The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 184: what you’re looking at

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

166 REYNOLDS’ WORKS respectable family, whom he named. Conceive my distress when I thus learned that I was an object of no sympathy with my titled relative, but merely a being for whom he felt himself bound to make an eleemosynary provision so that I should not starve. Instead of hastening in person to bestow a paternal protection on the poor orphan of so tender an age, he bade me journey up to London by myself; I was not even to find a home beneath his own roof, but was to be consigned to the care of strangers. Ah, Christian, my first experience of the world was thus sad enough.” “Do not weep, sweetest Isabella,’’ whispered our young hero, as he now pressed her hand to his lips. ‘‘ Fortune’s aspect has changed toward you, and you are differently situated now.” Isabella threw upon her lover a look of bashful tenderness, and she continued her narrative. ‘“‘T arrived in London, and proceeded at once to the house of the Reverend Mr. Hickman, by whom, as well as by the ladies of his family, I was kindly received. Mrs. Hickman took an early opportunity to make me understand that in conversa- tion before strangers I was not to claim relationship with the Earl of Lascelles, nor on any account was I to speak of the circumstances of my mother’s history.” ‘““ Doubtless the earl was somewhat ashamed of his con- duct toward his deceased sister,’ remarked Christian, ‘‘ and hence that injunction of secrecy and silence conveyed through the medium of those to whose care he had entrusted you.”’ “That was the conjecture which I also formed at the time,” rejoined Isabella, ‘‘ and I have no doubt it was the true one. I remained in the Reverend Mr. Hickman’s family for nearly two years, during which I was well treated, and as Mr. Hickman had daughters of my own age, and a governess to instruct them, my education was completed under the same tutelage. But Mr. Hickman died suddenly, and as he left his family but indifferently provided for, they had to go abroad, to accept a home that was offered them at the house of Mrs. Hickman’s brother, who was a merchant or banker, — I know not exactly which, — residing on the Continent. The departure took place hurriedly after the funeral, and as I could not of course accompany them under such circumstances, it became necessary to find me another EORNICLO@O