The Works of George W. M. Reynolds — page 193: what you’re looking at

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

176 REYNOLDS’ WORKS troubles of the soul. In a suite of apartments thronged with splendid specimens of the female sex, Lady Saxondale was assuredly the most superb. There were others more sweetly and interestingly beautiful, such, for example, as the captivating Lady Florina Staunton, or even Lady Saxon- dale’s younger daughter Constance, but there was not one who in Juno-like majesty of form and splendid pride of glorious womanhood could be pointed out as a rival to Lady Saxondale. Behold her as she now stands, for a few moments a little way apart from the brilliant throng, with | one fair hand lightly resting upon the marble slab of a side- table, surveying the crowds of -elegantly dressed men, stately dames, and lovely girls whom she has assembled there, and even the veriest anchorite would be compelled to confess that it were a pity to retire from a world embel- lished by so superb and magnificent a beauty. It was during an interval between the dances that Juliana, Lady Saxondale’s elder daughter, slipped unperceived trom the ballroom, and going forth upon the landing, cast a rapid and scrutinizing glance around. ‘Two pages were standing a little way down the staircase, conversing with each other. One of them was Francis Paton, that beautiful youth of eighteen whom we have already described. Juliana called the other page to her, and sent him away on some trifling errand which suggested itself at the moment, and which, indeed, was a mere pretext to enable her to snatch an opportunity of saying a word to his good-looking com- panion. The moment he had disappeared down the stairs, Juliana beckoned Frank to approach, and the colour mantled in vivid scarlet upon the youth’s countenance as he hastened to obey that summons. “Frank,” said Juliana, her own countenance likewise blushing as she bent upon him the fiasuing light of her superb dark eyes, “ tell me, what was that message you delivered to her ladyship before dinner? I noticed that she seemed annoyed and uneasy, and it has troubled me much.” Juliana might have said, if she had told the truth, that the only trouble she had experienced in the matter was that of the most lively curiosity, a curiosity, mndeed, so intense that she had not been able to restrain herself until the morrow ere she sought to gratify it. “It was a woman, miss, who called,’ replied Frank, Gomichbooks m