The Mysteries of the Court of London by Pauline Clarendon — page 271: what you’re looking at

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

263 THE COURT OF LONDON whose wrongs we have more than once ventured to wield our pen, feeble and ineffectual though our championship may be! But let us resume the thread of our narrative. Foster, the fuined merchant, awoke unrefreshed from his slumbers; and when his eyes fell upon the pale and care- worn countenances of those who were so dear to him, he endeavoured to smile his gratitude for the vigil which he saw they had been keeping. But, heavens! so full of vacancy and woe was his smile that it told too plainly of a mind fast fading with the heart that was breaking within! Both wife and daughter beheld that terrible indication of the mortal shock which he whom they adored had received; but they dared not look at each other, lest they should betray the agonizing a that were now uppermost in their mind. Mr. Foster rose, cantata his toilet with a precision that was habitual, and therefore mechanical in the present instance, and descended to the breakfast-table. He en- deavoured to appear tranquil and composed; but the tremendous efforts which he thus made to conceal all that he felt were only concentrating his emotions with a mad- dening effect. His wife and daughter implored him not to leave home that day; they dared not offer to accompany him into the City, and they could not suffer him to repair thither alone. With a ghastly look, he murmured an assent to their prayer, adding, in a low and hollow tone, “ It would be useless even if I were to go.” The morning wore away — Heaven knows how! We cannot pause to conjecture all the feelings and emotions experienced during the few hours which followed the cere- mony of sitting down to a breakfast that was removed almost untasted. To attempt such a description would be to undertake the task of showing how human beings can live whole ages of pain and anguish in as many minutes; it would be to depict each throb of a pulse violent with the agitation of delirium, to note each tremor which passed through veins wherein lightning seemed to circulate, and to describe all the spectral shadows which rested upon souls goaded to despair. As three o’cloeck in the afternoon drew nigh, Mr. Foster’s excitement became intolerable. He first began to pace SGOmicDOoks (E() m