The Works of George W. M. Reynolds — page 58: what you’re looking at

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

THE DRAMA OF A NIGHT 41 copious ablutions to bring back to their cheeks the roses which this long vigil and sleepless night had chased thence. At length, as the timepiece struck eight, the door of the chamber opened, and the lost Mrs. Ranger made her appear- ance. She and Mrs. Hubbard had just returned from their forced expedition to Lausanne, and being set down by the post-chaise at a short distance from the villa, they had entered its precincts separately, and without attracting any particular attention on the part of the menials who were by this time all bustling about. Many and varied, strange and exciting also, were the mutual explanations which now took place. Mrs. Ranger told her story first, and it was thence evident enough that Curzon and Malpas had intended the forcible abduction of Emma and Julia, for whom Mrs. Ranger and Mrs. Hubbard had been so ludicrously mistaken. The circumstance of the child being found in the garden by Emma was now also fully accounted for, and, on the other hand, Mrs. Ranger was relieved of a poignant source of alarm on hearing that the infant corpse, instead of being left in the grounds, had been consigned to the bottom of the lake. In a word, it was agreed by the two young ladies and the old one, when all these explanations were concluded, that neither in truth- ‘ful history nor in fictitious romance had a night ever occurred so full of varied, strange, and exciting adventures as the one that had just passed. ‘But Mrs. Hubbard? ” said Julia, interrogatively, ‘‘ what does she think now? What must she suspect? ”’ “She suspects nothing that we do not wish her to suspect,”’ answered Mrs. Ranger. ‘‘ In the first place, her ignorance of the French language prevented her from understanding anything that took place between me and the villain, whose name appears to be Kobolt, during the journey to Lausanne and back again hither. Moreover, when we found ourselves face to face with Curzon and Malpas at Lausanne, I so promptly stopped any unnecessary explanation that Mrs. Hubbard gleaned not from their lips how it was yourselves, my dear Emma and Julia, whom they had intended to have carried off. The result is that Mrs. Hubbard has come back no wiser then she went relative to anything which we do not wish her to know. As for inventing some feasible expla- CORNICLOO! ‘S (C(O) im