The Works of George W. M. Reynolds — page 263: what you’re looking at

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

246 THE COURT OF LONDON evidently struck by something, she immediately added, ‘And now that I recollect, you have so managed, Emma, — for some days past that he shall sit next to you at breakfast and give you his arm from the drawing-room to the dining- room. Yes, and also last evening and the evening before, when we all walked out along the shore — Ah! Emma, how the blood 1s rising to your cheek! ’’ exclaimed Agatha, laugh- ing, as she held her snowy hand against her sister’s face, which had indeed become of the richest carnation. ‘‘ How it burns! ”’ “Come, I will make a confession,’ said Kmma, now endeavouring to escape from her confusion in a merry laugh, ‘and I know not why I should have attempted to conceal this new feeling even for a single day, inasmuch as we do not usually have any secrets from each other. The truth is, I have been playing Baron Bergami so long and to such effect that I have fallen in love with him myself. Now, my dear girls, you must observe that when I am dressed up for that particular purpose, with my hair all gathered so as to appear to flow just down as far as the nape of the neck, like Bergami’s, with that elegant frock coat, too, imprisoning me in the admirable symmetry of its shapely cut, then, with those trousers with their great plaits at the hips and around the front, gradually diminishing until they terminate in a eraceitul arch over the boots, yes, and then those loves of boots themselves, so exquisitely shaped, with such high heels, making me at least two inches taller than | am, and giving such a hollow to the shape of my foot that as i stand you might roil a half-crown upright underneath, when I see myself thus attired, the snowy shirt-frill arranged in such a manner as to conceal the swell of my bosom, and last, though not least, those false whiskers and that elegant moustache, when { contemplate myself, | say, thus attired, in the full-length mirror, I really fancy that I am Bergami — and — and — don’t you think that the baron is very, very handsome? ”’ The manner in which Emma asked this question suddenly gave such a droll turn to the graphic and picturesque por- traiture she had been drawing of herself that Agatha and Julia could not help bursting out laughing. Emma also laughed, and a delightful spectacle was it, the mirth of those three lovely girls, a mirth that displayed teeth white as EORNICLIOO KS (E(0)