The Works of George W. M. Reynolds — page 182: what you’re looking at

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

CHAPTER XV THE GRAND ENTERTAINMENT TURN we now to the residence of Lady Macdonald, in Cavendish Square. It was six o’clock in the evening of the day that followed the night of Lord Saxondale’s many adventures, and Lady Florina Staunton was seated in her own private apartment adjoining her bedchamber. ‘The room was _ splendidly furnished, and the ornaments were of a character which dis- played the refined taste of its presiding divinity. Several exquisite alabaster statues were dispersed about, there were vases filled with flowers which exhaled a delicious perfume, and on a side-table were scattered drawing materials, with a few exquisite specimens of the art in water-colour. Florina was dressed for a party. Her beautiful hair was arranged in ringlets, and ornamented with pearls and a single camelia that seemed typical of her own virgin purity. She was seated at a table, whereon lay a book and a letter, both of which she had been reading. The former was a volume of Scott’s Poems, of which she was a great admirer. The letter was one that had been received by her aunt that same afternoon from Mr. Gunthorpe, and which had been given to our fair heroine to read. But at the moment when we thus afford the reader a glimpse into that splendidly furnished apartment, Lady Florina was neither reading book nor letter, but was plunged into a deep reverie. Exquisitely beautiful did she seem as she sat, statue-like, in her rich dress and with her looks bent pensively downwards, —so exquisitely beautiful, indeed, that it appeared a sin to allow the heart of so fair a creature to experience the slightest source of vexation or sorrow. And yet sorrow did lurk in that gentle bosom of hers, for the 165 GOmiilGoooks (FO)