Penny Blood Serial Fiction — page 53: what you’re looking at

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

36 - THE COURT OF LONDON support upon ninety pounds a year, while his rector had five thousand, was compelled to allow his eldest children to accept menial places in wealthy families. During the walk to and from the surgeon’s house, but a very few words were exchanged bétween Miss Clarendon and Matilda; and those were confined to observations of no particular interest. We must now introduce the reader to the chamber where Mrs. Mordaunt was lying in the pangs of maternity, with the surgeon on one side of the bed and Mrs. Smith on the other. The young lady who was thus about to become a mother was, as we have already stated, about eighteen or nineteen years of age. She was tall and well formed, witha remarkably clear and beautiful complexion, large blue eyes, with dark fringes and brows delicately pencilled, lips that were the least thing coarse, but between which gleamed rows of pearl, and a nose and chin that were exquisitely chiselled in the purest classic style. Her luxuriant light brown hair now flowed in rich, curled, and wavy masses all over the pillow, and wantoned upon the bosom that was palpitating with the throes of both bodily and mental agony. Mrs. Smith was likewise a handsome woman, of a style of beauty contrasting altogether with that which we have just described; for her hair and eyes were black, her complexion was of that clear olive, or rather bistre, which shows in its pure transparency the carnation hue of the warm blood, and her shape was slender, but admirably proportioned. The surgeon had not been many moments in the chamber. ere his quick eye perceived that Mrs. Smith wore a wedding- ring, whereas the lady who was called Mrs. Mordaunt, and who was about to become a mother, had upon her finger no such evidence of the marriage state. Mr. Thurston did not, however, appear to notice this fact; he saw, by the well-filled purse which peeped half-way out of a reticule that | had been tossed on a chair, and by the handsome jewelry belonging to the ladies, that hk bill was safe, — and that was sufficient. After an absence of about twenty ibe: Matilda re- turned with the baby-linen; and her arrival at this instant was most opportune, for shortly afterward Mrs. Mordaunt haga ied the mother of. a male oe : GOmicdooks (E(0)