The Works of George W. M. Reynolds — page 258: what you’re looking at

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

BEHIND THE SCENES 241 must return when her part was played amidst the blaze of light upon the stage, — that garret where she had leit her revered and idolized mother stretched upon the bed of sick- ness, destitute of every comfort, wanting even many of the bare necessaries of life, and where also her poor little brother, whom she loved so fondly and who loved her so affectionately in return, was clothed in rags and had nought save dry bread to eat. Of all this she thought, and it was no wonder if the young girl suddenly found herself sorely tempted. Oh, if that old lord had appeared before her in the light of a generous benefactor, proffering her succour with even the minutest portion of that colossal wealth which he lavished upon profligacies and dissipations, but which she could turn to so many useful and noble purposes, 1f it were thus as a disinterested friend that he had addressed her, she could have fallen down at his feet, she could have worshipped him, she could have bathed his hand with her tears, or have pressed it, all shrivelled as it was, to her lips! Nay, more, forgetting his ugliness and utterly losing sight of the loath- someness of his made-up appearance, she could have em- braced him as a daughter might fling her arms around the neck of a kind old grandsire. But, alas, it was not in the light of a benefactor that the old nobleman — as old in iniquity as he was in years — stood before her; but it was as a tempter, and though ready and willing to lavish countless showers of gold upon her in return for her virtue, yet not a single piece of the glittering metal would be placed in her hand through pure friendship. The young girl had shivered and shuddered as if she had felt. herself standing on the edge of a dizzy precipice, over the brink of which the touch of a feather or the breath of the hghtest zephyr would precipitate her, and for a few moments she felt herself falling. But the feeling was only transient. The golden vision was suddenly put away from her view by the strong hand of her own immaculate virtue; and if for an instant she had thought of succumbing for the sake of her afflicted mother and her poor little brother, it was now the image of that parent and the recollection of that sweet boy which suddenly armed her with all the strength to resist the temptation. | “ My lord,’’ she replied, in a calm tone of decision, ‘‘ you are privileged to obtrude yourself in this place, privileged GOmiGoaooks (CO)