lonely position in the world, turned her affrighted looks from the flushed and angry countenance of Mrs. Brace and bent them upon the midwife, as if imploring sympathy even in that quarter. But the old hag, who had resumed her easy chair the instant she saw that the milliner was triumphant, and who now sat in cold, stern dignity, like an abbess of a rigid order, this old hag, we say, fixed on the young girl those reptile-like eyes that now appeared to dilate through their circular glasses, and to gleam with a ghastly and malignant expression which froze the blood in her veins and made her heart feel like ice. Completely fascinated, as it were, by that undefinable hideousness of attraction, that species of awful mesmeric influence which the old woman exercised at the moment COnNIECLOOOKS CO An